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News uptade! art raffle had to be postpond and writing tips!
9 years ago
Ok, so I am having a scedule for a time, and had to postpone many Doodle-related stuff for a while, including personal stuff from mine and other proyects like the raffle and comics. So dont expect drawings from me soon.
Meanwhile, however, I feel like in the mood to write stuff. Not stuff like 5000 words or long chapters, but short stories, like flash fiction or such, along the lines of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Terrible Old Man". So I would like any tips or tutorials for something like that, but seriously, not something like "write everyday/practice" kind of tips, I already know that.
Meanwhile, however, I feel like in the mood to write stuff. Not stuff like 5000 words or long chapters, but short stories, like flash fiction or such, along the lines of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Terrible Old Man". So I would like any tips or tutorials for something like that, but seriously, not something like "write everyday/practice" kind of tips, I already know that.
Characters and their relationships with others should change.
describe the non- verbal cues, and treat your descriptions like a director would treat there camera.
don't describe in a whole block, disperse your descriptions with action, dialogue, or reactions.
develop a lexicon within a series, the longer the series the more important this is, to provide an additional layer of implication.
I might be able to give more tips if you can specify where in particular you want to improve, as well as if you provide some writings to actually digest.
I was going to try and do an example for character dynamics, but my brain is not working right now.
The basic premise is though, like humor, drama is about making an interesting journey from the setup, to the punchline.
With many artists, including many I call friends and peers, they focus on static characters, a person who acts as a bridge between two different peoples, a noble king that is forced to betray their beliefs to save their people, a created person with no identity or community it is allowed to express other than working.
These are cool ideas, but no one would go to see a movie about a person who understands two cultures, and that is it, or a king doing something bad, and that is it, they want to see that person be expelled from one or both cultures, to then question whether they understood either to begin with, to then reassure themselves, wrongly or rightly, of their understandings, to then change how those cultures view each other and the person, and then have that reassurance proven wrong or right.
People would go see a movie about a King forced to do something wrong, then question whether it was wrong in the first place, etc...
If you took any one of these segments and made a whole thing out of it, it probably won't be as big as it could be, but when you string them together it gives an emotional and personal exploration of that experience for the readers. Optimistic here, at least two readers will read either of our stuff XD.
Jackie held their arms close and in between them-self, and the scene they were observing.
Eilish straightened there back, and looked straight on as Antoine approached, head lowered and arms clasped to their chest.
(This is supposed to provide a more innate connection with the emotional aspects of a scene, which is less jarring and hopefully more accessible)
The room was dark, with undisclosed stains running from the strobing neon lights.
I kept my hand upon the handle of my pistol, as I looked for their face.
All around me the pressing masses of dancers, the thick scent of sweat, hormones, and other fluids masked my prey.
A movement, higher than the dancers, caught my eye, as I saw their distinctive costume dissapear behind the staff door.
I rushed past the posters of long forgotten concerts as I slammed through the rusty metal door after them.
(While this can slow down more action pact scenes, it does provide some breathing room so you can describe in better detail an environment without drowning the reader. An alternative which is really good for reoccurring places is to describe a small bit of it over the entire story, rather than all at once at the beginning, just make sure to describe something before it becomes important, like above I should have described the door before they caught the MC's attention.)
I can't really provide an example of a lexicon, but I can describe what I mean and why it is important. For example some colors imply different things, green can imply envy, but also youth, growth, life, wealth, etc.
If you work on making unique correlations between descriptive words and key concepts or aspects of your story, you can imply more and give more room for reader interpretation and exploration.
For example any potter fan could freak if a triangle, circle, and line were referenced in a potter book, or for those firefly people talking about bodies of water or leaves caught in the wind could also link disperate ideas without becoming preachy.