Welcome to the chain gang!
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Originally Posted by Nabeel
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Crich and several others among you have recommended various structure-enhancing devices. I appreciate the advice, but I find I'm just not thinking along those lines. This idea of a type of spatial representation of narrative just doesn't make sense to me. Instead, I find I'm thinking in terms of several snapshots, or perhaps video clips, in a line. I need to get the right clips, and I need to get them in the right order. The nearest I come to a structure is just sorting them out, scene by scene.
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I don't feel a natural affinity to the structured approach, either. I will generally get hit "out of the blue" with the ending of a story. Next, I have to figure out how it opens. And then I have to fill in all the scenes in between. Usually, they don't arrive in their proper order, either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nabeel
I find I'm reluctant to write dialogue, and this is something that the creative writing tutor has picked me up on. I prefer paraphrase, with a few key exchanges in 'real' dialogue. Is this important?
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Personally, I think so. You might be able to get away without much actual dialog if you present the story as a narration -- say, a storyteller entertaining a group around a campfire. It could work as a short story, but it would get tiresome for a reader to get too many of those.
I find that stories with dialog do a better job of putting me, as a reader, into the story.
Writing dialog did not (and really still does not) come naturally to me. But I hope I've gotten better with practice.
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Originally Posted by Nabeel
I'm finding the descriptive element relatively easy. Basically, I don't bother with the 'he was tall man with brown hair and a square jaw' stuff. I find it boring to read, so I don't bother writing it. But more interesting is giving the reader some details of physical location without making it sound like an architectural survey.
I'm consciously experimenting with styles: one story in the first person, one in the present tense.
More-or-less as an exercise, I'm going to try writing a series of short stories round the theme of 'lost'.
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Good ideas!
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Originally Posted by Nabeel
I'm sending these out to friends, and I'm lucky enough to have a couple of literature lecturer collegues: I am pestering them for opinions. One problem is that while - so far - everyone has been extremely positive, they make different suggestions about improvements and revisions. I guess I'll just have to think for myself.
I'm still not sure where to go with this. Maybe it's just an interesting hobby. Maybe I'll upload the package onto Smashwords, and wait for something to happen. Maybe I'll really work on these and approach an agent. At the moment I don't know.
But it is fun!
N.
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Yeah, you're hooked.
