Writing geek
Feb. 9th, 2012 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abendgulesI write for a living, but I am always thankful that I don't have to write fiction.
It was a brilliant revelation to me, sometime after university, that I could have a whole career of writing, and never ever have to live in a freezing garret, trying to pen the Great Canadian Novel, and have torub shoulders fight for publishing space with the Margarets (Atwood and Lawrence), or Robertson Davies. [insert awesome Matrix-like bullet-dodge here] Whew!
But some of my friends write fiction, and people I respect write fiction too - some of it even published. And today I stumbled across this: 25 things you should know about story structure. The lead graphic alone is worth the click. Language is emphatically NSFW, but no embarrassing pics.
One refreshing aspect of this post is to convey that even hugely creative endeavours like fiction writing have (or can have) a method to them - it's not just ideas pulled out of thin air, though to the outsider it looks that way.
When modern art looks like paint splatters, a squalid bedroom, or cracks in the floor, it's hard to see any structure to it. But more traditional? conventional? (as in, following conventions) art has structure, and the more arts I try, the more I can identify the steps taken to create the works, whether they're scribal arts, drafting, clothing, music, heraldry. I find it heartening that I too can be an artisan, even coming to the skills late and rather haphazardly.
It was a brilliant revelation to me, sometime after university, that I could have a whole career of writing, and never ever have to live in a freezing garret, trying to pen the Great Canadian Novel, and have to
But some of my friends write fiction, and people I respect write fiction too - some of it even published. And today I stumbled across this: 25 things you should know about story structure. The lead graphic alone is worth the click. Language is emphatically NSFW, but no embarrassing pics.
One refreshing aspect of this post is to convey that even hugely creative endeavours like fiction writing have (or can have) a method to them - it's not just ideas pulled out of thin air, though to the outsider it looks that way.
When modern art looks like paint splatters, a squalid bedroom, or cracks in the floor, it's hard to see any structure to it. But more traditional? conventional? (as in, following conventions) art has structure, and the more arts I try, the more I can identify the steps taken to create the works, whether they're scribal arts, drafting, clothing, music, heraldry. I find it heartening that I too can be an artisan, even coming to the skills late and rather haphazardly.
