I appreciate everyone's feedback on my last post. The general consensus seems to be "more." And I agree completely. I know that I rushed the ending. I tend to do that. I realize the story's not going the way I want, so I just wrap it up as quickly as possible.
Pacing, that's the issue. Slow enough to build up tension but fast enough to not be boring. It's a careful balance that I have nowhere near mastered. If I think it's moving too slow, I just skip it forward to something exploding. And that's not always the best approach. It's hardly ever the best approach.
The other balance I'm struggling with is dialogue vs. narration. People talk way too much and not enough things happen. It's a real problem. The next story I've started, about déjà vu, is probably 90% dialogue, at least.
Dialogue was a problem in "Losing Daylight," too. Everyone just stands around talking. Nothing ever happens. And I don't know why. I swear people used to do things in my stories. And then at some point they stopped doing things and started talking. And now they won't shut up.
So each story reaches a point, that point where I realize all of this. They stop talking and start doing, and now that there's nothing left to say, it's all over in three sentences and I rush the ending.
Is it possible that I'm just not a good writer? Absolutely. But I'm trying to be better.
Desperately, I've tried my hand at poetry recently. That's harder than prose, as it turns out. I can't even tell if it's good. I don't think it is. Used to be, you'd write a sonnet, you'd fit it into the form and the meter, throw in some metaphors of summer days or roses, and you were golden. Now it's all so… hazy. People like free verse these days. I don't get free verse. How long should the lines be? How many lines should there be? I have no idea.
So I've been writing a lot of things, and I'm not particularly pleased with any of it, and I'm running out of time. I don't know if I used to be better, or if I'm finally realizing that I'm not all that good.
Either way, I'll see you Tuesday.
Nah, don't get discouraged. You are an amazing writer. I hang on every word and want to read more. Really. I've heard you say, more than a few times, that you write only dialogue and not enough action. What if you made a challenge to write something with ONLY action, and ZERO dialogue. I'll bet it's great. And maybe it's just how you get out of whatever you feel you're in. My personal problem is that I don't write *enough* dialogue, so when the characters do have something to say, it seems awkward.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I like this action-only challenge. I'm going to try that. :D
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