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The Great Write Way, Act Three: Where's the gun?

Discussion Threads

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

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Seska (the Watcher-in-Training) - Oct 25, 2009 12:42:20 pm PDT #2695 of 6690

"We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?"

I've sold magazine non-fiction, of course, but I'm working on a non-fiction book proposal.

Same here (well, similar - my commissions have been a couple of newspaper-based pieces and a fun little column for a BBC website). I'm finding the difference an interesting thing. With opinion pieces, I find the difficulty is in being entertaining and sustaining the style. Whereas the book project is worrying me in terms of sustaining the topic. Particularly where it crosses into areas that I know very little about.

Barb - Oct 25, 2009 12:42:39 pm PDT #2696 of 6690

“Not dead yet!”

That's the hardest thing about research-- that urge to put in Every! Shiny! Detail! It tends to doom historical writers more than anyone else, I think (I'm looking at YOU, Diana Gabaldon...) but everyone is vulnerable.

But yeah, it's why I've resisted doing anything hardcore historical, because I'd be like a magpie, distracted by the shiny.

Amy - Oct 25, 2009 12:53:34 pm PDT #2697 of 6690

Because books.

I'm pretty lazy -- I like to know just enough about something to write it believably. Which is why I'll probably never tackle something like writing a guy on an oil rig. Or a sixteenth-century geisha.

I also cheat like mad -- for historical details I like to get an overall sense of a time, and for that movies like The Age of Innocence or even Bram Stoker's Dracula were what I looked at when I was beginning the (now shelved) vampire book.

Beverly - Oct 25, 2009 1:53:11 pm PDT #2698 of 6690

Days shrink and grow cold, sunlight through leaves is my song. Winter is long.

Barb beat me to the every.shiny.detail thing (and also the Gabaldon thing. Although for my favorites of hers, the first two, she had never been to Scotland).

I do compromise, though. For a tale set in the twelfth century I used a dictionary and thesaurus published in the 1950s. It lent just enough of an antiquated, out-of-time air to the story without making it period-perfect and thus not understandable to present day readers. Tricks. Some of them work.

erikaj - Oct 25, 2009 1:58:05 pm PDT #2699 of 6690

Always Anti-fascist!

Would anybody be interested in taking a look at a crime story and telling me where I went wrong with it? Because I think I did, but it would be hard to fix without knowing which things.

-t - Oct 25, 2009 3:01:18 pm PDT #2700 of 6690

I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

How long is it, erika?

erikaj - Oct 25, 2009 3:41:52 pm PDT #2701 of 6690

Always Anti-fascist!

Under 3,000, words -t. Thanks. Was aiming at a sort of Tarentino meets Laura Lippman thing, but I guess it didn't land.

-t - Oct 25, 2009 4:32:36 pm PDT #2702 of 6690

I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I'll give it a look if you don't mind an almost completely uninformed opinion. Profile addy is good.

Gudanov - Oct 25, 2009 4:44:33 pm PDT #2703 of 6690

Coding and Sleeping

I'm not a crime fic dude, but I'll take a look at it if you want. Profile address is fine.

For a tale set in the twelfth century I used a dictionary and thesaurus published in the 1950s.

That's kinda brilliant.

erikaj - Oct 25, 2009 6:06:36 pm PDT #2704 of 6690

Always Anti-fascist!

Well, I don't think the problems are very genre-related...maybe, but I'll deal with the non-specific ones first.

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