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Sat Dec 09, 2006 12:02 am
Caligula's Launderette says...



It has been a very long time since your friendly neighborhood neurologist had anything to say here in Squills, so I thought I'd get on my soap box again in Speakers Corner and make myself known for just awhile.

1. SENSES

Be sure to think of all the five senses when you write, and try not to rely heavily on just one. As my best friend Skids once wrote in the margin of a draft of mine: There is more to life than sight.

2. DESCRIPTION

Try to be as original and dense in description as you can. The more original your description of something is, the more interesting it becomes. You could say that the lemon was sour, or that the lemon was so tart her face puckered up harshly.

3. DIALOGUE

I think Sam mentioned something on this before. Everyone has different speech patterns, different crutch words, or words they use frequently. So why not your characters? Get to know them, and incorporate their idiosyncracies into their dialogue.

4. CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

We talk a lot about common ground in english classes when writing papers. If you don't have a something that your audience can connect to, then they will lose interest or find your piece outlandish.

Example: I went to a play at our local theater, it was character based around two couples. There was a lot of yelling, calling names, and other similar things in it. One lady said that she could not take the play seriously because 'No one does that', besides thinking of her as a Brady child, it made me realize that because of that she could not connect with the piece. So building common ground is really vital. One person who is particularly excellent at common ground is Martin Luther King Jr., i.e. The Letter from Birmingham Jail.

5. THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

Ari once told me: You're always very good at the whole "I'm going to drop you in the middle of a story and not explain what's going on until later" thing, which is so dang spiffy.

Resist the urge to explain everything.

Lawrence Block says "Don't begin at the beginning." In other words begin in medias res, in the middle of things. If you reader knew everything at the beginning, they wouldn't need a whole book.

Starting things in the middle of a situation also brings in suspense into the fray. Many authors have this urge to explain the protagonist's background, education, characteristics, thinking that the reader will not understand without knowing everything about them. This is not the best way to go about things, leave things out to be explained later, and we will thank you for it.

6. GET TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS BETTER GAME

This is just a little word association game I picked up. Describe your characters in one...

Word
Color
Fear
Dream
Hope
Goal
Growth
Piece of Clothing
Food
Sense
Expression

7. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

Ever find yourself stuck when you are writing? You have Situation A and Situation C planned and executed to the nines, but where oh where is Situation B - and thus a potential chunck of your story is missing.

First, descide whether a B is necessary.

Second, figure in the time between A, B, and C.

Third, utilize flashbacks and dream sequences.

Fourth, don't get too glued to B, if you cannot figure out what to put there you can always come back to it later.

8. JUST A FRIENDLY LESSON FROM YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD NEUROLOGIST

The human brain needs to name something before it becomes real. The idea is that before something is named, it doesn’t really exist because either our awareness of it is too dim to understand it, or, we haven’t noticed it yet, subsequently it might as well not be there.

The important thing being that once named an object can then exist to someone who hasn’t actually seen it. This is why the numerous varieties of fiction work.

So your mission, if you choose to except it is to surplant images, feelings, objects into the minds of your readers, and keep them entranced.
Fraser: Stop stealing the blanket.
[Diefenbaker whines]
Fraser: You're an Arctic Wolf, for God's sake.
(Due South)

Hatter: Do I need a reason to help a pretty girl in a very wet dress? (Alice)

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Sat Dec 09, 2006 12:32 am
Revere says...



Thanks for the tips, CL, they are really helpful. I'll be sure to try and use them for my story I'm working on. 8)
"[Maybe] If they don't light it, it can never go out."
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Sat Dec 09, 2006 11:57 pm
Firestarter says...



Good, solid tips here.

*must remember the senses one*
Nate wrote:And if YWS ever does become a company, Jack will be the President of European Operations. In fact, I'm just going to call him that anyways.
  





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Sun Dec 10, 2006 6:09 am
Sam says...



I like the description one especially...die, clichès! Descriptions don't really have to make sense, they just have to trigger something in your reader's brain that says, "Oh, yeah..."

That didn't make any sense, did it?

And hehe, yeah, CL, that's my mantra. :P
Graffiti is the most passionate form of literature there is.

- Demetri Martin
  





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Sun Dec 10, 2006 6:44 pm
Caligula's Launderette says...



It totally made sense, Sam. :wink:
Fraser: Stop stealing the blanket.
[Diefenbaker whines]
Fraser: You're an Arctic Wolf, for God's sake.
(Due South)

Hatter: Do I need a reason to help a pretty girl in a very wet dress? (Alice)

Got YWS?
  





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Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:19 pm
Snoink says...



Haha... yeah. I've been editing FREAK, and for the most part, I've been incorporating all the senses, but there was this one chapter that stuck out that didn't do this... I'll have to edit it later.

But be careful about using flashbacks or dream sequences. Often, these scenes are even worse than they could be since the writer ALWAYS seems to put them in italics. You don't hvae to do this. In fact, mentioning it in an off-hand way is also acceptable.

*deep breath*

So yeah. Fun stuff again!
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

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