darkemeralds: Photo of fingers on a computer keyboard. (Writing)
[personal profile] darkemeralds
Narrative urgency: when your first sentence makes your reader want the second sentence, and your second sentence makes them want the third, and so on to the end.

It's brilliant, despite having been buried in THE MOST ANNOYING WRITING CLASS IN THE WORLD OMG, taught by an autodidact with pretensions of expertise because he writes a fairly prominent blog and has a novel coming out soon. And people like me sign up and pay good money to take his class. So, define "credentials", right? Anyway, someone who irritates me as much as this guy does probably has a lot to teach me.



He has assigned us grammar texts. I am already a crazed grammaring fascist--in more than one language. I don't play that game anymore. Oh, and he doesn't like capslock or slang or text speak or exclamation marks. It's like he's never heard of the internet.

Let me ask you this: would you speak to five strangers, for ten minutes each, about your passion for writing? No, me neither. But he assigned that as part of our homework for the week. So I said, "Not gonna happen" and he gave me shit about my "attitude" and I said, "What is this, junior high?" and I thought, Honey I'm twice your age (HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW ABOUT THE INTERNET???@!?!?!?!!?) and was heading into "get off my lawn" territory in my mind when he said that all writing should be "funny and/or fun" and I started losing my shit for brand new reasons, because WTELF??

About an hour later someone in the class backed him into a corner on that patently absurd statement, and he expanded the meaning of "fun" to include, basically, whatever the fuck he wants it to mean in the moment--inspirational, uplifting, redemptive, instructive, meaningful, useful. So, all writing should be "funny and/or worth reading by some unknowable standard that you as the writer can only define for yourself."

You know, that advice actually...doesn't suck. Just smite me now.

He also told us to practice "jam-session" writing--freeform un-self-edited page-filling--for at least an hour every day this week. I got excited because, hey, I can do that.

Then he said we have to keep the vomiting focused on a single topic (of our choice), and we have to turn it in. So when I do a type-as-you-go shamanic journey to discover the key conflict in the Teen Wolf/Grimm crossover fic I'm currently working on, I guess he gets to see the resulting word-spew.

Oh well. It'll serve him right if I include knotting.

(no subject)

20/10/12 22:21 (UTC)
lyr: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] lyr
Definitely include the knotting. That'll learn him.

(no subject)

20/10/12 22:46 (UTC)
executrix: (authorcat)
Posted by [personal profile] executrix
If you've read Stephen King's "Misery": also, "Can you, Paulie? Can you?" And if you haven't, as I recommended it to linaerys, it's not only a classic text about submitting (pun intended) to unreasonable editors, and about being a genre writer.

(no subject)

22/10/12 19:36 (UTC)
executrix: (art crawl)
Posted by [personal profile] executrix
I have a lot of respect for him because, although he knows he isn't the single most blazingly talented writer in history, he is thoughtful about what he does, he tries to do better, he tries to give his readers full measure for their doorstop-purchasing dollar, and he tries to do new things.

(no subject)

20/10/12 23:27 (UTC)
ruric: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] ruric
Is that 5 x 1hr on a different subject each time or 5 x 1 hr on the same subject?

I'm a huge fan of freeform writing - either onscreen or hand written into a book and I don't do it nearly as often as I should. I ought to make more time to do that again *G* The guy who taught an excellent class at my local adult education institute was keen on us doing it, even if only for 10-15 mins per day. He also had us do a umber of hilarious exercises in class. Must dig out my old notes for inspiration.

Oh well. It'll serve him right if I include knotting.

Sounds like a plan!

(no subject)

21/10/12 13:47 (UTC)
executrix: (actualshepherd)
Posted by [personal profile] executrix
He was non-specific as to the definition of "subject."

Possibly a code word for "kneecaps."

(no subject)

22/10/12 22:10 (UTC)
Posted by (Anonymous)
Apparently Teen Wolf is the fandom which is leading me to all sort sof intersting places *G* Just read the summary for the one you liked and I';; be givig it a whirl.

AU's not usually my thing - though in TW I am stormng through them as fast as I can find them!

(no subject)

20/10/12 23:36 (UTC)
cookiemom6067: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] cookiemom6067
You thought you needed a writing class? YOU??

(no subject)

21/10/12 23:58 (UTC)
cookiemom6067: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] cookiemom6067
Do we ever grow up and just own who we are? IDK, IJDEK.

IDK either.

LOL

(no subject)

21/10/12 01:40 (UTC)
donutsweeper: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] donutsweeper
ooh Grimm/Teen Wolf crossover. That could definitely be interesting.

And yes, you should definitely include knotting. Lots of knotting. Or really confuse the hell out of him and have a whole A/B/O dynamic bit.

(no subject)

21/10/12 02:42 (UTC)
donutsweeper: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] donutsweeper
*hee* blood types. If only it was that in more of the cases.

I think there is a lot of potential with Grimm x-over/fusions in Teen Wolf, but I think it could easily be done without a lot of Grimm knowledge. One sentence or two of background explanation would probably be all that was necessary.

(no subject)

21/10/12 03:11 (UTC)
donutsweeper: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] donutsweeper
Writing what you know is *smart* I always wind up kicking myself because I tend to favor British fandoms and no matter how hard I try there is always some minor something that slips past me that's US vs UK. And Grimm really has gotten good, hasn't it? I only have the most minor quibbles this year.

(no subject)

21/10/12 03:25 (UTC)
donutsweeper: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] donutsweeper
Oh the problem really does go both ways. Dean or Stiles in a jumper, for example, always cracks me up :)

I was SO surprised by Mark Pellegrino, he's one of those actors that's just been in so much I have some difficulties separating his various characters in my head, but he really did a great job and I love how his role jumpstepped Hank's view of everything and his resulting arc.

My only real complaint with the show is I want Rosalee back. I am nervous she'll be staying away and Monroe will be running the shop and then she'll sort of just.. disappear off the canvas.

(no subject)

21/10/12 03:31 (UTC)
donutsweeper: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] donutsweeper
*crosses fingers that you are right*

(no subject)

21/10/12 13:36 (UTC)
nwhepcat: tattoo on inner forearm of Harriet the Spy illustration (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] nwhepcat
This guy sounds totally douche-tastic. But your tale reminds me of 2 things:

One is my friend A's One Good Thing theory -- that if you've gotten one good thing from a class, you've gotten your money's worth, so you don't have to sweat it anymore. (It also expands to many other areas, such as museums.)

The other is something I learned taking a writing class many years ago. Writing classes are like weight lifting -- if you feel a great tearing pain, you should STOP NOW. It won't build character to slog on, it'll just hurt you. Only you can decide if there's great tearing pain involved, but I found it to be true the 2 times I've been in that situation. (The second time I ignored my own advice because I has been awarded an NEA-funded grant to take it, and I wasn't going to miss the chance to have that on my bio.)

(no subject)

22/10/12 21:00 (UTC)
tehomet: (Cheshire cat: We're all mad here)
Posted by [personal profile] tehomet
Oh well. It'll serve him right if I include knotting.

*cackle* Indeed, it would!

(no subject)

24/10/12 01:53 (UTC)
karen_jk: Melissa (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] karen_jk
Um. That will be me, right about now.

But I've enjoyed reading this discussion!

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darkemeralds: A round magical sigil of mysterious meaning, in bright colors with black outlines. A pen nib is suggested by the intersection of the cryptic forms. (Default)
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