You're like my fairy godmother, and Santa Claus, and Q all wrapped up into one! Q from Bond, not Star Trek.

Buffy ,'Help'


The Great Write Way  

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


Connie Neil - Feb 16, 2005 7:27:40 am PST #9969 of 10001
brillig

Though I do sometimes ask myself AFTER I've written a scene what a character's goal and motivation are, and if I'm doing enough to bring them out.

wrod. The best advice I heard on the whole premise/goal thing was "Write the story in your head first, and odds are by the end of it you'll know what the underlying themes are."


Liese S. - Feb 16, 2005 7:39:33 am PST #9970 of 10001
"Faded like the lilac, he thought."

Really? Why?

I dunno. I guess I can't quanitify the process in myself, and so I essentially fear that if I pull the skin back too much to look at the guts and understand "why" I do it that way, I won't be able to do it at all anymore. Afraid that if I look too deeply at the mystery, I will unravel it and lose what I had.

I do go to songwriting seminars, because mostly those are just songwriters whose material I deeply love humming bits of their work at me, and I find that part of the process intriguing and rewarding. I suppose in a sense I'm more secure in my songwriting and don't feel that I could lose what I do there, because I feel like I know what I'm doing. But I don't read books about it.

Liese, I love more than is probably healthy the line

Aww, good, Beverly. Thanks.

Do you think it flows better than the original version posted upthread? Are the additions/changes good? Also, is there a problem with the "smile is"/"sunglasses are" dichotomy? I could've gone "smiles are" but I stuck with the sibilance, and because I mean that one particular smile, not the all the smiles your face can smile.


Lyra Jane - Feb 16, 2005 7:44:41 am PST #9971 of 10001
Up with the sun

Because heaven knows no one ever has situations that simply must be coped with and aren't going to go away, because that's just silly and Everything Always Ends Well.

Really. Though I do think the kernel of good advice within the bad would be, "don't give a character anything you won't be able to tell a story around." For example, if you want to make your heroine, a police officer, a single mother, it's better that her child is 12 and can be left alone for a few hours than that you stick her with a three-month-old she has to constantly find sitters for and who the reader's always worrying about.

Unless the story you need to tell is about a police officer with an infant child, of course.

I've never heard of GMC, and I'm not sure I want to.


Beverly - Feb 16, 2005 7:44:50 am PST #9972 of 10001
Days shrink and grow cold, sunlight through leaves is my song. Winter is long.

I think it flows better. I don't know from lyrics, so I can only give you my impressions, though. The changes are subtle enough I can't define them without putting the two versions side-by-side, but it seems tighter, less rambly, and less reachy for a rhyme--and I love the slant rhymes. Personally, I don't have a problem with the is/are dichotomy, and I got that you were talking/singing/writing about one specific person whose smile is like cop sunglasses.

ed, becyuz I rilly can speel


Jesse - Feb 16, 2005 7:47:11 am PST #9973 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

On washingtonpost.com right now, they are having a live chat with copy editors. Here's the blurb:

Bill Walsh and Don Podesta, Post copeditros, talk about the challegne of producing an errot-free neswpaper.

Hee!

Edit: Here's the link to the discussion: [link]


Connie Neil - Feb 16, 2005 7:48:56 am PST #9974 of 10001
brillig

Though I do think the kernel of good advice within the bad would be, "don't give a character anything you won't be able to tell a story around."

That's a very good point. A detective in an old-fashioned Iron Lung is doable, but probably simpler to give him some mobility.

Think we'll kill the thread today?


Topic!Cindy - Feb 16, 2005 8:30:06 am PST #9975 of 10001
What is even happening?

Also, is there a problem with the "smile is"/"sunglasses are" dichotomy? I could've gone "smiles are" but I stuck with the sibilance, and because I mean that one particular smile, not the all the smiles your face can smile.
Not for me. I tried subbing in smiles are, and I didn't like it nearly as well. I just wish I could hear the music. Well, I do hear it set to music, but the odds of it being the music you're hearing are low.

wrod. The best advice I heard on the whole premise/goal thing was "Write the story in your head first, and odds are by the end of it you'll know what the underlying themes are."

Personally speaking, I agree with this. But I do know people who are just the opposite. They need to know where they're ending, why and how, before they even get started. I have to start, and have no clue where I'm going, 'til I get there or the characters tell me. My mother tells me that when I was a kid, I was always asking, "Go fried? Go fried?" rather like a puppy who could speak. I didn't ever have any place in mind, I just wanted to go for a ride. Anything I write--fiction or non, just tells me it wants to go fried.


Liese S. - Feb 16, 2005 8:45:27 am PST #9976 of 10001
"Faded like the lilac, he thought."

Heh. I laid down the vocal tracks on the recorder today. If I get ambitious, I may do up some ACID files that I could rip and post. Mebbe. If I'm brave.


Topic!Cindy - Feb 16, 2005 8:59:42 am PST #9977 of 10001
What is even happening?

I don't have sound hooked up on my P.C., but that might get me to badger the dh into hooking it up. It's been almost a year and a half.


Amy - Feb 16, 2005 9:33:14 am PST #9978 of 10001
Because books.

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)

Heh. I just stumbled across this on another site, and thought it was strangely pertinent.