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Jabrosky posted:I'm an aspiring writer of fantasy and historical fiction who has a few short stories under his belt, but no novels, and right now I'm frustrated with the whole writing process. It just sounds like you're still figuring out your own personal process, which is going to unique to everyone. You should stick with it until you produce material that you're satisfied with and/or your beta readers are satisfied with. Everyone has a different method. For example, I figure out how my story is going to start and I make sure I know the ending before I start writing, everything in between is up for grabs as far as I'm concerned. Even then, your tools will also dictate your process to some degree. I use Scrivener and am starting to write in a rather non-linear pattern and rewriting later when I have all the little bits I want, then I just slap on some glue and moulding. If you're using Word or GoogleDocs you might be writing in a linear fashion from start to finish, which has its strengths and weaknesses. But in the end it boils down to what works and what gets the job done, which is going to be different for everyone, you should just keep at it until you find this process for yourself. Jabrosky posted:Researching isn't necessarily hard per se, but the sheer volume I have to do before writing certain stories intimidates me. I worry that by the time I finish researching a certain subject I might lose enthusiasm in my original idea or get distracted by another. My advice is to lie. Writers are professional bullshitters, we're trying to sell the farts and rainbows we come up with in our heads. For historical fiction you should research the BIG PICTURE and then lie your pants off. Focus on the fiction and don't worry about the minute details, throw in just enough to satiate your audience and the nitpickers, there will always be nitpickers. One caveat, be dreadfully specific with your guns, your horses, and your military technology, these are the things people will nitpick the most. Jabrosky posted:Speaking of distractions and losing enthusiasm, that may be my biggest problem. My muse is extremely fickle and short-lived. Often I get all excited about an idea but over time burn out on it, get distracted by another idea, or most commonly realize inherent flaws in the original idea and thus can't continue the story. I am not the kind of guy who can slog on with a story after losing inspiration or realizing its basic flaws. gently caress your muse, you tell that muse to get in the drivers seat and do his or her job. Writers are not at the behest of muses and writers who find themselves chained to some farcical notion that they need to be inspired when they're writing never get anything done because they have to be "in the mood" before getting to it. Your first draft will be poo poo, your second draft will be a little less lovely, you won't be happy with your final draft. If you can get in the mindset that you have to compromise the ability of your your manuscript to work with the vision in your head you'll be off to a good start. Never edit until you've completed the draft, don't think about anything but the story, you want to be writing in pure white hot creative mode, where the words are flying off your fingers like water in a pan full of hot oil. You'll come back next week to edit it and wonder how you're going to be a writer when all you wrote is poo poo but then you'll edit it and make it better. Writing is not the hard part, editing it to the best version of your vision for the project is the hard part.
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Aug 11, 2012 20:39
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I do want to clarify in general though about inspiration. Writing is a magical process where the ideas in your head take flesh in someone else's head, it's fantastic and you should be inspired to some degree, have some passion before jumping into the slog. And you should develop controls for doing this of course, some writers need to hike five miles into the woods with nothing but a notebook and a pencil to create, others just need a stool, a desk, and a pot of coffee somewhere quiet in their house. But once you figure that out, once you know how to mold ideas into plot, plot into story, and you're talking to your fictional characters in your head because they're so real you need to interview them to figure out where to go in the story then you're going to stick in it for the long haul. The process of writing is laborious, long, alone, and the rewards range from nothing to superstardom. But I write because I have to, it's like pent up bile in my brain that has to get out. Ideas ust float in the air until you grab them and make them do what you want in your story, sometimes you'll mash several ideas together because they need to support one another, sometimes an idea will be so pervasive that it can give you 50000 words in less than a week. It all comes with practice and a healthy dose of realism about your abilities and what you need to do to improve them. You just need to keep at it and ignore people who tell you to stop(This is the secret to all writing really, we're all fond of culling, you just need to learn how to duck until we hand you your scythe). Welp, that's my general feel-good post for the day.
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Aug 11, 2012 21:31
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Argh, how the hell does one tell one's inner critic to shut the hell up and stop screaming "this poo poo sucks" when I'm trying to write? I cannot stop myself from trying to re-write the opening of my short story a billion times. It's driving me crazy. Write it and move on, fix it when you're editing later. You're probably going to delete your first few paragraphs anyway. It's ok to have a lovely first draft, just make sure the one you show people later on is good.
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Aug 12, 2012 23:17
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SkySteak posted:
That's exactly what I do. I edited your example a little bit since in my opinion "interrupted" is redundant with the em-dash(stupid freaking fancy words for things.) there. as long as you're consistent with how people cut each other off. Other examples. "I just wanted to see..." Amy said. "Shut up, we have to activate the reactor." (obviously for trailing off also changes the tone quite a bit with ellipses) "Dan nabit, there's a piece o' silly putty on ma' shoe." (DON'T go overboard with this kind of word cutting, phonetic accents. Readers will get annoyed if they can't understand what your character is saying.) Also don't be afraid to write dialog in fragments, single word sentences, slightly bad phrasing if your character is kind of stupid. etc. Make them talk like they got a pair of lungs.
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Aug 14, 2012 04:04
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As with all things art/writing/poetry/etc. If you can make it work then you can use it. Your character has to be kind of a patsy and you have to establish that or else ellipsis won't work. Otherwise just steer clear of them, unless you can make them work well. "No rules, make it work, make it work well" is pretty much my philosophy on such things. Also, per Wikipedia: An ellipsis can be used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence (aposiopesis), example: "But I thought he was . . ." When placed at the beginning or end of a sentence, the ellipsis can also inspire a feeling of melancholy or longing. The ellipsis calls for a slight pause in speech or any other form of text, but it is incorrect to use ellipses solely to indicate a pause in speech. Just in case I was getting a little too artsy fartsy there. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Aug 14, 2012 |
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Aug 14, 2012 04:17
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psychopomp posted:I don't think there's any kind of "right" length for a paragraph. Literally as short as you can make them and still get your point across, I guess. It's a good idea to mix it up, though, so that you're not springing monolithic blocks of prose on your readers. It's not about length, it's about rhythm. You don't vary your paragraph length willy nilly, you're doing it for a very specific effect. A short perfunctory paragraph stands out like a tall tree. It's short because you want the details within to have greater significance than the longer paragraphs. But longer paragraphs are just as important. They can slow your reader down. Force them to pick out stuff. Are the sentences clipped because action is happening? Or long and complicated because the read has to know what your character is thinking right then and there. Remember though that "five sentence" bullshit you learned in grade school is still bullshit. \/\/\/ yeah I figured you did. It's just something to think about. It's weird but you gotta think about how your reader is going to breath when they read your story. What paragraphs they're going to skip(and how to make them not skip them) and how much of a workout your giving their eyes with that multipage paragraph. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Aug 20, 2012 |
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Aug 20, 2012 13:53
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Write it anyway, Asimov wrote a short story in 1941 called Nightfall which chronicles what happens on a world with no nighttime that experiences a solar eclipse. It's not a new idea or anything. There's also no need to black out your idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen and yours has been done a ton of times. And don't forget the key word here, Science Fiction. You can make poo poo up, pick some likely scenarios and run with it. I would say the the most effective way to deal with world changing ideas and concepts is to focus on the characters rather than the event. Pick a small window to write your story through so the story doesn't get lost in the big idea.
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Aug 26, 2012 17:55
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NANOWRIMO is solely about getting 50000 words down on the page in one month. Basically, it's quantity over quality for NANOWRIMO and you should approach is like a marathon. You're going to end up with 50000 words that you're probably not going to be happy with. But you will have written 50000 words in one month, which not many people can say they've done. That being said. The idea is pretty important in a novel. it has to be an idea that won't run out of steam by mid month. Now you have a few options, since you're used to writing scripts I'm going to, probably wrongly, assume that you're less of an organic writer and more of a technical kind of writer. You like to know plots, story arcs, characters, before you start writing. in that regard you can: 1. Write a very broad outline using bullet points and all that. then break it down into chapters from there. You'll have a goal for each chapter and you'll know how much you have to write based on the number of chapters you have. 2. Write a broad and sloppy five to eight page synopsis of your novel. It'll be less precise than the outline but I like this method because I can see how the story is going to progress better. Good luck.
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Aug 29, 2012 02:16
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Black Griffon posted:Well look at that, I even have an ancient blog on blogger I didn't know about. Important note. Anything you publish on your blog is considered published in he official sense. You send that short to a lit magazine and they find it online and it goes in the trash. They find out later you hornswaggled them and they'll tell the rest of their editing friends you're no good. So don't put anything on your blog you want to submit and get paid for. And this isn't about hiding it from them it's about first rights to publish. If it's already online you've breached any contract a magazine will have you sign if they accept your work. You get those rights back a few months after a magazine publishes it though and can publish it however you want. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Sep 6, 2012 |
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Sep 6, 2012 12:32
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Black Griffon posted:What about samples? If I post a chapter of something I'm working on, will that count? Since I don't really care about publishing a lot of my shorts, it's the serious pieces I'm worried about. But I don't plan to post anything more than a sample, even if it's a pretty short short. Samples have always been fine. We live in the age of the internet, if you're not posting samples of your novel on writing forums you're emailing them to friends and beta readers. publishers expect this to happen. No one will come down hard on you for posting samples. Even here, Pipes! is very willing to remove your posts from the searchable index if you contact him. And I'm sure other sites can do similar things. But you don't have to be paranoid about samples, post and edit away.
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Sep 6, 2012 22:52
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Subway Ninja posted:I'm working on the opening lines for my novel, and would appreciate a little feedback on what I've come up with. I'm not sure if most people would find these few sentences intriguing or off-putting: Not even worth commenting yet. Finish the book then ask people what they think. A few sentences tell me nothing about your writing style, your paragraph style, the flow, the themes, the actual plot or the working story of the novel. Thus, wait till you're 100% done before even letting anyone but yourself see it. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Sep 7, 2012 |
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Sep 7, 2012 00:55
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OH, my bad then. I retract my previous edit then. You can't blame me for assuming the worst though, a lot of people just write three paragraphs and expect others to validate them and don't end up writing anything beyond that first few paragraphs. So SORRY! Edit: Well for what it's worth your first lines are not so much off putting but just laced with a certain sardonic edge. Like if I were reading a Discworld novel but it was being told in a very straight and serious way. It's just kind of funny in a dark humor sort of way. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Sep 7, 2012 |
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Sep 7, 2012 01:37
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It's just that grabbing the king's junk and then stabbing him in the chest (while fondling? Groping? Petting? said junk) is just outrageous. And if you're going for humor I would definitely read some Discworld by Terry Pratchett. He does fantasy humor well and is also just a brilliant writer overall. Good luck with your editing.
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Sep 7, 2012 01:54
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Nirvikalpa posted:Reading really is a joyless process for me. If you don't enjoy reading then maybe you shouldn't write? It's like a painter who doesn't copy past masters. Or a musician that doesn't listen to music. You're wasting your time if this is your attitude towards writing.
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Sep 9, 2012 03:41
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Nirvikalpa posted:I end up revolted by the subject matter most of the time or I can't understand it. Ok... be more specific about this. This is something I've never heard before, nor do I understand. Are you reading really dirty erotica? Snuff? Do you just pull random books off the shelf and get the same effect? What's giving you the urge to write if this is a your general feeling about reading fiction? I'm just curious.
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Sep 9, 2012 03:54
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justcola posted:I was wondering if/how other people celebrate when they've finished a large project? I'm probably going to finish my book today and usually treat myself with cheap cigars and fortified wine, though I'm thinking of something a little classier this time around. Celebrate by starting your next novel.
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Sep 25, 2012 14:21
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Writing is like any craft. You practice and pay attention. You figure out how to construct sentences and what makes a sentence "good". Then you figure out how to make those into paragraphs. Then you get bored with college essays and start to write fiction. The same follows for painting, drawing, swimming, cooking, anything really. A lot of "natural talent" comes down to your environment. Did your parents encourage you to explore and read? Or did they plop you down in front of the TV and let that raise you? Were you forced to memorize that entire English textbook in eight grade? Or did you find it more satisfying to do algebra. Outside of environmental factors there is a hard upper limit to a writer's ability to craft a story. These can be personality issues (They don't know the difference between ad hominen and objective criticism and never improve because they take everything personally). Or maybe the first bit of reading material they got their hands on was sonic fanfiction instead of some meaty Steinbeck and then got stuck deep in the rabbit hole. Or they grew up in a lower class community and didn't have access to the resources to even fathom becoming a writer. Thus, there are SO many factors that contribute to a writers abilities that it's almost always futile to talk about the subject. You got to sit down and write and listen to your more experienced writing friends when they critique you and keep going. You have to be willing to write 100000 words of poo poo before you know what a 100 words of good prose looks like. The most important thing is that you can't stop. Many writers with excellent potential write one story, submit it, get rejected, and never write again. Persistence and endurance are the most important traits a writer can have.
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Sep 30, 2012 02:53
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Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:Connect with people that will slap you on the back and make you feel like poo poo if you don't get your 1000 words a day in.    Collaborate and elaborate.
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Sep 30, 2012 03:15
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freebooter posted:Does anybody know of a decent way to just sort of ask the Internet general questions, for research purposes? My googling skills suck, but I'm writing a short story set in 19th century Australia, and in the last half hour I've spent maybe five minutes on actual writing and twenty-five minutes researching: It truthfully comes down to how much you're willing to compromise. Writing something believable versus writing something accurate. You can probably get a good idea of what Federation Day is like through Googling and careful sourcing. The same can be said for for the other ones too. You'll have to make a compromise though. You'll probably have a good idea of what those things were like but you'll have to fill in gaps with your own stuff, just use a little inductive reasoning. Get the broad strokes correct and people will forgive a few crooked lines. In college my publishing professor said that the main things you have to get right in fiction are guns, horses, and cars. Everything else can be fudged, even history. Although if you're writing historical fiction your audience is obviously going to be a little bit more nitpicky than the average reader. freebooter posted:I've spent maybe five minutes on actual writing and twenty-five minutes researching This is the important bit here. I assume you're writing fiction. The key word there is FICTION. You can make stuff up. Don't over research, just get a good idea and write. After you're done writing, go back and correct it to whatever level of accuracy you desire but when you are barely getting words on the page you need to stop researching and write. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Oct 3, 2012 |
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Oct 3, 2012 04:29
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SkySteak posted:To be brutally honest though, in the end a lot of good writing comes from inherent talent. You can practice all you want but if you don't have the ability, no matter what effort you put in, you'll just be 'alrigh't at best. Inherent talent is really nothing but an artificial crutch. There's really nothing mystical or special about talent other than the people with talent worked their asses off in an effort to find their talent. Why, you ask, do some authors spring out of the aeather with a generation defining work? Where did it come from? Well. The truth is behind that genius novel or work is millions of words of crap that will never see the light of day. It also comes down to taste. You are what you eat and you write what you read. A writer with good taste is constantly trying to write to whatever ideal they've created in their head for "good" whereas the writer who reads nothing but star wars novels can probably attain his ideal after a few months of feverish fan fiction writing. Again taste is a big part of talent. And in the end if you think you've got talent, write a short story or a novel and end up having it rejected and then give up forever, well that other guy who just kept writing and ignoring people who told him he didn't have any talent will get published and have the last laugh. End ramble.
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Dec 17, 2012 15:52
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yoyomama posted:That said, I just read some McCarthy that lit a fire under my rear end to really work on my writing (and feel that I totally suck and will never be as good and what am I doing aaaaaaaaa). Does any one else have any writers that they admire/inspire them, or have any suggestions of books that teach great craft in practice (subjective, I know)? Super subjective. I think a good way to keep yourself inspired or at least thirsty for better writing is literary magazines. they feature stuff that is very contemporary and of the moment. You like literary fiction? Well it only costs a few dollars a month for a kindle subscription to a few things like glimmer train or the like. The same holds for most other literary mags. They'll often feature the current rock stars of fiction, the new guys, the raw stuff that you can't find in Barnes and Noble. Basically always be trying to read something new that you've never exposed yourself to before. Personally that's how I read and learn the most effectively. You can't settle for just reading one author or two in a genre you like. You have to branch out as far as possible and read everything. You don't like twilight? Well read it and decide why you dislike it. You like horror? Start with Stephen King and work your way through the schlock until you find a horror writer that just clicks with you. You know how if you're in an art museum and you see people copying other artists on a sketch pad? You need to be doing the same thing as a writer, eventually you'll arrive at your own voice but in the interim you need to work your way up to that. And the only way to achieve that is to read stuff outside of your comfort zone.
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Dec 25, 2012 02:55
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It depends on what you want to do with what you write. I write stuff I would like to read. You could say that I write for myself, at first, because the first audience for anything we write is always yourself first. But beyond that initial draft, if you want to get it published, you need to start exposing it to the world usually in the form of beta readers or editors. If you just write for yourself exclusively your journaling or writing a diary which just happens to be fiction. I always write with a specific audience in mind. this is probably the repulsive part to you Rose Wreck because it sounds like I'm putting the "commercial value" or whatever above the artistic value of my work. When the opposite is actually what is happening. If you write to get published you want your work to widely read by as many people as possible and enjoyed. Just like you don't want people to come into a gallery and spit on your painting. Or take the CDs your label released with your music and burn them because they hate them. You have to write for an audience or else your just writing as a hobby.
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Dec 30, 2012 20:45
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aslan posted:
This man speaks the truth and articulated it better than I can. Write what you want to read, not what you think the market wants to read.
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Dec 30, 2012 23:33
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screenwritersblues posted:So what's the general opinion of Fan Fiction? I know that most of it is really bad, but I've come across some really well written ones, but not really good, just well written. Is there really such a thing as good fan fiction or is it all bad and is it strange that I want to dabble in it? I've always seen it as a crutch, or at the best a set of training wheels towards real writing. Basically I feel it's the same thing as building your story with Legoes instead of building it out of pure imagination. A fan canon does all the work for you, you just gotta put in the characters and the situations and BAM you got a story. It's a good stepping stone if you're not used to building ideas into stories or are intimidated by the prospect of the ideas in your head being somehow "good" or "bad" by an outside metric. I'd personally avoid writing fan fiction. You'll learn a whole lot more by spewing out a million words of crap that didn't exist anywhere but your own head till that moment than an equal number of fan fiction words that is just exploring someone else's ideas.
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Dec 31, 2012 04:05
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Crisco Kid posted:The complaints I hear about fanfiction typically fall into "it's usually bad," and "it's lazy because you aren't working with your own creations." All this is true. And as a fan of overly derivative work (especially Warhol and the legion of pop art that followed him) I'm not really that harsh on fan fiction. It get's people writing and that's what counts in the end. But it is still a crutch on your imagination. It makes you lazy and dependent on what is possible within a canon rather than exploring your own ideas or creating new things. The examples of scriptwriters, Batman movies, Dr. Who are actually not fanfiction in any way. They rely on previous things and are largely derivative but are new creations in their own right and not fan fiction. Fan fiction is, by its very definition, fiction for/by the fans. Whom are often far too close to the source material or what they perceive in the canon to be "good" to create something truly unique. Neil Gaiman writing a Dr. Who script is not fan fiction, just like Nolan's take on Batman is no more legitimate than Burton's or Shumacker. It's far more easy to pick out the written fan fiction than the visual stuff, because most of it reads like a thirteen year old stole his mom's laptop. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Dec 31, 2012 |
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Dec 31, 2012 04:28
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Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:I agree. I could write about my depressingly short dick and probably make a buck or two. You have to decide how much of a whore you want to be. Me? I want to be a rich and famous whore, and I have zero qualms with writing for money, but even I won't slut out for 50 Shades of poo poo style crap. I'd rather not think of fat married women flicking their wrinkly beans to what I'd write while they contemplate their miserable lives. You're the ID to my Superego.
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Dec 31, 2012 04:38
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Echo Cian posted:This is really basic question, but how do you motivate yourselves to write? I know everyone says "Just start writing," but I can't seem to get myself that far. I got absolutely nothing done in December. I know I'm not self-motivated but this is ridiculous. I go out of my way to convince myself why not to write. Don't put yourself down. Don't put your writing up to some external standard that really exists only in your head. We all write crap, by and large the majority of the words we throw down on paper will be crap, especially first drafts. If you haven't heavily invested in your craft you're going to churn out hundreds of thousands of words of crap that will and should never see the light of day. Write because you want to, start off with small goals and work your way up to bigger stuff. Just write something small like 250 word flash. Or join in Thunderdome, where losing is winning.
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Jan 2, 2013 00:34
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SkySteak posted:Holy poo poo the Thunderdome reminds me why I should never ever bother trying to upload stuff here. You seem to have a rather set idea about writing, art, and life in general. I already responded to you up thread about your mythical view of "talent" and I think this one deserves a little attention too. (Even though this is a drive by and you probably won't respond) A big part of writing well is not only hard practice and craft but the people you work with and regularly look over your work. While the act of writing is a rather lonely, singular task the whole process of writing involves repeatedly having better writers and editors look over your work and tell you where you went wrong and if you are doing good or not with what you're trying to accomplish. There are many places on the internet to get critiques for your work but a lot of them suffer from what I call a "hugbox mentality" much in the same way republican politicians have fooled poor people into thinking they're millionaires in waiting these critique sites (deviantart, absolutewrite, to name a few) have policies in place to protect writers from being told what they wrote is crap. Critiquers get so afraid of telling people they wrote straight up crap and suggest new improvements and directions for them that everyone gets stuck in this positive feedback loop where everyone is telling eachother that it's ok, you wrote well just not well enough, keep at it. I like Thunderdome because it fosters a certain good natured hostility towards crap writing. The thread brings in people and keeps them writing far longer then they would have otherwise. They then go out to the rest of CC and critique people but instead of being passive aggressive and subtle the new breed of critiquers coming out of Thunderdome are not afraid to lay bare why that person's writing sucked and then show them ways to improve that. Basically Thunderdome is creating serious writers who write by the skin of their teeth and expect good harsh criticism. We're single-handedly driving the "hugbox mentality" out of CC.
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Jan 12, 2013 21:28
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:I feel like they're trying to make ordinary situations interesting and at times it just drags on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHVqxD8PNq8
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Jan 12, 2013 23:29
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FauxCyclops posted:Some posts earlier in the thread led me to finally watch the movie Adaptation and then I was pointed towards the Robert McKee story seminars. Weighing the possibility of attending it myself sometime aside, I'm looking at getting his book because it seems to be pretty universal stuff that can be applied to fiction as well, and I can 'eat around' the stuff specifically pertaining to the visual aspect. Anyone else read it? If you watched Adaptation and you got the urge to adopt McKee's lessons on writing then we were watching two very very different movies. Considering that the movie in of itself is a commentary on the kind of movies produced through McKee's methods and it was definitely not a flattering depiction. (By god, McKee even becomes a Deus Ex Machina old man halfway through the movie as he's berating the main character not to include one in the script of the movie you're watching!) I'm on the opposite end though. Don't buy books like this and use them to learn how to write. You have to be far along in your growth as a writer before these kinds of craft books will really do you any good. Especially "paint by the numbers" books that present a railroad of ideas that you just have to follow and produce your book. You're better off spending your time consuming as much fiction as you can. Although, they're not all bad. On Writing by Stephen King is a rare one in that it's truly more about the art of writing and being a professional writer than some "formula for success!" writing guide. For those who have not seen the movie though I would definitely recommend though because it's a movie about flowers that just happens to be about writing in general. More specifically it deals with how hard it is to adapt a book to screen and ends up being more about that than anything else. It's a weird movie, but it's a brilliantly weird one.
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Jan 23, 2013 17:12
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:So basically, something like this (Building Great Sentences) wouldn't be worth getting either, compared to just reading more? After reading through its description it seems like it's a university level course on DVD. And it seems to focus on a fairly wide range of topics with a focus on sentence structure. I'd actually consider this one of the good ones since this guy's philosophy is pretty alright: Professor Landon posted:Building Great Sentences stems from Professor Landon's passion for a sentence-based approach to writing, commonly overshadowed by more technical, theory-based approaches that ignore the pleasures of reading and writing. This one does fall into what I was talking about though because at the point where a master class on sentences becomes useful is in line editing and wordsmithing(wordsmithing is where you reorder the sentence and change words without changing the meaning of the sentence in an effort to increase clarity.). And the class assumes you already have a good handle on sentences before coming in. Someone whose just starting out wouldn't get too much out of this class and may find themselves stifled because they'll assume this is the "right way" to construct sentences. In my opinion. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jan 23, 2013 |
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Jan 23, 2013 17:44
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JuniperCake posted:It can be hard to talk about writing in terms of rules and what not in any kind of general sense because this is pretty much the only important thing ever. An even better lesson is to learn how to make boring things grand. Kafka's Meditations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemplation_(Kafka)) are some of the best examples I've read demonstrating this. This of course takes a ton of practice and being able to pay attention in real life to the little things that make everyday things memorable. Why did you remember the way that mother chastised her daughter but you don't remember how the Barrista smiled at you when she handed you that cup of coffee? Or, why does a windy field with high grass evoke deep emotions while two children chasing one another in a park is boring? This is mostly artsy fartsy bullshit but being able to pay attention to the right details is more important than being able to list all the details of a scene. \/\/\/\/\/ Pretty much. Everyone should read as much Kafka as possible. He wrote some beautiful prose and some creepy stories. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Mar 20, 2013 |
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Mar 20, 2013 21:02
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Great Horny Toads! posted:The first thing the reader has to know, in most cases, is what business-as-usual looks like. Set up the everyday world, then let the Kool-Aid Man bust in. Time for some rambling so bear with me. This is not necessarily bad advice it's just so general that it could apply to anything. The main question you have to ask yourself (really about any story/plot/theme element) is HOW DOES THIS SERVE THE STORY, sometimes you need to set up business as usual because it's so weird relative to your reader's perspective that jumping right in to the juicy stuff can confuse the reader more than entice them. After you've determined whether something serves the story you need to decide if it serves your audience. Did you properly set this up beforehand so it'll click for the reader 300 pages ahead? Or will they think you pulled it right out of your rear end? A good example of this is an innocuous character detail in Gene Wolfe's four part Book of the New Sun. in the course of 1500 hundred pages he mentions only twice, TWICE that the main character wears a hooded cloak with no shirt underneath as his every day dress. It's mentioned once in the first hundred pages and he doesn't mention it again till midway through book two. If you weren't paying attention to every sentence or glossed over it it would be reasonable to assume that the main character wears a shirt because everyone else around him does and is described as such. Suddenly having the detail dropped on you again pulls you right out of the story for a second as you replay all the previous encounters the character had sans shirt. It's a tiny detail, but it's something I wish he'd mentioned a few more times (this is pretty much my only bizarre complaint about the book too  )So to recap. Ask yourself if what you are writing serves the story. Cut if it doesn't or is added fluff or whatever. Then ask how it will serve the reader. Is that fluff you cut actually needed for the reader to understand something vital to the plot? Will they remember in book three that the main character doesn't wear a shirt if you fail to bring it up for 600 pages? Compromise and use good sense. And beta readers to test your edits of course. Just some stuff to keep in mind. And to make your generalism more useful to other writers.
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Mar 21, 2013 04:43
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Great Horny Toads! posted:I don't have a copy of The Hobbit or LOTR kicking around, but, if I remember correctly, Tolkien lets us know that hobbits are little, furry people who love them some comfort and stability before Gandalf comes knocking. We don't know much more, but a state is established before it's upset. That's what I was getting at. Nah It's cool. But for the purposes of this thread understanding the context of LOTR is more important than the presentation. He was attempting to write a modern mythology for Britain. He wasn't writing for any audience except perhaps his editor and himself. And, as a learned scholar and linguistics professor of the highest degree, LOTR follows the "hero's journey" almost point for point. It's all about context and understanding why Tolkien wrote LOTR the way he did and how this leads to every derivative fantasy epic that followed after. It's written archaically and obtusely because he was getting inspiration from Greek, Norse, Medieval mythology and what have you. LOTR has to be read in that context to fully appreciate what Tolkien was doing. So my advice is branch out a bit and try to read things that don't follow the hero's journey point for point. Check out some Kafka, Poe, or Steinbeck (if you're feeling particularly colicky)  Here's an awful graphic depicting the hero's journey for those who are too lazy to Google it. HiddenGecko fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Mar 21, 2013 |
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Mar 21, 2013 06:32
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theworstname posted:This sort of advice frequently gets handed out around here, often with some measure of derision. I'm not sure if it's entirely helpful. Writing is a very weird art form. People who do read a whole lot often are terrible writers. While some people write so much that they often don't have time to read (although these people are often lying) and get published regularly. Now, the trouble with the advice "read a book" is that the person telling you that has no idea what your writing and trying to accomplish within the art of writing. A better question that will then lead to useful "read a book" advice is "What are you writing?" So you want to write Speculative fiction/Science Fiction? Ok "try reading X books and Y books to get a better understanding of the genre" OR, so you want to write literary fiction that's enigmatic and thick? "Start reading post WWI modernists and this other stuff." basically it comes down to communication when addressing that question. But then you come to the actual act of reading you can't approach it in the same way you learned in school. "Critical reading skills" as taught to you in school is academic bullshit that's entirely incompatible with writing a piece of fiction. It's all well and good that you can break down every metaphor and image system in T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland but it's just drudgery. You don't really get to enjoy the poem or it's thousand nuances if you're going at it with a scalpel. So when someone says "read a book" you have to read it from a pure reader perspective rather than a literary dissector. I.E. "Was the plot good?" "Were the characters real?" "Was the language clear?" are the kind of deceptively simple questions you have to ask yourself as you read. Because when you're actually writing you'll be able to assess as a reader if you had a good plot, or a real characters, or clear language. This is all subjective though. It comes down to your sense of taste not coinciding with your ability to reach that sense of taste. This is why you end up writing millions of words of crap before honing it to the point where it coincides with what you like to read. It's not easy. Which comes back to my first point. Read Specifically don't eschew stuff outside of what you need to read to improve your writing but make sure your breadth of knowledge within whatever your writing is robust.
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Mar 29, 2013 22:52
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