Torture!!

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by dworth

"If in doubt, add more spaceships and explosions"

-Me

My son would appreciate your writing. Especially if you have vampires and/or werewolves in there.

[dworth]

No vampires or werewolves. Some sort-of zombies though.

[bigjantailor]

My favority writing quote is from Tom Robins and I can never remember it right but here goes... ok, I look it up somewhere.

"I am looking for the novelist who writing is an extension of their intellect, and not their neurosis.’ From Tom Robbins book Fierce Invalids from Hot Climates.

I have writen one book from my neurosis, it's not bad if you like crazy but better I could do.

And usually, I have very good idea where the story is going but I just recently wrote a short story that has all the making for a good crime novel. I might try driving down that road with one head light.

When I writs explosions they end up duds and the spaceships alway look like the thing 'Steely Dan' is name after.

Have fun, Jan

[fidvo]

English has advantages and disadvantages, not surprising given its history.

It began as a Germanic language, specifically a Danish dialect. Then when the Normans conquered England, they infused it with a tremendous Latin influence, specifically a dialect of French. With this juxtaposition of two major Indo-European language groups, not to mention a host of other influences and a culture of pride in expanding the language, what you end up with is a very rich tongue.

It is well suited to prose, poetry, even music. This is because there are always at least two ways of saying anything, and usually quite a few more. So if you write something and don't like the way it sounds, you can always go back and change the words without changing the meaning.

Other languages, such as Spanish or Italian, are more lyrical and thus more suited to poetry and music. But they can't match English in flexibility.

Its greatest strength is, of course, also its greatest weakness. Because it's so rich, it is difficult to master the language, and there are so many subtle nuances and connotations that you have to take great care to not accidentally say something wrong. Even if you communicate your message, you still might end up doing it in such a way that people mistake the tone or style, often leaving you looking like an idiot that can't write. It happens to everybody once in a while, even those of us who have been speaking it all our lives.

[frahse]

I saw this a couple of weeks ago, paused thinking of the metaphor and now I am back

quoting - VydorScope ------------------------------------------------
...
"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." -E. L. Doctorow

The second one I fully agree with, btw.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

quoting - MidnightBlue ----------------------------------------------------
I don't understand the Doctoror quote, it makes no sense to me. A reader is limited in that they can only see what is ahead of them, the writer has no such limitation
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I read the metaphor to mean something like this:

You might have a map. You might have a gps. You might know the area. You have a tank of fuel. You have your headlights. You have a thermos.
You get into your car with a destination in mind.

Then the night turns dark and stormy. The roads are flooded, the bridges are washed out, the hills slide onto the roads, ..., signs are blown away.

You just hope the headlights and the thermos last the journey to safety.

[Belfaborac]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I would've thought that was writing in German. Or maybe writing English translated from German.

It's neither. In fact, it's not reading-related at all. The correct answer is: watching a Clint Eastwood movie dubbed to German.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

LMB said: Challenge the characters near the point of breakdown and see how they come out of it.

As you are inviting correction, the use of "since" in your signature is incorrect. Since has to do with time. The correct word is "as".

This is a common grammatical error nowadays. Along with using may when they mean might, and which when they mean that. Or vice versa.

English grammar has convoluted rules peppered with exceptions.

"As I am not a native..."