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Working on my fic
Sep. 3rd, 2007 03:53 pmI'm working on my Ethan-fic. Sometimes I really wonder if all the tinkering is worth it.
For instance, in the first version I say "he placed the cup in the cup holder", then I rewrite it so it reads: "he slipped it into the cup holder," just so I arrive at a slightly more phallic image. Or I use war images, and temperature contrasts, and a location that has a certain history, that's supposed to reverberate with the story, to strengthen the theme.
I always wonder how visible these decisions are. Do readers pick up on that kind of detail at word level? Do they know? Or are these "tricks" invisible, do they guide the reader more subtly? And no, I'm not just wondering about my own fic, I'm wondering about reading habits in general. How much do the readers get?
I just read a German fantasy novel that has been hailed as truly imaginative and ground-breaking. I find it incredibly derivative and over-written. It' a pastiche of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Charles Dickens, and the movies God's Army and The Dark Crystal. The style is very visible. I suppose you could call the language stilted. The old-fashioned grammar drove me crazy, yet I was still interested in reading until the end. With that book it was obvious that the author had laboured hard on a word level to arrive at his unique style, that he wasn't just pouring the words on the page, but the artificiality of it was off-putting. And that made me wonder about my own writing and some of the fanfic authors I treasure.
Eliade once used the image of an asterioid belt of empty bottles surrounding Xander. It's a very striking image, very visible. Very memorable. I adore her writing, but how many people are there who find images like that distracting? Who don't want that kind of artificiality in a story. Who want the author to take a role that's a lot more behind the scene, more invisible...
Just wondering....
For instance, in the first version I say "he placed the cup in the cup holder", then I rewrite it so it reads: "he slipped it into the cup holder," just so I arrive at a slightly more phallic image. Or I use war images, and temperature contrasts, and a location that has a certain history, that's supposed to reverberate with the story, to strengthen the theme.
I always wonder how visible these decisions are. Do readers pick up on that kind of detail at word level? Do they know? Or are these "tricks" invisible, do they guide the reader more subtly? And no, I'm not just wondering about my own fic, I'm wondering about reading habits in general. How much do the readers get?
I just read a German fantasy novel that has been hailed as truly imaginative and ground-breaking. I find it incredibly derivative and over-written. It' a pastiche of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Charles Dickens, and the movies God's Army and The Dark Crystal. The style is very visible. I suppose you could call the language stilted. The old-fashioned grammar drove me crazy, yet I was still interested in reading until the end. With that book it was obvious that the author had laboured hard on a word level to arrive at his unique style, that he wasn't just pouring the words on the page, but the artificiality of it was off-putting. And that made me wonder about my own writing and some of the fanfic authors I treasure.
Eliade once used the image of an asterioid belt of empty bottles surrounding Xander. It's a very striking image, very visible. Very memorable. I adore her writing, but how many people are there who find images like that distracting? Who don't want that kind of artificiality in a story. Who want the author to take a role that's a lot more behind the scene, more invisible...
Just wondering....
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