Fiction Writing: Advice and Discussion

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I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

What's the consensus on quotation marks? I rarely use them anymore. I started doing this shortly after going on a McCarthy binge and haven't really stopped. He discussed it briefly when Oprah interviewed him saying he didn't want to "block the page up with weird little marks. If you write properly, you shouldn't have to punctuate." He also cautions with, "You really have to be aware that there are no quotation marks to guide people, and write in such a way that it won't be confusing as to who is speaking."

I think it's easier to read that way, and it seems somewhat minimalistic to me, which I like. He's definitely correct in saying that you need to make sure it's clear who's speaking. However, I think this is a good thing from a writing perspective. I find it forces me to write better dialogue. At times I can be somewhat lazy with dialogue, but this forces me to pay more attention to it.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2012 20:48

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 06:53

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Runcible Cat posted:

I can see it becoming a really annoying affectation from a bad writer, though. But if you like the minimalism and find you write better dialogue why not? Just check with your beta readers to make sure it comes over as minimalist rather than illiterate.

This is pretty much what I've been doing. I've only used it in short stories so far. Whenever I have someone read a story they never make a comment about the lack of quotation marks, but when I've asked directly later on about their opinion about not using quotation marks in general it's usually met with opposition. It's kind of interesting.

Chillmatic posted:

I think it's a highly risky and most often a highly stupid strategy.

Most readers read quoted dialogue in their heads much differently than they do everything else, to the extent of changing their internal pitch and reading the voice as they believe that character to sound.

If you remove the quotations, you get an extremely muted and isolating effect, which can work well for some types of fiction, sure- but for the vast majority of the stuff out there, it'd make what you've written come off as excessively dull.

In any case I refer back to the rule of cool. There's an inverse relationship with how much convention you must maintain vs. how awesome and engaging your story and characters are. If you're confident that you've written something that anybody on the street will want to read, go nuts and do whatever you want. But if you can't make words dance like McCarthy can, you're crippling yourself right out of the gate.

I agree that it's a risky and often stupid strategy, but it's something I wanted to try out since I prefer reading dialogue without quotation marks. As for reading dialogue differently without them, I think it's true at first but like a lot of things (if they're done well) it becomes second nature after a couple pages.

I'm confident in my writing. My writing style is a different than McCarthy's and I definitely don't think I'm on his level, but I also don't think it's crippling my writing. Then again, I haven't submitted anything that doesn't have quotation marks, so the jury is still out. I'm working on a novel right now and my plan is to write it without quotation marks and have some people beta read it. If it doesn't bother them then I plan to keep it that way. If it does then I'll begin the tedious process of adding them into the story. It's worth a try for the sake of experimentation and forcing stronger dialogue.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 13:25

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Martello posted:

I really wish I could just emptyquote CB Tube Knight, because that sums up exactly how I feel about not using quotation marks. McCarthy is one of my favorite authors, he's a pioneer and a genius and a virtuoso, and it's still loving stupid that he doesn't use quotation marks. Try not using any punctuation at all or no capitals or printing your story in white text on black paper if you really need to be Special. Or don't do any of those things and write using standard conventions so people know what the gently caress is going on in the story and aren't distracted by your pretentious attempt to be "literary." If quotation marks are a "visual hurdle" then I don't even know what to say to you.

I like your ideas. Is it okay if I use them? I really touched a nerve here apparently. I never said they were a visual hurdle. I asked a question and got some feedback.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 18:35

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Martello posted:

Ok, I'm being a dick and not very helpful. How about this - post a no-quotations or whatever short in Fiction Farm, and people will tell you what they think of it. I will be one of those people.

I'll post an excerpt of something when I get a chance. It never occurred to me that it was pretentious, which it looks like it is, and that's not how I want to come off. I got exactly what I came here for - you guys called me an idiot rather than submitting it and having them call me an idiot. I decided to look into it a bit more and found this gem, which convinced me not to do it.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 19:33

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Subway Ninja posted:

Ah, so what the author meant was more along the lines of "Use the best word rather than trying to shoehorn in a word just because..." That makes plenty of sense, I guess I misinterpreted that part.

And that even though words are synonyms they might not mean the exact same thing. The thesaurus might say big and brimming are synonyms but having a brimming foot doesn't make sense unless it's really infected or something.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2012 20:08

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

I've given up on writing novels for now.

I've written two pieces of trash before (novels) - one a melodramatic borefest, and the other that started out well, but then got so messy and jumbled that I began to have a hard time keeping the story together about 60k words in. These were about 4 and 2 years ago, respectively.

I've been working on a third and was about 30k words in after about a month until I found myself a lot closer to the end than I wanted to be, so I kept trying to add subplots and additional elements. I was getting increasingly frustrated with it because I so badly wanted it to be a novel. I eventually stumbled across this lecture by Ray Bradbury.

One of his main points is the idea of working up to a novel. I'd be curious to hear others thoughts on this.

I think it's a good way of working. I find I enjoy writing shorts better, and I've had a lot more success. He talks about how he wrote a short story once a week for years and submitted all of them. Most of them were trash in the beginning, but there would be a gem every now and again, and most people would be hard pressed to write 52 unpublishable short stories in a row if they're putting in the work in the meantime - studying the craft, reading shorts, reading novels and so on. He also talks about the benefits of reading poetry and lectures/essays.

To go back to the story above, I decided to write the ending and scrap the extraneous writing. I still think it has a lot of promise. It just needs to be edited and trimmed a good amount.

I felt a lot of relief once I allowed myself to bring it to an end even though I really enjoy the characters and the plot.

It's time to focus on shorts again and keep submitting. Feels liberating in a way.

I would definitely recommend watching/listening to the lecture. It's an hour long but worth your time, or at least the first 30 mins.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2012 03:36

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Crisco Kid posted:

The most recent episode of Writing Excuses has a short Q&A on the subject of "working up to novels" and provided a link to this survey: http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/

As you can see, about half the authors took the short story path, and the other half jumped straight to novel-length. I think the correct method depends on the individual writer. Some people are just natural short format writers, and it doesn't surprise me at all that Ray Bradbury would be one of them; perhaps you are as well? I'd never written a long piece of original prose, so I also thought starting with short stories would be more manageable, but the thing kept blowing up and expanding and expanding and... I may be more naturally inclined toward longer formats.

Still, I think the short story has a lot to offer as a learning tool, and they're dang fun to read. I've been blasting through several anthologies in the last few weeks, and I'm going to continue to work at a few of my own stories. But if you find you're really passionate about this format, don't feel you have to work up to a novel. We tend to look at novels as the highest form of fiction, but why? There's nothing wrong with setting personal goals, and novels sell more in today's market, but unless your plan is to become a full-time professional writer then do what you love.

That very well might be. I think I'm a better short story writer. I studied journalism in college and wrote for a paper for awhile, so I enjoy the economy of words. I want to write a novel though, partly because I've always wanted to write one. And if I do it, I want to do it well. I'm not big into the whole blasting out 70k words and calling it a novel thing that NaNo seems to promote. If I do it then I want to put in a good faith effort and make it at least presentable. I think this is part of the reason why I have trouble. I'm extremely critical of my writing. Even when I don't go back and read what I wrote while I'm writing, it's still in the back of my head.

I like shorts for this reason. It's easy to play around with it while writing because of the length. I have a new idea for a a novel that won't work as a short. I never outline anything, fiction or otherwise, and I'm going to take the time to develop it before I dive in and start writing this time. I think I might also be well-served to write shorts during the novel even though I've never written more than one piece of fiction at a time.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2012 15:56

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Molly Bloom posted:

I was kind of contemplating writing about Chickencheese, but can I do it as a non-American? I mean I've never had a chickencheese before, but I've seen pictures. I've also spend a lot of time reading about them.

Also,I don't really like the cheese you're supposed to use, so I was thinking about making it a European cheese. Like Raclette or Cancoillotte. Would that still work? I also don't like to cook very much, so how would I describe the process without actually cooking one?

Listen, if you don't eat chickencheese and don't even cook then what makes you think you can make a loving chickencheese, much less write about one? Look at all the drat pictures you want, but if you don't even put in the time to learn about the art of chickencheese, or, at the bare minimum, pick up a cookbook that describes chickencheese, what makes you think you can just go and make an amazing chickencheese that everyone will want to eat?

Go ahead and do it if you really want to, but the only person that's going to ever read about your chickencheese, or even eat it, is you. Maybe you'll give one to your beloved mother or fawning girlfriend (haha like you have one)but they're just going to appease you and tell you your chickencheese is amazing just because they have to. If you really want to get some good feedback, considering joining a cooking class.

Hell, what do I know though? Maybe you'll create this amazing fringe avant-garde chickencheese book that will be amazing and make Ferran Adria jealous.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2012 14:36

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

BigRed0427 posted:

First off i'm hitting this point where I have a lot of ideas for characters and stories to write about but I'm not sure which to actually do first.

A wealth of ideas is a good thing, but you need to flesh them out and see which is most promising. Keep the notes on the others.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2012 02:17

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

JAssassin posted:

Here's something I've been encountering lately. Forgive me if it's been discussed to death but I haven't been able to read the entire thread yet. I've been writing a fantasy piece for a character's backstory for D&D. I love making them short stories that encapsulate what the character is about, along with giving the DM some plot hooks to work into the campaign, or a bad guy or some such. However, since I'm trying to take my writing more seriously than I had before, I'm noticing a lot of bad habits I do. The most jarring to me is my variety, or lack there of. This is most apparent when I'm describing what a character is doing. I have a ton of trouble starting a sentence without starting it with their name, he or she. I'm not really sure how to go about fixing this, beyond just reading more. Are there any suggestions you guys can give me?

In the meantime, I'm going to try and break my other terrible habit: editing while in the middle of writing. It's my number one thing stopping me from putting anything out.

The best advice anyone can give you is to read more books and to pay attention to what you read.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2013 05:29

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

CB_Tube_Knight posted:

Not saying that. I just said that in a race between vivd, verbose description and plot and characters the plot and character side of things wins for me.

You have an odd view of what literary fiction is.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2013 04:36

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is worth a read. I just finished it and it's definitely not boring literary fiction with no action.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2013 22:58

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

gigawhite posted:

If any of you have Kindles or don't mind reading on the computer, the Best Of collections from last year are 2 bucks each on Amazon today. They're always good for a look through and, at that price, won't feel bad if you skip stuff that doesn't interest you.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.ht...rd_i=1000677541

I've always loved these series, especially the travel writing collection. Well worth the $2.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2013 19:32

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Molly Bloom posted:

I always thought it was just popping in an extra blank line. Maybe I'm wrong on this? I know that you're supposed to use *** or somesuch when formatting an MS, but that's just for the sake of clarity in a double-spaced document and not something that actually carries over into a finalized version.

Edit- have just checked, it's # to indicate a blank line in an MS, but I think the blank line is still what you might want there.

This is what I've always done, and have seen done most often.

*** is a close second.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2013 20:33

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Benny the Snake posted:

So I have two questions. One: I have a project I've been working on for four years and I've passed out copies to multiple persons for feedback. What's an easy and surefire way to prove ownership in case somebody plagiarizes?

No one is going to steal you're writing, and if you're actually worried that someone is then stop giving it to a bunch of people to look at.

Benny the Snake posted:

Two, the major feedback has been my writing reads not like conventional prose but like a script. Now my education in the field of literature has taught me that all writers started from one base form of writing. Most of the great Elizabethan poets for instance started writing pastoral before they branched out into their own genres. Should I continue writing prose? Or can I branch out into scriptwriting?

You can do whatever you want. Write scripts, write Facebook posts, whatever. If you want to get better at fiction then try to figure out why your stuff reads like a script. Do you read books?

# ¿ Feb 24, 2013 12:47

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

SpaceGodzilla posted:

So after spending a bunch of time merely thinking and reading about writing, I finally worked up the courage to actually write my first sentence of my first draft of my first story ever . It's both scary and exciting because on the one hand I know that I have a lot of work to do before I write anything good (or even complete), but on the other hand I can only improve from here (if you consider any writing better than no writing).

Any writing is way better than no writing. Keep it going.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2013 04:09

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Black Griffon posted:

The best advice is to read read read. I sometimes get criticized for being too abstract

This is honestly the best advice to take if you're having trouble with you're writing. I can't emphasize enough how much better your writing will get the more you read. Reading critically is the best but just reading everyday for fun will help you to improve as well. Also, read your writing like its not yours so you can see where your writing is too literal and think about how it could be better. Also, crit groups, random people, the Internet is amazing for your writing as well

# ¿ Apr 6, 2013 02:47

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Chexoid posted:

Okay so I have a problem.

I'm writing this paranormal mystery dealie, and the opening takes place in this kind of cosmic, ethereal plane that exists inbetween the living world and the afterlife. This is a place that I think needs a very thoroughly detailed description, so that the reader knows where the hell they are.

My problem is that I feel like if I go heavy on the details, it slows the introduction way too much for the kind of thriller/mystery story I'm trying to tell. This place is where the inciting incident happens, so it's not as easy as just swapping settings to something that's easier to describe.

Should I stick to a detailed opening? Or trim it down a bit and try to sprinkle in details throughout the rest of the introduction?

Also:

Embrace your fear! gently caress that, strangle your fear and wear its skin like a coat. The only real way to fail at Thunderdome is if you half-rear end it. No one really cares how good your story is, they're being written in a week and are all going to suck.

Reveal as you write. There's no need to info dump in the first paragraphs and alienate your reader. Trust that the reader is smart enough and that you write it well enough that you can introduce new background info throughout the story.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2013 00:49

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

Martello posted:

What about writing a female protagonist makes you uncomfortable? It's hard to help you out with it when we don't know exactly what the issue is.

To expand on this a bit, you should force yourself to write female protags. Doing what makes you uncomfortable will make you a better writerr. If you can't write characters unlike yourself then you're in trouble. Like Martello said tho, it would help as to why it makes you uncomfortable.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2013 05:05

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 06:53

I Am Hydrogen: Apr 10, 2007

change my name posted:

Can we talk about stageplays in this thread too? Or is it only for prose?

There's already a thread for that

# ¿ May 8, 2013 08:36

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