Young Writers Society

Evening squires.

I should first of all note that I have a journal in a notebook somewhere in this mess of a room, but the problem there is that all I can do is ask rhetorical questions that I, in all likelihood, will not find answers to.

I need to hear what people outside of my head think. And these are very specific problems that none of the books they tell me to read have answers for.

First of all, here is the very basic outline for the novel I'm working on:

Prose-ac (working title) is the story of Miles and Zoe, although it isn’t the same story. The part that concerns Miles is told through his own journal entries, as he struggles as a novelist who has come to hate everything he writes, while the part that concerns Zoe is an account of her life after leaving Miles to play in an orchestra in Melbourne. However, it is not really what happens after she leaves him, but is in fact the story that Miles tells himself to feel better about being alone. Outside of the writing that has seen him receive a certain amount of acclaim in the literary world, Miles keeps a secret work that is a conscious delusion of what he imagines Zoe’s life is like without him. In it, she has wonderful experiences, but at the end of it all she keeps winding up just as sad as he is, and this is the best way Miles has of dealing with the loss of the most important person in his life. (Thus the title: prose is like a medication for him.)

I admit that I am rather fond of this idea, and I hope to make something substantial out of it. But there are some very fundamental problems. Ones that I, as the writer, cannot answer without input from readers.

The first is voice and style. In a lecture today someone said that it isn't enough to have a great story, you need a great style. I wrote chapter one the other day, in which Zoe arrives at her new place in Melbourne and essentially just reflects on a number of things, like change, Miles, goals, music and whatever else. Now, the whole thing lacked any distinct style and was, it turns out, kind of uninteresting for anyone that hadn't read my plot outline. But what if the style I want is lackluster and one-dimensional? I mean, at the end of the book Miles critiques himself and his writing of Zoe, at which point I want him to be able to say that his writing is plain bad. But in order for this to happen, I need the reader to think that I'm the one doing the bad writing. I can't think of a way around it.

Distilled down to one sentence, I need to write badly for the sake of a good story. Readers may like what I've done when they get to the end, but what if they give up before they get there.

This is my main concern for the moment. There are others, which may come up later in this topic, but for now I just want some input on my current issue. Just what you would think reading such a book is enough of a reply.

Thanks for any help you can give.

-O

Ahh, I understand.

That does sound like an incredible story and I would love to read it if it came out. But then there is the problem of the lack-luster writing.

What I believe is that, you should keep with the lack-luster writing because that would give it some great irony, but I believe you have to keep their attention by adding multiple plot-lines within the writing so that their isn't just one that they get bored of with the horrid writing. They don't have to be big plot-lines, just simple ones that keeps the writes interest.

That is just my oppinion. I think that adds dimension to your story which overall makes it a good story. I am a reader who looks at the plot-lines more than the contex that it is under. I do not really care about how well the writing is unless it unbearablly horrid.

~Incognito

I think I'm gonna have to read this whenever you're ready to post it. Pm me when you do so.