The Writing Enigma (original) (raw)
I know it has been awhile since I asked this, so here it is:
April is half-way over and for all those who made writing goals for 2009, how are you doing with them?
April 5th, 2009
Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother.
Richard Peck
March 24th, 2009
In my mind I don't have enough time in the day to write, and lately it seems even harder to manage my schedule so I can, and then when I do have a block of time to write, it's all shitty. What do you guys do to overcome this?
March 13th, 2009
I found this really interesting article called Writing for a living: a joy or a chore? at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/03/authors-on-writing
March 7th, 2009
I am taking a short story online course with a friend and one of the challenges that they encourage the students to try in a 15 minute Freewrite. Since doing this I have found that this warm up to my writing has acctually helped and improved my writing.
Has anyone else tried this? Has it helped or hindered? Would you like to share anything about your experience with freewriting?
March 2nd, 2009
Have you ever had this kind of day:
There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith
February 28th, 2009
February has come to a close. And for those of you who made writing goals at the beginning of the year, whether you posted them or not, how are you doing with them? For those of you whose goals have changed and would like to share them, or mark your progress, how are you doing?
February 23rd, 2009
What are the pros and cons of using metaphors? When should the be used?
February 15th, 2009
Stories open up new paths, sometimes send us back to old ones, and close off still others. Telling and listening to stories we too imaginatively walk down those paths – paths of longing, paths of hope, paths of desperation.
Arthur Kleinman
To Prologue or not to Prologue
February 12th, 2009
There is so must controversy on whether or not a writer should have a Prologue in their stories. Most people consider a prologue to be the mark of an amateur. Or claim that a prologue should be written as a last resort, when there is no other way of revealing the information. This belief stems from the fact that a prologue is often composed of backstory. After repeating such notions, I thought I better read up on Prologues, this is what I learned.
The function of a prologue is to provide potent insight into the world of the story that can’t be provided through the unfolding events or information that can’t be discovered by the protagonist, but is still necessary to the story. It may be used when the material you want to include in the opening is out of time, viewpoint, or space sequence with the rest of the story. A defining moment in a prologue carries more heft than one found in a flashback because it looms over the story and the characters, it becomes arresting and illuminating. Although it might exist outside the flow of the narrative, it is always linked to story events, characters, or themes.
Benefits of a Prologue
1. Prologues may sweep the reader into some crucial aspect of the story and ignite their imagination by introducing information where it carries a lot of weight--the beginning. (Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code)
2. Prologues may introduce essential facts about the protagonist’s past or future. (Rebecca Wells’s Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)
3. Prologues may introduce events or information that is out of sequence with the story. (Stephanie Kallos‘s Broken for You)
4. Prologues may establish a distinct mood and atmosphere as you reveal vital information. (David Brin’s The Uplift War)
5. Prologues may provide information or backstory that can’t be told in the main body of the story. (Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear’s First North American Series)
6. Prologues may create a hook or question that begs to be answered. (James Bryon Huggins’s Hunter)
7. Prologues may play with readers emotions before getting down to the nitty-gritty of telling the story. (Rebecca Wells’s Little Altars Everywhere)
8. Prologues may introduce the rules of the story world, especially if history or complicated events will affect the story. (Sherrilynn Kenyon’s Unleash the Night)
9. Prologues may pass on information from another viewpoint.
10. Prologues may establish who is telling the story and why. (Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary)
11. Prologues may introduce a cast of characters. (Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club)
Pitfalls of a Prologue
1. The reader wants to plunge right into the drama of the story, so the excursion into the back story of the prologue must be hugely significant.
2. Resist the urge to tell the readers everything you know about the story world and your characters.
3. Don’t let your prologue dump information that muddles the beginning with too much data.
4. Don’t dilute suspense by exposing too much too soon.
5. Be careful of creating tenuous, stand alone scenes that do not firmly connect to the story.
6. Writing a prologue solely to create a mood or atmosphere with no vital information can usually be dumped.
7. Don’t do vague or confusing prologues.
8. A prologue should never be written in a passive voice.
9. Excerpts of a cliffhanger moment that appears later should not be done (although I did read a book where the killer set up their kit, caressed the muzzle of the gun, and had one of the main character in their sights and was about to pull the trigger. Then the book started. Later the scene was done from the main character’s POV.)