What are you Writing?

[belfastboy]

Reading your work aloud, even to yourself, makes you come face to face with it in harshly real ways. If you can read it aloud in public and like it then it is probably pretty damn good ... or you have a VERY healthy ego. Either way, more power to you!

The reading went well. I received positive responses. Had a 45 minutes meeting with the "Writer in Residence" at our local arts council. She read the first two chapters of my book and we met to hear her comments. She liked the writing, dialogue and character development very much. Her critique was based on pacing and wanted more detail revealed in chapter one to make it more enticing. I spoke with my wife (and muse) and we share a concern as what the critic suggests does not fit for the character. I think we shall follow our instincts and leave it as is.
On Friday I attend a local book club, all 7 members have read the book and I will attend and observe the discussion. The lead character is an old white guy and the book club all female (the story centres around the old guys affair with a teenage girl)....so we shall see if I exit unscathed!!!

 

[Benzadmiral]

Working on a puzzle-box type of story within heroic fantasy in a world where magic works . . . the hero in this case being a magician.

Finished the story last Wednesday; 5400 words. I'll submit it to my writing group this week -- in 2 parts. We have an informal rule about not submitting "more than 12 pages at any one time," which to me conflicts badly with the notion of a short story being intended to be read and evaluated at a sitting.

 

[MikeKardec]

The reading went well. I received positive responses. Had a 45 minutes meeting with the "Writer in Residence" at our local arts council. She read the first two chapters of my book and we met to hear her comments. She liked the writing, dialogue and character development very much. Her critique was based on pacing and wanted more detail revealed in chapter one to make it more enticing. I spoke with my wife (and muse) and we share a concern as what the critic suggests does not fit for the character. I think we shall follow our instincts and leave it as is.
On Friday I attend a local book club, all 7 members have read the book and I will attend and observe the discussion. The lead character is an old white guy and the book club all female (the story centres around the old guys affair with a teenage girl)....so we shall see if I exit unscathed!!!

Your writer in residence may or may not be right but the MOST important thing is to get all the way through to the end. In my opinion you never even begin to know what your story is about until you finish a draft and only then can you choose how to evaluate it. If you are finished with a draft let it settle for awhile then read it again. There is a lot to be said for getting a story rolling right away, it's a promise to you audience that you'll keep entertaining them.

The last two audio dramas I did were required by the publisher to be 180 minutes (in my opinion a bit too long for good dramatic entertainment) thus I spent time I now wish I hadn't getting those stories started. As a writer it was nice to have the time to get everything established and in place but I fear they are a bit slower than I'd like them to be!

 

[AmateisGal]

Ahhh...that's the sound of a writer who has actually gotten some writing done! I wrote a blurb for the new novel for my agent and then got lots of work done on the novel itself. Glorious!!!

 

[AmateisGal]

Y'know that giddy feeling you get when you're writing and everything is coming together? I'm in that sweet spot right now and I am LOVING it. It's usually a fleeting feeling, so I'm savoring every minute!

 

[MikeKardec]

Good to hear! I'm in that limbo where I try to organize my life again before starting something else. Cleaning up is a pain but ultimately cathartic.

 

[Formeruser012523]

Found you! Knew there was a writing thread somewhere. Not that I'm a great one, or that I've written much lately, but any day to have written at all is a good day.

 

[AmateisGal]

Found you! Knew there was a writing thread somewhere. Not that I'm a great one, or that I've written much lately, but any day to have written at all is a good day.

That's for sure. I haven't written in a few days. Have to remedy that tonight.

 

[MikeKardec]

Found you! Knew there was a writing thread somewhere. Not that I'm a great one, or that I've written much lately, but any day to have written at all is a good day.

Welcome! No need to be concerned about being good, bad or indifferent. As long as you can stare into the abyss regularly you are a total bad-ass no matter what you end up producing. We all have to be humble before the infinite. Jeeze, I'm getting all woo-woo or esoteric or something. Well, welcome nonetheless.

 

[Formeruser012523]

Welcome! No need to be concerned about being good, bad or indifferent. As long as you can stare into the abyss regularly you are a total bad-ass no matter what you end up producing. We all have to be humble before the infinite. Jeeze, I'm getting all woo-woo or esoteric or something. Well, welcome nonetheless.

Woo-woo? LOL! Is that a technical term?

 

[MikeKardec]

It is from a kid who grew up in West Hollywood in the 1960s!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Woo-woo? LOL! Is that a technical term?

Somewhere, Hugh Herbert is smiling.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Planning a new fantasy short with mystery elements, with a side dish of satire on America's current fascination with/delusion about "transitioning." I figure a fantasy story is the perfect vehicle for that.

 

[AmateisGal]

I decided last night that I needed some accountability when it comes to me working on my novel. As in, I needed to publicly declare that yes, at 7:30 p.m., I will be writing. So, I posted it on twitter and now have 11 people who are going to breathe fire down my neck if I don't get the writing done. For some reason, I'm excited to take on the challenge and actually do some work.

 

[MikeKardec]

Both you and Benz are doing better than me, I should be stockpiling blog posts for upcoming promo efforts but I'm currently having more fun wandering around in the Colorado sunshine. Theoretically I was going to do some research and model some new story structure elements on this trip but it's hard to get into.

I've long been researching and building a model of every concept I can find of story structure. It's sort of a layered vision of everything I can find an example of in literature and film as well as all those conflicting "this is what you have to do to be successful in film" or "this is what Joseph Campbell really meant" ideas. It's all slightly nonsense but I have found that it can help when I get stuck or feel something is out of whack. Every time I sense someone doing something new and different I jot it down and then eventually add it to a master document. Truly, however, if you have enough going on anybody can find whatever structure they want in your work, if they really want to. People see what they want to.

When I worked doing TV movies (a dying art but really the lowest style of film produced) we always dealt in 7 to 8 act structure and would get into laughing fits after meetings where the Executives would try to make it all fit into whatever they had learned from Syd Field or whatever numb nuts seminar they'd just been in. You had to do what they said but you didn't have to like it and if possible you'd do something to save them from themselves. I got pissed one day while a guy was telling me I didn't understand The Hero's Journey (I wasn't as up on it as I could have been but I knew more than he, my boss, did) and I started studying up, taking notes when I could, seeing what as many of the possibilities as I could find were. Following some predetermined structure isn't a convincing argument to me (so far) but having A structure (potentially of your own devising and specific to the story at hand) is really quite necessary ... it's your promise to the audience that you are not wasting their time!

Or at least that's my current theory ...

I'm not sure that coming up with abstractions about writing is a viable alternative to actual writing. I'll have to get back to something truly creative sooner or later.

 

[Benzadmiral]

About 4 pages in to another fantasy story, not the one I mentioned above -- that's not gelling yet -- but one inspired by, of all things, a Have Gun --
Will Travel episode I watched last weekend. At least one member of my writing group says that my stuff verges on the "Weird West" genre. I'm not writing stuff about Frank and Jesse James battling (or seducing!) vampires, so I don't quite get what she means. But I often find inspiration in Western novels and films, so . . .

 

[Formeruser012523]

About 4 pages in to another fantasy story, not the one I mentioned above -- that's not gelling yet -- but one inspired by, of all things, a Have Gun --
Will Travel episode I watched last weekend. At least one member of my writing group says that my stuff verges on the "Weird West" genre. I'm not writing stuff about Frank and Jesse James battling (or seducing!) vampires, so I don't quite get what she means. But I often find inspiration in Western novels and films, so . . .

I'm picturing something akin to Cowboys and Aliens. If I saw it, that is. lol

 

[Benzadmiral]

I'm picturing something akin to Cowboys and Aliens. If I saw it, that is. lol

As an experiment I converted an older story of mine into a true Western set in post-Civil War Colorado. I've sent it to an online anthology; we'll see what happens. I had fun with it in any case.

 

[MikeKardec]

About 4 pages in to another fantasy story, not the one I mentioned above -- that's not gelling yet -- but one inspired by, of all things, a Have Gun --
Will Travel episode I watched last weekend. At least one member of my writing group says that my stuff verges on the "Weird West" genre. I'm not writing stuff about Frank and Jesse James battling (or seducing!) vampires, so I don't quite get what she means. But I often find inspiration in Western novels and films, so . . .

I really like the Weird West thing ... and the west is pretty weird in reality. When working on that Series bible I quoted a bit of earlier I ran into some VERY strange stories while talking to police officers. They are incredibly reticent to discuss supernatural stuff but they have often experienced a bit of it.

In this case I read the case files pertaining to a apartment house in a certain small town in Utah, a place where a certain unit had had 7 scissor stabbings in 10 years. All different people, and none known to one and other. Coincidence? There was also a case where a known and very violent criminal confessed to nearly every crime in his career because he was scared he had become possessed while digging Anasazi graves for illegal artifacts ... a federal crime but not as serious as many he confessed to.

I could go on but the point is that if you pry off the Saturday afternoon matinee blather, the west is pretty damn weird!

 

[Formeruser012523]

As an experiment I converted an older story of mine into a true Western set in post-Civil War Colorado. I've sent it to an online anthology; we'll see what happens. I had fun with it in any case.

As long as you had fun.