Shop Talk

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blunthead

Well-Known Member
Aug 2, 2006
80,755
195,461
Atlanta GA
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.
No art exists without the successful suspending of disbelief. There's an art then to writing that your protagonist wins a fight without it actually sounding arrogant; it might sound that way to you but no one else. When I think of stories told by a character who dies in it I think of...
American Beauty, Fallen, and Sunset Blvd.
These stories maintain believability. It can be done.
 

SHEEMIEE

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2010
1,315
5,574
Mornin' ya'll

You know its such a pity we that we can discuss writing techniques all we want , but cannot put up examples of the work. I feel that its pussy footing around the new taboo now of wanting to just blurt out look at this ! This is what i'm stuck on now!

My heads in a whole lotta hurt place trying to figure out how to write in a dead mans journal styleee (thanks for the homework muskie) and in victorian twang to boot!

I remember Garriga writing a 1st person POV about getting down and dirty, only she tried it from the guys point of view. Great piece, but i laughed at the inaccuracy of how i would perceive the scene from the guy. So she said i should try it from the woman's POV . No worries i thought - ha ! Man it was the weirdest thing I've tried


...and completely unfeminine! Lady bits pffft!

Score for Garriga :)
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
No art exists without the successful suspending of disbelief. There's an art then to writing that your protagonist wins a fight without it actually sounding arrogant; it might sound that way to you but no one else. When I think of stories told by a character who dies in it I think of...
American Beauty, Fallen, and Sunset Blvd.
These stories maintain believability. It can be done.

It can be done, but it's tough I think the most successful recent novel with that POV/style (whatever) is The Lovely Bones. The movie was okay, but it prettified a tough story.
 

FlakeNoir

Original Kiwi© SKMB®
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
44,082
175,641
New Zealand
Mornin' ya'll

You know its such a pity we that we can discuss writing techniques all we want , but cannot put up examples of the work. I feel that its pussy footing around the new taboo now of wanting to just blurt out look at this ! This is what i'm stuck on now!

My heads in a whole lotta hurt place trying to figure out how to write in a dead mans journal styleee (thanks for the homework muskie) and in victorian twang to boot!

I remember Garriga writing a 1st person POV about getting down and dirty, only she tried it from the guys point of view. Great piece, but i laughed at the inaccuracy of how i would perceive the scene from the guy. So she said i should try it from the woman's POV . No worries i thought - ha ! Man it was the weirdest thing I've tried


...and completely unfeminine! Lady bits pffft!

Score for Garriga :)
If you'd like to do that ('write and blurt') then I'd suggest gathering a small handful of people (those that put their hand up, say) and make a private message group. (I'm not sure of the total number allowed on one message, I could check with Jordan) This way you're getting to write as you wish and also still sticking to MB regs'.
 

SHEEMIEE

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2010
1,315
5,574
If you'd like to do that ('write and blurt') then I'd suggest gathering a small handful of people (those that put their hand up, say) and make a private message group. (I'm not sure of the total number allowed on one message, I could check with Jordan) This way you're getting to write as you wish and also still sticking to MB regs'.

sure thing flake- giving that a go as we speak - write and blurt :pride:
 

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
11,749
34,805
I like present tense. Check out A Single Shot from Matthew F Jones, The Silent Wife from S.A. Harrison, both great stories. Couple that with a comedic-tone and we're off to the races. Elmore Leonard is good for that...dunno if either of the stories above have a comic vein, but I like the humor in any story. Whud King say in Danse Macabre...something something. To deny one is to deny the other? And does it matter? humor/horror. Charles Willeford, another...comic vein in many of his stories. He has that detective down in Florida...what's he do? Manages the hotel. Been reading a lot of John D MacDonald and very rarely does he use the funnies. He has that one, Please Write For Details...there's a Hispanic lady in there that is a hoot. Trottin around in this big red shoes...reminds me of Elizabeth, those sneakers? MacDonald, too...he mixes it up some. He has a couple stories, one is told multiple-character p.o.v. but all 1st person...another, same way, but 3rd, each chapter titled w/the character's name. Then he has a short, in the Seven collection, multiple-character 1st person. That would be interesting to try out, givin you like the 1st. His Miranda story...5-star...guy wakes up in a hospital with a decided opinion about what has happened...and he knows what he needs to do. This one starts out...hilarious...and then it gets macabre...and then some. Then he has this other, neat idea...character uses a tape recorder...this was that time when they were popular...tapes his neighbors, a lady/man...puts music to it, a clarinet for the lady, a French horn for the guy. The idea of that sounds intriguing...would love to see it...something...movie? on the stage? It was a play that guy with the recorder was working on...Quarrel...is the name of the short, the name of his play.
 

Jordan

Webmaster-at-Large
Administrator
Moderator
Dec 6, 2007
10,001,218
5,031
New York, NY
stephenking.com
If you'd like to do that ('write and blurt') then I'd suggest gathering a small handful of people (those that put their hand up, say) and make a private message group. (I'm not sure of the total number allowed on one message, I could check with Jordan) This way you're getting to write as you wish and also still sticking to MB regs'.
I don't believe there is a hard limit. Performance will probably start getting questionable when there are more than a few hundred, but without testing it, I couldn't say for sure. I would ask that everyone in such a group turn off email notifications.
 

SHEEMIEE

Well-Known Member
Nov 15, 2010
1,315
5,574
Is their anyone our there that fancies joining us and putting their skills to the test. Muskie 'el Cavera is getting a team together to saddle up and ride with another 7 into the darkness.

Need some new blood - so scratch your name below, and we'll get Vin and Britt to stop by and check out your knife skills.
 

muskrat

Dis-Member
Nov 8, 2010
4,518
19,564
Under your bed
I like present tense. Check out A Single Shot from Matthew F Jones, The Silent Wife from S.A. Harrison, both great stories. Couple that with a comedic-tone and we're off to the races. Elmore Leonard is good for that...dunno if either of the stories above have a comic vein, but I like the humor in any story. Whud King say in Danse Macabre...something something. To deny one is to deny the other? And does it matter? humor/horror. Charles Willeford, another...comic vein in many of his stories. He has that detective down in Florida...what's he do? Manages the hotel. Been reading a lot of John D MacDonald and very rarely does he use the funnies. He has that one, Please Write For Details...there's a Hispanic lady in there that is a hoot. Trottin around in this big red shoes...reminds me of Elizabeth, those sneakers? MacDonald, too...he mixes it up some. He has a couple stories, one is told multiple-character p.o.v. but all 1st person...another, same way, but 3rd, each chapter titled w/the character's name. Then he has a short, in the Seven collection, multiple-character 1st person. That would be interesting to try out, givin you like the 1st. His Miranda story...5-star...guy wakes up in a hospital with a decided opinion about what has happened...and he knows what he needs to do. This one starts out...hilarious...and then it gets macabre...and then some. Then he has this other, neat idea...character uses a tape recorder...this was that time when they were popular...tapes his neighbors, a lady/man...puts music to it, a clarinet for the lady, a French horn for the guy. The idea of that sounds intriguing...would love to see it...something...movie? on the stage? It was a play that guy with the recorder was working on...Quarrel...is the name of the short, the name of his play.

I do a lot of present tense as well. My rambling, rhythmic, never-freaking ending magnum opus, Meat Machines (don't anybody go and steal that title, now) is mostly all present tense. Works great for that sort of thing, rather Burroughsian and expirimental; now when I use it for more straight forward stuff, like popular crime fiction, say, it sometimes comes out sounding like a screenplay, or stage direction. I dunno, might just be me.

Oobleck...we've met before, I believe. Are you the iTeeth iTeeth iTeeth guy from our old cockroach story? If so, how ya been? If not, I beg your pardon.
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
I like present tense. Check out A Single Shot from Matthew F Jones, The Silent Wife from S.A. Harrison, both great stories. Couple that with a comedic-tone and we're off to the races. Elmore Leonard is good for that...dunno if either of the stories above have a comic vein, but I like the humor in any story. Whud King say in Danse Macabre...something something. To deny one is to deny the other? And does it matter? humor/horror. Charles Willeford, another...comic vein in many of his stories. He has that detective down in Florida...what's he do? Manages the hotel. Been reading a lot of John D MacDonald and very rarely does he use the funnies. He has that one, Please Write For Details...there's a Hispanic lady in there that is a hoot. Trottin around in this big red shoes...reminds me of Elizabeth, those sneakers? MacDonald, too...he mixes it up some. He has a couple stories, one is told multiple-character p.o.v. but all 1st person...another, same way, but 3rd, each chapter titled w/the character's name. Then he has a short, in the Seven collection, multiple-character 1st person. That would be interesting to try out, givin you like the 1st. His Miranda story...5-star...guy wakes up in a hospital with a decided opinion about what has happened...and he knows what he needs to do. This one starts out...hilarious...and then it gets macabre...and then some. Then he has this other, neat idea...character uses a tape recorder...this was that time when they were popular...tapes his neighbors, a lady/man...puts music to it, a clarinet for the lady, a French horn for the guy. The idea of that sounds intriguing...would love to see it...something...movie? on the stage? It was a play that guy with the recorder was working on...Quarrel...is the name of the short, the name of his play.
Good to see you, Walter. You've been missed.
 

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
11,749
34,805
I do a lot of present tense as well. My rambling, rhythmic, never-freaking ending magnum opus, Meat Machines (don't anybody go and steal that title, now) is mostly all present tense. Works great for that sort of thing, rather Burroughsian and expirimental; now when I use it for more straight forward stuff, like popular crime fiction, say, it sometimes comes out sounding like a screenplay, or stage direction. I dunno, might just be me.

Oobleck...we've met before, I believe. Are you the iTeeth iTeeth iTeeth guy from our old cockroach story? If so, how ya been? If not, I beg your pardon.

Euclid...that was fun...tried something like this awhile back...before the end of October last year. Donald Something. It'd be easy-peasy with a Social-Group set-up...but he, Donald, had something...I forget, on Google? or two places. All this clicking and loggin in...or not...that's where I got in trouble with the Authorities. Anderson's disease, me, the disease that makes you forget? Didn't pan out...I guess they were looking for a clean-up hitter and all I kept doing was smack my gum...offer advice and so it goes. What say, muskie? I'm open to readin/writin...not much into arithmawtic...bro had that nailed down. Maybe personal-messages? I'm not adept. Code? On the main board...oops, that what this is! Invisible ink? I guess Patrick and Paul were into that. Omm poppa maybe? the lunger? Anderson's disease, like I said.
 

muskrat

Dis-Member
Nov 8, 2010
4,518
19,564
Under your bed
Love those mustaches.

This does get me thinkin: maybe each writer for the Grub Street penny rag should be a different character who keeps their own journal/diary/ of the great werewolf hunt...hmmm...now the ideas are popping up.

Maybe I should continue this line of thought in the proper place, i.e. the write and blurt convo...
 
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