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Yesterday, I received a desperate PM from someone on Fanfiction.net pleading with me to teach them how to write "at least as good as you." Well, that was all very flattering, but it was also very terrifying. How do you answer a request like that? If you refuse to answer at all, then feelings are hurt and and your former admirer thinks you're a smug douchebag worthy of nothing more than a crotch punch and a sniff of contempt, but it's not a reasonable request, either. It's not even the right request. What they want is to be transformed into a great storyteller. and that, in my opinion, cannot be taught. It's an either/or proposition. You either are, or you aren't. You can practice and refine your skills, certainly, but that kernel of congenital talent for story must be there. Otherwise you're writing how-to manuals.
Still, I remember how disappointed I was when Eddie Cahill never answered my fan letter, so I decided to offer this misguided soul a few pointers. They might be lame, but it's better than indifference.
-Learn the basics of the language you intend to use. Spelling, grammar, and vocabulary are the peptide chains of good storytelling. Nothing is possible without them. Your revolutionary plotbunny about wheelchair-bound machine gunners in futuristic hoverchairs staving off an invasion by the Canadian military with three bullets, a spatula, and loaded colostomy bags isn't worth much if you can't properly articulate it. Respect the language, the story, and yourself; learn the rules of your chosen language and apply them.
-Read. This is important. By reading, you absorb narrative structure, flow, and technique. You learn how to structure scenes and chapters to achieve the effect you want. You learn pace and tone, and when not to lob an ellipsis bomb. Read all genres and forms. Romance, horror, postmodern, modern, Edwardian, free verse, short story, novella. Wallow in words and their various offspring. Read Hemingway for brevity, O'Connor for atmosphere, Faulkner for florid description and syntactic complexity. Read Kafka and Garcia Marquez for the imagery. Read Lewis Grizzard for humor, Stephen King for the folksy, universality of his narrative voice. Read outside your comfort zone. Some of it will be terrible and tedious and boring, but you'll be learning even as you wish you could remove your eyeteeth with a pair of pliers just to dull the pain. You'll learn what not to do.
-Don't be afraid to write what you know. Sure, you might be labeled a Suethor, but until you're comfortable writing in your own skin and your own backyard, you won't have the skills or courage to slip into someone else's skin. If you can't tell the world what it's like to be you, then you cannot hope to speak for anyone else.
-Avoid creative writing courses. Most of these are filled with pretentious, navel-gazing nitwits who would gladly waste forty pages on a story about a fly drowning in a blotch of paint while the city blunders heedlessly on around it. They think they're being profound, a misconception reinforced by self-absorbed, patchouli-sniffing instructors who sell their oeuvre from the trunks of their cars and turn up their noses at anything that holds the faintest whiff of pop culture or mass appeal. These courses will crush your imagination and creative drive with the ruthless efficiency of a farmer snapping a chicken neck.
-Writing is not SRS Business. It's fun. Stories aren't meant to be missionaries. They're meant to be stories. The truths insi.de stories should be natural outgrowths and happy accidents. Tell the story properly, and the message will follow.
I posted part of my Richard Kruspe RPF fic to the Rosenrot forums last night on a whim. I figured there might be an audience for it there. So far, the response has been small but positive. I was going to post it to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rammstein_pimp until I reread the rules and realized it was verboten. I would have posted it to the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eht6 community, but it's been deleted and purged, alas. At least I can put it somewhere.
Still, I remember how disappointed I was when Eddie Cahill never answered my fan letter, so I decided to offer this misguided soul a few pointers. They might be lame, but it's better than indifference.
-Learn the basics of the language you intend to use. Spelling, grammar, and vocabulary are the peptide chains of good storytelling. Nothing is possible without them. Your revolutionary plotbunny about wheelchair-bound machine gunners in futuristic hoverchairs staving off an invasion by the Canadian military with three bullets, a spatula, and loaded colostomy bags isn't worth much if you can't properly articulate it. Respect the language, the story, and yourself; learn the rules of your chosen language and apply them.
-Read. This is important. By reading, you absorb narrative structure, flow, and technique. You learn how to structure scenes and chapters to achieve the effect you want. You learn pace and tone, and when not to lob an ellipsis bomb. Read all genres and forms. Romance, horror, postmodern, modern, Edwardian, free verse, short story, novella. Wallow in words and their various offspring. Read Hemingway for brevity, O'Connor for atmosphere, Faulkner for florid description and syntactic complexity. Read Kafka and Garcia Marquez for the imagery. Read Lewis Grizzard for humor, Stephen King for the folksy, universality of his narrative voice. Read outside your comfort zone. Some of it will be terrible and tedious and boring, but you'll be learning even as you wish you could remove your eyeteeth with a pair of pliers just to dull the pain. You'll learn what not to do.
-Don't be afraid to write what you know. Sure, you might be labeled a Suethor, but until you're comfortable writing in your own skin and your own backyard, you won't have the skills or courage to slip into someone else's skin. If you can't tell the world what it's like to be you, then you cannot hope to speak for anyone else.
-Avoid creative writing courses. Most of these are filled with pretentious, navel-gazing nitwits who would gladly waste forty pages on a story about a fly drowning in a blotch of paint while the city blunders heedlessly on around it. They think they're being profound, a misconception reinforced by self-absorbed, patchouli-sniffing instructors who sell their oeuvre from the trunks of their cars and turn up their noses at anything that holds the faintest whiff of pop culture or mass appeal. These courses will crush your imagination and creative drive with the ruthless efficiency of a farmer snapping a chicken neck.
-Writing is not SRS Business. It's fun. Stories aren't meant to be missionaries. They're meant to be stories. The truths insi.de stories should be natural outgrowths and happy accidents. Tell the story properly, and the message will follow.
I posted part of my Richard Kruspe RPF fic to the Rosenrot forums last night on a whim. I figured there might be an audience for it there. So far, the response has been small but positive. I was going to post it to
rammstein_pimp until I reread the rules and realized it was verboten. I would have posted it to the eht6 community, but it's been deleted and purged, alas. At least I can put it somewhere.Tags: