Narrative & POV

  1. Word Of The Day

    Today's word of the day is ZEN. I refound my Zen today. I didn't even know I lost it. I was mowing the lawn, giving it a scalp cut, 1st cut of the spring. This is where you cut it at the mower's lowest setting, trim off all the dead so it can grow back green for the spring. I was transfixed atop the riding mower doing a repetitive task, the drone of the engine, gentle breeze in my hair. I'm back in the groove again. A calm & peace came over me, & I was reminded of when I worked as...
  2. Temporary Blindness -True Tales

    SoberDate 8041 A couple nights ago a series of thunderstorms rolled thru our area at nighttime. Around 11pm I got up for a late night snack from the fridge (a cheese stick) when the power went out. I ate my cheese and went back to bed. Around midnight, my wife awoke to use the bathroom and the 1st thing she noticed was it was pitch black, no light from the clock, no nightlight from the bathroom, no light outside from the streetlight. Nothing, just total inky blackness. Now mind you,...
  3. LocalScriptMan videos

    I already posted several of his videos on the topic of Character Web, but he frequently puts out great videos I want to collect where I can quickly find them. So here's a place to do that, no particular topic. What if Character Sheets weren't awful? He says he used to talk about theme (he sure did, it was all over his character web videos), but now he's moving away from that. It seems like he's working up his concepts into some kind of grand overarching narrative, a sort of universal...
  4. Getting all Emotional

    Almost a year ago I made this post: A few really good articles on Deep/Close POV A recent post on the First Three Sentences thread made me look back into it, and I read through some of the articles again. My opinion of deep POV changed several times as I learned about it, but eventually I realized it's one of those things that can be good or bad depending on how it's handled (isn't that everything related to writing?). From the second link I discovered a course. She has two modules that...
  5. Looking into the Creation of the MCU

    Don't be put off by the name of the channel (It Was a Sh*t Show)—this guy actually does a deep dive into the making of various movies, and he's extremely fair in his reporting. I think the name is mostly clickbait, though when you look deep enough, the making of most movies really is a shit show, even the ones that come out excellent. It's basically a miracle when Hollywood is able to make a good movie. He gives plenty of praise where it's due, and Marvel deserves a lot up to a certain...
  6. The Altered Self

    I hadn't heard of a sci-fi genre called The Altered Self before, or of Evolutionary Horror. And yet some of the most powerful books and movies I know of fit into one or both. I guess it's because I never really looked into sub-genres. But honestly, I don't think truly evolutionary horror would be frightening at all, since evolution takes like millions of years and affects, not you directly, but your very distant descendents. The reason these movies and stories are so intense is because it...
  7. Examining the writing in Sail and The Man Who Liked Dogs

    These are my two favorite hardboiled stories I've run across so far, both of them in the same book—The Hard Boiled Omnibus, published in 1952 and edited by Joseph T Shaw. It's a collection of some of the best stories from Black Mask magazine. I've already linked to Sail twice, but I feel I should include links here for both stories: Sail by Lester Dent The Man Who Liked Dogs by Raymond Chandler I find the beginnings of both stories to be the strongest parts. With Sail the main body almost...
  8. Side stories in a novel.

    I have begun to take a closer look at an idea I encountered in "the Wandering inn" Series by Pirataba. The main story is on the theme of the fool triumphant, save the cat story type. But in addition to POV shifts between characters, the author also inserts side stories into the series, which have different characters are are shorts embedded within the novel. These shorts are related to the fantasy world of the story, but instead of distracting from the story, serve to flesh out the story...
  9. What can be learned from Buffy?

    When I first joined this message board, I had just finished watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the series, from beginning to end. I think it was the best show ever made, bar none. Despite some heavy contenders like Breaking Bad, or Jessica Jones—none of them have anything like the perfect mix of creativity, humor, and fun Buffy offers, along with intense drama, sometimes to the point of tragedy. I bought the entire series as a DVD box set, which included behind the scenes for some episodes,...
  10. Wip 2

    I have wip2, at about 55k, and am going back through turning narration into scenes. I am finding that by using a generalized narratio0n of events I can make the transition from pantzing to outlining a bit easier. It does mean more editing but I can live with that since the process of outlining is becoming easier. I was able to sit down and create a story board outline for wip3 from this experience. The cork board in scrivener is allowing me to plot scenes with a sentence to paragraph of...
  11. RL sucks

    Today was the first time in a while I have had the time to actually sit down and put words on the page. Between incompetence at shippers, and over blown expectations, I haven't had time for anything but thinking about scenes and plots. And even then I often can't slip my focus enough to do that properly. There are too many out there that do not understand these new fangled inventions like mirrors or turn signals. All to often I find my work a day thoughts focused on how to avoid someone...
  12. Different types of novels and novellas, according to John Gardner

    Last night in John Gardner's Art of Fiction, I ran across several different forms for novels and novellas, and I want to get the info down here. I'll start by linking to several articles I'll be looking up on these types: 'Energeic' novels Aristotle's approach, three-act structure etc Juxtapositional novels Lyrical novels With an element of musical rhythm and repetition in the structure and/or the prose Ellen Vrana wrote about lyrical writing in her Quora article. Scroll down to What is...
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  13. A few really good articles on Deep/Close POV

    I ran across these while searching for some information just now. They explain deep or close POV in much greater depth than I've seen before. The Nuances of Deep POV This is a multi-part series, be sure to click through to the other parts. 17 Things To Know About Deep POV Before You Start Writing Apparently all their posts that mention deep POV? There are a LOT! It looks like a massive blog, and they have online courses. Deep POV—What’s So Deep About It
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  14. Free Indirect Discourse

    Not only does the name sound cool, but it's an important tool that ties in with my earlier posts about direct and indirect writing. What is it? I'll quote: "Free indirect discourse is a method of conveying a character’s internal thoughts by embedding them within the narration, rather than expressing them directly." It's actually a technique taken from first person writing and transferred to third person. It's only when it's done in third that it's called free indirect discourse. I don't...
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  15. Honestly, It's Not for Everyone

    That’s Nebraska’s current tourism slogan, and it seems perfect to me. Most people from the state (at least among those I know) will freely admit there are no obviously sublime sights, no real mountains, no towering redwoods, no massive canyons, only one real waterfall (and it ain’t much by Niagara standards). But then they will say something like, “it’s got a lot of subtle beauty.” And so it does. I was born in ranch country, way out in the northwest corner of the state, in the shadow...
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