Shop Talk

[muskrat]

This is for the writers on board; aspiring ones, starving ones; the published, the obsessed and compelled. I can tell there are many of us, I trust we'll gather here and shoot the breeze, talk shop, kick around ideas, etc.

Dispay our 'toolboxes', if it do ya.

Get the ball rolling, let's talk style. Talk voice. Do you stick to one narrative tone, or do you mix it up. Myself, I dabble in all sorts. From freewheeling spontaneous roll-a-bones to hard boiled first person crime. I dig the fook out of epistolary, wherein yez can mix it up several different ways.

Lately my style has grown silly--humor, as I see it, albeit dark and often sickening. But I've tried several different voices, different styles. What about you cat writers out there? Yez stick with the same voices and styles every time you scribble?

 

[blunthead]

This is for the writers on board; aspiring ones, starving ones; the published, the obsessed and compelled. I can tell there are many of us, I trust we'll gather here and shoot the breeze, talk shop, kick around ideas, etc.

Dispay our 'toolboxes', if it do ya.

Get the ball rolling, let's talk style. Talk voice. Do you stick to one narrative tone, or do you mix it up. Myself, I dabble in all sorts. From freewheeling spontaneous roll-a-bones to hard boiled first person crime. I dig the fook out of epistolary, wherein yez can mix it up several different ways.

Lately my style has grown silly--humor, as I see it, albeit dark and often sickening. But I've tried several different voices, different styles. What about you cat writers out there? Yez stick with the same voices and styles every time you scribble?

I don't claim to be a writer, so maybe I don't belong in this thread. A while back at the SKMB I was able to contribute to the LiveWriting stories (????????? and Dalglish Road). It was one of the most profound experiences of my life.

I haven't written anything before or after LiveWriting, but I wish I could. So far, I feel the need to write a story with others.

 

[prufrock21]

Here's something:
Ratz in the Suflé | Prufrock21's Weblog

 

[FlakeNoir]

Muskie... I'm going to move this thread into the Self Promotion area so you guys can post links (like Prufrock above--thank you! ) and share examples of your work.

(Just remember, links to offsite only please and no work posted directly to the MB.)

 

[muskrat]

Fine with me. Weren't figurin on self promotion,exactly (links, do ya), just a place to talk the craft, not actually writing (or samples of), but it's all cool in the gang, flake. Links'd be fine, I spose.

Figure we can have pizza rolls and grape NeHi, too?

 

[FlakeNoir]

Fine with me. Weren't figurin on self promotion,exactly (links, do ya), just a place to talk the craft, not actually writing (or samples of), but it's all cool in the gang, flake. Links'd be fine, I spose.

Figure we can have pizza rolls and grape NeHi, too?

It was just that one turned up, so I was trying to think ahead of where this might go and rather than turn people away--I thought this could be the best place for it.

(I sometimes think that the name "Self Promotion" might turn people off... but it's just a handle really and means that it's fine to share your work (via link) here.)

 

[muskrat]

It's a good idea, I reckon.

Now, about those pizza rolls?

 

[FlakeNoir]

It's a good idea, I reckon.

Now, about those pizza rolls?

Crap! I forgot! Sorry... hang on.

Wait, wth is a "pizza roll"?

 

[morgan]

Crap! I forgot! Sorry... hang on.

Wait, wth is a "pizza roll"?

 

[FlakeNoir]

The boxed ones looked a little gross, so I just whipped you up some fresh!

 

[muskrat]

Had the new buffalo chicken brand today. Killer. Spicy, and killer.

 

[FlakeNoir]

Had the new buffalo chicken brand today. Killer. Spicy, and killer.

Oh man, this just came up in the "Buffalo chicken pizza roll" search...
I am drooling... really.

(I know they probably look nothing like them...but, man, I am hungry now.)

 

[blunthead]

Had the new buffalo chicken brand today. Killer. Spicy, and killer.

No, they weren't.

 

[skimom2]

I switch between first and third person voice, depending upon the story. I prefer past tense to present tense--books written in present tense make me a little bit nuts. And, nah--can't stick with the same voice every time (unless you write about the same person over and over again--literary onanism doesn't appeal to me HAHA). Voice has to fit tone, story, and character, IMHO. I tend to the earnest (lol) laced with humor, and I'm a bear for characters that act like real people--that feel like one could know them.

 

[SHEEMIEE]

My stories start in one form then end up in another. I call it 'sheemiee vision' Blurred lines for the imaginative people. A new wave is sweeping through the net, the illiteratie are shuffling onward, jostling to be heard, craving to be noticed.

" Feed me simo! "

 

[GNTLGNT]

...Ratman, you have seen some of my gloop...I only write here, and though I try to switch styles and voice-I am very identifiable by my wry and twisted sense of humor...

 

[Kurben]

When i write it tends to be third person. And i also like dialogue as a big part of the telling who the characters are. But that can change of course depending on the story. But i tend to write from many perspectives so while i, and the reader hopefully, knows whats going on some of the characters don't and the thing is to remember that when you write about them. My stories are not very humorous i think. A story i write on at times now a girl has killed her father by hitting him in the head with a stone. And she is the good guy!! Considering, perhaps i mean girl....?

 

[muskrat]

I find 1st person the easiest, but there are many problems--stumbling blocks and what not--that can arise from such a style. Problems like death, say; it's kinda hard to kill your protagonist if he's the narrator, y'know. How'd he or she write the damn thing if they've been dead the whole time? And then there's what I like to call the 'braggart' problem: whenever my first-person narrator gets in a fight and wins it ends up sounding like he's bragging. That's something that always irked me about most of those old hard-boiled detective writers, like Spillane. Sure, Mike Hammer can whoop two or three thugs at a time with his bare hands, but he sounds like a braggart by telling us about it, and the whole thing winds up silly and far-fetched. S'why I prefer my main man Raymond Chandler; not only is he a superior writer, his Phillip Marlow get's beaten up more often than not, which feels and sounds much more plausible.

 

[Kurben]

I find 1st person the easiest, but there are many problems--stumbling blocks and what not--that can arise from such a style. Problems like death, say; it's kinda hard to kill your protagonist if he's the narrator, y'know. How'd he or she write the damn thing if they've been dead the whole time? And then there's what I like to call the 'braggart' problem: whenever my first-person narrator gets in a fight and wins it's ends up sounding like he's bragging. That's something that always irked me about most of those old hard-boiled detective writers, like Spillane. Sure, Mike Hammer can whoop two or three thugs at a time with his bare hands, but he sounds like a braggart by telling us about it, and the whole thing winds up silly and far-fetched. S'why I prefer my main man Raymond Chandler; not only is he a superior writer, his Phillip Marlow get's beaten up more often than not, which feels and sounds much more plausible.

Spillane is definitely classes below Chandler, Hammett, John D. MacDonald and Ross MacDonald when it comes to writing. If you like the tough private eye angle i go for any book of these 4 before Spillane everyday.

 

[muskrat]

Heh heh, yeah, Spillane is pretty cheesy--but when I was 13 or so I loved his stuff.

Was really just using the hard-boiled P.I. genre as an example--haven't written any of that stuff in years.