There appears to be a flurry of writing threads in these parts. I wanted to start something that would bring together these disparate albeit similar parts in a practical manner to form a more coherent group so that we may all learn from one another instead of holding up signs with the dire want of acknowledgment.
This is a discussion thread hosted by Gantic (and the nonexistent Author's Guild). This will not be a discussion about a particular piece of writing by a writer but more generally about writing and the writer. I am hoping to get some productive discussion from writers here on Armor Games.
Discussion will be on various topics and may changed weekly, biweekly, however long a discussion needs. This will mostly (or most likely) be about prose but other forms of writings may also be discussed.
To start off: Why do you write? What do you want from writing?
The question is not "Why do you like to write?" Rather, it is "Why do you write?"
Please keep posts relevant. Posts should be relevant to the current discussion or a previous discussion.
Responses should be constructive. While we'd all like to be frank, there is a line between tactful and blunt. Keep in mind that not everyone is of the same disposition or age.
Also keep in mind that we're all amateurs here unless someone is writing professionally. Nevertheless, each opinion carries the same weight regardless of whether you disagree or not or how much you admire or despise someone. Please consider how something applies to you and not blindly accept or reject advice or opinion. An opinion is never a fact even if everyone thinks the same thing.
If you have any ideas for future discussions, leave a comment on my profile. Meanwhile, consider, discuss, learn!
Joyce and Eliot. Why am I not surprised? :P Not very fun to read when you don't know what they're alluding to.
I enjoy meta (and that should be obvious by now) but I hardly use it in a serious tone. In more serious first-person narratives (or third-person limited), I might allude to some literary work for context since it gives some substance to the character.
It doesn't sound like there's much middle ground between literary elitism and just-for-fun writing.
A lot of my classmates thought reading The Hollow Men was hell, but I actually enjoyed it immensely. It's my favorite poem of all time. I was quite disappointed at The Wasteland though; its message is much diluted by Eliot's desire to show off his cultural/esoteric literacy.
Ummmmmm. . .mine is very tone and mood-based. I'm a lot better at descriptive writing than dialog, so my description is often thorough. I also have an adjective problem :/
But tone and mood are really the most distinctive elements of my writing.
What I aim to do with my writing (fiction) is to explore the processes of consciousness. As a result I'd say the style is rather heavy with involved constructions and thematic explorations. I'm not sure whether this is an interesting approach or whether it renders the prose completely unreadable. I hope that people can relate to or at least recognise the experiences that I describe so that they may be compelled to keep reading:
A bank, a bank- Orlestat had to stop himself from scoffing aloud. He himself knew very well what a 'bank' was...or at least, he was aware that he recognized what it was, for the term engendered the notion of an idea, from which sprang a whole raft of images. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. It was then that he realised he could not discern any single one of these images, which brought him to the crux of the question:
What did this thing called a bank mean to him? Evidently he'd encountered it before in some form or another, but these letters forming this single syllable seemed to merely drift in his memory, causing him reactions he could not articulate.
I'd say more or less spontaneous for me. I do look over what I write, but normally I write out everything I can within an hour or so to get the ideas in my mind down quickly before I forget them. It's especially strong in poetry, because everything in my head, oddly enough, comes out in rhymed and in iambic tetrameter when I write it. Both a blessing and a curse.
[quote=Parsat]... everything in my head, oddly enough, comes out in rhymed and in iambic tetrameter when I write it.[/quote]
Oh my god... iambic pentameter? How is that even possible... Shakespeare-ish! Heheh... I don't get how he wrote all those plays in iambic pentameter!!! It's amazing!
When I write, it sometimes must sound a certain way or it is wrong. If I really take time in something, I enjoy including assonance and consonance in prose and poetry. (I don't use alliteration as much in prose and not too often in poetry.) It's almost sing-songy. It sounds pleasant even if its not obvious and perhaps it's the subtlety that I like.
I also do something similar to what Strop does, but in a more irregular tangential manner. Sometimes it gets to be unreasonable as its no longer what it's supposed to be about but it always seems odd to me to have directed thoughts, though it doesn't seem so bad if it travels along a tangent and then righted back to its original path only to have the process repeated, unless the character is supposed to be focused.
I also break thoughts with periods, though this is a more recent development. And sometimes start a dependent clause as if it were another sentence. With a conjunction or preposition starting it so that it relates to a previous sentence. So I guess I punctuate thoughts. Sometimes with full stops, and other times with commas or ellipses, though I find the latter a bit clumsy and the former inducive of clutter.
Themes. . .hmmmm. . .typically, deception, loss of something important i.e. inspiration, stuff like that are pretty prevalent in my prose. But my poetry runs the gamut from emotional pain to description to seasonal poetry.
I do this too...then I go back over it and read it out aloud to see if it fits. I end up changing half of them.
I'd change some of mine if I knew how to do it well. I've never figured out how to do a long trailing thought without it looking monstrous. Although I've always wanted to put an immense blank in the middle of something, but it only seems to work aesthetically for books.
As for themes: lightly on destiny, cause, and meaning as it revolves around individuals. I am not sure how to characterize it.
I'd like to be able to write one involving cognitive biases but then I haven't been too successful.
