- Zk | 2021-06-07-rawr-day-2
+ Zk | RAWR day 2
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+ Lecture — Writing Advice
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+- Reality is more complicated than the advice
+- Not all advice works for everyone, what works is what gets a story down on the page
+- You can make your own tools by breaking existing maxims/tools
+- (The movie “Adaptation” adapted from The Orchid Thief)
+- It’s all about effect and getting it across
+- Examples:
+- “Show, don’t tell”:
+- The experience of reading is more engaging when the reader has to work for it.
+- Important specifically for asking ‘why’ via ‘where/when/how’
+- Readers get information via the ways in which characters process information and emotion
+- Don’t want the characters to say exactly what they mean too often. The reader can sense the tension between what the character says and does/feels, and you’re training them to notice things
+- Talking about characters rather than letting characters actually do those things; when acting, look through the script also at what others say about you/do around you
+- The reader is the final judge of what’s happening on the page rather than the characters in the scene, so you have to give them all the information - Hunger Games: on camera, all the other actors are acting, so you get to see their reactions to Katniss (who isn’t very interpersonally observant), as opposed to the books where you only see her point of view.
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+- “Clichés are bad”:
+- Probably mean “tropes are bad”, they’re conflated often
+- Can be used carelessly to situations where they don’t necessarily apply
+- Tropes become cliche for being used very often, and for good reason, because you’re managing comfort and enjoyment in your audience
+- “It’s a cliché for a reason” is kind of a cliché itself, and can be used in bad faith, as it can imply a homogeneity in the audience that doesn’t exist
+- Tropes = shorthand to reader satisfaction (As long as you make a careful choice in using it)
+- Can help by giving the reader a pressure valve for the tension
+- Also, it should be fun; allow yourself to have fun
+- Good for underserved communities who desire mirroring
+- Picking tropes doesn’t mean your work has to be tropey.
+- They also help ground the characters by making them do things normal people do, they’re bridges help other people relate
+- The application is what is important, viz. expected beats in a romance story (could be tropes, but they add to satisfaction)
+- If you’re trying to explore something with nuance or new structure, they can offer some of the steps in between so that the reader can follow you through the story
+- E.g: Cinderella Story/”Evil step-parent” - Throwing that in for no reason doesn’t really serve the story, but if you explore why the antagonism is there (your natural parent brought a stranger into the family, etc). Don’t need to avoid if it helps enrich the story
+- Tropes can help when you’re editing - if it helps you disentangle, sure; if it’s too easy, maybe you don’t need it. Can be an excellent tool to inject some energy by riffing off of it.
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+- “Murder your darlings”:
+- can be interpreted in weird ways e.g: “every scene in your story you really like, take it out”
+- Usually: as you make revisions, you can get attached to prose/scenes, and if they don’t serve the story well, they are also worth editing. Don’t get so attached to a piece of your story that you insist on leaving it in
+- However, you are writing this to communicate to readers, so if you really love something, it can still offer a little lift of emotion
+- Different in short vs long narrative. In a short narrative, it can be useful to be more critical of those moments with space at a premium
+- A “suspect darling” that stands out that might just be fun or just does one thing. Can massage it into e.g: charactarization. Or: if the language/register is unique, can you blend that into the rest of the story?
+- Think, is it only your darling? If so, cut/paste it into your pantry file and use later
+- Character affectations: they can be cute, but what do they really mean to the story? It doesn’t have to mean something, they can be embellishments (especially useful in large character casts in smaller pieces
+- Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin - don’t say “editing is the time to remove padding/repeats”, say “consider those”
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+- “Don’t edit your first draft”:
+- If it works for you to power through, go ahead and do it
+- The more you edit and revise, the easier it gets to see them in a first draft and edit them out as you write
+- As you write, your story will change (esp longer works), so if you e.g: need to go back and set something up earlier and your momentum can take it, go ahead
+- Need to figure out that momentum question: if you can do something without getting stuck in the mud.
+- An option: “Write the stupid version first” - let your skills/muscle memory carry you.
+- The first draft can also be an exploratory process. You’ll learn about it as you write.
+- Can be easier to edit out
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+- “High brow/low brow” and sex:
+- This idea that the more on-page sex there is, the less literary merit it has.
+- “Light a candle, F in chat for cutting away to waves/fade to black”
+- Sometimes you literally are writing to titilate people
+- Write more and weirder sex scenes, so long as they tie in to the story
+- “Everyone says sex in stories must serve a function, and the function is I want them to bang”
+- Suspicion that this is repeated not necessarily because of market demands - a lot of folks are being asked to add more sex/romantic interest - but from other writers who are nervous to add sex/puritanical stuff. This statement has no actual literary merit
+- Shorter markets say “we don’t publish erotica, there are other markets” and that’s not really true; perhaps they just don’t want to read badly written erotica
+- Can sacrifice chemistry between characters because of urge to stay away from sex for whatever reason.
+- AO3 and self tagging: teen audience can be cool because they have the chemistry even if the sex doesn’t happen on screen.
+- Also applies to genre stuff (rockets/animal people/elves = low brow) - if you don’t feel comfortable reading that in public, that’s on you.
+- Change is necessary to a story, but doesn’t have to be conflict (a list in Steering the Craft); a sex scene can explore change
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+- A coping skill only helps if it’s functional; if these help, then bonus
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