A Writer's Notebook, Day Six-Hundred-And-Seventy-Five

I finished the first draft of the story I have been working on, and I think the ending is good, but it may not yet be a complete fit.  I did not expect the ending to be as it was, though it makes sense to me, and their is a sense of coming to the place that is reasonable, but I think it may need to be smoothed out a bit, may need to have earlier moments in the story that bring themes and ideas in earlier so it works better.  As well, I think the end may be a bit blunt right now, in some ways, and I worry if their is too much ambiguity in the piece, as it is not all clear, but I am hoping the character's methods and thinking will do much of the work.  In many ways, it is an effort to create something that does not have any real element of traditional plot, though there is a sense of event and an assumed narrative around this, in the confines of the story itself, all that is learned is almost tangential to the central plot.  The story is written as a sort of apology, but the character never apologizes and never states the specifics of the situation.  The question in the story is more about the person, about the nature of a kind of transgression and about the nature of apologizing in a public arena.  It is a story that concerns complicated issues that I am not certain I know my opinion on fully, and which are not easily broken into good and bad.  The question that concerns me is whether there is enough for most readers to see the underlying spirit that exists within the piece and why it functions the way it does, what it is intending to point towards.  It is hard to write a piece in which the speaker is not saying what the reader needs to understand, but that is the challenge in much of writing.  In this case, it is a concern that the character may not be seen, at the end, as the kind of figure I want, and that their may be a misreading which casts the ending in a positive light as a result, but I am hoping that the other elements will also function to do much of the work that can prevent that.  So much of that work is done in ways that are more about the functional aspect of what is done, from the perspective of the character, is seen in how the character hides the truth in ways that are direct and clear, but strange as well, offering excuses for misdeeds that are absurd, with aliens, intelligent mice, all sorts of strange and unrealistic details.  This choice is one of the major things that reveals the character, along with other, less obvious details.  I do not yet know if it works, but I am hoping to get some feedback soon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Fifty

Each of the three pieces I wrote today was a bit of a struggle to get going, if I am honest.  That happens, as I have mentioned, and my answer is generally to just wait it out, and the results vary.  A lot of the time, if I am really stuck, I might try to force something out, often it winds up being a bit meta, with me writing about being stuck without much in terms of inspiration, and it feels a bit like I am working scales in a way.  All the aesthetic decisions are there, they just don't always have a lot of purpose behind them, and that is fine in that context.  Essentially, I am just forcing myself to do the work, and getting it done, and I am showing myself that I can and will do it even if inspiration never strikes.  This can often take pressure off, and that lack of pressure opens up creative thinking and inspiration. Now, that is a fine thing for me to do, and I am likely to use that approach again many times in the future, but today I felt that I want...
Read more

Le Guin, Steering The Craft, Chapter Five: Adjectives and Adverbs (Exercise Five, Chastity)

A note of apology for my lateness with this.  I had expected to have time earlier in the day, but it was not to be, alas.  Anyhow, I am still a bit nervous about this exercise, though it is clearly of significant import to Le Guin, as she points out that it is the only exercise that she has given to all of her workshops.  That, of course, does not alter my feelings about it, excepting that I am aware of it as something valuable and worth doing, so the fact that it is a bit daunting might well be seen, through that light, as a promise of reward, perhaps.  The more difficult the task, the more one has to gain, at least by some logic... Exercise Five: Chastity Mr. Torino was in charge.  He had his way.  It was the way.  Desktops are clean.  Nothing but work.  No pictures: not your kids; not your girl or wife; not (as Allen recounted) your car.   None of that.  No plants.  No cartoons.  That is for home, this is work....
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-And-Fifty-Nine

I have been thinking about how I can discuss certain aspects of my poetry and the choices I make as a writer.  In particular, I tend to write without as much reliance on sensory details and descriptions, instead choosing more abstract depictions.  This is something that I know many writers would call an odd choice, as specificity seems inherently to demand the application of detail, but I tend to be a bit hesitant about relying on depictions that utilize the senses, as I find that approach somewhat problematic.  For one thing, sensory description is always going to be less than universal, and not only because of the reality that there are individuals who lack one or more sense.  In many ways, for me, the deeper problem is one related to language itself.  Our use of language creates our experiences in a very real way, though I can't necessarily offer a full explanation of what I mean by that right here, but using a word for an object bestows qualities on it....
Read more