Category: Writing & Stories

Yzabel / August 30, 2005

Some time ago, I’ve realized that when it comes to novels, one of my projects simply can’t be done in one book only. There is too much to be told, and trying to cram everything into 400 pages (or 500, or 600…) would be very detrimental to the story itself. This said, there is one thing I can’t determine: in the case of a trilogy, or of any other kind of series in more than two volumes, what is the consensus, if there can ever be any, on how each book should stand? What do readers as a whole tend to prefer? (I’m talking of fantasy and science-fiction mostly, as they’re the genres I like to write in, but opinions about every other kind of story are welcome.)There’s the stand-alone book, for starters. I’m not sure that lots of readers like to be left with the feeling of “having to buy” the next volume, and building frustration over this isn’t a pleasant thing. Evidently, here the marketer in each of us may chime in and say “but we need to keep the readers hooked, else they won’t buy the next volumes!”. To which I think I can answer by “then let’s write so well that they’ll want to read the rest of the series just for our style and brilliant ideas”. A noble goal, though really easier said than done. As a reader, I normally don’t have a problem with such stories, although I think they’re more adapted to a series longer than just two or three books. It works well, for instance, with Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover world, but I wonder if it may not be a little weird for series with a “bigger picture” in tow.Read More

Yzabel / August 18, 2005

Following my ponderings about whether reading “books about writing” can be useful or not, here’s a short article on Ezine: Are Writing Exercises Effective?.There’s really a middle-ground to be found here.On the one hand, one cannot spend their time on such exercises, nor focus continuously on writing tips and “doing it like the Masters did”: when it comes to fiction, to novels, to imagination, creativity must remain on the foreground no matter what, else we may simply end up losing ourselves in too many attempts to reach perfection. We need to retain some spontaneity, as well as develop a “voice”.On the other hand, I’m standing my ground here: it’s not true that if we don’t produce THE perfect novel on the first attempt, then we’re failure as writers and should never touch a pen (a keyboard…) ever again.That’s where I place “writing exercises”—both reading and practicing them.Read More

Yzabel / August 16, 2005

I used to believe that when I couldn’t write, I should just give up and go do something else. After a few years of working as a technical writer, I’ve however come to realize quickly that this is all well and good when you don’t write professionnally, or at least when you don’t have deadlines, but not in other circumstances. When a manual is due on a certain day, my boss doesn’t want to hear “I have writer’s block, I can’t write” (technical documents are never inspiring to me anyway, so this is a constant problem). What boss, come to think of it, would accept to hear an employee say “I’m not inspired today, I can’t answer the phone/type your letters/repair this database”?Answer: not even one.Since then, I’ve understood that the writer’s block, when it happens, is something I just need to swallow and do with. There are moments when doing something else for half a hour or a few minutes only will indeed trigger “inspiration” again, and some others when all of this is vain. In the latter case, I now try to force myself to write. Not necessarily on the problematic text, not necessarily aiming at perfect writing… just doing it. In a way, it’s like sports: I’ll moan that it’s hard and that I can’t make the effort, but after ten minutes lifting weights or running, things flow by themselves (well, for me, at least!).Read More

Yzabel / August 12, 2005

At some point today, I seriously wondered how I managed to weed through nine volumes of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, when there must actually be 1.5 characters I somewhat like in it (yes, you read this number right).Let’s not be mistaken, there are good sides to the series, including the fact that it allowed me to go through three weeks of illness during a hot summer month, a few years ago—that, and some nice concepts as well (even though I keep on thinking that the world is better fit to a role-playing game setting than to a written story). However, no matter my efforts and how many times I’ve tried, I never managed to find a character that I’d really like in it. Female characters especially are the worse; “strong women” definitely doesn’t mean “know-it-all beasts who think they’re above everyone else” (who can I nominate… Nynaeve-Egwene-Faile-Elayne, perhaps?). His male characters aren’t really better; the only one I used to really liked is turning in a sour way, as far as my reading goes, and the others are too often the bland or annoying types. Can’t say that Rand is extremely attaching, is he?Read More