Are You Writing Serious Fantasy? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Nar · 08-05-2002, 06:56 PM

Hey, Melephelwyn, you're reading the thread? Wow, thanks. I agree with you about descriptions getting dangerously long and stopping the story cold-- but it's such a temptation when you see it so clearly-- the only solution is to write it out of your system and cut afterwards. Another problem is beginnings-- I just came back from a writer workshop, and we kept telling the writers their stories really began 2 or 3 pages in, once they'd written their way into the situation and the plot got going. It's amazing how much background you can dispense with if you try! Jump into the middle, that's what we kept telling people. Endings, too ... there was one author there (published) who said he'd written an extra hundred pages on his novel before someone told him it was done, right there, so many pages ago. However, he said he HAD to write those extra hundred pages for the ending to be right-- he had to be expecting to write more at that point or he'd have messed the ending up. Whoa. I'm only on page 30.

As far as writing modes, I use all kinds, longhand, computer, including longhand-left-handed-backwards (I'm right handed). That was originally an experiment in my journal: I spent a summer travelling around and writing about all those strange sights right handed forwards from the front of my journal and left handed backwards from the back to see if I saw things differently when writing from different hands-- you know, I did. I saw shapes more clearly with the pen in my left hand but I couldn't draw them, my left hand's too shaky. The biggest difference was that left handed backwards I couldn't read what I wrote, couldn't edit it, was writing into a very safe quiet no-critic, no-edit space. I still use it when I'm blocked and want to do wild and deep thinking. Then I can't read it! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] I have to go find a hand mirror to read out where the back of my mind thinks my story should go!

08-05-2002, 06:56 PM	#11
Nar Wight Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 228	Hey, Melephelwyn, you're reading the thread? Wow, thanks. I agree with you about descriptions getting dangerously long and stopping the story cold-- but it's such a temptation when you see it so clearly-- the only solution is to write it out of your system and cut afterwards. Another problem is beginnings-- I just came back from a writer workshop, and we kept telling the writers their stories really began 2 or 3 pages in, once they'd written their way into the situation and the plot got going. It's amazing how much background you can dispense with if you try! Jump into the middle, that's what we kept telling people. Endings, too ... there was one author there (published) who said he'd written an extra hundred pages on his novel before someone told him it was done, right there, so many pages ago. However, he said he HAD to write those extra hundred pages for the ending to be right-- he had to be expecting to write more at that point or he'd have messed the ending up. Whoa. I'm only on page 30. As far as writing modes, I use all kinds, longhand, computer, including longhand-left-handed-backwards (I'm right handed). That was originally an experiment in my journal: I spent a summer travelling around and writing about all those strange sights right handed forwards from the front of my journal and left handed backwards from the back to see if I saw things differently when writing from different hands-- you know, I did. I saw shapes more clearly with the pen in my left hand but I couldn't draw them, my left hand's too shaky. The biggest difference was that left handed backwards I couldn't read what I wrote, couldn't edit it, was writing into a very safe quiet no-critic, no-edit space. I still use it when I'm blocked and want to do wild and deep thinking. Then I can't read it! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] I have to go find a hand mirror to read out where the back of my mind thinks my story should go!