"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop"
Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)

November 10, 2010

Writing in Genre

The writing was going well for a while, and when you're writing for output rather than to provide a masterpiece, it can seem word count is the only thing that matters. However, even when output is the main goal, some thought has to be put into the general direction of the writing.

I've just discovered why through writing this novel.

I had come to a plot climax, and wasn't sure in what direction to send my characters. But I knew that if I did this wrong, the whole story could quickly come to a standstill. With this in mind, I took time out today to re-focus on the story I'm writing. It seemed to me that I was trying to glue together two separate stories. The dorky sci-fi writer me wanted to give my characters a dual universe to hop, skip and jump between, whereas my head was pulling me up, telling me, 'Not in steampunk, you don't'. So, I had to rethink how to do what I wanted without my more natural tendency to provide a parallel universe.

My characters will thank me for it in the end - I think.

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"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."
Oscar Wilde

Letters from the Edge:

Letter (n). Symbol or character used to represent speech.
Written or printed communication, transmitted by mail.
Edge (n). Line or border, brink or verge.
Edge (v). to put an edge on or sharpen. To rough ( a piece being forged) so that the bulk is properly distributed for final forging.