(no subject)
According to Mary Pipher (on writing), "if you wish to move your readers to tears, be cold." Sometimes less is more and showing goes a much longer way than telling. Maybe a little sliver of something tucked in somewhere, sneakily, would be better than waxing long and laboriously over the hero's plights. But I cannot seem to take this advice. The little snippets of writing that I've managed to scrape out, unfortunately, all lean towards the sentimental, even melodramatic, or what the Chinese would call "dog blood" scenes. In fact, I don't even like the in-between scenes, and cut right to the chase to write about the most emotionally charged ones, the more intense the better. But then again, I must get out of the writing about what goes on in the head and start practicing how to tell a story properly, and what is happening outside. Maybe next time I'll experiment with writing about the main char. from the perspective of somebody who doesn't like him. Hopefully that'll cut out the sentimentality.