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Good article, especially the point about using what you know as the scaffolding for your work, rather than the main point. The phrase really should be changed to "write with what you know." That said, I think the idea of writing what you don't know can be taken too far (like any other writing advice), but at heart it's good advice. Though I will also admit, there are times when I've read stories where the writer's basically writing about themselves, but I've liked it since it deviates from the typical perspectives taken in fiction (at least the stuff on reading lists in English classes) and give voice to marginalized/"other" perspectives.
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Sep 29, 2012 23:09
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Just to weigh in a bit on "writing the other", this question/issue is not only a matter of "writing what you know", but goes to a larger issue of thinking about writing as a cultural product in a social context. The idea of someone writing a character outside of their race is, maybe not surprisingly, a very different issue when it's someone of a dominant culture writing about someone who isn't, rather than the other way around. I've never had anyone question why I write a story with white male characters, and I've only seen the issue appear moreso in the context of "why not write about black [or any other group] people? we need more people writing about that experience from that perspective." Because this gets to the larger issue of having a voice within the culture, and being able to tell one's story and not be "invisible". Having a white person tell that story, for some people, becomes a larger irony that also becomes a larger part of a history when the only marginalized people in stories were allowed to have a voice from white male writers of a certain class. For some people, no matter how well written the character, there may be an issue with "writing the other" in itself, since it stand s a a cultural product that goes back to history, power dynamics, and all of the other things that make racism, sexism, "-ism"s complicated. For what its worth, I've not always been offended when I read stories of this nature, but seeing some racist aspects come through (despite the author's intentions), can be...uncomfortable. It's a complicated issue. I agree that more stories need to be written about people other than prototypical "white middle class male in first world country of England or the US," but I also think that we need to have more people from other groups publish and be popular and give voce to other perspectives in a way that you just can't get from interviews or observations or being friends with someone. I don't know if I'd open up completely about some of the issues I deal with a a black person to another person (and many people who do get backlash on it; this is another issue that's a part of all of this), but I would write about it myself. That said, if you do it, I 100% agree that research is important, more importantly talking to people. I can always tell when the story is a product of observations alone, since you can see how the characters are just being filtered through a mindset that's processing what's been seen and fitting things to stereotypes, rather than really fleshing out a character in interaction, etc. in a way that shows you can talk to people and understand how they work as humans. If you want to read examples and see how differently a story may come off based on who wrote it (if at all), try the book 20 Under 40. It's a collection of short stories from the New Yorker, and there are examples of stories written about people of color from authors who are white and of color. It was interesting to notice the differences when I read, but it may be a helpful study, since there's equal context (all great stories, published in the same place, etc.).
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Oct 19, 2012 12:34
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Molly Bloom posted:Duotrope, friend to all who don't want the big market guide hanging around in their lives, is moving to subscription for full-features. It'll be interesting to see exactly what bits remain free to use. I've seen a few lit mags pulling/considering pulling their listings because of that. Thoughts? I know people here like it. Now here's a topic (not that we need to organize them or go through them like it's a meeting). Why can't they just put ads on the site? Sure, it would be obnoxious, but better than paying more in a year than for a copy of that big rear end Writer's Market book. And if magazines pull their listings, then Duotrope will loose the edge it had over looking in a big book and having to scour around for places to submit on your own. A paid app would be a better idea, or locking only some features behind a subscription. At 5 bucks a month, it's not really worth it when what you list isn't exactly yielding high earnings for the people who use it.
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Dec 6, 2012 14:02
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Just something to add to the talent vs. practice discussion: an interesting video on what is creativity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg Basically, practice is what makes the masters of their craft, along with taking the time to work on creative things, working with others, etc. "Talent", as the way it's usually described, becomes a nice excuse for not doing something or explaining why you don't feel you're good at it. Real "talent" is just liking something and having the balls to do it, and then you do it enough that other people like it, too. 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)?
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Dec 25, 2012 02:40
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HiddenGecko posted: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. Totally agree, I got my copies of The Paris Review and Tin House right here. Tin House is another big push for me. The writing in Tin House is like that cool kid in high school I wished I could be and thought was the best ever, that's the only way I can explain it. quote: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. I agree with this, too. Branching out helps you to find your voice, and finding good books is always fun. I've found it helps to read the Paris Review interviews to find new writers that I would have never otherwise considered reading (and also inspiration). Their blog also sometimes posts about writers or books/book lists that help me to find new stuff. An interesting point about the artists that copy masterworks in museums. I wonder if the same thing would work for writing. Not just reading and then incorporating what you learn in your own work, but direct emulation. For example, a teacher in 5th grade once had us read e e cummings and then write our own poems in his style. I made a fuckton of poems just loving around with the way words were positioned, super-derivative copying of what we read, but I really feel like it's one of the big reasons I still write poetry today. Getting a chance to "practice" was a nice way to just enjoy the act of doing it and understand what was being done in the poems and gave me a template that made it easier to think of something to say. I don't know how much direct copying would help learning about writing, but I'm thinking that if one was engaged enough, even literally re-writing the words of a book or re-writing a plot would help one to learn in some way.
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Dec 25, 2012 03:51
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I was thinking about that as well. And does that work for poetry as well, or is it not an issue in that case? One solution I could think of off the top of my head would be to maybe have some kind of "writing swap" set up, where people pair up to critique each other's work. You don't get as much critique that way, but at least you'd get some without having to worry about needing to put the story up online and still get all of the benefits of anonymous criticism. If a thread already exists for this, then nevermind me.
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Jan 3, 2013 13:41
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Nycticeius posted:I just graduated last year, and throughout my academic years, I have found myself involved in its various forms inside and out my university. My own stance toward it shifted a whole lot and I think I have the necessary maturity as a writer to approach it dispassionately, while knowing it so well. Sounds interesting, but do you need to approach it dispassionately? This will be a novel, I'm assuming, so why write it as if it were an academic paper? Why not be passionate, it's drawn from your experience. That "objective viewpoint" that's expected in a more academic report or even some non-fiction would just seem out of place in a novel and might drain it of the energy it needs to hold a reader's attention. Maybe I'm wrong on this or misunderstanding what you mean, but either way, feel free to make the story personal. When I read a story, I don't necessarily want accuracy, I want a viewpoint, feelings, biases, anything that makes the story have a voice. Of course, you'd still want to get the details right for the setting and characteristics of this tradition, but present I'd still want to see an interpretation of these things rather than just dispassionately presented facts, at least for a novel. Like how you say your stance towards Praxe changed over time; that's what I'd want to know about as a reader. Action is important in a story, but only to the extent that it results in change. Change is really one of the most important things in a story (even if it's just in the reader's perception of things).
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Jan 15, 2013 00:06
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Chillmatic, for recs, I know that Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun trilogy gets mentioned as a well-written "genre" book. Also anything by Ursula k. LeGuin. I personally like the Black Company series by Glen Cook. Depends on how you define "well-written", though; it's not the best written, but I find it entertaining and not falling into the usual fantasy story pitfalls. If you want to try to find more good genre writers, you could try looking through the interviews with genre writers on the Paris Review website. Once I'm at home on a computer, I'll add some links to this post.
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Jan 22, 2013 20:21
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Roquentin posted:Am I the only one who p much needs the tactile fun of handwriting in order to jog my interest in whatever I'm working on? It's gotten to the point where I often do this for assigned papers too, not just the thing I'm writing. It's like the worst variation on blank white screen writer's block. Even once I have a number of pages in a word doc I still don't feel like writing if it means punching glyphs onto a screen; I need a pen and a notebook. I'm worried that it's gonna eventually fuel my laziness to the point where there's no workaround and I stop doing creative writing. I always write things out on paper first. I always carry around a notebook and pens so I can jot ideas down. I used to use moleskins since I could draw in them as well, but I'm currently using regular half-size notebooks again. The hardcover ones they sell at Staples are the best; a good price for the paper quality, and a lot cheaper at around $3. I always try to make sure I use decent pens as well (currently a Pentel energel and a Zebra F-301). Plus, maybe I'm weird, but I love the look, feel, and sound of paper filled with writing. The way they crinkle and the texture gets bumpy from my heavy-handed writing just adds to that feeling of accomplishment that I just don't get in the same way from printed text. I used to just write things out as a little kid, even just re-write books or encyclopedia entries, just to see the pages and flip them back and forth and feel like I did something. The problem then becomes typing everything up, which I haven't done for anything except some of my poetry. I have a stack of notebooks with writing, but since most of it is old and not so great, maybe it's for the best. I plan on typing up some of the most recent notebooks though, just to get in the habit.
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Feb 18, 2013 04:48
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I have a quick question about writing software. I've looked up Scrivener, Ulysses, WriteRoom, etc. and tried the trial software, but I was wondering what others' opinions were about these programs, since they're kinda expensive for what you get. Are they any better than using Ms Word? Or is there some benefit that I'm not seeing? Is there some benefit to paying $10 for a program that blanks out the rest of the screen and only lets me see text? Another question: In terms of submitting works to lit journals, is it better to submit to regular submissions, or are contests also seen as a good "legitimate" way to be published? I'm thinking of submitting work for the first time, but I want to get the best bang for my buck out of what little decent output I currently have.
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Feb 24, 2013 20:16
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Thanks! I was thinking the same thing about the writing programs. They seem nice, but nothing about them seemed worth $45 bucks, or even $10. Edit: ^^^Hm, I'll try it for a little longer, then, thanks. I plan to use it for short stories and poetry, so some of the features are a bit too much, but I do like the interface and that it sets up the submission cover pages and exports in different formats. As for the contests, that makes sense as well. Ploughshares has a contest for unpublished writers, so I was thinking of entering it, but maybe I should just send a regular submission to them instead? The prize is worth it to me, and the cost to enter is just a subscription, which I would get anyway. I figured maybe a contest would be a good place to start and technically get published in a well-known journal, and then work on regular submissions after that. Would a contest prize from a journal help with getting published? I know they say to mention those sorts of things in submission cover letters, but maybe it'd be better energy spent trying to submit my stuff in a smaller publication to start. yoyomama fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Feb 24, 2013 |
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Feb 24, 2013 20:42
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Awesome, thanks again Erik and Chillmatic. I kinda wish there was a blog like Ask a Manager, but for writers for this kind of info. I'm kinda nervous to submit, but why not. I'll try to get it at least the poems together for the contest deadline. I have stories, but they're nowhere near finished yet (if ever) and need a ton of work. I'll try submitting those to small journals once they're ready. I guess to answer that earlier question about writing format, don't feel like you need to stick to one form of writing. Use the form that best fits the story, or even (for drafting purposes), what form best gets the idea down. Sometimes I write poems to get the right mood or character's feeling, then write out prose from there. Sometimes a poem or prose just says what needs to be said in the best way and I leave it as is. I like both forms, as well as scripts if the story is right for it. You'll probably have a form or two you excel at, but write what you want.
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Feb 24, 2013 21:42
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Martello posted:FTFY Haha we'll see, I have to finish them first. They're not my usual, so it's taking me some time to see where the story goes. And I know this forum well enough to know I can't just post any old crap, I want to make sure my writing's as decent as I can try to make it before I post it.
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Feb 25, 2013 19:20
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There's the literary journal thread if you want to see different journals and any new ones; I think there's also a link to a journal review site in there as well (I'd link, but I'm on my phone). Also Poets & writers has a directoy of journals as well. As for personal recs, I love Tin House, and the Paris review (if only for the great interviews). If you want to find good journals, I've found it best to look in anthologies like the Best American short stories series, find the stories I like, and then look up the journals they were published in. As for the New Yorker, they sell a good amount of anthologies of their short stories if you don't want the journal itself. "20 under 40" has a ton of awesome stories, I'd highly recommend it.
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Mar 4, 2013 19:29
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To join in the talk about dialogue, I agree that it shouldn't be real realistic, but be engaging and interesting without being a literal transcription of a conversation. However, I would warn again only using written dialogue (from TV, comics, etc.) as a way to learn about dialogue or only going by what sounds good in your head without a bit of "real world" research. I think it's extremely important to listen to real conversations and pay attention to 1) what makes them interesting, and 2) word choices, figures of speech, and other important grammar and vocabulary. The goal of this will then be to learn how to distill all of this into an interesting conversation to read or watch. This will then depend on form, since a conversation in a movie needs to play out much differently than it would on stage. The reason I bring it up is that you can easily throw someone out of a story if you don't get it "right". Especially if you're writing a character with a particular accent/regional dialect (of course, written without dialect spelling since it is horrible and I hate it). Some of these dialects tend to get bastardized or misrepresented in media, and if you only take those media representations as examples, then you get dialogue that sounds outdated at best or offensive at worst. Also, language changes both at large and individually, so if you listen to real conversations, you may hear people who speak with specific quirks, new slang, tell the differences between a child speaking and an adult, and other things that would be harder to do by only reading/watching something. Now, I personally like more realistic dialogue in the stories I read (even if it has a few more pauses and asides), but I also like it when it gets really dramatic or funny, even if no one on the planet would ever speak that way, as long as it sounds like how someone would feel and uses the language the characters would be expected to use. What I hate is when I hear a Jamaican character say "mon" at the end of every sentence or teenagers use completely outdated slang or a character from a southern state say "well that's crazier than a [blank] in a [blank] on a [blank] [blank]."
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May 19, 2013 00:21
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Chillmatic posted:
You're kidding. I literally said what you did, but managed not to be a dick about it and pull out "ultimate rules of writing do as I say or it's poo poo" logic. You think it's not important to listen to people talking. That's fine, but I said that I think it can be, and how you could listen to real world dialogue, take what good you can out of it, AND do exactly what you said (write a good, entertaining conversation without re-creating a literal conversation). I never said it needed to sound like real life, so don't put words in my mouth. Nevermind that almost every other artform does something like this. Studying from real life is a important part of art study. No one goes to an animator and says to only rotoscope everything, but they sure as hell LOOK at the real world and study it in order to learn their craft. I can see an argument for saying listening to people speak doesn't equal learning how to write dialogue, but all I'm saying is that there's something to learn in listening to people if you want to write dialogue. That said, I'm done with this discussion, since I take your points and get what you're saying and agree with you (about the dialogue, people do not always read to escape the "real world", even if that's what you want to do), but now you're just being a dick about it.
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May 19, 2013 23:38
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