22 replies to this topic

[digifruit]

holy kitten, touchscreen guitar synth! I hella want one!



It's already being used by korean electronic rock band LED Apple. Their touchscreen DJ emulator is hella cool too

[Toasty Warrior]

That's some pretty inventive ways to use a touch screen.

[digifruit]

.digifruit//BLOG: Observations on fiction writing

I've been writing fiction for about twelve years now, and hopefully I've at least grasped a basic elementary understanding of the art by now. So I guess I'll jot down here in my blog every now and then some observations about fiction writing in general, whether it be novel or fanfiction, that I've picked up over the years.

I don't really believe in there being any real set of "rules" for writing (or art in general for that matter); perhaps there are flexible guidelines, but I'm not a big fan of having hard-and-fast rules for something abstract and subjective like art. BUT, there's always a but, there is one thing that aggravates the kitten out of me, and the quality of the story generally suffers a lot when authors do it, so it might as well be a rule.

So what is this one aspect of fiction writing that will unfailingly make me cringe? Well, I'm not much of a critic and mostly just enjoy stories for what they are, so it turns out to be not actually related to an author's technical skill level or anything. It's actually something that authors of any skill level can trip over, and I've definitely been guilty of it at times myself. And that is this:

As an author, you should try your best not to stick your nose into the story.

Well, what the kitten does that mean? Well, here are a few examples.

First, and probably most obviously, is something I won't even bother going into since it's been beaten to death already, so moving on.

Second is something that even pro authors are guilty of, so this I'll talk about. JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame once mentioned that she was in a sh*tty mood while writing the fourth or fifth book and had been tempted to kill Ron off on a passing whim because of it. Well, personally I'd think the story would've been much more interesting if Ron had died, but that aside... whatever kitten that goes on in the author's real life shouldn't affect what goes on in the story without a good reason and proper plot/character development. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use your real life feelings as an inspiration or basis for your story (in fact, you should), but if you let your at-the-moment feelings drive the story or, even worse, overlay your at-the-moment feelings onto your characters without in-story development for it, the reader is generally left going WTF. If you want to write about your at-the-moment feels, then go write some emo poetry or something to get it out of your system before resuming work on your story.

Third is plot/character development. Just because you want the story or a character to go in a particular direction does not particularly mean that your characters want to go in that direction (by virtue of their motives, characterizations, whatever). So if you stick your nose into the story and force the plot down a particular path when your characters have no reason to go down that path or want to go in an entirely different direction, then the reader is left wondering if the characters (and the author by extension) actually have any common sense.

A corollary to the above third point is shipping. Just because you as the author want two particular characters to get together doesn't mean that you have the right to stick your nose into the story and force the ship along. Your own feelings towards the ship may make you impatient to really get it chugging along, but you should take the time to properly develop it. Don't have a stoic character like Sasuke suddenly get all clingy just because you want a ship to happen, it's bad form. An acceptable exception to this is probably "off-screen" development; you can have your ship magically develop during a time skip, or perhaps start the story at a point in time when the ship is already established.

Fourth is omniscience. As the author, you are omniscient to everything going on in the story, but that doesn't mean that your characters are omniscient. If you insert your omniscience into your characters in order to drive plot or character development, the reader will once again be all WTF. It's fine to have your characters know stuff that they have no business knowing if you use it as a one-off joke (ie, when anime characters sneeze when someone is talking about them behind their back), but do not use it to drive important stuff like character interactions or plot development.

Fifth is masturbatory writing (figuratively, not literally). It's okay if your reader identifies or perhaps even proxies themselves with your characters, but it's generally a bad thing if YOU as the author do it while you're writing the story. It's fine to model a character off yourself; in fact, it's actually a good idea, since you probably got a good grasp of the character already, but it's generally a bad idea to take the next step and actually proxy yourself onto the character. Just because the character is modeled off of you does not mean that the character is you. Hell, even if the character isn't modeled after you, even if you just like the character a whole lot, don't live vicariously through that character. Do not forget that, otherwise a kitten ton of bad things can happen, such as turning your story into wish-fulfillment masturbatory writing purely for the gratification of your own ego and self-satisfaction ala Twilight. Well, I guess masturbatory writing is fine and dandy as long as you keep the story to yourself; no one wants to read your literary jizz, kthx.

There's a lot more, but you probably get the idea by now. Sticking your nose into the story you're writing generally results in bad things happening.