The Ten Things Meme
28/3/06 08:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madrobinsAbout Writing
* It is not glamorous.
* First drafts are, for me at least, often notes to myself about how the story is supposed to go. Re-reading, I have to work hard with both hands not to run screaming in despair, but simply take the notes and flesh them out.
* The right word can change the weight and texture of a sentence or a scene.
* On the other hand, getting too wacky creative with language just gets, um, wacky
* I don't like reading books on writing. I don't like reading books about other writers' experience of writing. I suspect this is because even when such a book is not prescriptive, it feels so to me, and I wind up feeling preached at and irritated. Life too short. On the other hand, I very much enjoy the sort of discussion on writing that goes on face-to-face or on LJ or elsewhere on line, and I rarely feel preached at there.
* When it's going well, it's more fun than anything. Yes, including sex and champagne. It's gorgeous.
* When it's going badly, it's like wading through room temperature oatmeal or library paste. See above about glamor.
* There is no one right way to write. What's more, for me each story or book has its own way, not necessarily the way I wrote the last one. An enormous amount of energy goes into deciperhing what that way is for a particular project, and sometimes inventing a new way to go with the project. Infuriating.
* You can't love your characters more than God would; that way lies Mary Sue. You also can't pile more shit on your characters than fortune would. It takes a real balancing act, deciding how much trouble to give a character. Because while a reader may relate to it's all too much to bear if you torture a character too much it can merely piss off the reader.
* 95% of all research should be in your head and not on the page. Even with wholly constructed worlds. If I'm writing a story set in 2006, I don't have to explain what Coca Cola is; if I stop things by explaining that it's a brown, sugary carbonated drink, it stops things. Define by context: if I drink a cup of Bohea, the reader may not be dead certain that Bohea is black China tea, but the reader does know it's a beverage, and that's all it needs.
* It is not glamorous.
* First drafts are, for me at least, often notes to myself about how the story is supposed to go. Re-reading, I have to work hard with both hands not to run screaming in despair, but simply take the notes and flesh them out.
* The right word can change the weight and texture of a sentence or a scene.
* On the other hand, getting too wacky creative with language just gets, um, wacky
* I don't like reading books on writing. I don't like reading books about other writers' experience of writing. I suspect this is because even when such a book is not prescriptive, it feels so to me, and I wind up feeling preached at and irritated. Life too short. On the other hand, I very much enjoy the sort of discussion on writing that goes on face-to-face or on LJ or elsewhere on line, and I rarely feel preached at there.
* When it's going well, it's more fun than anything. Yes, including sex and champagne. It's gorgeous.
* When it's going badly, it's like wading through room temperature oatmeal or library paste. See above about glamor.
* There is no one right way to write. What's more, for me each story or book has its own way, not necessarily the way I wrote the last one. An enormous amount of energy goes into deciperhing what that way is for a particular project, and sometimes inventing a new way to go with the project. Infuriating.
* You can't love your characters more than God would; that way lies Mary Sue. You also can't pile more shit on your characters than fortune would. It takes a real balancing act, deciding how much trouble to give a character. Because while a reader may relate to it's all too much to bear if you torture a character too much it can merely piss off the reader.
* 95% of all research should be in your head and not on the page. Even with wholly constructed worlds. If I'm writing a story set in 2006, I don't have to explain what Coca Cola is; if I stop things by explaining that it's a brown, sugary carbonated drink, it stops things. Define by context: if I drink a cup of Bohea, the reader may not be dead certain that Bohea is black China tea, but the reader does know it's a beverage, and that's all it needs.