Thoughts on writing
I'm not an outstanding writer, by all means (I've said many times that I consider myself mostly average), but I'm an excellent reader, I think, and being a bit of both (a reader and a writer), some things end up sinking in. Because there are some trite sayings that you don't really understand until you've had the time to really experience them. In my case, a long while (what can I say, I'm slow). I'm talking about the "don't tell, show" thing.
Because I'm reading a fic with the perfect amount of in-depth description of a setting, which I consider difficult to get right, so if only because of that, I respect the writer. But it's the kind of story where they insist that the main character is cool, and aloof, and calm and self-assured but in the more than 60K words that I've already left behind me, he's been nothing but a bunch of insecurities, nerves and clinginess. The fact that it's wrapped up in a haughty attitude is not helping the case because most of the time, haughty attitudes hide precisely insecurities and self-doubts in real life. So, for me, these actions and body language that I'm seeing weigh like a hundred times more than the insistence that he's normally self-confident. No, he's fucking not, I would have noticed, dammit.
So, yeah, lesson learned (finally). You can't impose your image of the character on the reader, you just have to let the character be like you envision him, which is not exactly the same thing.
Also posted at http://lauand.dreamwidth.org/120644.html, if you'd rather read it there or want to enter a discussion with
comments.
Because I'm reading a fic with the perfect amount of in-depth description of a setting, which I consider difficult to get right, so if only because of that, I respect the writer. But it's the kind of story where they insist that the main character is cool, and aloof, and calm and self-assured but in the more than 60K words that I've already left behind me, he's been nothing but a bunch of insecurities, nerves and clinginess. The fact that it's wrapped up in a haughty attitude is not helping the case because most of the time, haughty attitudes hide precisely insecurities and self-doubts in real life. So, for me, these actions and body language that I'm seeing weigh like a hundred times more than the insistence that he's normally self-confident. No, he's fucking not, I would have noticed, dammit.
So, yeah, lesson learned (finally). You can't impose your image of the character on the reader, you just have to let the character be like you envision him, which is not exactly the same thing.
Also posted at http://lauand.dreamwidth.org/120644.html, if you'd rather read it there or want to enter a discussion with
comments.