There's a spider somewhere on my chair. It's one of those tiny ones that's really fast and I can barely get a look at it much less catch it, darned thing. Gah. *eye twitch* *tries to write without thinking about tiny, speedy, spiders*
Thank you nightmare fuel.
*thinks of nanotech spiders*
THANK YOU NIGHTMARE FUEL.
Sounds like a Sissyfus prompt to me
No muse, this is not food THIS IS NOT FOOD
too late
- I want to copy everything and tweak it to my likey! The last three books and the movie I watched--all of them had so much wasted potential, imo. As I brainstorm for new projects, I've literally been contemplating how much outright copying is acceptable, (heehee
) but more importantly, what kernel of the story, exactly, it is that tugs at me so much. A tricky thing to identify. But as I let my brain run thorough analytics on all the media I take in, it makes me realize just what kleptomaniacs we writers are.
RIGHT? Whenever I watch or read something, one of two things happen.
- I love it so much that my muse goes THAT'S AWESOME I WANT TO DO THAT TOO so then I make it my life's ambition to improve my craft to the point that I can pull off the same thing.
- Something (or many things) about it annoy(s) me, and I can't relax until I've figured out WHY the story felt wrong and bad to me. Alternately, I read/watch, and I can only think, "I would have done this differently." After that, I make it my life's ambition to DO IT RIGHT.
Like, I recently read this short story that just...annoyed me. It was well-written, but something about it made my brain scream WAIT WHAT THAT'S LAME...THAT'S NOT EVEN A STORY. Then I realized why it annoyed me - it was because not only was the story entirely passive, meaning the character did nothing to change either their circumstances or themself, but they also didn't appear to want anything, and they didn't even think through things and come to a realization. Like, there are plenty of flash stories where the characters don't take action as such, and the world is in the same state before and after, but there is still some kind of twist that comes of them putting two and two together and realizing something, or changing what they want. No spoilers, but in the story I'm talking about, they didn't try to change the odd thing that was happening, they didn't wonder about it, and they just...sat there, basically. Immediately after, my brain was just screaming, COME ON, GIVE ME
SOMETHING and then I proceeded to think about how I would have either had the character try to change their circumstances, or I would have put the thing that happened at the beginning and had them react to it, or had them realize why this was happening to them.
Anyway. So many stories were born in this way, because I was too annoyed to let it go, and I could never resist questioning things that were stupid and
just go with it like people told me to do. XD
Writers. We can't resist picking apart the world.
- I read the first chapter of writing craft book, literally minutes before my sister started reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe aloud (for the babzillianth time) to our youngest sister. Good grief, Lewis made every mistake outlined in that chapter, even worse than their example descriptions. The chapter was on show vr. tell, explaining the different areas tell can creep in and how sometimes tell is actually better. I know Lewis's style is sorely dated and wouldn't be as successful now, but my brain can't stop going over what made that book a classic and how it might be written today and wether that would be better (I mean, how could it be? His nosey omni narrative is just so charming.)
Honestly, I don't understand craft books, because good writing is hard to define. I read a lot of stuff that I find charming, because the old style doesn't bother me, but there are a lot of people who can't read certain things because they can't get past the style.
I mean. Yeah, sure, C. S. Lewis may do a lot of stuff that craft books call mistakes, but I love those books! Despite the "mistakes," the writing is just GOOD, I think, because the story grabs me. It's the same reason I will never be too old to reread A Little Princess or The Secret Garden - I only wish I could be a good enough writer eventually to imbue my words with the same sort of magic I feel every time I read those stories. You just can't teach that.
I feel like you can learn all the craft you want, but in the end, YOU have to choose an approach, and pull it off. There are people who will try to do everything the craft book says, but I will find their writing bland and uninteresting, because it just doesn't grab me...it will feel like there is just no art or passion behind their words. Then there are people who will do everything right, and the story will be good, because they polished it with a loving spit shine. Then there are people who will just fling spaghetti at the walls, and break every rule, and it will be terrible. And then there is my favorite, the people who DO break the rules, and do so fantastically, and somehow manage to pull it off, and there is magic in every sentence. ^_^
I feel like the reason is that every person's brain is different. Standards will always change - I mean, novel writing is a relatively new art, so of course people are still fumbling around exploring it - but people's brains are different. One person likes brevity with an open feel. One person likes deep worldbuilding. One person likes a visceral, rapid feel. Another person likes dense words packed so thick with meaning that they can just jump into the novel and get lost in the story time after time after time. So in the end, we really just have to keep doing what we do, whatever is best for the story, picking apart what
doesn't work, and keep improving that.
In the beginning, the rules are there to help you learn.
Later on, the rules are there so you learn how to break them.
