Wednesday, April 15, 2015

M is for Meander

All the writing advisors out there exhort everyone to keep the thrills coming. One per page. Keep the reader at the edge of their seat. Everything needs to be a page turner. I say bull~!@#. I'm starting to think that writing advice blogs are starting to copy news journalists and they're writing for attention rather than truth.

As I get further into my fiction and the world gets more solid and my characters acquire more personality, I'm seeing there is room to breathe. There is room to describe something. There is room for dialogue to solidify the plot and there is also room for main character monologue to describe a setting.

As in so many other things in life, I am realizing that not everything is true if you read it in the blog of an expert. Styles are individual. The story you know needs to be written according to you, not what some author architect asserts you need to be doing. Be your own writer. Read what others write, but stay in control of your own POV, when it comes to style and taste. Blogs are looking for readers and fans just like journalists. Their words are not written in stone nor are they absolute. Go your own way and seek to add to your perspective from what others write. Blind obedience is not needed.

3 comments:

  1. exactly, take all the knowledge you can, consider its worth, then use what suits you. Some convention is needed for clarity, but we need our own style to stand out!
    happy a to z-ing!

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  2. I call BS too. Rules are meant to be broken.

    New reader here, dropping by from A to Z.

    Nice to meet you, Jeff!

    2015 A to Z Challenge Co-Host
    Matthew MacNish from The QQQE

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  3. Where rules stop and your opinion takes over is a juggling act. One thing I have noticed about many writing books is that they do not vary much in format.

    Good point made. I am visiting from A to Z.

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