Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Tue, Mar 29 2016
Writing between the lines
Casual conversation remind me that humans have a habit of filling in backstory in seemingly haphazard ways. Speakers will often begin by talking about what seems to be the main event, only to switch gears in the middle of the telling to give you details about how and why they had come to that mishap in the first place. Bad storytellers go off on so many tangents that you forget what the original intent of the story was. Good storytellers drop one or two carefully chosen details that actually enhance the main story they're delivering.
A soliloquy or flashback that fills in past details or shows a character's current mindset based on past details should be crafted to further the telling of the main tale, or at least one of the main subplots. If we get ourselves off into four different weed patches and we are the ones who know the whole story, imagine how confused our reader will be when he or she doesn't know the whole story and tries to keep up with our schizoid meanderings. Unless we are using that confusion to specifically show our characters' confused state of mind, we need to keep control of the flow of our words. A confused reader is likely to be an unfulfilled reader at the end.
posted at: 11:08 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Casual conversation remind me that humans have a habit of filling in backstory in seemingly haphazard ways. Speakers will often begin by talking about what seems to be the main event, only to switch gears in the middle of the telling to give you details about how and why they had come to that mishap in the first place. Bad storytellers go off on so many tangents that you forget what the original intent of the story was. Good storytellers drop one or two carefully chosen details that actually enhance the main story they're delivering.
A soliloquy or flashback that fills in past details or shows a character's current mindset based on past details should be crafted to further the telling of the main tale, or at least one of the main subplots. If we get ourselves off into four different weed patches and we are the ones who know the whole story, imagine how confused our reader will be when he or she doesn't know the whole story and tries to keep up with our schizoid meanderings. Unless we are using that confusion to specifically show our characters' confused state of mind, we need to keep control of the flow of our words. A confused reader is likely to be an unfulfilled reader at the end.
posted at: 11:08 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry