So in my awesome fiction group, we decided on using prompts for these blogs so we have more to discuss. This week's prompt is on qualities about our writing that we excel at and qualities we struggle with. Let's dive in :)
Excel:
- I get a lot of enjoyment out of writing dialogue and using punctuation in dialogue. I hear dialogue is the hardest part of writing, which always surprises me no matter how many times I hear it, because I have no issues with it. In fact, I'd write an entire story with just dialogue and no description if I really pushed myself to do so.
- Particularly helpful for this project, I've previously received feedback and I still feel confident about building suspense during a scene.
- I spend a lot of time studying language and how to better write something or make something simple. Along with dialogue, I like using different words that may be slang or playing around with dialects.
- I like sharing my work...when I feel it's good.
Struggle:
- I don't like description because I have no idea what to describe! Sometimes for a scene I feel I have to describe the whole room and then what the characters are wearing and what they look like in order for people to visualize what I'm visualizing. Other times I want to pinpoint certain aspects of characters and space but in response that's not enough description. I have no idea if I listen to the feedback or I just write what I want.
- My story plots either don't make sense from the get-go, make sense and then spiral out of control, or make sense but still leave me saying "Okay so what?"
- Along with the description struggle, as I'm writing, I always think about my audience and not enough about what I want to write.
- I like the advice of writing whatever comes to mind and working with that, but I don't do it that often. I think I should start.
- In my teenage and adult writing life, I've never finished a story. Ever.
I'm glad I'm publishing this actually because I want to refer to this post in the middle of the semester and then at the end to see what struggles I've overcome and what skills I've excelled at even more.
Time to finish a story! Great prompt writers. Some people can't do dialogue and get stuck in description--you're the other person. This is a great inventory of yourself as a writer and as you go forth, you're going to see evolution for sure. As for description, it's always the precise, not the amount. right? Selection.
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I was thinking of you, and your passion for dialogue, and got to wondering if you had ever read "Vox" by Nicholson Baker. It's horribly sexy, but darned if the whole thing isn't written entirely in dialogue. He is one of the best at experimenting with the structure of a story, and "The Mezzanine" is still one of my all time favorite books for so skillfully making use of footnotes. But enough about him, I would love to read a scene or something of yours that was entirely dialogue. Have you ever tried writing a scene with description and whatnot, and then writing it again with just dialogue but still getting the same amount of information across? I wonder what that exercise would be like. Maybe I'll try it, because I do want to work on my characters' voices.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in terms of plot, I am totally in that "Okay so what?" phase. It is the most frustrating thing, and makes me feel like all this writing I have done was for naught. Gotta get out of this slump!
Look forward to working with you on Friday :)
From the piece you shared on the first day of class I agree with you excelling in dialogue, which is really hard for a lot of writers..often coming out corny/unreal. Although you feel you may struggle with establishing place/images of the characters, so much can be built visually for a character and space by the dialogue. As you mentioned, playing around with slang and dialect can really locate a person for one thing. But for me I like there to be a looseness when it comes to fictional characters, to not be told exactly how they look by an omnipresent narrator, and build various visual elements around their dialogue, thoughts, interactions, etc. Hearing your HAIR piece on the first day was very visual for me, easily I could see all the characters together chatting in a room - I feel like in part because the success of the dialogue and the reliability to the space.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post and the idea of coming back to it at the end of the semester to see what you've improved upon! I also feel like I share a lot of these skills and struggles! I've always loved writing dialogue and I feel like it's definitely something that others often enjoy about my writing, but like you I often lack description. It's really hard for me to find a balance between too much and too little :/ Hopefully that's something we will both be able to improve upon with this class throughout the semester! Best of luck!
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