04.23.07
There’s still hope
Probably an odd title, but so be it.
It shall be a short story, so say I. A long short story, granted. But I have a story arc that can end before too long, and I’ve only added one more character. Of course, the trick will be to make it sound like a real ending, and to keep complications from arising. The first I can do. The second? Well, that remains to be seen.
My first draft is definitely going to be too long, but, to look on the bright side, I’d rather have too much than not enough. I already have a list of things to look at removing, though it pains me to take away certain things that would go wonderfully in a novel. Anyway, I never throw anything away. If it sucks as a short story, then I’ll call it a learning experience and file it away in my too-large bunch of novels that want to be written someday.
04.18.07
Why can’t I write a short story?
Well, ok. I’ve written short stories.
But half the time–or more–when I start out thinking something will be a short story, it doesn’t stay one for long.
Case in point: I started writing this weekend, thinking I’d be done by now. It was a variation on an idea that I’ve had for years and had never gotten around to writing. A fantasy story, set in a new world (how many can one mind hold, anyway?) with, in my not-at-all-biased opinion, an interesting group of characters and cultures.
Well, I’m still writing. I tried very hard to keep my cast down to two characters, thinking that without a mob I could keep the story simpler. Ha. Ha ha. Now I’m trying to think how to turn it from the opening of a novel (or possibly novella… sorry Eisel, I’m a month early) into a short story. Maybe I’ll give up and let it be a novel.
But it would be nice to write something short and contained for a change.
04.17.07
Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett
Edit: I should probably mention this here as well as on LibraryThing… This isn’t a good book to start the series with, so I didn’t worry much about it making sense out of context.
The third book in the Tiffany Aching young adult subseries of Discworld, in which Tiffany impulsively jumps into the reverse-Morris dance meant to usher in winter, and in doing so takes Summer’s place. Winter, in the guise of the Wintersmith, sees her in the dance and becomes infatuated with her, setting the world at risk of eternal winter.
It was good, but not one of my favorites. The Feegles were developed more in this one, which was nice. I’m really starting to like Roland, and I’ve always liked Granny. And Summer. Summer was cool, in a very non-literal sense.
But I don’t find Tiffany as captivating. She just doesn’t grab me like some of them do. I’m not sure how much of that is the young adult writing… I like YA, but I like the sharpness and even harshness of some of the Discworld books, and that’s missing in these.
Overall, it’s an interesting idea. It just seems too neat. Tiffany makes all of the important decisions, but with everyone from Granny to the Feegles manipulating her, and with her character as set up in the earlier books, she couldn’t make any others. She’s so much the “do what you have to no matter what” type that it’s hard to give her a problem that makes the reader wonder about the outcome.
Yet Another Blog
My intent is to post here fairly regularly, but we’ll see if that works out. Something focussed is more likely to get updated, so I’ll talk about books and stories, and will probably yammer about my own writing too much.
I’ll post reviews of books I read, some from a writer’s standpoint and some not. My reviews for myself always have spoilers (but then, so do the reviews on Amazon. I hate that) but if mine do here, I’ll be sure to mark them as such.
