Heya peeps! Long time no hear, right?
Let's kick this thing off right, then.
How many here can tell me the difference between good writing and great writing?
Anybody?
A tough question, right? After all, there are so many ways to judge a particular work. Great characters, but crappy story line? A great story, but terrible dialogue? Mediocre everything, but nothing particularly wrong with any one part? What makes a work of writing good, and what makes one bad?
A pet peeve of mine -- and as I'm sure most of you know by now, since I've beaten it over the head with a stick every chance I've had -- is over-reliance on so-called "drama" to carry a story as opposed to simply having an interesting story to begin with.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy twists and turns that advance the plot or move the characters forward. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the whole "ooh, let's take every positive advance we've made with the characters and THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW" type of drama found all too common, well, just about everywhere nowadays.
Stuck in a rut? Well, why not take the long-running happily married couple and have the husband cheat on his wife! Readership dropping off? Have the main character lose everything! Surely people will read about someone being miserable after having worked so hard, right?
This kind of thing, simply put, ticks me off to no end. It's a too-often used escape from having to build positively around the character to advance the plot, and is more often than not the result of an author losing track of where a story is going and adding something to give them a reason to keep writing. Heck, the same reasoning can be applied to television shows, and is one of the primary reasons about the only shows I follow any more are "Phinnehas and Ferb" and "Mythbusters."
Now, how does this apply to my title?
Well, it's like this. As much as this kind of thing annoys me -- to the point that I've stopped reading no telling HOW many stories, and watching at least as many shows -- it seems to be what people want. On top of that, it is, in fact, an easy way to advance a story.
However, it is also a way of advancing a story that I refuse to use.
Why am I taking forever to write anything? Because I KNOW where I want my stories to end up, but I do poorly at plotting the in-between. I could add "drama" to extend the story and bridge the bits I know I want to write, but I'm not going to write anything that I'd refuse to read myself. As a result, I have to find ways of working around these stop-gaps that don't fall into these pits, and it is hard for someone as weak-willed as I to apply the dedication to do so in a timely fashion.
I'm working, and I'm trying to include the occasional "drama-ish" element to keep those who crave it interested, while at the same time not overstepping the lines and leaving me feel like I've given in to the dark side. Just thinking about plotlines that devolve into meaningless drama is enough to ruin my taste for writing for days, and it's inevitably something I stumble on nearly every time I start writing, any more.
But it's getting better. Another chapter of PFH shouldn't be more than another two months or so in the making, and with any luck it will be accompanied by a whole slew of other one-shots I've been working on as well, keeping myself involved with the non-drama as much as I can.
To those who crave the drama, I'm sorry I suck at writing. It makes what I write predictable and tripe.
To those, like me, who crave satisfaction in seeing the protagonist overcome their obstacles and reach that "happily every after" we all crave, I'm sorry I suck at writing. I should be getting these things done faster, so that those of us with simpler, more rose-tinted tastes have something that doesn't make us want to cry, or shake our fists in frustration.
To those who don't care either way, I'm sorry I suck at writing. I'm sorry I ramble on, and make useless update posts about pretty much nothing but how little I'm getting done. It's annoying, I know, but it helps me get inspired, so hopefully you can forgive me eventually.
And to anyone else I forgot, well, just blame how much I suck at writing.
Melanie E.
PS: This is in no way meant to be a be-all end-all judgement of good writing. It is simply a statement of what I find to be attractive in a story, and should not be deemed a denouncement of every story ever written that uses drama. After all, EAFOAB is nothing BUT drama, and it's still an amazing read. So, please, take what I've said above with at least one of the grains of salt it is oh-so-liberally littered with. Thank you.
Comments
I like to think
Bike is a little more than melodrama, although I plead guilty to using it. I also try to comment on current events and those which might or might not affect the community. I do try to keep a set of core values for the main protagonists, and I do allow some settlement between adventures and there are elements of quietude, reflection and affection between the characters.
If you can write 1700 episodes on mundane life and retain some readers, you're a better writer than I am - not that that's hard. Never mind the quality, feel the width!
Having said that: how long before the next episode of PFH? Switch off that gaming machine and get scribbling.
Angharad
I can't!
Unfortunately, I'm writing from the so-maligned gaming machine at this very moment, since my lappy died a terrible death some time shortly after I built it.
Having said that, it IS being used for more than gaming. I've written about ten pages total worth of various stories in the last few months, about a page and a half to two pages of which was PFH. Slow going, but going nonetheless.
Melanie E.
well knowing PFH hasn't
well knowing PFH hasn't stopped, makes me happy enough ^^
yeay!
grtz & hugs,
Sarah xxx
Melodrama?
I think that you're confusing melodrama with conflict. Conflict is good. It ties us to the characters and makes us care about them. It moves the plot along. Melodrama exaggerates emotion. It's fake tension. It's the difference between appreciating a person with serious problems and having to deal with a whiny drama queen.
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Actually...
...I could formally tell you what and how great writing is made, as it was something I studied in depth, but then I consider such things as Russian Formalism to be a pile of BS. I just learned to reproduce the 'right' answers in essays.
I disagree with absolutely nothing you have said, and I have said much the same many times myself. I don't excel at twisty plots, so I concentrate on trying to produce people. Not characters, not ciphers to deliver a message, but people that a reader may become involved with. I like to think, in my egotism, that I sometimes succeed. I add little bits of drama when I feel I need to, but they are all tied in with the person. What made Annie Price, for example, was a series of dreadful work-related incidents, and the same for Melanie Stevens, in a way. What made Steve Jones and Laura Evans, on the other hand, was crime (well, I didn't say I was consistent). Sarah Hall's cold feet came from bigotry, and what made Steph Woodruff was simply GID.
In all of those cases, however, what I sweated over was the person I gave birth to. There is a class of story, exactly as Melanis E describes, where it is all about the Big Event. We could call it CDW: CGI Driven Writing. I find that hard to read, because of one simple fact: if something happens to someone in a story, I will not care about it unless I care about said person.
So I will applaud what you say, girl, and continue to do my best to write about real people with real problems, that overcome them with the real solutions of love, friendship and family.
Drama
Usually when I have an idea for a story, I know the end of it before I write it. This keeps me true to the story as a concept. Also, I tend not to give into "suggestions" that people give me in comments. It is actually a turnoff to me when someone tells me the way my story should go. My basic attitude to "suggestions" is, write your own story and have it go where you want it to go, but leave my characters out of it.
Mostly people want me to continue characters that I am done with (I am constantly asked what happened to the mom in How Life Can Change and people want me to continue with Danny from The adoption of little orphan Danny and I've repeated request for an update on Jenny from God Bless the Child). Mostly, once I am done with a story, I am done with the character and don't feel like I have to add more Drama in their fictitious lives just to keep something alive that I no longer have the spirit for. The only exception is Jenny from the trilogy, but those three books were pretty much planned in advance and the drama is awesome.
I have recently given up writing though, and I guess the point is moot. But I always say be true to your story, your characters, and your craft; if people want to go along with you on the journey, awesome. If they don't like where you go, they evidently have a computer and nothing is stopping them from writing their own story.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Yup, I can totally relate.
"[The] over-reliance on so-called "drama" to carry a story."
I couldn't agree more. Nothing ticks me off more than seeing a character continuously kicked in the groin even when they're down. I don't know if anyone here ever had the time (or interest) to read the A Song of Ice and Fire series but this is the exact reason I stopped reading after book four. (minor spoiler) If something good happens to a character prepare for something that not only negates that "good" thing but also makes things five times worse. It was much too frustrating. After a little while I just stopped caring about the characters and eventually stopped reading altogether (I avoided book five altogether).
When stories do these "plot twists" too much it becomes quite trite.
Good vs Great
The answer to that is simple: Good stories are stories I read to the end. Great stories are stories I reread. It really doesn't matter what the literary lights say; what rules are followed and what rules are broken. I do tend to care more about the characters though, to the point that I've revolted at the death of a or the major character. I expect the story and the character to be internally consistent; and I expect the characters to have language and grammar consistent with their background. By this I mean a character who is educated I expect to speak in a reasonably educated manner. Sure, people talk up or down depending on the circumstances, but an intelligent, educated person is going to be speaking with his peers in an intelligent, educated manner. And a bunch of Americans living in the middle of the U.S. are not going to be speaking with the Queens English and using language not found in the middle of the U.S.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's all about the characters for me. The characters have to be believable for me to really get into the story. Like one character of Bailey's. The girl is a street survivor who has recently manifested as a mutant. She's not some gung-ho super heroine all the sudden. She's trying to keep her neighborhood cleaned up, but she is not above doing wrong to make that happen. That to me is a believable character. She is internally constant with what we know about her upbringing and life. And the story is exploring her in light of that life and the changes she's experienced.
That is a great story!
And Mel, in my eyes that is also the type of story you write. I hope you don't take too long, but whatever it takes keep doing what you are doing!
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Character development...
In my opinion character development is an important facet of a well written story, but it's also a piece of a much larger puzzle. You can have a well developed character and depict them sitting around all day doing nothing and you'd have an absolutely terrible story.
Well developed Plot, character development, grammar, wording, and personality (all great stories have their own personality; their own feel to makes them more than just another story).
Now there are rules and there are necessities, I would say the things I listed above are necessities, rules can be broken or bent. That's not to say they always should be, but they can be in certain instances.
Have delightfully devious day,
Is that a challenge?
Drat you! Now I've got an idea in my head for an entire story that takes place in the thoughts of a single character while they're sitting drinking their morning coffee.
Melanie E.
I see this conversation
started a few months ago. Not being a writer but, an avid reader, I consider good writing the same as storytelling. If you engross me in the story to the exclusion of everything else, I consider it good. I have read Steven King who tells a pretty good story but has parts that irritate the heck out of me because he describes everything to death. You include a lot of wonderful details but in the writing you touch my feelings. That is why I am attached to your stories. To me that is good writing.