#narrative voice

[novlr]

#writers #creative writing #writing #writing community #writers of tumblr #creative writers #writing inspiration #writeblr #writerblr #writing tips #writblr #writing advice #writing resources #tense #narrative voice #writing tenses #past tense #present tense #future tense #references for writers #help for writers #writing help #writers corner #advice for writers #advice for authors #let's write #creative writing tips

[deliciouskeys]

Just out of curiosity.

#writing meta #fic writing #fic #fanfiction #narrative voice #writing techniques #polls

[ahb-writes]

Writing Problem: The Story Favors Style Over Substance

Problem: The Story Favors Style Over Substance

Solution: Writers commonly risk stumbling into the crevasse of convenience, no matter the genre (e.g., action must be cool or flashy, comedy must be glaringly funny, horror must be unremittingly scary). The primary fault lines for these seemingly innocent errors are twofold: inexperience and immaturity. That is to say, the more one reads and the more one writes, the greater one experiences, learns, and empathizes with a greater array of storytelling styles, techniques, and attitudes. Writing a more dynamic and engaging story that leaps beyond the crevasse of style over substance requires an eagerness to learn, a willingness to experiment, and an openness to difference.

Writing Resources:

8 Ways to Write a 5-Star Chapter One (Writer's Digest)

Building a Bold Narrator's Voice: 5 Methods (Now Novel)

How to Avoid Plot Armor (Coffee Bean Writing)

10 Tips for the Middle of Your Story (Coffee Bean Writing; ahbwrites)

Avoiding Plot Armor (How to Fight Write)

How to Absolutely Wreck Your Audience With a Character Death (lunewell)

Writing Description: Make Introspection More Engaging (ahbwrites)

How to Frame Scenes Like a Filmmaker (Kristen Kiefer)

Shakespeare's Genius Is Nonsense (Nautilus)

❯ ❯ Adapted from the writing masterpost series: 19 Things That Are Wrong With Your Novel (and How to Fix Them)

#writeblr #writing tips #writing advice #fiction writing #writing problems #novel writing #writeprob #style over substance #narrative voice #perspective #plot armor #frame scenes like a filmmaker #genius is nonsense #character death #character development #writing conflict #writing the middle

[penig]

When I was nine, I did not know what “coming down handsomely” meant. I kept reading anyway. I’d been reading above my grade level for years and didn’t have to understand every word or get every joke to enjoy a story. I knew, rather, that if it was important I would figure it out. Meantime, I had that sonorous yet jocular voice leading me down into this story, the outline of which I already knew. I had, after all, seen Mr. Magoo’s version, and something in black and white on television.

But those versions lacked this voice, this long slow rolling rhythm, full of clauses and sub clauses and asides and associations, circling back upon itself, so much like the way I think myself. A lot of modern readers are put of by Dickens’s style, but not me. Oh, never me!

I still don’t understand business well enough to know what, exactly, Scrooge does to make himself so rich. Stocks, real estate, something to do with loans or credit? It doesn’t matter, either. He gets rich by taking advantage of other people and he resents happiness. If he misses Marley, he’ll never admit it to himself.

The mental images that pass through me as I read are an odd amalgam of modern and Victorian. Adult me knows that the blind men’s dogs Dickens knew were not chosen, trained, or equipped like modern service dogs, but at nine I had a standard picture of a seeing eye dog as a cheerful German Shepard in a chest harness, and that’s still what I see assisting his “dark master” to avoid Scrooge’s evil eye, on streets that are a weird amalgam of movie sets, contemporary pictures, and mental reconstructions of other described Victorian London streets. They are narrow, crowded, foggy, dirty with coal and horse droppings and litter, lined with tall narrow brick and stone buildings, and cold. So very, very cold!

#dickens december #literature #victorian literature #Dickens #narrative voice

[sacrilegious-skeletal-scribe]

wrote a vignette in a cowboy voice. summarily lost cowboy voice. more at 11

huhugwehrlgu

yeah i broke into this really smooth cowboy voice a month ago, like a western without the constant casual racism, i just wanted to wax poetic about sand and the reat yawning expanse of the stars, the horizon line where humanity seems kind of proportional, it's just you and the stars and the six pairs of eyes staring down your heaving corpse

and that's all well and good, i actually quite like what i got out of the first session, but i didn't finish it all in the same night? which is normally fine? but i wrote it in a Cowboy Voice. and now I can't find it.

upsetti

in less upsetti news; go listen to Bowie Knife, by Frankie Laine

it slaps an inordinate amount. i'm genuinely upset this goes as hard as it does holy shit. this wasn't what i used to cheat code my way into Cowboy Voice, i just happened to be vining to Big Iron and had this recommended to me and uh, Holy Shit

just the voice, this orchestra pit of a backing, the composition as a whole goddamn

shit makes me miss being a horse-girl. not that you really ever stop being a horse girl, i just haven't rode a horse in awhile. wish i could do that shit on whim, that would slap.

Bowie Knife~! Bowie Knife~! Long glittering steel~!

if listening to this hard-counters me into the narrative voice i lost this might get a sequel/sibling

biggest problem isn't that i couldn't keep writing, it's that i did and it's notably no longer in the Cowboy Voice

it's just sort of in my usual bullshit poetry/prose... which i've sort of grown attached to, if you fucks didn't like it I would have been informed by now, but it's not what the first six paragraphs are written with... sadge, upsetti, et c.

#bowie knife #frankie laine #cowboy #narrative voice #writers on tumblr #writblr #don't mind me having a tantrum i'm just upset that i can't wrap this story up because i've created a continuity error in vocabulary #sadge #i'm not even that upset this song goes so hard #and for what #if i do actually manage to finish this you all will be the first to see it #Spotify #SoundCloud

[prettylittlelyres]

Inside the Writing Process: Part 7

Troubleshooting Writer’s Block

Today, I finally figured out what was so wrong with my book “The Manylove Quarter” that I couldn’t write more than a few dozen words per day, these last few months! And I’ve worked out how to fix it, and I’m actually excited about working on it again!

I thought I’d just... lost whatever spark it is that makes me want to write and then be able to write. Turns out I just didn’t like the way my story was going because it wasn’t going anywhere specific and didn’t have a clear antagonist / protagonist, even though it had a narrator. (It was the wrong narrator, as if it needed to be any worse!)

Now I have:

the right narrator;

a clearer idea of plot;

antagonists (including one who’s doing her damn best but screwing it up);

an idea of how I want to finish it;

and therefore a chance of actually doing so, this side of the grave.

I’m so excited!

I haven’t had to add any new characters (OK, I’ve had to add one, and find a name for him) or change the setting or the events. I was just trying to show them through the eyes of drastically the wrong person... and now I won’t be doing that!

I can’t recommend enough: if you’re blocked, if you’re stuck on a project, re-examine the roles your character play within the narrative. I don’t mean re-name, add or remove. I don’t mean change the plot. Just have a little play with other perspectives, and see how things look through another character’s eyes (especially any characters that are more active or have more to lose or gain than your current “protagonist” / narrator).

#writeblr #blog #the manylove quarter #troubleshooting writer's block #point of view #narrative voice #writer's block #inside the writing process

[cjjasp]

Narrative voice: more words and how we choose them #amwriting

Narrative voice: more words and how we choose them #amwriting

We all use the same words to tell the same stories. Why do I say such a terrible thing? It’s true. All stories are derived from a few basic plots, and we have only so many words in the English language with which to tell them. Plot Archetypes as defined by Christopher Booker in his work, The Seven Basic Plots: Overcoming the monster The quest Voyage and return Comedy Tragedy Rebirth The Rule of…

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#how we choose words #narrative voice #style #writing #writing craft

[lnk-and-lnspiration]

How to Write an Engaging Opening Chapter: Hooking Readers from the Start

The opening chapter of your book is your chance to captivate readers, set the tone for your story, and hook them from the very beginning. An engaging opening chapter grabs readers’ attention, entices them to keep reading, and establishes the foundation for a compelling narrative. In this article, we will explore effective strategies to write an engaging opening chapter that leaves a lasting…

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#action and character development #central conflict #compelling beginnings #editing and polishing #engaging dialogue #engaging protagonist #first impressions #hooking readers #intrigue and mystery #narrative voice #opening chapter #reader engagement #sense of urgency #vivid settings #writingn tips

[dontpetmeibite]

It's a good thing she's not privy to some of these conversations.

Ravage is the last person in the multiverse to advocate for monogamy, and she knows that probably nobody in her family is capable of it.

But she'd be absolutely horrified if she knew that someone was planning a big fake wedding when he hasn't asked her brother, whom she just caught shopping for things for their house, which he has moved into, and is now in charge of, to give him a real one yet, and she might say things implying that this kind of behaviour is the reason some people have such terrible relationship histories.

Somebody needs to achieve aftslag cohesion.

Fortunately for all concerned, however, she doesn't know. Yet.

@mastermegatron did ask for her advice on several occasions...

#Glit | doctorglitterbomb #Smokescreen | ask-smokescreen #Megatron (UT) | mastermegatron #narrative voice #you should maybe start by telling them about each other #all muns are aware lmao

[libraryofbaxobab]

August 15, 2023:

This author took "character voice," turned it up all the way to 11, and snapped off the dial, and I think it's this book's best (& most prominent) feature. Wondering "what is this kid even saying" is kind of the point and I love it for that. It's disorienting, and depressing, and made me immediately get up and wash my sinkful dishes. There's a kind of curious peace about it, the way only a child can accept even the darkest developments, but it's also deeply unsettling for the reader.

I'm really not sure about the ending. I don't know why what happened, happened. Maybe that's also part of the point.

8/10

#WhatsKenyaReading I picked this up pretty much just because of the aesthetic of the cover. I wanted to read Whalefall (same author) but all the copies at the library are checked out for now, so I decided to get a feel for this author while I wait. Even more excited to read Whalefall now!

#whatskenyareading #books #reading #library #Blood Sugar #Halloween #candy #child protagonist #child #narrative voice #gentrification #squalor #slum

[serpenttailedangel]

Musing about prose

Recently revisited both ACOTAR and Sorcery of Thorns.

I have very mixed feelings about ACOTAR. It's already only 50% in the sub-genre space I prefer, but the parts of it that are my jam, it delivers on. The other parts feel like an annoying distraction from the stuff I actually care about, and tbh I'm not wild about Maas's writing style.

I don't mean to say I don't like her writing. She's one of the authors where I feel I can safely grab something by her and be entertained. It's just that her specific prose style isn't one of the things about her writing that appeals to me. It doesn't ruin the books. There are some books I straight up can't read because I hate the narrative voice. But I do think it's one of the less positive aspects, I guess is how I'd put it? I haven't re-read her entire catalogue so I don't remember if this is a problem across all books or something that she backs off on eventually, but she over-personifies things. A lot of the description just feels too dramatic and try-hard.

Anyway, Sorcery of Thorns also personifies the shit out of everything and I love it. I love it so much and I had to just set the book down and process why I adore this when I was thinking earlier in the week that I hate how ACOTAR does it. And I think it's just… world building.

The thing I like most about SoT, even more than the charming characters, is the setting itself. That spells and magic items can have actual temperaments and books can argue and fight with other books recaptures more for me that feeling of whimsy that I got when I first read Harry Potter. (I kind of think of it as The Most Harry Potter book for this reason, far beyond all the other books that attempted some manner of magic boarding school.)

I haven't read anything else by Rogerson, so I don't know how she is with other settings, but it really adds to the atmosphere in this book when furniture is described as having a mood or seeming to perform a human action as it sits stationary wherever it was found. Because so many things in this book do have moods that wouldn't in most books that it gives this edge of "maybe the chairs did set themselves there because they were bothered by the light." Rather than it feeling like the author is putting too much effort into describing things in interesting ways, it makes it seem like all sorts of things might be magical and you just don't have confirmation.

#acotar #sorcery of thorns #reading #narrative voice

[scribefindegil]

I love first-person because it’s about what the narrator chooses to tell. What do they focus on? What do they leave out? What can you learn from reading between the lines? Are they lying to you? Are they lying to themself? It’s great for unreliable narrators and for epistolary storytelling! It’s intimate but there’s still a distance because you aren’t really seeing the narrator’s thoughts--you’re just seeing the story that they’ve constructed.

I love second-person because it’s a conversation. Does “you” mean a broad, indefinite “you”? Does “you” really mean “I” but with plausible deniability? Does “you” mean one specific person? Can they hear the narrator? Do they know the narrator? What is the relationship here? Who’s talking? Who’s listening?

I love third-person limited because it’s focused and intimate. What does the world look like from inside this character’s head? What are they seeing? What are they feeling? It doesn’t grant them the privacy that first-person does; the narrative isn’t something they’ve chosen, it’s invisible and inescapable. As a reader you’re not watching so much as astral projecting.

(I love singular point of view because of how much it leans into that limitation. You’re not getting the whole story; you’re not seeing anything unless this character sees it. How do you embrace that? What do you do with the gaps around the edges? How does that define--or warp--the events that they’re experiencing?

I love multiple points of view because of how it broadens your understanding of the story and the world. If two point-of-view characters react in opposite ways to the same thing, what does that tell you about them? About the world? How does it feel to spend time inside a character’s head and then see them from someone’s else’s point of view? How do all of these viewpoints work together?) 

I love third-person omniscient because the narrative is a character. It’s great for stories that know they’re stories! It allows for a camaraderie between the narrator and the reader! It allows for wider and more cinematic descriptions because you’re not limited to what a specific person can see! It lets you look at the characters from outside while still giving you the option to delve into their heads because you have full control over what you’re focusing on!

And I love authors who can combine viewpoints in ways you wouldn’t think would work but manage to pull it off! Stories with multiple point-of-view characters where one is first-person and the others are third! Stories that combine first- and second-person! Stories where the omniscient narrator suddenly refers to themself in the first person! Stories where you realize halfway through that you were wrong about who was narrating it!

Isn’t it fantastic that there are so many different ways to tell stories!!!!

#WRITING #this is not eloquent but i just!!! think narrative voice is so cool!! #i think EVERY narrative voice is so cool!! #all of these also have specific negatives that are more associated with them of course #but. the positives tho.

[ahb-writes]

#writing #writeblr #narrative voice #voice #narrative perspective #language #interests #tone #theme #writing tips #writing advice #specific traits #character growth

[eliseabram]

Narrative voice in fiction

Your narrative voice is the way you tell a story. The author’s personality and emotions  as they tell the story make up their narrative voice. A strong narrative voice gives a story a unique tone and perspective, creating a sense of intimacy between the reader and the characters. It also makes the reader feel like they are a part of the story. Here are some tips to help you find your narrative…

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#Narrative Voice

[filipmagnuswrites]

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It by K. J. Parker - Book Review

K. J. Parker is a master of voice. His Siege Trilogy accents this mastery, providing the reader with narrators with personalities large enough they threaten to drown out most other voices. How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, the middle book in this trilogy, has to contend with a difficult task: offering a worthy follow-up to the ironic, cynical voice of the first book’s protagonist Orhan.…

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#book blog #book review #character development #Constantinople #cynicism #Fantasy #fiction #How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It #humor #irony #K. J. Parker #leadership #literature #narrative voice #politics #responsibility #siege #Siege Trilogy #theatre #Writing

[mysticllamaunknown]

#writing #narrative voice