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

Yzabel / August 8, 2005

This post has originated from an answer to Mina in an e-mail; as I was starting to go on a tangent, I kept it short there, but then thought that I could indeed develop the point a little further.There is a lingering conception in France that “writing is an innate talent”, “writing can’t be learnt”, “either you know how to write or you don’t”. I’m not sure where this comes from; it may simply be some reminiscence from our literary past smelling of elitism. Regardless, I strongly disagree. Talent enters the game to a certain extent only; the rest can indeed be learnt and perfected through advice and practicing—and, like I’ve discovered, much to my dismay, “talent” can also decay with time and lack of said practicing!In writing like in many other domains, I believe that nothing is ever completely carved in stone. Structures change. The most popular genres change. Story organizing change as well. We wouldn’t write nowadays like novelists were doing in the 18th or 19th century—well, we could, but I wouldn’t bet much on getting successful in finding a publisher for such stories, or if people do, it would then be the exception that makes the rule. Not exactly a nice dream for any young writer to aspire to.Read More

Yzabel / August 7, 2005

Recently, I’ve laid my hands on several books related to writing techniques, including the one I’ve just finished yesterday evening and the one I’ve started right after. I must say that these have already taught (or reminded me of) quite a deal of good things about writing, about how to make the readers dive in stories, rather than just placing words under their noses. This has really been most instructing; I seriously needed to get out of my rust.I remember how, ten or so years ago, we had to read the famous “classics” at school. I remember reading Honoré de Balzac, and how we used to joke about how he would take ten pages to describe a single house. While this is exaggerated, it can also give a glimpse on the way writing has changed; what was accepted and recognized in the 19th century wouldn’t work anymore nowadays, especially not for young writers who haven’t been published yet. When it comes to fiction, people want action, people want dialogue; people want to feel involved in stories along with their protagonists, and not being constantly placed at a distance by the author.This reminds me of my post here about purple prose, when I mentioned my convictions of youth that long descriptions were good. I’ve quite changed my views on this, and the books I’m currently reading are helping a great deal with what kind of techniques to use. One of the chapters I’ve lent a particular attention to so far has been one dealing with the use of scenes to convey descriptive information, rather than of narrative speech. The difference is astonishing: while a whole novel can’t of course be made only of fast-succeeding scenes, there are numerous times when replacing descriptions by more action (in its large meaning—”something happening”, not necessarily at a fast pace) will make the story more vivid.Read More

Yzabel / August 6, 2005

At first, it didn’t occur to me that this could be an appropriate topic to blog about here, but it suddenly dawned on me—it is. Even though I’ve encountered many essays in purple prose while browsing recollections of bad role-playing posts, and not too much in the novels I read—it definitely is.Purple prose is exactly something I’ve tended to cultivate, much unvoluntarily, when I was younger (younger as in “still in high school” or “even before that”), younger, stupid, and convinced that the more words I could slam down on a page to describe a situation or a character, the better my “style” would be. Purple prose is now what I’m trying to avoid like the plague, since I know that it will make everything look horrible, with the added stench of “beginner” stamped on it in bold red letters. Purple prose, as can be found on Wikipedia, is “a term of literary criticism, […] used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensuously evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader’s response.”In other words, and in all honesty, purple prose sucks.Read More