OT: Writing style

[KC Elbows]

I know a bunch of you guys are writers. What is your writing style like? I like to use layered symbolism to infer a deeper plot to a story, and wording is very important to me, if the words are not magic, I trash them and keep at it until I've got a carefully constructed body of text that supports the symbollism and story.

Characterization is next, I write pages and pages of notes on each character, and write notes on the logical chain of events that would occur between different characters, and how those events would changes them.

After rewrites, I'll have someone proofread the work and write comments, and see if they catch any points I missed while writing the story.

To make this less off topic, I was discussing a piece I'm working on right now with a friend, and he commented that one character, a young warrior, needed more background on how he learned the little martial arts he knows. I had neglected this detail, and have since begun to flesh it out more.

[Budokan]

Story is more important than wordage, characterization, ideas, etc. The number one rule in writing fiction is "Tell a good story." Now, having said that, of course you can use different writing elements and styles to bring this off, but you have to be careful and not bore the reader by trying to show him through your sentence construction and general knowledge of syntax and vocabulary how "smart" you are. Readers are perceptive little critters and can usually spot baloney from a long ways off.

I absolutely love writers like Samuel R. Delaney, Nabakov and the like, but they are not good writers to emulate. They are more in love with the English language and what they can do with it than they are in telling a good story. This high-mindedness seeps through their fiction and is readily apparent to the average reader. Never write down to your reader, but don't write so high above him that you set yourself up as a pompous jerk.

Overall, I tend to come down on the side of characterization over idea. The most memorable stories I have ever read (the GOOD ones) are all dependent on characterization. Usually, if you concentrate on character, story will follow.

Well, I've gone on long enough now and will let someone else put in their two yen worth.

K. Mark Hoover

[KC Elbows]

I agree on the story point. Usually, I can't get behind a piece if it doesn't have a good story. Once I have that, Charecterization, symbollism, etc., are tools to achieve that. I do feel that a good story can easily become a poor work if the writing techniques are not good. As far as appearing pompous, I'd like to add that I think the number one thing to do to avoid appearing so is to never force a viewpoint on the reader, but merely to document the mythos presented to you.

[Budokan]

Correct. It's always in the best interest of the writer to let the reader draw his own conclusions.

K. Mark Hoover

[KC Elbows]

I also wanted to mention that I think the writer should not use the tools of writing to try and impress the reader. The tools should support the story. The reason I go so heavy for symbollism is that it can give an underpinning to the story that supports it without the reader even being aware of it. However, obvious symbollism could be a problem. I'm always having to watch that in my writing.

[dwid]

Philip K. Dick once said something to the effect that a novel is about why a character does something and a short story is about what the character does. In short fiction, you don't have the space to devote strictly to developing character, so you have to reveal character through action. To me, the beautiful thing about short fiction is that it's like poetry in the sense of economy of words. You just don't have the luxury of space you have in a larger work. This kind of efficiency yields layering of narrative and character development, symbolism, social commentary etc... often in the same scene.

The aforementioned Philip K. Dick was a master of this, as is Thom Jones and a bunch of other guys whose names I can't remember.

Anyway, I don't mean to diss longer stuff. Chuck Pahlaniuk is a current favorite writer of mine, but he packs all the punch of a short story writer, and manages to sustain the intensity for the duration of a novel.

Just my long-winded 2 cents.

_________________________________________
The way of the samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate. - Hagakure

[KC Elbows]

Dwid,
I agree!! I think the intensity of a novel should not be too different than that of a short story. When I'm reading a novel, if I start to get the feeling that a section I'm at is just there to fill up pages, that book goes away. I don't bother finishing trash.

[apoweyn]

the mistake i generally make is to have an IDEA. sure, it might be a good idea. but if i'm hanging all my hopes on this concept, the trick becomes to tell a story around it. and that can sometimes get very forced.

now, i'm trying to make sure that i write a skeleton plot first.


stuart b.

[KC Elbows]

I try to be very flexible about what the idea becomes. My original idea usually changes greatly when I see the characters that will be experiencing it, and after long thought about what the idea really means.

For me, I find that I must write the outline later, as opposed to sooner. I tend to take in a lot of info about the mythos I'm working on, and then "percolate" on that info for a long time. Once the percolation process(TM) is pretty far along, then the outline becomes a useful tool to me, but before that it stunts the growth of my story.

However, that is how my process works, and I've known a lot of people who work very well the other way. Its all a matter of style and the practitioner, IMHO.

[dwid]

And surprisingly, they were very helpful to me in the early phases of sketching out new ideas. One of the exercises the instructor would have us do is to do things like map out the neighborhood where the central character or characters lives, to flesh out the basic "driver's license" type information about the characters like height, weight, hair and eye color, age, etc..., and finally to write scenes that put the character in circumstances that reveal things about him or her, such as memories of childhood, attitudes toward death, etc... At first, I really hated these kinds of exercises, but I finally realized that they help you become more attuned to the world your character lives in and really gets you inside his or her head. My writing has definitely benefited.

_________________________________________
The way of the samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate. - Hagakure

[SaMantis]

My biggest problem writing is trying to get around the words. I'll spend two hours or more trying to describe what a field of wheat looks like when all I really need to say is "field of wheat."

Writing short stories has been more of a challenge since I left school. Professionally, I write news stories, and it's easy just to hang a story up on the framework (that lovely inverted pyramid) and leave it. News writing doesn't compare to a well-told short story, though.

Glad to see so many writers here, though. :)

Sam

Umm ... yeahhhhhh ... that's grrrreat ... -- Lumbergh

[dwid]

"I try to be very flexible about what the idea becomes. My original idea usually changes greatly when I see the characters that will be experiencing it, and after long thought about what the idea really means."

I'm inclined to agree, but I would qualify what you said to add that I usually know the gist of what I'm going to put my characters through, and then discovering my characters helps me to see how they will react to the narrative. So, I'd say the two kind of develop together, but I definitely start with the skeleton of a narrative, which might be as little as one scene that sets the essential conflict of the story.

_________________________________________
The way of the samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate. - Hagakure

[apoweyn]

you've used the word "mythos" twice. what sort of stuff are you writing?

i'm a big lovecraft fan, and that's a word that gets bandied around with his stuff a lot.

i dig on the supernatural fiction. just curious.


stuart b.

[KC Elbows]

Those type exercises definitely helped my style too. Hard to make superficial characters live, so its important to work on those things(I like the neighborhood thing, I'm stealing that one ;) )

One thing I learned was to look at the symbollism in your writing. Not the symbollism you purposefully put in there alone, but the symbollism that accidentally occurs throughout(archetypal stuff, like the hero/warrior thing, characters that are alluded to in ways that suggest other things, etc.) Such symbollism always occurs, and its very important to make sure the symbollism supports the story in some way, as the story is, even in finished form, not a real story of real people, but something that tricks the reader into believing the characters and story exist. I find this to be rather time consuming, but its worth it in the long run.

[This message was edited by KC Elbows on 11-21-01 at 11:34 AM.]

[KC Elbows]

Ap,
Originally, I used to write a lot of horror stuff along the lines of Poe and Lovecraft. The big thing I'm working on now is supernatural fiction, but not strictly horror, though it has an element of horror to it.

As for the mythos thing, I'll probably start driving you guys nuts with this, but it ties into the style I seem to be decent at. In my fiction, the style I aspire to depends heavily on the idea that you have to create a mythos of characters and events. The reasoning is that, no matter what, you are not creating a real person or place(even if the place you write about exists, you cannot truly capture the place, you must convey an idea of the place that is convincing). Thus, you must utilize something to convey the person/place that you cannot truly create. Symbols are perfect for this, as symbols have far more meaning than the writer can imagine, and so they give characters and events a context that is much deeper than the surface details, and they can evoke many more details in the readers head than the writer can put to paper.

Were you asking for the short answer? :D

[dwid]

Fiction really exists in a strange ether, if you'll forgive the indulgence. Nothing is truly completely original, as it is in some way based in your experience. Nothing is completely derivative either, though, as we can't recreate the world in writing. And who would want to? Real life is not a narrative except in our memories. Only in fiction does conflict have to have a deeper meaning. That's the value of a good story, in my book. It teaches you things about the meaning of your real-life experiences. By seeing the significance of one small scene from a fictional character's life, we are able to contextualize scenes from our own.

When it comes down to it, all artistic pursuits are about making sense of the seemingly unrelated and meaningless events going on around us. Kung fu is no exception, whether you're talking about learning to interpret threat, becoming part of a larger cultural legacy, or just feeling a sense of agency/efficacy in the world around you.

Whoooo, yet another rant. I'm lovin' this thread.

_________________________________________
The way of the samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate. - Hagakure

[apoweyn]

nope. no short answer necessary. that one did nicely.

is your stuff posted somewhere? i'd always be up for reading some of it.

i agree that symbolism can be a very powerful tool. take something like the crucifix. ask a christian to explain its significance to them, and you'll like either get a blank stare or a very complex answer. neither is necessarily wrong. the meaning is rather profound, so difficult to express. as a result, either you don't explain it or it takes you some doing.

but the crucifix itself, well people all across the world can look at that and feel... something. it may not be the same thing for everyone. different associations will be made. but they'll feel something. and that makes symbols pretty powerful.

the trick, i suppose, is to walk that tightrope between using them and getting bogged down in them.


stuart b.

[Ryu]

Did you guys read that excerpt of my own work I posted a while back? I'll have to look at the replies again.
I'd like your opinions, good and bad, on it because it's important to me to get other writer's impressions.

Take care,
Ryu

http://home.vobis.net/user/roy/anime/images/streetfighter15.jpg


"One who takes pride in shallow knowledge or understanding is like a monkey who delights in adorning itself with garbage."

[KC Elbows]

Ryu,
I was hoping you'd post here. Your piece inspired me to continue on with the project I've been working with, so thanks. Over the weekend, I'll give your work a good second reading and try to give you some input on that post. Keep in mind, I am not a professional writer, per se. I write for my own growth, and have not really made a serious attempt to send my stuff in for publication, though my wife is really pushing me to do so lately.

Ap,
Nothing posted. I'm a little paranoid about my stuff being lifted. Perhaps Ryu could tell me what he knows about getting copyrights?(HintHint) :)

Dwid,
I agree on the use of good fiction to put life in perspective. That is part of the reason I write, aside from loving it so. The flip side is the negative effects of bad fiction carrying out narrow viewpoints, prejudices, and ideas.

[KC Elbows]

One thing that actually shaped my writing method was RPG's. Of course, when I played them , it was non-computer games. I would run games, and the more I planned specific events to happen in a specific order, the more the players would undo all my plans. Eventually, my style became very fluid. Instead of specific plans, I would make events and try to see what the player's responses to those events would be.

Thus, when I write, I think in terms of characters and events, and I try to perceive what the character's responses to those events would be.

Who says being a total nerd doesn't pay off?

[KC Elbows]

Ryu, hope you had fun at the market(undoudtedly shopping with good looking women, you lucky *******! ;) ) Several more people have put their comments on your copyrighted stuff.

[SantaClaus]

Too true Budokan.

I am reading "Dreams of my Russian Summers"

It is amazingly writen and boring as ****.

[apoweyn]

KC,

that's very funny. that's precisely the same thing that shaped my writing (as little of it as i've done so far).


stuart b.