Musings

Revise, revise, revise. That's been my primary refrain these days. After putting my thesis aside for several weeks, I have picked up again with a renewed vigor. Part of inspiration came in studying for the creative writing essay. I took the time to reread Eudora Welty, Madison Smart-Bell, and John Gardner. All three have different ways of approaching creative writing, but all three have similar themes.

The area I have found them most helpful in is in setting. Sense of place has always been a weakness of mine. Character is my strong suit--I think it comes from years of analyzing character and creating details and motivation in studying theatre and preparing for roles. Setting, bah, that's the scenic designers job. So I am really working on layering and working with authentic details while still remaining true to the story.

At the moment I am re-crafting several dialogue passages. I generally have a good ear for dialogue (again I think it comes from theatre), but I am terrible at tags. I hate them. He said, she said, he exclaimed...bluh. So I am trying to work on them without making them trite or allowing them to draw attention to themselves.

One thing that I love about writing (and there are many things) is the ability to surprise yourself. Gardner describes it as going into a trance--when you're in the zone and you just write and write without stopping to judge. Then you go back and read it and realize that with some revision, it's not too bad. In fact, it's pretty good. I also love when my characters seem to take on a life of their own and lead me to discover something about the story I hadn't realized. The more I get to know Mordred, the more he gives me these gifts.

Another area I tend to have trouble with is sentence variation. I admit it, I love a good comma with a closing phrase. There is a drama to it. But it is also like me and diet coke--it's great once and a while, but I really need to cut back. One of my advisors suggested the use of more adverbs, but I despise adverbs. If I had one critique of JK Rowling it would be that she is a little too in love with adverbs. I especially hate them in tags, "she said cruelly." There has to be a better way to put that. So instead of sacrificing myself the sickness of adverbs, I have instead been looking at ways to intensify language while varying my sentence structure. I have been looking at Faulkner and McCarthy, the later especially, who has a gift for mixing both simple and complex sentences with great results. The goal is inspiration, not mimicry.

These are just some thoughts. I'm sure there will be more. Back to work.