gio
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Post by gio on Apr 1, 2011 5:34:42 GMT -5
Peri Anemon Ke Ydaton (About Winds And Waters) is the greek expression for chitchating.
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gio
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Posts: 247
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Post by gio on Apr 1, 2011 6:02:23 GMT -5
Happy and creative rest of your life Marsh!
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Post by SianaBlackwood on Apr 1, 2011 21:00:03 GMT -5
Just a suggestion, but if we're going to talk about what we're writing (plots, snips etc.) in the PPTs, they shouldn't be publicly viewable. It's a whole thing to d with copyright and publishers getting a shiny new story to play with. I don't know the details, but from what I understand there's a big difference between talking about your work in a members-only section and talking about it in a public section.
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Post by marsbareater12 on Apr 2, 2011 0:37:56 GMT -5
Thought that was members only. Oops. Changed it now, Siana
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Post by SianaBlackwood on Apr 3, 2011 6:47:04 GMT -5
No worries.
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gio
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Posts: 247
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Post by gio on Apr 6, 2011 12:07:39 GMT -5
The issue that I want to raise is far from chat on winds and waters (at least for me) but I found no more suitable thread to post it. Reading Mars' post I thought 'how can a 14 year old girl get into the shoos of a 23 year old guy and actually make him into the protagonist of her story?'. Then I became aware that in essense it is similar to the post I send to truth or dare thread. I feel very insecure writing charachers that are far away from me. Actually my current scipt has a leading role of a 15 year old female and I have problems writing scenes interacting with her girlfriends talking about boys because I feel that I don't knew the teritory. I can probably write about the external behavior of any kind of person but not about their inner feelings. I believe that this problem is probably the main impediment I face in developing the story. From the other hand I am afraid that if I am to write only the things I know then I have better write an autobiography. Any insights?
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Post by SianaBlackwood on Apr 7, 2011 7:49:44 GMT -5
Gio, you've never been a 15 year old girl, but you've been a fifteen year old guy. That's probably a good place to start. Also, on this forum are people who are or have been teenage girls, so it could be a good place to get advice on how they think.
In general, though, we all write about people who aren't exactly ourselves. Mars has never been a 23 year old guy, I've never been a mid-twenties guy or seen somebody's aura...
There's stuff we can do, like read and research and watch the people around us, but ultimately it comes down to finding some thread of understanding. Maybe the character is based on a friend's daughter, or a high school crush, or someone you repeatedly bump into at a supermarket. There has to be a lot of yourself in the character, though. It kind of comes with the territory. One one level we are always writing our autobiographies. It's just that only we really know which bits are which.
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gio
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Posts: 247
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Post by gio on Apr 8, 2011 0:07:31 GMT -5
You might also add that I have a sister and a niece that is 16 year old (as a matter of fact I have asked her to contribute some girls private chit chat on boys). The problem that I am having is: If I write something on or have a character representative of some group that I don't know from the inside (that is almost everyone) what if I insult them? Eg a Colombian comes to Greece. If I represent him as a good guy is all nice and dandy. If I show him to be a drug dealer I can be acused of stereotyping etc and probably with good reason. But you see it is my honest writing. If you generalize that you come to my problem. Of whom can I speak of (negatively though sincirely) except myself? I pretty much liked your last bit 'we are always writing our autobiographies. It's just that only we really know which bits are which.' The problem is that the viewer - reader does not know that and takes it personally or as an autobiography. Or not? PS I wouldn't like you to fall into my problem but to get me out of that. Probably the answer is JUST WRITE ON
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Post by Flatiron on Apr 8, 2011 0:12:42 GMT -5
I'd have to agree. There is an aspect of writing (and of being alive) that is about being empathetic enough to identify with people you are not, to inhabit other points of view. Yes, there is a degree of difficulty that you take on when you write far from who you are. And yes, every character of any depth will have some piece of you in there, because to get that depth you have to be able to open yourself up enough to become part of them. Another thing to remember that fiction is not verisimilitude, is not an attempt to recreate reality exactly as it is. Instead, in fiction we like poetic justice, and closure, and a storyline that is knowable and followable, all things that are hard to come by, other than through an ideological filter, in real life. If fiction did have to be so real as to be completely like life in every aspect, then every story could be found to be lacking in some character or another, every coincidence that drives the story forward could be rejected, every character could be atomized in a search for psychological threads that come from the author or creator. But these are all editorial, analytical, essentially deconstructive critiquing modes of thought that have their place in the academic arena (yes, I've done my time in literary theory classes), or have their place in our own editorial process as we work on believability, not the process that must by definition precede those: that of letting a creative work emerge through us, so that it is possible for ourselves or others to engage in the post production analysis, after we have the finished work in hand. This is the editor, writ large. And the very purpose of a WriMo as envisioned by Chis Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo (and I'm pulling this from his book on the subject, No Plot, No Problem) is to give yourself a deadline so challenging, so far to the edge of what you are capable of producing in a given month, that every time your editor speaks up and says that something isn't good enough, for any reason, wanting to go into that desconstructive mode, you are compelled, due to a huge deadline looming over you, to say "Yeah, let's talk about that during the edit, because right now I just need to hit my wordcount." Doing this again and again opens the door to that creative flow of energy that lets you find the story in the first place, and much later on, when it is time to iron out the kinks, is the time to ask whether a story told from the point of view of a pink floating elephant was really the best idea. (Not that that would necessarily fail, see for instance The Art of Racing in the Rain ( www.amazon.com/Art-Racing-Rain-Garth-Stein/dp/0061537934, told from the dog's POV.) Our job is not to write in a way that is 'just like life,' but to find stories that effectively pull readers, and ourselves, into a dream that is enough like life to allow access to the realm of story where the "truer than life" depths can be explored. As to Gio's question about credibility when writing far from our own experience, which is a great question that I've seen raised in numerous writing workshops... My personal belief is that all our minds aren't really as disconnected from one another as we might think, and so if we allow ourselves to just freely inhabit a character of a different age or gender or race or dimension or time, it will probably be more believable than we might imagine if we questioned it, and we might learn something, about ourselves, and others, in the process. -Flatiron
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Post by SianaBlackwood on Apr 9, 2011 10:18:23 GMT -5
Oh great master, we are all unworthy to post in the presence of someone who can use verisimilitude in a proper sentence. Seriously, that was cool and probably explained the whole thing perfectly...
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Post by Flatiron on Apr 9, 2011 11:30:22 GMT -5
It's all about the verisimilitude dude....
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Post by SianaBlackwood on Apr 10, 2011 21:33:29 GMT -5
Flatiron, I may use that as your nickname now... Hi there, Verisimilitude Dude!
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Post by butterflywings on Apr 14, 2011 9:33:16 GMT -5
Gio, if you are writing a Colombian into your story that happens to be a drug dealer, I don't think all Colombian's will be insulted. Or, you could throw in a couple who aren't dealing drugs? To offset the one that is? Next door neighbor, business associate, or there could be a really nice comparison a character makes about an old friend.... "That new guy <insert name here> really reminds me of my best friend growing up." Might then imply that his/her best friend wouldn't have been a drug dealer. My best friend wasn't Well, maybe that wouldn't work. I did have another good friend that stole car radios. Guess that doesn't prove that point one way or another. (You can choose your friends, but they can choose what they do with their lives. He's a great guy, and I never steal radios with him!) Hmm. Just go with what fits your novel. People focus on whole countries, single people, or groups of people (religious or cultural or other) for their 'bad guys.' Just make us hate them and we don't really care where they are from. It's a book and most of us have a firm grasp on reality. Good luck. Great explaining, Verisimilitude Dude! (And this is the only time I will ever call you that! Hmm... Unless you are one of the people calling me Butter!) If fiction were real, we wouldn't be reading it! So true. I'd never pick up a book written by a 15 year old that encompassed her entire day. Admit it, Mars (are you 14 or 15?) was your day today worthy of an entire book? I'm not 15, but I would die before letting even my best day be published. It would still bore the average person to tears! LOL
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Post by marsbareater12 on Apr 14, 2011 19:22:23 GMT -5
14 My day today...Well, that depends whether I get so frustrated with my computer that I ended up smashing it and stealing my friends... Not so far though, haha.
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Post by SianaBlackwood on Apr 22, 2011 1:27:04 GMT -5
Okay, new topic of conversation:
In our travels around the internet, what do we call ourselves as members of this site? I've been using 'YeRo' so far, but that probably isn't the coolest name in the world. On the other hand, 'yearroundwrimo member' is a bit of a mouthful. Any suggestions?
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