My suggestion about acting classes is about learning what actors need to proform at their best. So you need to understand scene beats and subtext at the level of muscle memory. One example of subtext I often hear referenced is Hemingway's "Hills like white elephants" there is a scene with a conversation between two characters that is about abortion, but that is all subtext and masterfully done.
Personally, I feel like taking a writing class would be more beneficial than an acting class. Aside from that, I do like a story with some good subtext. I totally agree with you about "Hills like white Elephants." Yes, masterfully done!
Yep, my first experience writing a book was when some fellow bloggers --back in 2012 --persuaded me to join them in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Write 50,000 words in November. 1666 words a day. This instilled discipline. The writing was crap ... haha ... I'm rewriting it now... but the plot is solid. I proved to myself I had the self-discipline to commit and complete the task in a given timeframe. I am still studying the theory now. I found the dialogue recommendation by @Xoic most informative. I'm still working through it currently and making notes. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/what-writing-tips-made-you-pause-for-thought-today.175698/#post-2006354 Exactly. That is a notable writing quote right there.
I've learned about subtext and I think it's one of the definitions of drama (there needs to be an unspoken truth, something not yet revealed in a situation in order for it to be a dramatic situation), but I don't know much about the muscular memory, I assume it involves non-verbal communication.
Yup. Like guitar playing or even bartending. You want to really screw a bartender up? Move the bottles and shakers around.
Okay and I agree, but as much the actors are rehearsed in delivering the lines, the writers are rehearsed or should be in coming up with those lines.
Hi, Roses are red Violets are blue I don't write poetry Because I have no understanding of verse, rhythm or rhyming! I think you guys get the point! However as far as the OP is concerned, my advice as a pantster (I don't like the term discovery writer because it sounds just too damned stuck up for me!) is to just write. Don't worry if it's going to be a short story or a novel. Don't constrain yourself by these things. Or anything else. And of course ignore all advice until you've reached a conclusion to whatever you're writing. It's not much use in my opinion until you're well into the writing journey. Until you've got something to apply the advice to. Just write. Start where you want to start, end where you want to end. Then start again. And keep going like that for at least a year or two. Get people to critique your work. Take what they say on board. (It hurts but it's a vital part of the process.) Finally start paying attention to advice. And then rewrite, edit, pull your hair out, get drunk, cry, scream at the walls and write some more. It's the only way. Cheers, Greg.
That makes me and anybody who uses the term "discovery writing" stuck up then? Good thing to know about myself, I guess.
I really don't like it when someone calls a group of writers stuck up or snobs for any reason. Why do that? There are plenty of writers here who identify themselves as discovery writers and I don't think any of them are stuck up.
How about structured writer/unstructured writer? Architect/gardener? Outlining/freeflowing? Tightassed/LaLa?
Hi, Sorry if you thought I meant people in general. I wrote "for me" not "to me" meaning that it made me feel stuck up, not anyone else. But maybe I should have been more clear. Again, apologies. Cheers, Greg.
Just my 2cents here. But reading the post that sparked this mini up roar, struck me as stating an opinion about a term some use to describe their style. Not calling a group a name.
This is actually like me, though mostly I don't want to tell others, as there appears to be expectations of how writers will write, like there is a structure to hold to. I can feel less like a writer for not doing such things that it is thought that writers would do. It does not include getting drunk, though. I want to write, and I like doing it, but the thoughts of where to lead it, or, sometimes maybe to be led by it, come as I go on with it. Doing this really does go a long way with the things I write, that I like and keep going with, so much in fact I switch between a few separate writing projects each having their turns for my attention.
I have a few ideas and conceived themes I keep in mind for using in my writing, which I can come to. But my writing itself is freer, building on things seen and experienced, memories of things, and things read and things watched, and my creativity works with those for new things being put in the writing, without an outline or previously prepared structure for it.
I don't think I would have taken my thinking to write well enough to be a writer seriously if there wasn't anyone in my life who was doing that, as there were in my family, which was an encouragement to me.
Interesting. That's why I started drawing, because my dad drew and was an architect. Once you've seen somebody you know personally do something like that, you know it's something you could do—otherwise it's an abstract concept and you assume only special people can do things like that. My relationship with writing is different though. I didn't know anybody who was a writer. The first time I can remember writing anything my friend just said "Let's write a story," and we did. We were in 4th grade at the time, it was a single page, and a single run-on sentence. He dictated and I wrote it down, exactly as he said it. It was littered with all kinds of errors and false starts, because he kept messing up or changing his mind. We laughed our asses off reading it when we were done, then it just became a normal thing we did for fun. But I mean, we all had to write little things for school, right? I guess that gives you the idea that you're a person who can write.
Interesting. I got started writing poetry after seeing my mother’s when I packed up out stuff to move halfway across the country (she lives with me).
I liked reading as a kid (fairy/folk tales from various parts of the world or summarized versions of classics with pictures), and I went to all kinds of activities, dancing, reciting, but I don't think any of my school essays and texts were ever considered particularly good (grades were okay). It's probably why I never decided to study literature but I do resonate with my relatively similar profession and I had some shared classes with literature students.
