Posted on 03/23/2007 11:44:31 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
Squarebarb:
There were some of us including GOPpoet who were thinking of starting a writer's thread here on FR. There's a horse thread, a football thread, a Hobbit Hole thread, so why not a thread for us writers?
And mainly sticking to fiction otherwise the discussion tends toward politicsa iinstead of the craft of writing.
Okay Eleutheria5, YOU start the thread."
Eleutheria5:
On it. Could use some help from someone who knows how to do HTTP and other techy stuff, though. Tried to learn, but drat that right hemisphere dominance we creative folks have. I've actually been running a board on the aol writers' club since 1996 called Conservative Writers' Club. Mostly it simply fights flame wars with liberal writers, though, and all the conservative contributors, including me, burn out. It'd be great to get away from that and just swap ideas with people who DON'T wish every one of us a flaming death.
(Excerpt) Read more at freerepublic.com ...
Wait until I start to discuss the Leiningen Mission and how Nicholas I of Russia misinterprets it and sends Mehshikov to bully the Ottomans. Boy, do things get out of hand after that!
Please, warn me ahead of time ... forget the coffee, a gallon of Long Island Ice Tea would not be enough.
Was Imperial Russia using the Berdan rifle by then?
PS: Of course you don't have to say anything about infantry rifles. That's just a topic I greatly enjoy, and the suggestion was tongue-in-cheek.
I’ve had to revise the paper because it was not Ottoman friendly enough. So, unless the Ottoman’s invented the infantry rifle and the minie ball, it will not be mentioned in the paper.
BTW, did you get those scripts I sent you?
Yes, I did and they were great. I like Nutworth. He's my kind of chimp.
Oh, no - the kid across the street.
Your intended age group will eat it up.
I have found that the execution of it makes all the difference. The lines are pretty funny I guess, but if they're not delivered properly, nobody laughs.
On the other hand, if the actor does his part, he can read the phone book and get a chuckle.
Ahh, the inherent danger of script writing. Casting the actors.
I wonder if barb and lu know the thread is still trickling along...
I hope so.
I wonder if anyone ever calls her “squarebarb spongepants.”
I think the thread is wanted by those on the ping list but they don't know what to do with it.
I want it to become a thriving "on-line" writing group because I really want to be a writer. Non-fiction and fiction alike and feel I have so much to benefit from "pro's" like you.
We had the most action when we were talking about an element of writing. Perhaps, until we all get comfortable, we could introduce a topic and hear different ideas.
The one on descriptive narratives was really helpful. I went from 1) hating them because I could not do them to 2) becoming more and more comfortable in writing them.
I've rewritten some of the scenes that really were just stagnant, the worse kind of "tell" to introducing life into it and developing my characters even more.
So, any ideas you have to get the conversation started... let me know.
Well, it’s bedtime in Israel. So, liela tov!
Touching base here. Sorry about my long absence. Visiting in-laws, who have no internet connection, other than at the club house, to which I must either walk in the hot Florida sun or late at night, or be lucky to get the unreliable, but free, trolly service. So here I am.
Here’s one writing topic, a pet peeve of mine: auxiliary verbs.
Those pesky things are what the English language uses instead of a real grammar with inflections and moods and such. I hate ‘em, I hate ‘em, I hate ‘em. I resent having had to say “having had” to say. Other languages get along fine without ‘em. One of the things I do when rewriting is cull the auxiliary verbs down to a bare minimum.
You’re in Israel?! I’m TRYING to get there with wife and four-year-old son. Got a few poems about contemporary Israel. Will burn them onto a CD so I can get them to the fershluggener club house and post them here and in Israel freep topics, im yirtzeh Hashem.
If I can help in any way, let me know.
My first drafts seem to be filled with “thats.” I don’t know why. But, when I go back to reread the work, it seems like there is a that on every line.
As a reader, chapters are usually end points where I will put the book down and pick it up again at a later date, so chapters stretching to almost 100 pages are a little long to say the least. In fact, chapters that never seem to end frustrate me because I always want to make a clear break in my reading. If the author does not provide that for me... I get a little annoyed.
I also know that chapters, if ended with a "cliff hanger" will make me forget my resolve and read one more chapter. Not all chapters end in a cliffhanger of course.
So, let's talk chapters. Beginning them, ending them, what makes chapters good, what can destroy a chapter, and the numerous other points I did not list...
I have, for quite a while, taken to making a small mark where I leave off if it is somewhere inside a chapter. Do not do this with library books. Sometimes it is not possible to break at a paragraph if the paragraph runs on over a couple pages. Since chapter breaks and paragraph breaks (and sentences) are completely up to the author they might not correspond to a change of scene or thought unless you are reading a math book or Orhan Pamuk. Math books are notorious for not making paragraph breaks where they should and making them where they shouldn’t.
What criteria do you follow as you write?
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