McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
The Question of Setting
Starbeam:
--- Quote from: daylightdreamer on May 21, 2009, 12:53:31 AM ---He's a poet, first of all, so it's really hard to get a lot of stuff out of him about prose type stuff. We had a novelist as the head of the department when I first went there (part of the reason I went there), but she transferred out before I even got to have a class with her and they brought in this guy. He's just a lit snob, partly, and he's also just...odd. He says that when he reads, he can't visualize what he's reading. It's just words on the page, so he's all about making it look good on the page and making the words sound good next to each other.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I've noticed that poets tend to look at writing a lot differently, and they are odd people. With poetry, it's completely understandable to work with the shape of the words, that's sometimes a big part of the poem. I took a couple poetry classes, and I did find them helpful with just learning a new way of looking at words and how they relate to each other and the image that they create. Helpful for when you want to describe something in a different way than it usually tends to be described.
--- Quote from: daylightdreamer on May 21, 2009, 12:53:31 AM --- I'm going to try to get some more out of everyone before I graduate, but I'm starting to look elsewhere to improve my craft.
--- End quote ---
A few suggestions with this, and most of them have been suggested by others around here, Stephen King's On Writing, JB's Livejournal, and the Writing Excuses podcast. There are lots of other resources for writing out there, but for me, those are the ones that I continually return to.
comprex:
--- Quote from: LizW65 on May 20, 2009, 08:37:43 PM ---And there's always Google Earth, or that old standby, the Road Trip, which you could at least try to write off as a business expense at the end of the year.
--- End quote ---
This is where I am on this. Practice -research- at the same time you're practicing writing. Pick the setting to ease the storyline and set mood.
Otherwise you're stuck in writing where you live. Because your knowledge of everywhere else gets -dated-.
belial.1980:
Sounds like your professor has a chip on his shoulder. I wouldn't worry about him. Just write what you feel. :)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: comprex on May 21, 2009, 01:37:47 PM ---This is where I am on this. Practice -research- at the same time you're practicing writing. Pick the setting to ease the storyline and set mood.
Otherwise you're stuck in writing where you live. Because your knowledge of everywhere else gets -dated-.
--- End quote ---
I am not at all convinced that deliberate research is the way to go.
Or put it another way; everything is research. The trick is figuring out what it's research for.
daylightdreamer:
Yeah...I really think that no matter where it's set there's going to be research involved. I mean...even if I set it in my home town where I've lived almost all of my life, I would still have to do research on the setting because I don't know everything about it and I forget things. But it's easier because it gives you a starting point for that research.
Like I said, I think I'm going to leave it, and I've got the rough outline of my novel done...now I'm going back through and breaking things down to fill in the important details I'll need while writing so I don't get lost. If I decide to change it later....Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I guess. >>; Thanks for all the help everyone.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version