It is indeed. And we could use some more of that, especially right now.
You're not wrong.
Angel: He is dead. Technically, he's undead. It's a zombie. Connor: What's a zombie? Angel: It's an undead thing. Connor: Like you? Angel: No, zombies are slow-moving, dimwitted things that crave human flesh. Connor: Like you. Angel: No! It's different. Trust me.
'Destiny'
The Great Write Way
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Steph L. - Jul 17, 2003 5:03:00 pm PDT #1674 of 10001
I look more rad than Lutheranism
deborah grabien - Jul 17, 2003 5:05:50 pm PDT #1675 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
I'm a liberal and I'm right! (channeling James Carville)
Teppy, lurve the tagline. Looks a skosh familiar....
Daisy Jane - Jul 17, 2003 5:06:51 pm PDT #1676 of 10001
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."
For some reason people seem to feel the need to sterilize everything before they do this sort of investigation, so that they are seen as objective. To me that sort of misses the point. I find it nearly impossible to be objective about anything that affects real actual human beings. It's not a science experiment for crap's sake, but then I have this whole thing about over valuing reason and logic to the detriment of emotion and intuition.
Steph L. - Jul 17, 2003 5:07:10 pm PDT #1677 of 10001
I look more rad than Lutheranism
Teppy, lurve the tagline. Looks a skosh familiar....
It's just such a VIVID phrase....
Daisy Jane - Jul 17, 2003 5:08:12 pm PDT #1678 of 10001
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."
I'm a liberal and I'm right! (channeling James Carville)
One of my favorite Louisianians. I have his mamma's cookbook too! It thrills me to no end to feed some of her food to our conservative guests.
deborah grabien - Jul 17, 2003 5:11:45 pm PDT #1679 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
One of my favorite Louisianians.
I just want him to dump that Matalin cow, and make an honest woman of me. He rocks my world.
Anne W. - Jul 18, 2003 1:43:21 am PDT #1680 of 10001
The lost sheep grow teeth, forsake their lambs, and lie with the lions.
For some reason people seem to feel the need to sterilize everything before they do this sort of investigation, so that they are seen as objective. To me that sort of misses the point.
Amen. One of the reasons that N&D is so powerful is that even now, I can't help wondering about that pregnant woman who was working for The Maids, the one who only ate a snack-size bag of Doritos for lunch the one day because she didn't have the time, money, and/or energy to put together something more healthy.
I said this over in Literary, but N&D could be used as a textbook on why "show, don't tell" is so powerful.
Betsy HP - Jul 19, 2003 12:35:46 pm PDT #1681 of 10001
If I only had a brain...
Got a rejection from *Slate* for the poem. Well, bum. Off to find another market.
erikaj - Jul 19, 2003 12:39:40 pm PDT #1682 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!
I still think about her too. We had somebody sit for us in grade school that was like that. Betsy, I'm sorry. Rejection sucks, doesn't it? May your next market appreciate and print the poem.
Beverly - Jul 19, 2003 8:28:25 pm PDT #1683 of 10001
Days shrink and grow cold, sunlight through leaves is my song. Winter is long.
Oh, pooh, Betsy. A pox on them!
Question: Plei brought up something in Bitches that I'm moving here.
IfIsee'thethinblonde'or'thepretty,raven-hairedgirl' or any other use and abuse of descriptives, I'm going to kick someone in the ass, hard.
This is a warning. I catch ANY of you doing this shit, you're going down. Hard. And not in the good, porny way. Oh no.
You're going down, and I am taking your keyboards and beating you over the fucking heads.
Okay, how much description is enough? I've taken grief for NOT describing my characters, other than gender, a general impression of age, or youth, or some physical trait such as a limp or a facial tic. Occasionally eye color, or "dark."
I have two members of my writing group yipping at my heels because they don't know what my characters look like, how old they are, they don't have enough detail to create a mental picture of the character.
My feeling is that I leave the externals up to the individual reader. If the mental and emotional progressions resonate, the reader can "take on" the character, or relate him or her to someone the reader knows.
They're pushing really hard, and I feel equally strongly about this. So who's right?