Writing Advice
So, occasionally I consider jotting down pieces of writing advice - mainly for myself - but I thought I would go ahead and share just a few points that I have learned from various books and other authors. Points that are both short and long, have examples and don't. Most I have been given (or read) from other people, but a few I have figured out on my own.
Forgive me for any grammatical errors. It is late, and I am tired.
So, here are just a few pieces of writing advice that I have found to be true:
1. Write drunk. Edit sober. Imagination won't work under fear of the knife (back-space button). And, imagination is not logical. Eventually, though, you do need a sober logic to overlay the drunken writing.
2. Give the audience just enough information to keep asking questions. This leads them through the plot.
3. (Particularly true for first person). The narrator's job is not to perform the emotion. The narrator's job is to open up a place for the reader to feel the emotion.
4. A lesson learned from True Detective:
While I was watching the beautiful season play out, I made the mistake of assuming one of Hart's daughters would be implicated in the disruption between Cohle and Hart. There was something always off about her - she seemed to know much about the dark plot going on - and I figured she would somehow link back to Cohle.
I was wrong.
What I learned from this was that a dark atmosphere can play out in a character who hints at the major plot but does not actually have anything to do with it. That the contamination can be shown to pervade everything by having even the children react in ways uncharacteristic of children.
At the same time, I wonder if the writer simply created a subplot that didn't work out. And the fact that the child just needed "medication" to act normal again was an overly quick and clean way to sew up the subplot.
But it did work to add a sense of insanity to the show. To show a break down in reality, until the fever finally breaks at the end of the series, and "medication" solves the girl's problem.
Important: You never SEE her problem resolved. It is only stated that it is. So, the problem is presented as a way of upping the pressure and dark atmosphere. The resolution is underplayed so that a sick and unsettled sensation in the audience remains.
5. Another nice scene to be learned from True Detective:
Hart vomits after he beats up the two boys in the prison. It was a short scene. One could even say the writer or director did not have to add it. But it makes his character relate-able again.
He beats the shit out of two kids that are half his size, telling them that, "If you play a man's game, you pay a man's price." But, he vomits afterwards, showing to the audience that his actions did not sit right with his morality or character.
Lesson? You can get away with having your characters commit amoral acts, as long as they appropriately suffer for it. Or, you can have your character veer from his normal actions, as long as there is proof that he returns to his normal actions.
6. The path of King's writing in the book It is to define all characters that revolve around a horrific act in great detail. So, say there is a murder of a boy. First, the reaction of the authorities is described. Second, the lives of the parents who had that boy are defined in great detail, hinting at abuse. Third, the brother of the boy disappears and is described. His own death via the Clown is described. Fourth, the boy who discovers the knife that killed the second boy is described (as well as his experience with the monster).
So, basically, there's a horrible experience, four or five people are connected to that horrible experience. They are wholly described - backgrounds, everything. And this happens on large and small scales.
While many of these stories could be perceived as just entertaining dead end tales, what I think it provides is more options for the future of the book. That there are more options for connections, more to work with in terms of plot. He expands the materials in the beginning of the book and subsequently has more to work with later on in the book. He creates the greatest potential.
And maybe that potential can be felt by the reader - that there are so many paths for the story to go.
7. The more plot development you have, the less emotional development needed. There seems to be an inverse between plot and emotion. This is why Dexter has so many psychopaths he needs to kill - every single episode. There must be subplots upon subplots so that he does not emotionally mature, or at least not very quickly. IE Keep him busy, so he doesn't think deeply.
Forgive me for any grammatical errors. It is late, and I am tired.
So, here are just a few pieces of writing advice that I have found to be true:
1. Write drunk. Edit sober. Imagination won't work under fear of the knife (back-space button). And, imagination is not logical. Eventually, though, you do need a sober logic to overlay the drunken writing.
2. Give the audience just enough information to keep asking questions. This leads them through the plot.
3. (Particularly true for first person). The narrator's job is not to perform the emotion. The narrator's job is to open up a place for the reader to feel the emotion.
4. A lesson learned from True Detective:
While I was watching the beautiful season play out, I made the mistake of assuming one of Hart's daughters would be implicated in the disruption between Cohle and Hart. There was something always off about her - she seemed to know much about the dark plot going on - and I figured she would somehow link back to Cohle.
I was wrong.
What I learned from this was that a dark atmosphere can play out in a character who hints at the major plot but does not actually have anything to do with it. That the contamination can be shown to pervade everything by having even the children react in ways uncharacteristic of children.
At the same time, I wonder if the writer simply created a subplot that didn't work out. And the fact that the child just needed "medication" to act normal again was an overly quick and clean way to sew up the subplot.
But it did work to add a sense of insanity to the show. To show a break down in reality, until the fever finally breaks at the end of the series, and "medication" solves the girl's problem.
Important: You never SEE her problem resolved. It is only stated that it is. So, the problem is presented as a way of upping the pressure and dark atmosphere. The resolution is underplayed so that a sick and unsettled sensation in the audience remains.
5. Another nice scene to be learned from True Detective:
Hart vomits after he beats up the two boys in the prison. It was a short scene. One could even say the writer or director did not have to add it. But it makes his character relate-able again.
He beats the shit out of two kids that are half his size, telling them that, "If you play a man's game, you pay a man's price." But, he vomits afterwards, showing to the audience that his actions did not sit right with his morality or character.
Lesson? You can get away with having your characters commit amoral acts, as long as they appropriately suffer for it. Or, you can have your character veer from his normal actions, as long as there is proof that he returns to his normal actions.
6. The path of King's writing in the book It is to define all characters that revolve around a horrific act in great detail. So, say there is a murder of a boy. First, the reaction of the authorities is described. Second, the lives of the parents who had that boy are defined in great detail, hinting at abuse. Third, the brother of the boy disappears and is described. His own death via the Clown is described. Fourth, the boy who discovers the knife that killed the second boy is described (as well as his experience with the monster).
So, basically, there's a horrible experience, four or five people are connected to that horrible experience. They are wholly described - backgrounds, everything. And this happens on large and small scales.
While many of these stories could be perceived as just entertaining dead end tales, what I think it provides is more options for the future of the book. That there are more options for connections, more to work with in terms of plot. He expands the materials in the beginning of the book and subsequently has more to work with later on in the book. He creates the greatest potential.
And maybe that potential can be felt by the reader - that there are so many paths for the story to go.
7. The more plot development you have, the less emotional development needed. There seems to be an inverse between plot and emotion. This is why Dexter has so many psychopaths he needs to kill - every single episode. There must be subplots upon subplots so that he does not emotionally mature, or at least not very quickly. IE Keep him busy, so he doesn't think deeply.
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