Crash and Fancy’s Despicable Hearts (and Writers) Club™

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Everybody tense switches when they write; it's something you have to catch during the editing stage. Listening to people tell stories about stuff that happened to them, most people tend to tense switch, and will switch into present tense either for the sake of pacing the story or when they reach a really intense part. When I listen to my students tell personal stories, they will often frame it using the past tense and then change to the present for the core of the story, or for dialogue. "So I go... And then he goes... And I'm like... And they're like...."

 

[Mage]

Writing a story in present tense? *goes flaccid* I know I do it when I talk and definitely switch tenses when I'm gassing here or IRL, but not for the purposes of writing fiction. That's just naaaasty. I mean there are exceptions and I'm pretty sure I've done it in the past but as a rule, nah.

 

[Cthulhu]

. I mean there are exceptions

"In her pale pink, frothy baby-doll dress and killer heels, she towers over me like a Christmas tree fairy."

 

[Mage]

I am honestly disappointed you did that. I'm not mad, just disappointed.

 

[CrashOuch]

This week got away from me and then some so I have not done any writing BUT I wanted to keep the floor open for another week to see if anyone has any first lines they wanted to post? Don't be shy! It's now been proven that everyone will be very friendly!

Happy writing!​

 

[fancy]

One of these days I’ll gather up the nerve, Crash!


Have I told you that the first lines you posted were absolutely lovely?? Setting a standard here!

Oi, but this morning I was on my family group chat (just mum and brothers) and one of my brothers posted this meme:


My other brother responded with: “I mean if a book doesn't force you to think deeper it's either for little kids or just a crappy book.”

And I went in there and told them they were both wrong lmao.

In summary, my arguments were:

• One of the prominent instances in which an author would write a novel with “no meaning” is writing factory fiction (I’m not actually sure if this is the correct term—I tried googling to no avail. Basically, they’re formulaic, predicable pieces of literature that folks will pump out for a quick buck because it gratifies the need of a particular market that wants the satisfaction of reading without having to worry about allegory or metaphor).
• Just because a book is written in this way, doesn’t necessarily make it bad—it’s just not asking you to think.
• Of course there are well written children’s books.
• Almost every book assigned to you in an academic setting serves a purpose. Just because you miss the broader point, doesn’t meant it’s not there (which seems to be the argument for most folks who are annoyed at having to think about these points in literature class!)
• The purpose of book analysis is not always for allegory—some are analysed for their historical relevance. Tolkien, for example, famously hated allegory and yet, the battle for Middle-Earth in Lord of the Rings, for many, is a clear parallel for WWII, with Sauron and his army acting as a metaphor for facist governments threatening the “free world” (The Shire). LotR is obviously a product of its time.

Anyway, I want to hear everyone else’s thoughts! I think that’s a consistent debate that comes up: the fallacy of seeking meaning in works when an author may have never meant for the “meaning” to be there.

 

[Roger]

@CrashOuch

Okay I'll post some paragraphs for you. <3

These are seperate stories i've started (and already my mind wavers to a new one, but I'm not throwing anything away.)

The craft sped across a devasted wasteland, the few lights that were outwardly visible from New London's dome were dimming behind them. Jasper was whyling away the time on his PDA abusing the private uplink to SpectreCorps to browse the Net while he still could. Jacks was cleaning and examining his guns across from me. Wesley was on his feet, looking at the nothing visible from our frontcanopy, waiting for our destination to become visible. Our new temporary pilot, Kasumi the only one actually working at the moment, was the only that seemed truly at ease. It was to be expected. Beyond combatroutines and flighttraining, she had nary any experience uploaded before we woke her after taking her out the plastic.

Studious as ever, Paral was sitting with ancient tome outside in the midday sun underneath a tree far enough from the entrance that the sounds of the other students wouldn't reach her. She was engrossed in the rituals the Luluthians of old transferred elemental energy from one focus to another that she was on the last persons in the castle that the Mage's College had claimed for it's own to notice what had happened.

Sofia Donovan woke in the arrival clinic. Her new body felt stiff, irritable, sluggish. Yet she knew there was hardly time for a slow morning routine. She had a minutes at best before her pursuers would be able to locate her. A rack of complimentary attire offered for customers stood near her slab. undergarments, pants, a shirt, socks, a coat, a pair of boots were quickly put together. She took a hefty gulp from the jug of water and sprinted for the door. The next area was a lounge for visitors to take do some light reading and exercises to while their biological functions kicked in. her room had opened up to a walkway on the secondfloor of the building. She could see the exit, a service droid however was a approaching her and blocked her path. Undoubtably cameras had kept track of her movements and they had a flagged her as someone in need of distress and immediate assistance.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Just because the author didn't intend for the meaning to be in there, doesn't mean there's no meaning to be found. All kinds of things happen in a work fiction that the author never intended. I've often heard authors being interviews who said they themselves weren't aware of the meaning or significance of certain passages, or of how those passages drew on their personal experiences, or of the chemistry between two characters, until a third party pointed it out. In any case, if a book's meaning must be limited to what the author intended - if there's no scope for finding our own meaning in it - then the novel is not a living piece of art, but a dead specimen on the dissecting table.

 

[CrashOuch]

@Minato ROG OMG THANKS SO MUCH AND I LOVE THESE!!! All three are so different but they all draw you in so quick and make you super interested! I just want to read on! The first one made me think a bit of the matrix, which I don't know super well, but I read a short story Neil Gaiman wrote for it. And the last one! Being chased as soon as you wake up! Ooohhh, the tension! I love it! I'd be so interested to hear more about these! Thank you so much for sharing <3

@just fancy and @LicoriceAllsorts Yeah I agree! Like there's a place for comfortable books and stories just as much as there is for super deep, make-you-think stuff. Also, me and the kids I tutor spend a lot of time analysing texts, and I feel like when you're writing you purposefully put some of that stuff in, like to create the images or tones or whatever else you're trying to put in the reader's head, but is it all intentional??? You know what I mean? And even formulaic texts can be important if they provide positive representation of a minority (a lot of erotica follows a pretty set script, but there's a lot of LGBTQ+ stuff, possibly more than in most other genres) or normalise something.

 

[Clement Rage]

In general, I find nothing kills a story faster than analysis or themes. If I can recognise the theme a story is meant to be about, it usually instantly loses some of its gloss for me, unless it is based very closely on the author's personal experience.

Tolkien hated allegory, maybe we should take him at his word? That isn't saying that there's no substance to his work (nothing at all by anyone should be held in contempt, every single work has some kind of value, but ascribing hidden motives to everything tends to reduce the value of a work to me.

 

[CrashOuch]

Aww, really? That's a shame, I like spotting how smart my favourite authors are personally haha!

 

[Clement Rage]

I'm not very coherent on this, I'm just kind of uncomfortable in looking at an author and saying definitively 'this is about this', especially if it's supposedly being drawn from an aspect of their lives. The writer knows more about their own lives than the readers will, so it's kind of a huge leap of judgement to try to psychoanalyse someone you don't know based on texts they wrote for another purpose. I would be uncomfortable with, that, if it was my writing.

Re themes, I find they close doors. Worlds are messy, they don't support specific messages, and the stronger your theme, the harder it is for real world messiness to find its way in. If your theme is classism in the UK, it becomes more difficult to have a fundamentally heroic Tory MP in your story, and so on. Contradicting your theme muddies the message. Mr/Ms Heroic Tory can show up in a story, but he/she has a harder time of it if their presence complicates your theme.

 

[CrashOuch]

Oohhhh, I get you!

For me, I like to just pay attention to the way the writer creates images for me, like what words they chose that specifically create a certain tone or conjure a certain picture, what connotations they're playing on, how clever their metaphors are, things like that. I'd say I don't typically look into their lives further than 'she had a lot of siblings and she writes well about familial relationships', you know?

As you say, I'm always afraid someone will psychoanalyse me from my writing and come to some horrible conclusions, haha!

Also, I've just begun reading back over everything I wrote during NaNo and it is a trip! I may as well have never seen the words before, I kept being like, wow! I wonder how X character is going to respond to that! Ooh! Where are they going now! It's the strangest feeling, haha! I'm not gonna have a ton of time to look at it more for a while, but I am going to attempt to get my 500 words in either tonight or tomorrow, so please hold me accountable if I wrap this week up without any words to my name!

Happy writing, guys!

 

[CrashOuch]

Oh hey, Despicable Hearts!

Who did some writing this week?​

I'm very happy to report that, for once, I did! I managed 1,000 words just this evening!

How's everyone else getting on? Did anyone manage to write anything? Is anyone stuck? Struggling?


I managed to find some wise and (hopefully) encouraging words from Neil Gaiman.
On the topic of when to write:

If you’re only going to write when you’re inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your wordcount today, and those words aren’t going to wait for you, whether you’re inspired or not.

Should you edit as you write?

The best advice I can give on [revision] is, once it’s done, to put it away until you can read it with new eyes. Finish the short story, print it out, then put it in a drawer and write other things. When you’re ready, pick it up and read it as if you’ve never read it before. If there are things you aren’t satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a writer: that’s revision.

And finally, how do you get inspired?

Ideas come from daydreaming. They come from drifting.

Which, luckily, segues us into what I want to talk about this week. How do you all get inspiration? What inspires you?
Do you like to listen to music? Do you people watch and spot interesting things? Do you like to look at nature? Do you take a long walk? A bus ride? A drive? Please tell us all about it!

For me, I find inspiration in all sorts of odd places, like doing the laundry and journeying to work, but I'm so intrigued to know what sorts of things set the cogs in all of your minds spinning!

 

[Claudius Caesar]

So I've gotten back into the writing game and I've begun work on a fan fiction for one of my favorite shows of all time, The Sopranos

I've just recently posted two chapters a day or two ago, and I'm going to write another chapter later tonight.

Mafia Superstar, a Sopranos Fan Fic

 

[CrashOuch]

Ooohhh! Good luck Claudius and happy writing! Thanks for sharing as well, I look forward to getting a chance to check your stuff out! <3

 

[Claudius Caesar]

I'm probably going to write the third chapter of "Mafia Superstar" tonight and maybe write a few more things as well to get ahead and hone my skills further.

 

[CrashOuch]

Oooh! That sounds like a great plan good luck! I'm cheering you on!

 

[Claudius Caesar]

Fell asleep last night before I could actually post the third chapter of my story, but I will get it posted sometime today or tonight.

 

[CrashOuch]

Good morning, Despicable Hearts! ?
Please accept my most sincere apologies for not checking in with y'all, but you know how it be.

So, new day, new dawn, new life IT'S A NEW WEEK,

Who's done some writing?
​

I haven't. I will not have time for the foreseeable. I pass the torch to all of you, please go on without me, please write.

I have some encouraging words from an author who's great and who I'm going to marry, V.E. Schwab!

If you write 100 words a day, you'll end up with a book.
If you write 500 words a day, you'll end up with a book.
If you write 5,000 words a day, you'll end up with a book.
It doesn't matter how fast/slow you write, if you stick with it, you'll end up with a book.

You can do it, guys! Keep chipping away little by little and eventually you're gonna be left with something!

On that note, I want to hear about it if you wrote 30 words recently, I want to hear about it if you thought about writing recently, I want to hear about it if you did some daydreaming about your story and had a breakthrough about a plot point. Tell me what's been going on in your writing lives!

And Happy Writing ❤

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I was a sicky and wrote nothing.

 

[Roger]

I've written down my character's name and then stared at the page not knowing how to proceed.

 

[CrashOuch]

I hope you feel better and can manage some writing soon, Lic ❤

That's a great start though, Rog! Good work! Probably you need to know a little about this named character now, like what their day to day life looks like, so you can disrupt it with PLOT! Good luck! ❤

 

[Clement Rage]

Still creeping towards 70k. Then the real work begins.

 

[CrashOuch]

Congratulations! You got this, Clement! <3