Fiction Writing: Advice and Discussion

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Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Great OP. I'd add a little something about the value of critique groups, both good and bad. Critique groups can be a great place to beta-test your writing, but in some cases it can be the blind leading the blind. I'd suggest that new writers take everything they hear in such groups with a grain of salt, unless they're dealing with advice from a fellow writer who has already achieved the level of success that the new writer himself wishes to achieve.

Of course, it's true that some people in these groups are just bitter ninnies But I'll say that if you have an entire group of people telling you that something in your story is not working, you need to pay close attention to what they're saying, and give it serious consideration.

One other comment:

quote:

Show, don�t tell. You�ll get this advice if your characters are emoting all over the place without describing their reactions. Don�t just tell us your character is angry. Does he glare in the corner? Does he stomp around like a dinosaur? If you show us, you don�t need to tell us. You�ll also get told this if you do a massive info-dump. Do we really need a paragraph about some ancient war, or how your character grew up a sad little orphan, before you get into the story? Why should we care? If it�s relevant to the story, make its effects ripple across the story. Keep your backstory to yourself, and reveal it through what the characters are doing right now.

I agree that bad writing often simply tells things that it should show, but I honestly believe that the rampant repeating of this mantra probably did more damage to my early writing than any other. I began to notice that every scene I wrote was LONG. Very Long. Every character interaction had a ton of dialogue because I wanted to show these two peoples' history rather than simply cutting the reader some slack and telling them a few things about it.

The example that clued me into this failure of mine came to me from Orson Scott Card's excellent book on POV and characters. I'll paste the entire excerpt from the book that really gave me a new perspective on how to write character interactions- the same excerpt that finally gave me permission to do a little telling and not worry about showing everything.

The sample writing is in italics, the unitalicized part is Card's commentary.

quote:

She sat down beside him. �I�m so nervous,� she said.

�Nothing to be nervous about,� he answered soothingly. �You�ll do fine. You�ve been rehearsing your dance routines for months, and in just a few more minutes you�ll go on stage and do just what I know you can do. Didn�t I teach you everything I know?� he said jokingly.

�It�s easy for you to be confident, sitting down here,� she said, gulping nervously at her drink.

He laid his hand on her arm. �Steady, girl,� he said. �You don�t want the alcohol to get up and dance for you.�

She jerked her arm away. �I�ve been sober for months!� she snapped. �I can have a little drink to steady my nerves if I want! You don�t have to be my nursemaid anymore.�

Talk talk talk. The dialogue is being used for narrative purposes � to tell us that she�s a dancer who�s going on stage for an important performance after months of rehearsal, and that she has had a drinking problem in the past and he had some kind of caretaker role in her recovery from previous bouts of drunkenness. Attitude is being shown through the dialogue, too, by having the characters blurt out all their feelings � and in case we don�t get it, the author adds words like soothingly and jokingly and snapped. The result? Melodrama. We�re being forced to watch two complete strangers showing powerful emotions and talking about personal affairs that mean nothing to us. It would be embarrassing to watch in real life, and it�s embarrassing and off-putting to read.

But with penetration somewhere between light and deep, we get a much more restrained, believable scene, and we end up knowing the characters far better:

Pete could tell Nora was nervous even before she sat down beside him � she was jittery and her smile disappeared almost instantly. She stared off into space for a moment. Pete wondered if she was going over her routine again � she had done that a lot during the last few months, doing the steps and turns and kicks and leaps over and over in her mind, terrified that she�d forget something, make some mistake and get lost and stand there looking like an idiot the way she did two years ago in Phoenix. No matter how many times Pete reassured her that it was the alcohol that made her forget, she always answered by saying, �All the dead brain cells are still dead.� Hell, maybe she was right. Maybe her memory wasn�t what it used to be. But she still had the moves, she still had the body, and when she got on stage the musicians might as well pack up and go home, nobody would notice what they played, nobody would care, it was Nora in that pool of light on stage, doing things so daring and so dangerous and so sweet that you couldn�t breathe for watching her.

She reached out and put her hand around Pete�s drink. He laid his hand gently on her arm.

�I just wanted to see what you were drinking,� she said.

�Whiskey.�

He didn�t move his hand. She shrugged in annoyance and pulled her arm away.

Go ahead and be pissed off at me, kid, but no way is alcohol going up on that stage with you to dance.

In this version there are only two lines of spoken dialogue and nobody gets embarrassingly angry in public. Furthermore, you know both Pete and Nora far better than before, because you�ve seen Pete�s memories of Nora�s struggle with alcohol filtered through his own strong love for her � or at least for her dancing. We also know more about Nora�s attitude toward herself; the �dead brain cells� line tells us that she thinks of herself as permanently damaged, so that she is terrified of dancing again. The scene still isn�t perfect, but it�s a lot better now because we were able to get inside Pete�s mind and see Nora through his eyes, with his attitude toward her, his knowledge of their shared past.

Card is specifically talking about viewpoint in this instance: more specifically, the "cinematic" viewpoint. Which is all well and good, but it blew me away to see that first sample he gave- it's more or less exactly how my writing used to look. Way too much contrived dialogue to try and reveal plot elements and backstory, when sometimes simply telling those elements can work just fine. Again, it all depends on the situation and context. But sometimes, telling is truly more appropriate than showing.

For me personally, telling is most egregiously terrible when you've already told or shown something, and you continue to beat your reader over the head with that same thing. Trust your reader. They're smarter than you think, and beating them over head is going to lose them almost as fast as being boring will.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2012 16:58

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:04

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Stuporstar posted:

I'm going to link Scrivener here. It's basically a customizable writing suite designed to accommodate a wide range of work methods.

Scrivener is amazing. I'm in the middle of a fairly ambitious story and that drat program is the only thing that is keeping my head - and plot- straight. I second the recommendation, particularly if you're the kind of writer who has trouble keeping things organized, or who has 96 different word docs all relating to one story and find yourself switching between them constantly.

Also, how not to write a novel may provide obvious advice, but it does so in a really loving hilarious manner. The examples are a guaranteed laugh for me. Like, this one, where the authors are cautioning against having characters who literally do not emote at all, even in response to obvious stimuli:

quote:

But when he pulled the covers from the naked form, it was not his wife there at all�it was the lovely Veronica, his brightest and most eager graduate student, wearing nothing but a tattoo of Leonard Cohen.

�Hello, Veronica,� said Professor Johnson. �What are you doing here?�

She pulled a gun out from under the pillow and sobbed. �I am here to kill you,� she explained.

�Why?� he said. �I�ve never done anything to you.�

She sat up, a beautiful vision in her youthful nudity and state of undress. The moon made her unblemished skin glow like something luminous, and her black hair fell over her slim shoulders like a cape of hair. She said, �You gave me a C!�

�I�d be willing to reconsider your grade if you�d do something for me,� the professor said.

�Oh? What�s that?� she asked, tossing the gun aside and thrusting forward her young breasts, her eyes dewy with willingness.

�I�ll be needing a cat-sitter for two weeks in April for my trip to Cancun. Would you be available?�

# ¿ Jul 16, 2012 15:23

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

This is why I stick to the passive-agressive voice in my writing.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2012 17:21

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

FauxCyclops posted:

Oh, god drat it!

We get it man, you don't need no fancy learnin' bout writing and so forth right? You're just doing this for fun, right?

Well, it's curious then why you keep posting poo poo all over the place looking for approval, isn't it? And all the while joking and rolling with them punches.

If you're content with being a lovely writer, then can you just keep it to yourself, or is that asking too much? If you actually want to grow and learn your craft, then have some loving respect and actually participate in that process like an adult.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2012 04:07

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

SkySteak posted:

If I am not able to handle it, does that imply you guys don't want anyone who can't, to write at all? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth nor am I saying that that's how I feel about it but that feels like one of the implications of both of your statements.

That's ridiculous, come on man. And no, if you can't handle it, you should not ever put your work out where people will respond to it. Just because you (you are not special) wrote it, does not give you the right to want strip your audience of their reactions to it.

SkySteak posted:

I admit part of me is tempted to post a thread but I haven't had critique in a while (havent written in a while) and I'm really worried I might just shatter and close the thread. Then people get to attack me which will only make things shittier.

Bottom line: you'll have to grow a thicker skin if you want to be a writer who is actually read by anyone.

That's the deal.

Your insecurities do not help your writing, no matter what you might think. Your insecurities are your mind telling you that it knows there are serious problems with your writing that you don't want anyone else to see. If you're never going to show it to anyone, then no problem.

But the very fact that you're so worried what people will think about it means that yeah, you've already decided that you want people to admire what you write. That admiration doesn't come automatically, without cost. You'll have to go through the necessary steps of improving your craft. If you don't want to do it in a public setting such as this, then take some writing workshops or some writing classes where you will be critiqued on your creative writing.

There's no way around it, sorry. If you want to hit a home run, you've got to step up to the plate and risk striking out.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2012 18:34

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

This turned into a long post, but I met my word count for the day in my WIP and still feel the itch.

Time Cowboy posted:

But they really aren't judging some deeply personal aspect of you, your mystical soul-nature or whatever other bullshit words some people have attached to the process of fiction. They're judging the words you put on the page.

That really depends, actually. How I view the writer and/or his work depends on what phase of the process he's actually in.

If he's god-awful terrible and cannot convey any ideas whatsoever, then sure, I don't judge him as a person. I tell him what needs to be improved and then shrug and move on.

If, however, he's competent at a baseline level in terms of craft, (which, frankly, most writers are) then it evolves from judging craft to judging art. And then, yeah, I absolutely do move into judgments about him as a person.

I do that because, let's be honest, the vast majority of stuff that is posted here for critique is cleanly written enough to get across what the author is trying to say. I rarely have trouble following action, or wondering who is speaking. I rarely see terrible shifts in diction level or psychic distance and so on.

What I see, more often than anything else (both here and critiquing ANYONE'S work) is that's it's either boring, or lovely-mannered writing.

When we tell someone to stop giving us eight paragraphs at the beginning of their story that describes some loving guy's weight, job, favorite car, favorite ice cream etc, I am not critiquing his level of craft, I'm telling him he's boring, because this is the best he can come up with. Ever noticed how people will fight you on that? They try and tell you how interesting their incredibly boring characters are, and why you ABSOLUTELY NEED to know all this boring poo poo about them up front. It's because they are boring and don't know any better.

On the other hand is mannered writing, which in many ways is worse. You see stuff that's obviously some thinly veiled creepy sexual fantasies, someone's petty revenge bullshit against their 'totally unfair' landlord, or ex-girlfriend or any number of other really petty and/or weird poo poo. For those authors (if they can be saved at all) I refer them to The Art of Fiction's excellent section on mannered writing.

Here's a sample:

quote:

Mannered writing, then�like sentimentality and frigidity�arises out of the author's flawed character.

In critical circles it is considered bad form to make connections between literary faults and bad character, but for the writing teacher such connections are impossible to miss, hence impossible to ignore.

If a male student writer attacks all womanhood, producing a piece of fiction that embarrasses the class, the teacher does less than his job requires if he limits his criticism to comments on the writer�s excessive use of �gothic detail,� the sentimentalizing tendency of his sentence rhythms, or the distracting effect of his heavily scatological diction. The best such timorous criticism can achieve is a revised piece of fiction that is free of all technical faults but no less embarrassing.

To help the writer, since that is his job, the teacher must enable the writer to see�partly by showing him how the fiction betrays his distorted vision (as fiction, closely scrutinized, always will)�that his personal character is wanting. Some writing teachers feel reluctant to do this kind of thing, and people who are not artists�people with no burning convictions about writing or the value of getting down to bedrock truth�are inclined to be sympathetic.

I think that many people would agree that there's way too much of the above poo poo floating around, especially stuff like the bolded part. So yeah, in a way, once you get beyond critiquing someone's use of proper grammar, passive voice and so on, you get into to judging their ideas which is understandably nerve-wracking for people. But great writers have, for centuries, written things that would have been unreadably offensive if not for the fact that they were writing not for their own personal fantasies, but for the sake of art.

Lolita was a pretty drat risky move by Nabokov, but no one who's actually read it can claim that it was written by a creepy guy who desperately wanted to live out the events in the novel. That's what it means to be an author with good enough character not to imbue every word he writes with his own terrible opinions/fantasies.

But still as I said before, nobody ever just crapped out a "great American Novel." It takes time and the willingness to have those ideas cut apart by people who will give you honest opinions as to the worth of not only your craft but the worth of those ideas as well.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2012 19:35

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Stuporstar posted:

No, man, this is a craft issue. It's not personal at all.

I of course agree that there are exceptions to this rule. I'd be more inclined to agree with you if so many people didn't outright balk at the suggestion to stop putting so much boring poo poo into their stories. But they do. Nearly every time. They sit there and argue that you NEED to know all this dumb crap, even though their own favorite stories don't fall into such traps.

That's not a symptom of faulty craft, it's a symptom of boring character. Of having nothing to actually say.

Sure, everyone writes a scene or two that upon further reflection doesn't really add to the story or would work better in a different part of the story, but that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about writers who simply refuse to accept that nobody wants to hear about a guy's entire medical history before a story starts.

Or the writers who refuse to believe that stories about a college couple breaking up aren't going to tickle most people's fancy.

It's possible to write about the most inane subject in a fascinating way, if you simply understand what it is about human nature that compels people. If you lack the kind of understanding that tells you that conflict is the key to good stories, then no amount of cleaning up your passive voice is going to help your writing. You're still boring, no one will care.

Even telling a writer who doesn't truly understand people to include conflict usually results only in ham-fisted results where "conflict" is stuffed into the same boring story they wanted to write in the first place.

So that's just my experience. It's very possible that I'm overly jaded. But if more writers would respond to "I just didn't care to keep reading, I got bored" feedback in a positive way, then I wouldn't be so annoyed with it. Usually telling someone that what they wrote isn't interesting only results in them whining for 20 minutes about why it IS interesting and giving you all kinds of supplemental information that wasn't on the loving pages themselves as if that really is going to matter to a theoretical reader.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2012 20:38

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Nautatrol Rx posted:

I'm not disagreeing with you, to be clear, but I'd like to delve further into the topic of taboo subjects and see if we can identify some qualities of writing that set Lolita apart from Primoman.

I'd say first off, that people have an uncanny ability to smell bullshit. I wish I could define why that is in better terms, but I really can't.

When people are reading your story, and the pages and words themselves begin to melt away and become invisible, then you've done it. You created a real character who can honestly be as terrible as you'd like, and people will believe it- because the character is real, and not an avatar you've strung up and made dance to your terrible song. The character has real emotions, reactions to things that exist in pure relation to the world you created.

On the other hand, when you can't ever seem to settle into the fact that you're supposed to be lost in a fictional world, when the words and pages never seem to disappear, you'll never believe it's a real character. And every strange thing that character does is simply a reminder that you're reading some rear end in a top hat's words, not a real character's genuine experiences.

I'm not sure if that makes sense but that's the best I can describe it.

For a phenomenal example of this principle in action, read The Painted Bird. It has some of the most awful, terrible and heart-wrenching stuff I've ever experienced in a book, but (with a few exceptions) it feels genuine, like you really are experiencing life through this kid's eyes as he wanders from village to village in World War 2 Poland. It's considered a classic piece of fiction even though some of the things described in it can make you want to throw up.

And yeah, like I said, there are some exceptions in the story. A few times I did find myself remembering that I was just reading a book because the guy overdoes it a bit, but that's part of why its a great example. You can see what works and what doesn't in the same piece of fiction.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2012 20:48

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Stuporstar posted:

.Those people need a, as they say, "What you did talk, not a what you are talk," because most people grow out of this phase�if they don't, they become number twos.

You're right. I guess I should specify that I don't actually say to people "This is horrible. And you're horrible." Even though I might want to.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 15:18

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

sebmojo posted:

As with so much in writing, the answer to 'can I use weird accents?' is 'yes, if you are awesome'.

This really can't be emphasized enough. The Rule Of Cool pretty much overrides every single other rule in writing. And hell, in life, too.

I would still suggest to only include as much dialect as is really needed to get your point across. This is where most people gently caress it up. They go way, WAY overboard and the text itself just gets garbled and lost, which isn't really the effect one wants.

Adding some signaling words in the dialogue itself, and adding description after an initial dialogue tag can go a very long way.

quote:

"Well, howdy there," the man said, tipping his hat and speaking in a slow drawl. "I do believe I've seen you 'round town before.

From now on, everything I write that that guy says will be heard by the reader in the intended voice, and I didn't have to go overboard with dialect to accomplish that. A little bit of description right upfront goes a long way to establish voice in a given character.

Use it wisely and it will bring them to life with only a minimum of wordfuckery required.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2012 15:36

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

PlatinumJukebox posted:

So, uh, are there any good resources/advice/lists of tips for writing sex scenes? Especially those that lean towards the rougher side of things (but not in an S&M way).

Rule #1 - Know thyself.

What I mean is, know why you feel compelled to include a sex scene in the first place. Know what kind of story you're writing. Is it porn, or not? (and sorry, but crappy fanfic is pretty much always just excuses for porn)

If it's porn, anything goes. Go nuts. Your reader should know what they're getting into when they pick up the book, so it's all fair game.

If it's not porn, then it gets trickier. Does the story need a sex scene? If you really believe it does, how graphic do you want to get? Are you writing the scene just because you think it's hot, or because you believe the characters on the page will actually want to do the things you're about to make them do?

Don't be that creepy person who's clearly just acting out their own sexual fantasies. Nobody wants to read that unless you make it believable that the sex itself really belongs to the characters, and not to their weird-rear end puppeteer (you).

Also, you have to be comfortable getting into the head of the opposite sex (assuming hetero stuff is happening), as writing a scene specifically from only your gender's perspective is pretty drat lame. Good sex is about give and take (regardless of power dynamics) , and failing to capture that is pretty much the biggest problem I see with sex scenes... right behind creepy stuff, of course.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2012 17:00

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

PlatinumJukebox posted:

Yeah, it's pretty much porn. I'm more worried about my actual technique - I really don't want the reader to laugh their way through the whole scene like it's being narrated by Gilbert Gottfried. There're plenty of sites that give advice on general fiction technique, but I've yet to see any that cover blatant smut.

The best advice I can give you for that is to read sex scenes that you enjoy or that you think succeed in what they set out to do, and then go from there.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2012 17:13

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

DivisionPost posted:

If I'm looking to write a mystery novel, and I have the broad strokes for the mystery at hand (I know who gets killed, I have a decent idea of who did it and why, but I barely have any ideas for the exact circumstances that led to the crime) but no idea about the details, where can I go to find inspiration? I'm talking areas of news sites that would focus on small to mid-level crime.

Or am I going about this all wrong?

Just my opinion, but I'm doubtful as to how interesting you can make such a story if you don't know the circumstances around the crime itself. Those kinds of details are what makes mystery intriguing.

But then again, I never know what to tell people who are struggling for inspiration. There's a great quote by some old mean curmudgeon author -whose name i can't remember offhand- but the gist of what he says is that if you can't find inspiration, just give up and live your life until you find it.

I agree with that. It's the reason why I look askance at things like NaNo et al. If your story isn't interesting enough to you to convince yourself that you should take the time out to sit down every day and write it, why would it be worth asking a reader to take the time on a given day to read it?

I've had three false starts- where I had an idea I thought was great, sat down to outline it, and then realized it actually kind of sucked. Now I'm 91,000 words into a finished first draft, and it was easy to stick with because it's actually a good story that keeps me interested enough to really want to see it through and put it out there.

I suppose if you're the type that ~*simply must write*~ and you feel crippled if you don't, then sure, alright. But if you're like that, why would you need something like NaNo?

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Sep 30, 2012

# ¿ Sep 30, 2012 23:08

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

If you're stuck as to what to do next, what helps me is to always take a small break and take a bird's eye look at the story itself. Where is it broken? Where does it get stuck? What do I really want to say with this story?

quote:

Granted, I've gotten half of the story I want to tell by living and observing, and while I'm happy to admit that it's more than a little derivative, I love it.

Everything's derivative of everything else, ever. Who cares. If you love it, and I mean really and truly love it, then sally forth, my friend. I believe you can only truly love a story that you know will kick other people in the balls. People you haven't even met yet who don't give a poo poo about hurting your feelings. So if that's how you feel about your story, let nothing get in the way of finishing it- and completely throw out everything else that you don't love.

quote:

Honestly, I think NaNo's more for people like me, who need a little help/incentive in order to build up the discipline required to write every day. It's an exercise in the form of a challenge, and I think anybody that's truly committed to the craft grows from it (though, yes, it can only take them so far).

You may be right, but I'd still suggest that nobody just go off on a tear of writing 50,000 garbled words to meet an arbitrary deadline. Outline first. Plot. Envision your characters and what you want them to do and say. Place them in a physical time and space as they progress through your story. Once you've done that, then go on and hammer out your 50,000 words. Just don't do it blindly.

For what it's worth, I'll say that I agree with the mantra of "nothing you ever write is wasted," but I'd add the caveat that "in a trash bin, you may find both old pizza and old banana peels. Both are edible, but one will do down a lot easier than the other."

What I mean is, while it's easy to just blindly repeat to WRITE WRITE AND WRITE SOME MORE, you'll get even more out of the process if some thought goes into it ahead of time.

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Oct 1, 2012

# ¿ Oct 1, 2012 01:28

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

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.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2012 22:13

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

I Am Hydrogen posted:

I decided to look into it a bit more and found this gem, which convinced me not to do it.

Good call- I really think you're better off leaving well enough alone.

To expand on what I said earlier, not using anything at all (quotation marks or otherwise) to denote your characters' speech is to rob them of their voice and turn them into mere props, or set pieces.

Plain and simple. I do enjoy some of McCarthy's work, but frankly his characters are second rate compared to the stunning and isolated landscapes he portrays. (to the point where he sometimes refuses to name a character, or gives them everyman type of names, which should show you how he views them.)

Which is why that style works for him. The characters are only there to flesh out the backdrop, the setting, the scene itself- and usually not to tell a character driven story.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 23:18

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

This may not be a popular opinion but I'mma stick with it.

About writing "the other": you either understand people in terms of what makes them unique (race, gender, sexual orientation, weight, height, childhood etc) or you do not. If you do not, just be warned that there are no shortcuts to gaining that understanding, period. This is why most authors of all backgrounds stick with what they know.

And so the whole issue of how to write those kinds of characters is a complete red herring. This is an issue of author character, hands down.

Ever noticed how rarely a famous author is suddenly discovered to be, after having published 20 books, a nazi or some other kind of terrible poo poo? Usually anyone even half paying attention can spot that stuff from book number one. Writing is a powerful glimpse into the author's character in nearly every case. Racist authors always look like racists. And this isn't an accident, either- as though perhaps the wrong sequence of nouns and adjectives were used- but because the author is, well, a racist.

(substitute racist with sexist, homophobic etc as needed)

On the flip side, what happens most often now days is that your average straight white male writer simply doesn't know any black transgendered muslims that he may want to write about. So when he tries it, it just looks goofy or borderline offensive. That means it's up to you to allow your mind to wander or allow your experiences to broaden.

The most simple way I can put it is this: Writing "the other" involves an understanding of how to address and even celebrate the characteristics that make a given fictional person unique, without making it entirely about those things. Making a character "The black character" is every bit as stupid as making him "The White character but with Black Skin".

In other words: three dimensional characters are never offensive. Make your gay character a fully realized person and nobody will care how many gay friends you have in real life.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 01:46

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

squeegee posted:

I want to point out that you also need to understand what makes all people the same.

Agree 100%

I tried to cover that when I said "three dimensional characters are never offensive". One of those three dimensions is the same universal humanity you're describing.

quote:

At the heart of it, people are people and if you don't have a deep understanding of human behavior and an insight into the workings of the human mind your characters are going to be pretty flat.

Again, totally agree. I guess I just often see people take that to too much of an extreme, more the other way around. For example, in a given story, you see characters who may be incredibly diverse in terms of gender or race or religion etc- but in their dialogue, behavior, mannerisms, beliefs and so on, they all act 100% alike.

That kind of thing may be less outwardly offensive than a token female character who exists only to be a female. But to me, what's even worse is when a male writer just lazily puts breasts on a character he originally wrote as his own self, claiming that "well, we're all just people, right?" What you end up with then is that every character who isn't a white male simply might as well be anyway. And that, to me, is more insidious and dishonest on the part of the writer.

quote:

I know women are 50% of the population and plenty writers are women, but as a woman there is nothing that makes me roll my eyes harder than a story written by a man where the female character thinks about or examines her breasts. We really don't feel ourselves up constantly or think about ourselves as "a perky A cup" or whatever, hence my mention of this category

I think that for every time a woman author sees this happen, her next story should include a male character who, for no reason whatsoever, has to size up his penis during his opening scene- and finds it to be woefully inadequate.

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Oct 19, 2012

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 04:20

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Martello posted:

My point is, just because we and our friends "don't do" certain things, especially involving sex for whatever reason, doesn't mean it doesn't happen and can't be written about.

Here be dragons, dude.

Seriously. You just described a friend of yours who pulls out his dick at parties and laments its size. I know nothing else about him, and yet you telling me that gave me a very particular impression of that friend.

So it is with your writing. If there's a good reason that you, the author, want to tell us that a woman is feeling or describing her breasts for no reason or a guy sizing up his dick for no reason, then you should do so. But absent a good reason in terms of the story itself, people who do this come off as creeps and weirdos.

I'd go out on a limb here and say that the reason that male authors are so guilty of this (and they really are, at times) is because they themselves can't actually see a female character in their heads unless they know what her tits look like. And so they stuff that nice little detail in there, assuming that everyone else is just as dense.

edit: and lest I be called a prude - if sex is something that is imminent or in progress in your story, then yeah you're going to have to describe different parts of the body, which is totally understandable. I can't speak for squeegee, but I got the impression she was talking about those books where a woman is introduced standing in front a mirror, naked, and playing around with her breasts for absolutely no reason whatsoever- or "thinking" about them with no relevant context.

I mean yeah, I think about my dick sometimes, but I also think about how I can stop overcooking pasta so badly. Neither of these needs to make it into a novel "just because it's there."

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Oct 19, 2012

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 05:36

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Martello posted:

Saving Private Ryan has that seen where Ed Burns is telling the story about the busty woman at his mother's seamstress shop. It has nothing to do with the actual storyline, but it gives a glimpse into Reiben's past, personality, and it's very much the kind of thing we soldiers talk about during those boring lulls in combat.

I see what you're saying, and it's a good point. It's just that, man, it is really hard for writers to pull this off without being gross about it. Like the example you mentioned with the vest, etc.

If you're able to tell have one or more of your characters tell such a story- and have it mean something very specific about his personality, then absolutely I agree it can and should be in there. But as I'm sure you're aware, gratuitously crude stuff will turn off nearly all readers, for better or worse.

A good example of pulling it off would be like how it's done in A Clockwork Orange. Nobody on earth would deny that it's an incredibly violent and sexual story, but it's done in such a way that doesn't seem utterly gratuitous.

Alex posted:

I would read of these starry yahoodies tolchocking each other and then peeting their Hebrew vino and getting on to the bed with their wives' like hand-maidens, real horrorshow. That kept me going, brothers. I didn't so much kopat the later part of the book, which is more like all preachy govoreeting than fighting and the old in-out.

That's pretty drat intense, and tells you a lot about that character, without him being all "tits, dicks, killin' dudes, nipples, hurf de durf". So I'm just saying that there needs to be a solid narrative reason for everything a given character does or says. If there is, it's pretty hard to mess anything up.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 13:47

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

BarbarousBertha posted:

CB_Tube_Knight seems to have a better idea despite not owning a pair and Martello, too. A character's relationship with himself or herself is partially related to the physical. I think it is as important a relationship to consider when defining a character as, say, how the character feels about parents and exes.

Wait...what?

I mean, I agree with you that how a character feels about their own body will certainly inform their personality and how they respond to situations/the environment- but I think the argument was "why do men authors so often have their women characters creepily describe their breasts in a story for absolutely no reason?"

I don't think anyone said that no women in a story should feel anything about their own bodies, but it's the old cliche of "show, don't tell." If a man or woman in a story feels particularly attached or proud of a certain part of his or her body, it's incredibly lazy to just introduce that character in front a mirror remarking on such.

Rather, if it's so important, it should just be reflected in their behavior.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2012 16:48

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Novum posted:

So far I already feel like I'm starting to have a lot of fun doing it again, and I also feel like a little self awareness will go a long way to actually helping me develop as a writer. So the question is, where should I post my stupid brain spew where I can get some constructive (or destructive, what do I care?)criticism from people who don't mind humoring an absolute novice so that I can make some progress toward being a half-decent story teller?

How about you do some reading and study up on the craft of writing before you subject the internet to your "stupid brain stew"?

And for gently caress's sake, don't be the guy who says "what do I care about the kind of feedback I get" when you clearly loving do care.

Also, please don't do the whole passive-aggressive shitshow thing where you post a bunch of crap about how worthless and terrible you are while secretly hoping everyone will tell you that no, in fact, you're actually a genius!

You want some more self-awareness? Fine. Start with the stuff I just told you and am about to tell you. The poo poo you just posted here is really some of the most aggravating crap that a critique group can ever have to deal with, and you won't make any friends doing stuff like that.

So consider this the only advice you need right now: don't be a whiny self-deprecating little poo poo, don't put a bunch of stupid irrelevant details in your posts (like your dumbass guitar playing), and don't post terrible poo poo until you've spent a minimum of three months reading about the craft of writing and doing writing exercises in your spare time. And finally, if your writing looks anything like that post you made, you've got a lot of very immediate and obvious flaws.

1. You drone on with pointless details. (because you obviously love the sound of your own voice)

2. Your use of language vacillates between "low style" and "grotesque imitation of the high style" (because you obviously love the sound of your own voice)

3. You're the only one that loves the sound of your own voice. Might want to consider that your anonymous reader won't give a poo poo about how brilliant you think you are. Cut away the fat; get to the heart of the matter.

4. Don't post again for a long time.

Same goes for you, Soulless Body. If you people can't even be bothered to read the thread to figure out where your anime dickgirl crap should go, then nobody here is going to waste the time helping or critiquing you.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2012 17:52

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

A few good rules of thumb:

1. Don't. Seriously. You don't need metaphor and simile in every instance of your writing. Ask yourself why you want it there. Is it necessary? Really? Are you sure?

If so, then go on to #2.

2. For grand images, use small comparative imagery. For small images, use grand comparative imagery.

For instance: She inched closer to the edge of the world, the unblinking eye of the abyss gaping before her.

Or: The air, cold and bitter like the pride of the North Wind, raised the hair on his neck and froze the blood in his veins.

3. Try removing or changing up the words "like" and "as" , just to see if it fits. It 'looks' like less of an obvious comparison this way and helps you get away with a little more and can vary your writing. Of course then you start getting into simile vs. metaphor but whatever.

4. Avoid illogic. Comparative imagery should never distract from the main image you wish to convey. Do not say poo poo like "the boy was small, like a tortilla chip."

5. Understand that it's very rarely certain specific words that make a given metaphor or simile terrible. It's usually because the image did not need really elaboration or more vividness than was already given, or you used the wrong comparison for the wrong image.

For example, you wouldn't often say "tortilla chip" would be a good comparative image, but if you said "the boy's bones shattered like tortilla chips", then it adds something visceral and specific to the original image that could only be conveyed by making a comparison.

Rule #1 mostly applies though. Most writers honestly don't have the chops to make their reader not cringe a little when it comes time for metaphor. At worst you may lose them or the original image all together. Proceed with caution and make sure what you're doing adds something rather than takes away.

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Nov 22, 2012

# ¿ Nov 22, 2012 20:59

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Stuporstar posted:

Here, I'm gonna demystify talent for you. Talent, when it comes to art, is an innate ability to connect with an audience. Sitting all by yourself writing like crazy and never getting out of the house will never get you there, because you learn how to connect with people by interacting with them. There. That's the magical "talent" that makes people go, "Wow, this work really speaks to me." If you get people, you write relatable characters. If you write relatable characters, people think you have talent. So why is talent so hard to come by? Because too many writers are NERDS.

Man I've said this about six different times in this thread but not as directly as you are, now-- so thank you for that.

It really is the singularly most important truth to learn about writing, and really all art intended for consumption by anyone other than the artist themselves.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2012 14:14

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

supermikhail posted:

I can't say I've ever felt a character take on a life of his/her own. I would say most of the time plot just happens to them. Except that time when I didn't have a plot and the character was particularly crazy. But I have never felt like a character was a living person invading my artistic license.

I usually try to avoid conversations about super subjective stuff like this, but I zeroed in on this quote because it touches on something I think is really critical for writing engaging fiction. I'm in the camp that believes that the characters you create should take on a life of their own at some point early-ish in the creative process. They should have their own opinions, desires, motivations and so on within the context of the world you're creating. If they don't, then nobody will care about what happens to them, which is essentially fatal to your reader's interest.

Often, if you're having issues writing engaging characters, it's probably because you're simply rushing to have a vague "hero" going on some kind of vague "quest" and who will be opposed by some vague "villain" etc and so forth. That's throwaway fanfic level of writing and will endear you to literally no one but the most ardent consumer of that particular genre.

What kind of characters do you enjoy reading about? Why? What makes them compelling to you?

Are you certain that you know a compelling character when you see one? If you're not, that's absolutely your biggest and most urgent problem.

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Dec 27, 2012

# ¿ Dec 27, 2012 14:52

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

supermikhail posted:

I wouldn't say my protagonists are ever close to being heroes. For me realism is the most important character trait, and I wouldn't say my characters are cardboard cutouts. I try to start them with a reasonable amount of "handicaps".

I'm having trouble answering your questions. I enjoy reading good fiction, and normally read good fiction. I guess it comes with good characters, although I can't say what's special about them. Or maybe I can. The best characters sort of are cardboard cutouts, because they usually have a grand total of about three traits that define their personality completely. Is that it?

I try to give my characters motivations, but I let them go about them too gradually, I think. Good thing I can't afford any hesitation in the short form.

Alright look dude-- Most actual writers don't usually have patience for this kind of stupid bullshit hand-holding, and you've just about exhausted mine already.

You're literally telling me that you enjoy reading good fiction, but that those characters really aren't all that great (because they're "cardboard cutouts"--what the poo poo?), and that you do the exact opposite of that in your own writing by creating "unique" characters with a bunch of ill-defined traits that don't even loving interest you, the author?

I mean really now; what in the actual hell is any of us supposed to say to that? That you're a genius because you refuse to write "cardboard cutout" characters? (and apparently by "cardboard cutout", you mean the kind of characters found in successful books that people actually like to read.) That you've got it all figured out?

Just going off of the sadsack bullshit you're posting here, my recommendation is to pull your head out of your rear end and realize that successful fiction works for a reason, and it ain't because the characters are bland and one-dimensional. Those authors understand something you clearly have no comprehension of whatsoever.

When you're willing to examine yourself and accept some realities, you'll have much better luck when soliciting advice.

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Dec 27, 2012

# ¿ Dec 27, 2012 17:10

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

supermikhail posted:

Sheeeet. I could say that my previous reply should be taken in places ironically

If your characters fail to come across in the same way your "irony" failed to come across, then it's little wonder that you're struggling to write interesting and engaging material.

quote:

I've got my own process which hasn't involved other people much so far, and I prefer it that way.

Oh well in that case I guess your writing is already totally great and that you don't need to be asking strangers on the internet for help or encouragement!

# ¿ Dec 27, 2012 20:58

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Crisco Kid posted:

You'll discover a lot of ways to vary structure, but a word of caution: be really careful with present participle phrases. Ex: "Putting his key in the door, he leaped up the stairs and got his revolver out of the bureau." Firstly, they're very easy to overdo if you're a new writer, and secondly, they're easy to do wrong. For instance, the example I just used is impossible because there is no way a person can be leaping up stairs and fetching their revolver WHILE putting a key in the door. Don't let your phrasing muddy the sequence of events.

Not to restart the "infinite verb phrase" debate again, but in addition to the problems you described, the trouble with having sentences like:

"Rising slowly from the bushes, he drew his gun"

is that you're giving me the action before you tell me who the actor is, which jumbles up the sentence and reduces clarity. This is something to avoid especially in a scene with many actors.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2013 15:58

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

I was following that advice maybe a bit too strictly, and some critique I got for my CC contest entry noted that I kept starting sentences with "He" or "Rick". If I establish the actor first, then is it okay to change it up in different sentences of the paragraph?

If there is only one actor in a given paragraph, and he/she is established up front, then it's possible to get away with this. Just understand that leaning on it heavily --as with any device-- will detach and distance your reader from the action on the page.

One easy way to avoid this kind of thing altogether is by actively describing setting, like:

"As the sun began to rise, Rick noticed that he blah blah blah."

"The air was growing bitter and more cold with each passing hour. Rick wrapped his jacket around him tightly and wondered blah blah blah."

# ¿ Jan 6, 2013 17:06

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Can I gripe about something that's been bothering the crap out of me lately? awful dialogue and cliched characters in every loving book I try to pick up and read.

I don't know if any of you have read The Passage by Justin Cronin, but it got really raving reviews by the NYT and stephen king and everyone else so I figured hey why not.

:ughh:

I'm only through the first 200 pages or so (out of eightloving hundred apparently) and it's already one of the most terrible books I've read in years. And the biggest reason is because the dialogue reads to me like it's at the 9th grade level, and every single character interaction ends with me going "yep, that sure is some words those guys exchanged. Everything went pretty much how I figured it would. Sure am glad the author felt it was necessary to place me here so I could experience this completely expected and routine interaction that didn't tell me anything about anything."

For example, I'm cutting and pasting an exchange here that one of the characters has as he calls up his recently re-married ex-wife (who is also pregnant with the new guy's baby):

quote:

hell� he did what he�d told himself he wouldn�t do and dialed Lila�s number.

A man�s voice answered.

�David, it�s Brad.�

For a moment David didn�t say anything. �It�s late, Brad. What do you want?�

�Is Lila there?�

�She�s had a long day,� David said firmly. �She�s tired.�

I know she�s tired, Brad thought. I slept in the same bed with her for six years. �Just put her on, will you?�

David sighed and put the phone down with a thump. Wolgast heard the rustling of sheets and then David�s voice, saying to Lila, It�s Brad, for Pete�s sake, tell him to call at a decent hour next time.

�Brad?�
�I�m sorry to call so late. I didn�t realize what time it was.�

�I don�t believe that for a second. What�s on your mind?�

�I�m in Texas. A motel, actually. I can�t tell you where exactly.�

�Texas.� She paused. �You hate Texas. I don�t think you called to tell me you�re in Texas, did you?�

�I�m sorry, I shouldn�t have woken you. I don�t think David�s too happy.�

Lila sighed into the phone. �Oh, it�s all right. We�re still friends, right? David�s a big boy. He can handle it.�

�I got your email.�

�Well.� He heard her breathe. �I kind of figured. I supposed that was why you called. I thought I�d hear from you at some point.�

�Did you do it? Get married.�

�Yes. Last weekend, here at the house. Just a few friends. My parents. They asked for you, actually, wanted to know how you were doing. They always really liked you. You should call them, if you want. I think my dad misses you more than anyone.�

He let the remark pass� more than anyone? More than you, Lila? He waited for her to say something else, but she didn�t, and the silence was taken up by a picture that formed in his mind, a picture that was actually a memory: Lila in bed, in an old T-shirt and the socks she always wore because her feet got cold no matter the time of year, a pillow wedged between her knees to straighten her spine because of the baby. Their baby. Eva.

�I just wanted to tell you I was.”

Lila�s voice was quiet. �Was what, Brad?�

�That I was �� happy for you. Like you asked. I was thinking that you should, you know, quit your job this time. Take some time off, take better care of yourself. I always wondered, you know, if��

�I will,� Lila cut in. �Don�t worry. Everything is fine, everything is normal.�

Normal. Normal, he thought, was what everything was not. �I just��

�Please.� She took a deep breath. �You�re making me sad. I have to get up in the morning.�

�Lila��

�I said I have to go.�

He knew she was crying. She didn�t make a sound to tell him so, but he knew.

Am I having a stroke or something? That is really awful dialogue, right? "Everything is fine. Everything is normal." :wtf:

"You're making me sad." :argh:

Or is there something I'm missing? My concern is that the impression I have about the above exchange is essentially how I feel about every book I'm trying to pick up and read right now: cliche characters, awful dialogue, bland interactions that go pretty much exactly how you'd expect them to. loving yawn.

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jan 10, 2013

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 15:30

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

STONE OF MADNESS posted:

It's the same on TV and in movies in case you hadn't noticed.

No, it's really not. I mean maybe on some terrible shows it's like that, but as a rule everything I've seen in movies and TV recently is miles better than the loving garbage I posted here.

Even this random line from the Gilmore Girls (don't laugh, it's actually got some of the best dialogue I've ever seen) is instantly more engaging and funny:

[Lorelai picking up her daughter at the airport]

Lorelai: Oh, but I got here early and there was nothing to do except feed gummy bears to the bomb-sniffing dogs which, apparently, the United States government frowns upon.
Rory: You got in trouble with the government while you were waiting for me?
Lorelai: Just a little.
Rory: How much is a little?
Lorelai: Learn Russian.

Writing good dialogue is really not that hard which is why I'm so baffled as to what the problem could be. Like Squeegee said:

quote:

pages and pages and pages of mundane drama and boring dialogue with no subtext and artless execution.

The "no subtext" part is what really stands out for me. In real life, people never ever say what they mean. Nobody does. And bad dialogue is just full of people speaking plainly and flatly about what it is they're thinking which is so god drat boring. And on the other end you have melodrama ("you're making me sad!") because apparently nobody knows how to use subtext anymore.

What really depresses me about The Passage is the endless reviews talking about how amazingly well it's written and how engaging the characters are. :smith:

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jan 10, 2013

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 16:22

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Tartarus Sauce posted:

(and that may be part of the problem, because real people say a lot of boring, irrelevant, tangential, and circumstantial stuff that would never make for good book or movie dialogue).

Nooooo, that's not true at all!

I mean, maybe real-life people talk very plainly and boringly when discussing boring situations (such as how their day at work went) but those are not things that people in a novel should be talking about. (because no one gives a poo poo)

But when real conflict is present, or when someone desires something from the other person-- sex, power, money, whatever-- then even in real life there is always a bunch of unsaid stuff. A fleeting downward glance, a hand brushing against a thigh, an icy stare, a shouted proclamation of love that should've been a whisper, etc and so forth.

I really think the confusion here arises from the fact that authors too often include utterly banal interactions in their novels; interactions that couldn't possibly ever be made interesting. And so what happens is that other writers then believe that good dialogue consists of people who "don't talk like real life people do" when the truth is more along the lines of: good dialogue consists of compelling people talking about compelling things.

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Jan 10, 2013

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 16:46

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

squeegee posted:

Real-life people say "uh", and "um", they stutter and repeat themselves, they use five sentences when one could do. Dialogue should ultimately ring true and sound real, but it shouldn't sound like a transcription of a recorded conversation, because no one wants to read that.

Well, yeah. I thought that was something so obvious that it wasn't worth pointing out. Maybe because I actually can't recall ever reading anything that was written like that, so I guess I didn't even think that could be a problem; and I've critiqued a lot of garbage.

Here's another bang-up example of great dialogue in The Passage! (the author inexplicably goes back and forth between normal quoted dialogue as in the previous example, to poo poo like this with dashes to mark dialogue and no quotes.)

quote:

[The woman has just been hit by her boyfriend and is lying on the kitchen floor with her daughter]

She watched him drink for a minute. �Get out.

He laughed, shaking his head, and took a sip of whiskey. �That�s funny, he said. You telling me that from the floor like you are.

�I mean what I say. Get out.

�Look at you, Bill was saying. Will you look at yourself? He shook his head again and drank. -You stupid twat. She probably ain�t even mine.

�Mama, the girl said and pointed, you cut yourself. Your nose is cut.

And whether it was what she�d heard or the blood, the little girl began to cry.

�See what you done? Bill said, and to Amy, Come on now. Ain�t no big thing, sometimes folks argue, that�s just how it is.

�I�m telling you again, just leave.

�Then what would you do, tell me that. You can�t even fill the oil tank.

�You think I don�t know that? I sure as by God don�t need you to tell me that. Amy had begun to wail. Holding her, Jeanette felt the spread of hot moisture across her waist as the little girl released her bladder.

�For Pete�s sake, shut that kid up.

She held Amy tight against her chest.

�You�re right. She ain�t yours. She ain�t yours and never will be. You leave or I�m calling the sheriff, I swear

�Don�t you do me like this, Jean. I mean it.

�Well, I�m doing it. That�s just what I�m doing.

I see Cronin took this from the "get your dialogue from the nearest country song" school of thought!

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Jan 10, 2013

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 17:16

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

squeegee posted:

Sure, it's obvious to you and me, but a lot of people who are just starting out seem to take advice really literally. "Write dialogue that sounds like the way real people talk" is good advice at its core but it can be misleading. Good writers don't write dialogue that is identical to the way real people talk; they write dialogue that sounds like it could come from real people. There's a difference, and I think that a lot of new writers fail to realize that.

Agree 100% percent.

quote:

Open up a good book, though-- something that you really admire that has a good amount of dialogue-- and really dissect what the characters are saying.

Honestly this is what's depressing me. I'm having a really hard time finding such books lately. It seems the current climate in publishing has currently swung to selling stories based on massive mythologies/worlds/stories rather than on intriguing characters within those worlds.

I'll take any suggestions from anyone as to books they've read recently that they think have killer characters/dialogue!

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 19:31

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

People who claim to need "trigger warnings" are usually insane. :siren:

(especially if they claim so on the internet and ESPECIALLY so if they're on tumblr while doing so)

Ignore them and do your thing. I can't emphasize this enough. An author should not in any way give a second thought about offending the Internet Butthurt Brigade with his or her fiction.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2013 19:57

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

To switch gears a little, I've been reading the Ciderhouse Rules, and am just blown away by the excellent prose and characterization. If you haven't read it yet, I'd really recommend it.

At the same time though, reading it is bumming me out a little bit because it just shows the vast difference in the quality of writing between "genre" and "literary" fiction. Not that I have any interest in restarting the shitshow about THAT particular subject, but as I go through goodreads and amazon, what I notice seems to be this:

1. The more popular genre books, with few exceptions, all seem to be more or less the same crime thrillers, the latest soccer-mom-fuckfest hour, vaguely medieval dragons huzzah my lordship, or "dystopian" YA books in fantastic settings etc and so on. Those settings don't bother me as much as the fact that everyone agrees that the writing quality of such books is essentially garbage.

2. On the other hand, "literary" books mostly consist of boring fictionalized biopics or period pieces with admittedly rich interesting characters but who mostly just lie around on a basement floor and ponder the meaning of life in a small, mundane setting.

I'd like to know if any of you have any recommendations for well-written books that might also be considered "genre" in that they take place in a fantastic or interesting setting or involve some kind of adventure, but that also have complex characterization and subtext/theme/etc.

The particular genre or setting is less important to me than just being able to read something that tries to do both: interesting setting or concept combined with actually good writing and deeper characters than King Lord Fucknuts or Katniss or whatever.

I'm sure this stuff's out there but I'm having really the worst time trying to find it.

edit: as an example, the last book I read that, to me, fits the above criteria was Brave New World. Doesn't anybody write stuff like that anymore? :smith:

Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jan 22, 2013

# ¿ Jan 22, 2013 19:10

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Mr.Drf posted:

Chillmatic, you are just as guilty. If you think that literature and "genre fiction" are so separated by the quality of the writing, you haven't read enough literature. Try to remember this. For every example of something you have from a certain time period that you consider to be literary, 1000 books were written and printed that no one bothered to preserve because the quality wasn't good enough. Today, you are taking on the job that belongs to fate, or god, or time or whatever the gently caress you want to call it. The difference between this is like gold panning. Literature is the result of work people have already done, you already have the gold in that case. Look at today's fiction and you are faced with softly sifting though a thousand pans of dirt just to find a few valuable specs.

Alright Captain Aristotle, I'm sure we're all truly grateful for your clumsy attempt at saying lots of words that actually don't mean anything and took what I said wildly out of context-- but you'll notice that I put "genre" and "literary" in quotes. Everyone already knows these are nebulous concepts with overlap and that there are good and bad examples of each type.

If you could just unshart your jorts for a second, you'd be able to see that my primary concern was a disconnect between the type and scope of stories vs. the consensus regarding quality or lack thereof. I chose the words I used because they're the easiest way to make my point; but hey, don't let me keep you from being a pedantic gay baby.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 18:24

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

Scrivener is phenomenal and in my opinion easily worth the 40 bucks or however much it costs. The guy who writes it offers a free 30 day trial that isn't limited in any way, so you can decide for yourself. (I realize you said you tried the trial, but it can't have been for very long otherwise you'd have all the info you needed on it)

I'd never have gotten my book written without Scrivener and really can't recommend it enough. I didn't realize until later that all that sitting and staring at a blank Word doc was killing my ability to write and to finish writing. Scrivener lets you organize your thoughts and scenes in a cohesive fashion, giving you a nice overview of your project and the progress you've made on it.

The best thing I can say about it is that you can really arrange everything in any way you want. It doesn't try to get you to write in any certain fashion or order or anything like that. You may use it entirely differently than I would, but that's ok and the software will let you do it however you're comfortable.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2013 20:39

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

This thread's getting a bit anemic.

So how about a debate: Inciting incident-- should it go at the beginning of a novel or later on, after there's been time to get to know the setting/characters a bit?

I'm arguing with an editor right now about this; she's telling me that most stories should open with an inciting incident. But I really think only works for poo poo like detective stories or similar boring procedural crap. If you put your protagonist in danger right out the gate, the reader won't be that invested if anything actually happens to him/her, right?

Hell, it's hard for me to think of any stories offhand that straight-up open with the inciting incident, and the few times I've seen it just turn me off because it's "conflict" with no real stakes-- seeing as how I haven't read enough to care yet.

Thoughts?

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 16:27

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:04

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

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.

Yes but only if the every day world isn't mundane.

If it's yet another stupid grizzled detective story, then don't bother setting up the world because we all know what it looks like already.

If it's some kind of sci-fi fantasy thing that people haven't seen a million times (like no dragons or spaceship bullshit) then I think you can take a small bit of time addressing the physics/rules/reality of the new space you've created. But it's a short leash and you have to at least make it engaging and part of the narrative/plot.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2013 20:19

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