Jayne ,'The Train Job'
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
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.
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.
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.
How long is it, erika?
Under 3,000, words -t. Thanks. Was aiming at a sort of Tarentino meets Laura Lippman thing, but I guess it didn't land.
I'll give it a look if you don't mind an almost completely uninformed opinion. Profile addy is good.
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.
Well, I don't think the problems are very genre-related...maybe, but I'll deal with the non-specific ones first.
Despite a busy weekend with a trick-or-treating event, house painting, pumpkin carving, and tearing apart my computer to rebuild it better, stronger, faster, I managed to get a big of work in. I finished off my critique and started up on chapter 23.
I'm not happy with the way 23 is starting though, I'm burning up too many words with the all new part that starts off the chapter.
New drabble topic: Costumes.