Am I the Matt you're referring to? If so I do remember us discussing whether or not you thought it would be possible to write screenplays into the dark, and I agree with Shaw.
I've written many screenplays since we last discussed them and out of all of them the only one I had 'difficulty' with was one I outlined.
The 'difficulty' was boredom and I never did finish the script. It did, however, teach me I shouldn't outline if I wanted to enjoy the process, that I should trust myself and my characters as I do in prose.
"I also once wrote a collection of short stories that, when read as a whole, constituted a complete novel."
I did something like that on accident. I did one of Dean Wesley Smith's collections and the stories neatly formed a greater story. After that I continued in the same fantasy world, but with other characters.
I had the same structure in both collections.
Introduce character A
Introduce Character B
A and B together, from A's point lf view.
A and B together, from B's point of view.
Last story alternates between A and B characters, so the reader gets the last story from both the characters they've spent time with.
Yeah, I also wrote them into the dark. No outline, just followed the characters and the unfolding story.
Writing "Echoes of..." collection also sounds fun. I'd need to write more stories in the same style, but one author who stood out to me as similar to my more unique stories was Patricia A. McKillip. She wrote mythopoetic fantasy and while my stories aren'r mythic, I do have poetic elements. I received some critism in one story that the lines resembled poetry too much. I think I should lean into that at some point.
One short story started as a poem and I expanded it into a short story. The story still has a lot of the elements of the poem. It's pretty much a guy remembering and narrating how he fell in love with an ice spirit, and he has a poetic voice when in a romantic mood.
"Resembled poetry too much"? So what? Was it too rhythmic for him? :-) Amazing what critics come up with sometimes. And ridiculous. It's all just language, just words. The only real difference between the poem and any other genre is that the base unit of the poem is the poetic line an the line breaks. The base unit of all the other forms—essay, short story, novella, novel, etc.—is the sentence.
If you read my "Twelve Stories in a Bus Station," that was based on a poem I wrote a long time ago.
I stopped doing critiques because I started to look for flaws to critique instead of things that pulled me out of the story. Even then, there were a lot of stories which I realized I shouldn't critique because they weren't to my taste and I couldn't help much.
I also started being critical of my own writing and looking for flaws instead of having fun. Took a while but I got back to usual and enjoying writing.
This is why I don't do critiques much anymore either. It makes me sad to not be able to provide something other writer friends deem important, but then...like you've said, much of critiquing seemed to turn into "Find something wrong with this story." I'm not sure that's how it's supposed to go.
This sounds so fun! Definitely want to try that someday. What was your viewpoint when writing? I mean were you thinking of each individual story, or the whole, or both?
I've never written any collection of short stories in any form, so I'm a bit unsure of myself. :)
It's like writing a series (like Stern Talbot) but with short stories instead of novels. And then each short story stands alone, but also mesh to make a novel. If you like (or have never read) Isabel Allende, her The Stories of Eva Luna is an excellent example.
Am I the Matt you're referring to? If so I do remember us discussing whether or not you thought it would be possible to write screenplays into the dark, and I agree with Shaw.
I've written many screenplays since we last discussed them and out of all of them the only one I had 'difficulty' with was one I outlined.
The 'difficulty' was boredom and I never did finish the script. It did, however, teach me I shouldn't outline if I wanted to enjoy the process, that I should trust myself and my characters as I do in prose.
It worked out well.
Yep. I think you're the only person I've talked with about that :-)
"I also once wrote a collection of short stories that, when read as a whole, constituted a complete novel."
I did something like that on accident. I did one of Dean Wesley Smith's collections and the stories neatly formed a greater story. After that I continued in the same fantasy world, but with other characters.
I had the same structure in both collections.
Introduce character A
Introduce Character B
A and B together, from A's point lf view.
A and B together, from B's point of view.
Last story alternates between A and B characters, so the reader gets the last story from both the characters they've spent time with.
It was great fun and I'll do it again some day.
It IS a lot of fun, isn't it? And intense!
Yeah, I also wrote them into the dark. No outline, just followed the characters and the unfolding story.
Writing "Echoes of..." collection also sounds fun. I'd need to write more stories in the same style, but one author who stood out to me as similar to my more unique stories was Patricia A. McKillip. She wrote mythopoetic fantasy and while my stories aren'r mythic, I do have poetic elements. I received some critism in one story that the lines resembled poetry too much. I think I should lean into that at some point.
One short story started as a poem and I expanded it into a short story. The story still has a lot of the elements of the poem. It's pretty much a guy remembering and narrating how he fell in love with an ice spirit, and he has a poetic voice when in a romantic mood.
"Resembled poetry too much"? So what? Was it too rhythmic for him? :-) Amazing what critics come up with sometimes. And ridiculous. It's all just language, just words. The only real difference between the poem and any other genre is that the base unit of the poem is the poetic line an the line breaks. The base unit of all the other forms—essay, short story, novella, novel, etc.—is the sentence.
If you read my "Twelve Stories in a Bus Station," that was based on a poem I wrote a long time ago.
The story had several single lines without a comma. My guess is they resembled the poetic line too much for the critics taste.
I read "Twelve Stories on a Bus Station" and enjoyed it a lot :)
Like I said. Ridiculous Too busy looking for something to critique to simply enjoy the story. Sigh.
I stopped doing critiques because I started to look for flaws to critique instead of things that pulled me out of the story. Even then, there were a lot of stories which I realized I shouldn't critique because they weren't to my taste and I couldn't help much.
I also started being critical of my own writing and looking for flaws instead of having fun. Took a while but I got back to usual and enjoying writing.
You're a fortunate escapee. :-)
This is why I don't do critiques much anymore either. It makes me sad to not be able to provide something other writer friends deem important, but then...like you've said, much of critiquing seemed to turn into "Find something wrong with this story." I'm not sure that's how it's supposed to go.
This sounds so fun! Definitely want to try that someday. What was your viewpoint when writing? I mean were you thinking of each individual story, or the whole, or both?
I've never written any collection of short stories in any form, so I'm a bit unsure of myself. :)
It's like writing a series (like Stern Talbot) but with short stories instead of novels. And then each short story stands alone, but also mesh to make a novel. If you like (or have never read) Isabel Allende, her The Stories of Eva Luna is an excellent example.
It's a ton of fun. The only thing I knew going in was the protagonist. Everything else was just WITD.