John Burridge: writing rules

Showing posts with label writing rules. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Weekend Update

Friday I was in a Reddit interview, an AMA or "Ask Me Anything" about leading critique groups. I've never used Reddit before, because it seemed like one more internet distraction, although I know some writers who use it for research, networking, and fun. Reddit brought me back to my USENET days. It was interesting and retro at the same time. I'd say it was successful. I'm not sure how many lurkers there were; most of the questions came from about the same four people.

This weekend was generally laid back. I had a bad headache Saturday. Mark thinks I should keep a headache journal. I'm going to guess that this one was a combination of sitting at a computer funny, sleeping funny, and not working out since Wednesday (or was that Tuesday?)

Sunday the sun came out and I was tired. I decided that I'd spend a minimum of time on electronic things and read. So I chose a book in the stack I have from the library and read Orson Scott Card's "Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction," wherein I re-discovered the MICE (Milieu, Idea, Character, Event) Quotient (I'd first heard this concept at an OryCon panel with Mary Robinette Kowal and David Lavine, and I'd forgotten that OSC wrote about it in 1990).

True Confession Time: The rest of the family has been playing Clash of Clans, so I finally took the plunge and started, too. I wish there was a web-interface for it so I could play on a large screen instead of a mobile, but it's a mobile-based game. And... gee, it's built to be a time-sink.

Workout: Monday I did 180 calories in 14 minutes, with a cruising speed of about 720 cal / hour. I think I've pulled something in my right arm just below my elbow. No reverse barbell lifts for me (not that I do them). Mostly I do a lot of the free weights in the ten to fifteen pound range, so I think it's nothing serious. I suspect that I might have pulled something when I was doing the row machine, and I'll have to be careful to build up to those moments where I'm at 1100 cla / hour instead of plunging into them.

Writing: I've been plugging away at a fantasy story for Sword and Sorceress. Considering the reading period opens in a few days, I need to get a move on it. I've been revisiting other pieces as well. I should add critique of three pieces, and an evaluation of a jury piece set.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Summary of Forster's "Aspects"

I read that in the 70's Ursula K Le Guin had read EM Forster's"Aspects of the Novel" and that is was her go-to resource whenwriting.

Having just finished it, I think A) Forster read a lot of non-Science Fiction (it was 1927), and B) this isn't a "how to" manual.

I wish he had spoken more about HG Wells or Frankenstein, because I would have liked to see more examples of applying "Aspects" to science fiction novels. What was useful about "Aspects" is that Forster is always returning to the relationship between the novel and the reader, and the demands each make on the other.

The last three aspects Forster writes about (see summary below) wereparticularly vague, and Forster is using the terms prophecy, pattern, and rhythm in idiosyncratic ways. In a conversation I'm having, someone has said that rhythm (and prophecy and pattern) are British and particularly Fosterian ways of approaching the (Science Fiction) novel.

The Aspects of the Novel Are:

Story
Curiosity: "And then?"
Sense of time
Sense of space
Story voice: for the eye, for the ear?
People
human feeling and a sense of values

Surprising -> Round character
     Convincing -> Round character
Plot
"Why?"
     Intelligence -> Mystery
Memory
Fantasy
         things which are not and implying the supernatural

mixing the ordinary and the extraordinary
Prophecy
"Prophecy - in our sense - is a tone of voice."

Universal themes
Requires the reader's
Humility

Suspension of the Sense of Humor
Pattern
The shape of the story, plot, and characters.
Rhythm
The gestalt expression of the novel which

releases or liberates it.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Forster and Fantasy

Working Out: Friday I did 125 calories in about 15 minutes on the rowing machine, followed by my regular array of cross-wire lunges, dumbbell lifts, lat pull-downs, triceps pulls, and suspended curl-ups. I felt the lunges Saturday where my shoulders connect to my pectorals.

Writing Theory: Some folks looked at my latest science fiction story. It was warmly received, with the comment that the plot needed to be stronger, and that it's currently a one-character story. Since the plot isn't a self-vs-self plot, it might be helpful to make some of the other characters more three-dimensional, or "round" as E.M. Forster would say.

Speaking of Forster, I've been making my way through "Aspects of the Novel." The aspects are story, character, plot, fantasy, prophesy, pattern, and rhythm. I'm enjoying the bon mots scattered throughout the essay. I've just gotten to the fantasy section, and as near as I can tell, what we call "the speculative element" is what he's calling fantasy. I'm hoping that he'll use H.G. Wells as an example of what he's talking about--he's not talking about science fiction much since this is a collection of talks given around 1920--but at the moment he keeps referencing authors like Thomas Hardy or Charles Dickens and currently he's talking about "Ulysses."

It's been useful to see his formulation of what a novel is, and in terms of the story I just turned in, I think he'd say that it has focused on the character of my protagonist at the expense of the plot.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Writer Thou Shalt Nots

One of the conversations that came up during the Clarion Day Workshop was how critique groups sometimes become rule-based, and they start to develop lists of Things A Writer Shouldn't Do. A writer shouldn't use flashbacks because it slows the plot and confuses the reader. A writer shouldn't start a story with dialogue.

This is incomplete advice which leads to auto-pilot critique and writing. The complete advice is There Are Things A Writer Shouldn't Do Poorly. For example, poor flashback use will confuse a reader, but skillful use of it will make a story work.

The take-away reminder is that a skillful writer can break the rules.

Another gem of advice that I was reminded about was how good writing is like walking on a narrow plank. My personal plank is the details plank: fall off it one way, and the story is buried what I call Tolkien Sclerosis; fall off the other way and the reader can't see the scene on the page or gets confused because the writer has assumed knowledge on the reader's part. One other dichotomy was when to use internal exposition verses character dialog to bring a reader up to speed about the story's situation. Go too far one way, and the characters are having flashbacks in the middle of sword fights; go to far the other way and the characters are having "as you know, Bob" dialog.