General Chat

LOLOL I just went down to iron Dans kickboxing outfit...The Simpsons was on and Marj was writing a book.. :))

BC , no with me it has always had to be 'love' not 'very fond of' ;)

xx

I suppose it depends BC whether you are writing for your own enjoyment when you don't need to adhere to rules, for us, when we are fairly lenient, or for publication when we have to obey some rules.

and, speaking for myself, I just don't want to get bogged down with too many rules and exercises. Sometimes it stems the flow. Like Rose, I have no problem writing about anything...I just don't want it to go on and on...lol..

Rose, can you not be just 'very fond of?' or does it have to be in love.....lol...

I know what you mean daff.

My problem is that all the themes I come up with I think about and realise that they have been done before. I do seem to be better if given a prod with a seed. Although the seed I have written from this week I have molded to an idea I already had. trouble is, it is longer than a short story but I can't see it being a novel!

Maybe you need to look at the short pieces and try to find out what it is about them that you have fallen in love with? Is it the story, the feeling or experience behind the story... or the very brevity of it?

It might be that you are a modern day Aesop, or Hans Christian Anderson..... Tales of the Unexpected, etc.....

I love books of short stories, myself... but I think they go in and out of fashion.

I like books where individual characters have a chapter or so dedicated to them, and then all tied up at the end in a short finale where the connections are and significance is made clear... the events leading up to... that always holds me, because it is like a series of mini biographies, and eventually part of a whole.

Love

Daff xxx

Daff xxx

repetition.... and my sentence is gobbeldygook... but if I change it again, I won't know what I was on about, lolol!!

What I would really like to know is this... so far although i have always written quite a lot, I haven't found a 'story' that I want to see through to the end, one that grips me so much it 'has' to be told..other than a few shortish pieces.....

Rule 54

Fall in love

"before embarking on any substantial writing prject ask yourself this "am I in Love?"

because if you're not in love with your subject you wiill have a very hard time seing it through to completion"

why is it I am not falling in love lol, except for short pieces....

Edit.... that last line is pretty damn close to the truth lol

It is the title Daff, by Robert Masello ( my library has a good choice I must say!) , the one by Maeve Binchy was very encouraging. the other one is a step by step ...more technical with exercises. I'm not sure that it's the best...but it does have one sentence that sums it up ....."Write first, panic afterwards" lol

xx

Thanks, TW.... I'll go and browse Amazon, now.....

Love

Daff xxxx

Teresa, if you only had to choose one of those books, which would you choose?

Daff, I can heartily recommend two.

On Writing by Stephen King

and

Writing from Life, by Lynne Hackles.

The first is a real inspiration and a glimpse into the writers mind, with a 'no holds barred' stream of advice for aspiring writers. It really got me going.

The second is a book well worth reading, but you will need a large notebook. There are exercises in it, and you will be scribbling away, guaranteed. Lynne Hackles takes you on a journey through your own life and experiences and shows you how to find ideas and inspiration from it. Good for fiction and non fiction writers alike.

Thats a very good point Rose, but *clings to Thesaurus*, I really only use it when I find a repetition, or should I say, when BC finds one, and then I only try to find the best alternative while I decide which one to change.

Writing though, isn't a vocabulary exercise, it should be readable. If there are a lot of long, convoluted words that send a reader running for the dictionary every other paragraph, you're not going to keep your reader interested to the end of the piece.

Of course, if you're writing an academic article for a university paper, thats a different matter entirely, but I am speaking of fiction and general non-fiction aimed at a wider readership.

*scratches Thesaurus from shopping list*

I have always hated them, anyway.... I never seem to find just the right word to convey what I want to say, and feel...

Rose, is that the title of a book? This Robert appears to be a man after my own wordy heart, lol...

Whilst we are on the subject of books.... well, loosely... are there any that people recommend over others?

Love

Daff xxxx

I'm reading "Robert's Rules of writing 101 unconventional lessons every writer needs to know" and it is very interesting,

this struck me as it is pretty much what my old tutor used to say..

"throw out your thesaurus*

" Each time you pick up a thesaurus ..to search for a bigger, better or more impressive word ...you've muddied the waters. In to the clear running stream of your prose , you've introduced a foreign agent. nothing sticks out in a piece of prose like the words you've plucked from those long lists of synonyms each more obscure than its predessessor....they aren't words that come readily to your mind or rest comfortably in your working vocabulary"

"The voice you write in is the voice your reader heas and ideally, grows to trust"

There's no real word curfew Daff, because of the variety of the TYPE of work we write, with some short stories, some chapters from a book, some poetry, and the set pieces.

It's nice to keep to around 500 to 1000 words for set peices, just so we don't spend too much time doing what is basically a fun exercise. (yes it is mau! lol), but even so, when something writes itself, who cares about the word length among ourselves.

But, if you're struggling not to be wordy, or with known mistakes, like we all are, we'll soon help you learn to correct it, so don't worry.

Lol!

Well.... just in case a word curfew is declared, I am using them all up, quickly... you never know, lolol! Erm...laughs out loud!! Twice, ;¬))

Love

Daff xxx

You could get round that by, every time you think 'Lol' you put laughing out loud (3 words!)

Why am I not surprised at the activity on the thread. BC, I was trying to think how to put it Lol!!!