General Chat

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!!

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!

I know what you mean daff.

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

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..

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.

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

Ann, everything HAS been done before, in the sense of most stories are re-workings on themes, every romance is a 'Romeo and Juliet/Pride and Prejudice/ Anna Karenina' etc in the way it develops.......but the 'world' the writer creates for the characters is uniquely their own ?

xx

I read once that there are only 7 basic story plots.... so yep, it's all been done before.... but each of us has our own spin....

I mean.... there are only 26 letters in the alphabet... but just look how many words we can make... and how many different meanings and emotions we can convey with them!!

Love

Daff xxx

If you google the seven basic plots, you'll find them and see what they are.

There are no new ideas, they've all be done before, but it's how you apply that idea to the written word, how you dress the plot (which is NOT the idea), and the characters.

Rose, I would suggest you are not in love with the stories because you have not got to know your characters first. Maybe you need to build a character profile, with their personality traits and foibles first. Then let the characters write the story. Perhaps you're planning the story too much.

I tend to place them all in a scene at the beginning, have an idea of the end, and let them write the middle bit themselves, with no planning from me.

Ann, I think both books are excellent, and serve two very different purposes, and I would strongly recomment Writing From Life, for you, as you will find lots of inspiration and how to bring an idea from the first 'hmmmm' to a plot containing that idea.

But for Daff, I would recommend On Writing first. I used to feel so intimidated by the accomplished writers, I never thought I could be that good. Reading that book, by the writer I was most intimidated by, taught me that their first draft is probably as rubbish as any of mine, and it has to be altered, edited, re-written and re-worked over and over until it's right.

So if you feel there's a shortfall in a story, just add a bit, or take a bit out that might not really be necessary. Alter it to make it work. You wont get it perfectly right first time, or second time, or even third time probably. Just be patient with yourself.

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

Like this Rose

I can only write in my own way..lol

Maggie x

I think all my female characters are the same....lol...just different situations....

More tips and hints please!

XBC

BC, perhaps you could write some short peices using characters with different personalities, and see how each would react to the same situation.....?

Good idea, TW...

I think, my problem , LOLOL well one of them anyway...is that I write best as 'me' ....(it's all about me lol, egotism at it's worst )
In the first person, and from my own experience...and the reason I stop is because to get anything like a decent story I would have to strip my self bare...not literally ;)

xx

I tend to write from the POV which works best, even if I have to do the same piece three or four times.

I've just had an idea for an exercise.

three people. the farmer in the field, the girl sitting under a tree, the guy out hiking with a backpack.

WRite the scene three times, from the viewpoint of each one of them....

Phew...lost now >>>>tiptoes off and leaves it to the thespians...lol

Teresa, three characters in search of a 'situation'...could you throw that in as well ? ;)

*groans,,,,

Ok, farmer is daddy

Girl is daughter

Boy is boyfriend...

How about that one LOL

Maggie, get back here lol (POV means point of view)