In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* A Few Thoughts on Craft
* No Writing Yesterday
* Bradbury Challenge Reminder
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“[T]he asymmetry in the city’s response can’t but make some residents suspicious, and such suspicion is clearly a wider phenomenon at this moment. In episodes of government by crisis, some interests find themselves more aligned with officialdom than others.” Matthew Crawford from “The danger of safetyism” (Thanks to Matt P. for the link)
“[W]e would do well to remember that bureaucracies have their own interests, quite apart from the public interest that is their official brief and warrant. They are very much in the business of tending and feeding the narratives that justify their existence.” Matthew Crawford
Story ideas abound. You could easily write another version of Orwell’s 1984 by just looking around and writing what you see.
A Few Thoughts on Craft
Thanks to my friend KC for many of these thoughts…
The natural voice of narrative is past tense, and the natural voice of “present” stuff (so dialogue, internal thought) is present tense.
Just as hitting the Enter key more often is good for pacing, using a period followed by a space and a capital letter is better for pacing (and tension and suspense) than a comma followe by and or but. Two or three shorter sentences are almost always better (and less boring and less tiring) than one very long sentence.
However, if they’re written intentionally to create a particular response in the reader, longer sentences convey stronger emotion and shorter sentences (and sentence fragments) evoke a stronger sense of drama. Seriously. They do.
When they’re used to set off parenthetical information, commas and em dashes (just like parentheses) should always be nested: whatever you open with, you close with that too. Information is parenthetical if the sentence would still make sense without that information.
If you want to write authentic, original stories, don’t think. Remind yourself every time you sit down to just write whatever comes. In every case, “whatever comes” is coming directly from the POV character of the story as he or she is living it. You can’t get more authentic or original than that.
On “giving” your characters memories (see “Of Interest”)—I recommend you do as I do: Trust your characters and let the story unfold as they live it. As a result, they will bring their own memories to the story. Always a surprise, and always something the reader can’t anticipate because even you won’t anticipate it.
No Writing Yesterday
I seem to be in a cycle recently of writing one day, then skipping the next. That’s all been down to coincidence, but after several days of the pattern repeating I’m starting to wonder.
Yesterday I didn’t write because I spent a lot of time mowing the taller grass in my yard (while it wasn’t wet from our recent rains) and my neighbors’ (on vacay at the moment) full lawn.
Bradbury Challenge Reminder
It strikes me that a large number of folks, including some Challenge participants, do not read the Journal every day, and therefore these reminders are ludicrous.
Anyway, since I already started, if you’re in the Challenge or would like to be, get your story titles and word counts in to me before the Journal goes live on Sunday morning.
The best way to approach such a challenge is to get it done early in the week so there’s no “pressure” to write. (Pressure often invokes fear and the critical mind.) I keep repeating this, yet as of today only two Challenge participants have filed their story details with me. Go figure. Shows you what I know, huh?
Of course, you can participate in the challenge and never tell me a word about it. If you’re a writer, what matters is that you write.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “The danger of safetyism” at https://unherd.com/2020/05/the-hypocrisy-of-safetyism/. Matthew also writes Archedelia, a substack blog “Toward a political theory of the present.”
See “The Archedelia Project” (Archedelia: “rule-revealing” (by analogy with psychedelia, “soul-revealing”) at https://mcrawford.substack[dot]com/p/welcome-to-archedelia. Reading this will tell you whether you want to subscribe.
See “Three links for 2023-08-21” at https://mattpmn.substack[dot]com/p/three-links-for-2023-08-21.
See “AI Not Protected Under Copyright” at https://deanwesleysmith.com/ai-not-protected-under-copyright/.
See “Character Type and Trope Thesaurus: Pessimist” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/character-type-and-trope-thesaurus-pessimist/. Read, absorb, fuggidaboudit.
See “Give Your Characters Memories” at https://killzoneblog.com/2023/08/give-your-characters-memories.html. Oh. My. God.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 730
Writing of Blackwell Ops 9: Cameron Stance
Brought forward………………………… 4087
Day 1…… 1595 words. To date…… 5682
Day 2…… 2101 words. To date…… 7783
Day 3…… 2573 words. To date…… 10356
Day 4…… 1588 words. To date…… 11944
Day 5…… 2135 words. To date…… 14079
Day 6…… 2019 words. To date…… 16098
Fiction for August……………………… 22614
Fiction for 2023………………………… 137161
Fiction since August 1………………… 22614
Nonfiction for August…………………… 17090
Nonfiction for the year……………… 166990
Annual consumable words………… 304151
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 2
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 73
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)… 221
Short story collections…………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.