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<h1>Zk | 2021-06-07-rawr-day-2</h1> <h1>Zk | RAWR day 2</h1>
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<h1 id="lecture-writing-advice">Lecture &mdash; Writing Advice</h1>
<ul>
<li>Reality is more complicated than the advice</li>
<li>Not all advice works for everyone, what works is what gets a story down on the page</li>
<li>You can make your own tools by breaking existing maxims/tools</li>
<li>(The movie &ldquo;Adaptation&rdquo; adapted from <em>The Orchid Thief</em>)</li>
<li>It&rsquo;s all about effect and getting it across</li>
<li>Examples:<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Show, don&rsquo;t tell&rdquo;:<ul>
<li>The experience of reading is more engaging when the reader has to work for it.</li>
<li>Important specifically for asking &lsquo;why&rsquo; via &lsquo;where/when/how&rsquo;</li>
<li>Readers get information via the ways in which characters process information and emotion</li>
<li>Don&rsquo;t want the characters to say exactly what they mean <em>too</em> often. The reader can sense the tension between what the character says and does/feels, and you&rsquo;re training them to notice things</li>
<li>Talking <em>about</em> 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</li>
<li>The reader is the final judge of what&rsquo;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&rsquo;t very interpersonally observant), as opposed to the books where you only see her point of view.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>&ldquo;Clichés are bad&rdquo;:<ul>
<li>Probably mean &ldquo;tropes are bad&rdquo;, they&rsquo;re conflated often</li>
<li>Can be used carelessly to situations where they don&rsquo;t necessarily apply</li>
<li>Tropes become cliche for being used very often, and for good reason, because you&rsquo;re managing comfort and enjoyment in your audience</li>
<li>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a cliché for a reason&rdquo; is kind of a cliché itself, and can be used in bad faith, as it can imply a homogeneity in the audience that doesn&rsquo;t exist</li>
<li>Tropes = shorthand to reader satisfaction (As long as you make a careful choice in using it)</li>
<li>Can help by giving the reader a pressure valve for the tension</li>
<li>Also, it should be fun; allow yourself to have fun</li>
<li>Good for underserved communities who desire mirroring</li>
<li>Picking tropes doesn&rsquo;t mean your work has to be tropey.</li>
<li>They also help ground the characters by making them do things normal people do, they&rsquo;re bridges help other people relate</li>
<li>The application is what is important, viz. expected beats in a romance story (could be tropes, but they add to satisfaction)</li>
<li>If you&rsquo;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</li>
<li>E.g: Cinderella Story/&rdquo;Evil step-parent&rdquo; - Throwing that in for no reason doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t need to avoid if it helps enrich the story</li>
<li>Tropes can help when you&rsquo;re editing - if it helps you disentangle, sure; if it&rsquo;s too easy, maybe you don&rsquo;t need it. Can be an excellent tool to inject some energy by riffing off of it.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>&ldquo;Murder your darlings&rdquo;:<ul>
<li>can be interpreted in weird ways e.g: &ldquo;every scene in your story you really like, take it out&rdquo;</li>
<li>Usually: as you make revisions, you can get attached to prose/scenes, and if they don&rsquo;t serve the story well, they are also worth editing. Don&rsquo;t get so attached to a piece of your story that you insist on leaving it in</li>
<li>However, you are writing this to communicate to readers, so if you really love something, it can still offer a little lift of emotion</li>
<li>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</li>
<li>A &ldquo;suspect darling&rdquo; 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?</li>
<li>Think, is it only <em>your</em> darling? If so, cut/paste it into your pantry file and use later</li>
<li>Character affectations: they can be cute, but what do they really mean to the story? It doesn&rsquo;t have to mean something, they can be embellishments (especially useful in large character casts in smaller pieces</li>
<li><em>Steering the Craft</em> by Ursula K Le Guin - don&rsquo;t say &ldquo;editing is the time to remove padding/repeats&rdquo;, say &ldquo;consider those&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t edit your first draft&rdquo;:<ul>
<li>If it works for you to power through, go ahead and do it</li>
<li>The more you edit and revise, the easier it gets to see them in a first draft and edit them out as you write</li>
<li>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</li>
<li>Need to figure out that momentum question: if you can do something without getting stuck in the mud.</li>
<li>An option: &ldquo;Write the stupid version first&rdquo; - let your skills/muscle memory carry you.</li>
<li>The first draft can also be an exploratory process. You&rsquo;ll learn about it as you write.</li>
<li>Can be easier to edit out</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>&ldquo;High brow/low brow&rdquo; and sex:<ul>
<li>This idea that the more on-page sex there is, the less literary merit it has.</li>
<li>&ldquo;Light a candle, F in chat for cutting away to waves/fade to black&rdquo;</li>
<li>Sometimes you literally are writing to titilate people</li>
<li>Write more and weirder sex scenes, so long as they tie in to the story</li>
<li>&ldquo;Everyone says sex in stories must serve a function, and the function is I want them to bang&rdquo;</li>
<li>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 <em>actual</em> literary merit</li>
<li>Shorter markets say &ldquo;we don&rsquo;t publish erotica, there are other markets&rdquo; and that&rsquo;s not really true; perhaps they just don&rsquo;t want to read badly written erotica</li>
<li>Can sacrifice chemistry between characters because of urge to stay away from sex for whatever reason.</li>
<li>AO3 and self tagging: teen audience can be cool because they have the chemistry even if the sex doesn&rsquo;t happen on screen.</li>
<li>Also applies to genre stuff (rockets/animal people/elves = low brow) - if you don&rsquo;t feel comfortable reading that in public, that&rsquo;s on you.</li>
<li>Change is necessary to a story, but doesn&rsquo;t have to be conflict (a list in <em>Steering the Craft</em>); a sex scene can explore change</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>A coping skill only helps if it&rsquo;s functional; if these help, then bonus</li>
</ul>
</article> </article>
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