In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* An Inane Quote
* A lot to see
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day (an inanity)
“Everything is a decision.” Matthew Salesses in Craft in the Real World (as noted in an article in “Of Interest”)
What a stupid, inane quote.
The problem is, we’re talking about two different “real worlds” here. Granted, in the real world of timid, frightened, uncertain writers—a world that is admittedly much larger than the world in which I reside—certainly everything from character “development” to setting to scenes and plot points is a conscious decision. Because if those timid little writers don’t “decide” all of those things, if they don’t exercise absolute control, then, then, OMG! Something Bad might happen.
Yawn. How boring. And how pretentious of them to actually believe any reader anywhere cares which particular word the writer chooses or whether the writer decides to make the protagonist active or passive or—gosh, I don’t know—passive agressive or even tarantular piquant.
In the other real world, the one in which I reside, storytellers just tell stories. There’s nothing “important” about the stories except as determined later by individual readers. The stories are only a few minutes’ or hours’ entertainment.
In this world, we iknow that readers don’t care about our decision-making process, or whether we even have one. Readers just want a good story, and they reserve for themselves the right to decide what does or doesn’t fit their definition of “good.”
And from the readers’ perspective, it’s exactly the same back in that other real world. Even in that world, despite the writers’ unreasoning fears, there are no real-world consequences to writing a “bad” story or a “flawed” character or anything else. If you’re a storyteller, some of what you write will be brilliant and some of it will be crap. To You.
But to readers, what you thought was brilliant might be crap and what you thought was crap might be brilliant. The point is, the harder you consciously Try to write a good story, the more likely you are to turn out a piece that nobody will enjoy. What is well-thought-out equates with Predictable.
As I’ve said here many times, as a writer and storyteller, your job is to write the story, not to judge it. Judging it is the readers’ job.
So there you have it. In both versions of the real world—both the world of the blind leading the blind through the clichéd-advice echo chamber and the world of professional long-term storytellers—the quote of the day is a lie.
Among storytellers, the opposite of the quote of the day is true: Nothing is a decision. Once you put your fingers on the keyboard and trust your characters, you just write.
There’s admittedly a lot to see in “Of Interest” today. That’s the main reason I posted today.
Talk with you again later.
Of Interest
See “Why and How I Got My Rights Back from HarperCollins” at https://www.janefriedman.com/how-i-got-my-rights-back/.
See “How I Became the Honest Broker” at https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-broker. A very good read.
See “Supply Chain Woes…Traditional, Indie, And More” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/supply-chain-woestraditional-indie-and-more/. I tried to click through to the OP but the link is currently broken. (I think Kris’s site is down.)
See “How Forensic Botany Catches Killers” at https://www.suecoletta.com/how-forensic-botany-catches-killers/.
See “Ebooks Are an Abomination” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/ebooks-are-an-abomination/. Read the comments.
See “Active Protagonists are a Tool of the Patriarchy” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/active-protagonists-are-a-tool-of-the-patriarchy/.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 570 words
Writing of WCGN 5: Tentative Title (novel)
Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for August……… XXXX
Total fiction words for the year………… 623282
Total nonfiction words for August… 51600
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 160380
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 783662
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 13
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.