(no subject)
More Writing Philosophy from Unusual Sources
I think I'm condensing a few different statements into one idea (so I can't find the quote) but in Michael Shurtleff's Audition, he talks about when you're working with a partner who isn't working with you.
This, he says, is valuable, because the harder you have to fight to get across, the stronger the impression.
For me, this immediately clicked into writing terms. The harder the character is fighting toward or away from something, the higher the tension and drama and...ROMANCE.
(again, not in terms of love romance, but narrative romance.)
This made me go back to work on a story in the Aolon book, because of all the stories I've written, that one is tight with that fighting tension.
Maevidh's mother was angry-she could still feel it in her chest, though she had even left the city. She gritted her teeth.
I Need to Remember...
Maevidh is heir to a witch-queen. She has grown up fighting her mother--they are in each others' minds.*
She has grown up fighting physically, because they are warrior-witches.
At the start of the story, she's fighting off a soldier who claims he volunteered to be her guard, when she suspects he is a spy for her mother or someone else. She is also going to break a treaty with an empire they fought for 60 years only a few decades ago. Agents of the diplomat she both loves and hates are on the hunt for her, and even if she succeeds, she can look forward to being anathematized. Of course, she also fights herself.
It may verge into melodrama at points, but that can be fixed with a little pruning.
The idea that the more distance there is, the harder a character will fight to get closer has clarified why this story interests me every time I look at it, though the sentences hurt. She's surrounded by people she's fighting.
In the other stories of this book, this is true as well, though not to the same extent. Not just their enemies, but the ones they want to love, and they are fighting.
I need to think about this, and try to approach stories that way again. ...Without the labyrinthine grammar.
*I think i'll need to punch up this element of horror, but I'm pretty proud of the idea as it is...
This is Balthier, my latest spinning project. He and Maevidh may have a bit in common, really...
I think I'm condensing a few different statements into one idea (so I can't find the quote) but in Michael Shurtleff's Audition, he talks about when you're working with a partner who isn't working with you.
This, he says, is valuable, because the harder you have to fight to get across, the stronger the impression.
For me, this immediately clicked into writing terms. The harder the character is fighting toward or away from something, the higher the tension and drama and...ROMANCE.
(again, not in terms of love romance, but narrative romance.)
This made me go back to work on a story in the Aolon book, because of all the stories I've written, that one is tight with that fighting tension.
Maevidh's mother was angry-she could still feel it in her chest, though she had even left the city. She gritted her teeth.
I Need to Remember...
Maevidh is heir to a witch-queen. She has grown up fighting her mother--they are in each others' minds.*
She has grown up fighting physically, because they are warrior-witches.
At the start of the story, she's fighting off a soldier who claims he volunteered to be her guard, when she suspects he is a spy for her mother or someone else. She is also going to break a treaty with an empire they fought for 60 years only a few decades ago. Agents of the diplomat she both loves and hates are on the hunt for her, and even if she succeeds, she can look forward to being anathematized. Of course, she also fights herself.
It may verge into melodrama at points, but that can be fixed with a little pruning.
The idea that the more distance there is, the harder a character will fight to get closer has clarified why this story interests me every time I look at it, though the sentences hurt. She's surrounded by people she's fighting.
In the other stories of this book, this is true as well, though not to the same extent. Not just their enemies, but the ones they want to love, and they are fighting.
I need to think about this, and try to approach stories that way again. ...Without the labyrinthine grammar.
*I think i'll need to punch up this element of horror, but I'm pretty proud of the idea as it is...
This is Balthier, my latest spinning project. He and Maevidh may have a bit in common, really...