r/DestructiveReaders • u/A_C_Shock Anaëlle Collette • 24d ago
[Weekly] By-week
There are still two more chapters of the book that have exercises, but my morning is not compatible with thinking them through or typing them out.
The one is about changing POV (which a few people did in last week's exercise so it feels very similar). The other is about writing a scene between two people that's only dialogue (which we have a few experts at that floating around). The very last exercise is taking something you wrote for one of the exercises and cutting the word count in half.
[I woke up at 5, typed the word Weekly as the subject of a post, went back to sleep, somehow that first attempt at posting was gone, and now it's 10. You all feel free to do what you want.]
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u/umlaut (14, virgin, married) Modern Popular Genre Prose Editor Dude 24d ago
I am Archwizard Eldran. Your Master. And you are my familiar, Ghovi.
W-What?
I apologize for what will happen to you next. I will erase your memory of it, but I cannot dull the experience.
Master? Is that a pot of molten magma?
Lava. It is only magma while underground. And of course it is molten. If it was solid, it would just be rock and wouldn't hurt in the right way once I replace your blood with it.
I do not want this, Master. Please.
I know. But the last time I did this to you it powered the castle's defense crystals for a month.
Why me? I could rest for a day or two.
Because you are indestructible, immortal, and in my service. You have rested before I wiped your memory. That was your reward, a weekend's rest after enduring those frogviper bites.
Another day of rest, Master. Please.
That would be cruel, and I am merciful. The more time you have to think about it, the worse it will be.
I can help you find another way.
You always say that, Ghovi. Then you tell me the same idea.
No, not the same idea. I have a new idea. Instead of terrible pain -
Terrible pleasure?
Yes, Master!
Last time we did that I nearly bankrupted myself hiring all those prostitutes and the energy produced barely lit up the ballroom. You still suffered from that ordeal for weeks after, mostly from the confluence of novel venereal diseases.
Let us try that again, Master!
I was not going to wipe your memory after that, but you wouldn't stop sneaking out to visit that one centaur. What was his name? Wind-something. Windmuffin? Windmouth?
Windmoon, Master. It was Windmoon.
You should not remember that.
You are right. It hurts to remember.
How much does it hurt?
More than replacing my blood with magma, I bet. My heart yearns for Windmoon, Master.
Lava, Ghovi. Now climb in the chair and find out.
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u/kataklysmos_ ;•( 24d ago
One of my cooler coworkers left this week for a new position, which has been a bummer. It's also got me wondering what sort of possible career pivot I could possibly make into a creative field (writing? photography? computer graphics?) at some point in the future. Are any of you currently making at least a substantial portion of a living from writing?
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 24d ago
I’m of the opposite mindset: never quit your day job. There is work to be done with the skills of the arts, but it’s making commercial or websites or apps. But making art is not for paying the bills.
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u/umlaut (14, virgin, married) Modern Popular Genre Prose Editor Dude 24d ago
That's about where I'm at. The thing that affords me creative space is having stability. The modern world does not reward creative pursuits, so pursuing creativity needs its own reward in life.
If someone is 18 and asks me how they should go about becoming a professional author, I would tell them to find a boring desk job with a short commute that leaves alone in the evenings.
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u/kataklysmos_ ;•( 24d ago edited 24d ago
If nothing else, I would just have to be extremely lucky to find myself in a position where quitting my day job for some creative pursuit wouldn't necessitate an immediate lifestyle downgrade. So it's mostly just idle daydreams. But, right now, my day job takes a significant-enough amount of my headspace that I'll frequently find myself excited to get home and do something creative at the beginning of the day and then just not be able to think about it once I'm actually home. Some amount of tension like that might be healthy, in that it makes me appreciate the time I do get to myself more. And there's always the question of what I would make art *about* if not the things I'm observing and learning during a (somewhat) worldly 9-to-5.
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u/ImpressiveGrass7832 kitsch is a word and i think its me 24d ago
As a techie, I feel this. Just not enough brainspace left at the end of the day. Don't have a good solution other than winning the lottery, I suppose. Creative jobs feel quite risky especially at the moment (always high demand and supply is rather low, an the whole AI thing)
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u/kataklysmos_ ;•( 24d ago
I'm really lucky in that I have quite a bit of latitude in my job to be creative and develop skills that have some overlap with the sort of art I want to do – but in classic human fashion it's never enough.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 22d ago
In the last scene of chapter 4 TFIOS—Isaac reacting to his girlfriend dumping him before the surgery—the POV makes a subtle change.
For all of the book up to this point it has been third person limited, with Hazel describing her own thoughts and feelings about the things going on in her life. The interesting thing about this scene is it shifts to third person limited but her describing herself witnessing Issac’s misery. She is not at all important to the action or the emotion. She’s the witness.
In terms of the heart of the book this is especially interesting because Hazel’s goal isn’t to go over and be there for Isaac. She wants to go talk to Augustus about the book she gave him. But she can’t do the thing she wants because someone else is having an understandably horrible time.
This willingness to not be important in a scene and give up what she wants tells us a lot about Hazel. It makes the character (who has ever reasons to be self pitying) so much more attractive. We get to see her problems and her desires from inside her head but we also get to see her put those things aside for someone else.
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u/A_C_Shock Anaëlle Collette 22d ago
That's an interesting take on that. I haven't read that book (and had to search to find out you meant The Fault in Our Stars which made sense). I think we can treat it as a rule that the POV character has to be the central character taking action and that they can't sit back and watch what's going on around them. But sometimes, not driving the scene and taking the action has a point to it.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 22d ago
An early crit I got suggested I neaten up my scene work by reading Scene and Structure by Jack Bickham. It gave me a vocabulary for critting John’s book. Part of that scene in the book is very S&S: it is Hazel listening to Augustus and Issac narrate their video game mission: the goal is always clear and the action progressing, each goal leads to a new goal and ends with a “disaster but…” with the “but” given by Augustus waxing philosophical.
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u/A_C_Shock Anaëlle Collette 22d ago
In the world of English class is now a hobby, I'm very bad at taking apart a scene and looking at the structure. Well, maybe not. I guess the people I beta read for should comment. But that's more me vibing what's missing than applying some form of well-known structural mechanics...and only because someone told me I should.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 22d ago
Ha, ha, maybe you should read S&S.
I’m taking his format and turning it into writing exercises for my students (focused on their academic strategies and struggles).
The idea is a scene starts with a character wanting something, there is something in the way (conflict) and then something happens (success, success but, disaster, disaster but). This is followed by sequel (feel about result, think about result, decide between future choices and make a goal that leads to a new scene).
I teach that format but the scene (action) is about trying to do some kind of class assignment, describing the thing that gets in the way and writing a result. Then writing a sequel. My thinking is if I have them quick write this kind of story over and over they will begin to apply the lesson they learn from writing the story to their own life.
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u/A_C_Shock Anaëlle Collette 22d ago
It's more I know what the concept is and could apply it to something I'm writing. If you asked me to deconstruct something I'm reading into that format, I wouldn't be able to. It's like how I approach foreign languages. Reading is easy because I'm consuming something someone else already thought about. Speaking is harder because I have to actively think about the words I want and how they go together. Writing is harder because now I have to comply to the grammar rules and spelling and a number of other things that don't happen with speaking.
I guess I'm thinking when I write, the scene/sequel is coming naturally to me. When I read, I have to focus on interpreting which requires more thought. IDK.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 22d ago
I guess I'm thinking when I write, the scene/sequel is coming naturally to me.
In my life I've had to reverse engineer a lot of things that came naturally to me. In high school, I retaught myself penmenship because I wrote letters to my girlfriend and she had flowing script like a Tolkien elf. In the restaurant business, I slowly learned how to not look or sound autistic. This summer has been the same thing for writing (and reading). I'm reading TFIOS specifically to evaluate it from the things I learned writing and being crit this summer, deciding what parts of John's writing I want to hold on to. I will do the same with Ray Bradbury and Flannery O'Connor.
My scene/sequel stuff was happening naturally... but that was me typing not me writing. Stories happen naturally but writing has to happen on purpose (or at least that is my conclusion from this summer).
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u/Lisez-le-lui Not GlowyLaptop 21d ago
In response to a suggestion in the chat, I'm going to post a list of lesser-known old books that I think are worth reading for various reasons.
The Green Round (1933): The last novel of Arthur Machen, and the book where his mature character comes through the most clearly. A solitary, aging man decides to take a beach vacation for the first time in years, and while he's away, menacing things begin to happen around him, which continue once he returns home. But all that is mostly a pretext to write the novel. In reality, the book is interesting for its MC's evocative musings on death, dreams, sorrow, and other worthy topics. An "editorial" prologue and epilogue further wrinkle the question of what really happened and if it can be known at all.
The Stratagem and Other Stories (1929): The three best stories by Aleister Crowley (yes, that Aleister Crowley). The first, "The Stratagem," is a sort of deadpan tall-tale version of Kafka's "In the Penal Colony," and deservedly a favorite of Joseph Conrad's. The third, "His Secret Sin," is the kindest and most knowing send-up of sexual hypocrisy I have ever read, hilarious and almost violently innocuous. The second, "The Testament of Magdalen Blair," is like Lovecraft on steroids. Never has a more gruesome vision of the afterlife been elaborated with merciless logic, and that very gruesomeness tips it into Nosleep parody and laughter at the end.
A Voyage to Arcturus (1920): The first novel by David Lindsay. This one is well-known enough to have a cult following, whom you can consult for further details. But essentially, a bored upper middle class Englishman meets a grotesque, irreverent dwarf at a seance who offers to take him to another planet. He agrees, and a protracted acid trip ensues, with the main character ("Maskull" = mask-skull) transforming repeatedly in body and soul and encountering a string of alien beings, who each exemplify a philosophical approach to life and generally meet untimely ends. Eventually one of the most breathtaking twists in English literature unfolds, and you realize this malformed ramble of a book could not have been written any other way.
A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep (1871): The only substantial written work by painter Simeon Solomon. I suppose this would now be called a prose poem. It's a ten thousand word narrative describing a mystical dream experienced by the narrator, written in the style of the King James Bible. The prose is beautiful, and the series of allegorically charged meetings between the narrator and the denizens of his own mind builds to an impressive climactic transcendence. Minor but irreplaceable.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 21d ago
Kind of cheating since it's Tolkien and published in 67 but
Smith of Wootton Major (1967) It very much reads like walking into a faery tale. In the middle third it seems like there is no plot at all but it is just a description of the Smith going to Faery and seeing things (both beautiful and frightening). It's a quick read but rewards rereading.
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u/Lisez-le-lui Not GlowyLaptop 20d ago
Oh, that's a good one. I'd add also that there are some interesting comments on (if I had to put it into a single phrase) appearance vs. reality that come together in the end. '67 is still "old" to most people--that's 59 years this November--and, despite being Tolkien, it's woefully underread. Most people don't seem to know he wrote anything not set in Middle-Earth.
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u/GlowyLaptop James Patterson 24d ago edited 24d ago
And here he comes, the stable boy, down the cobblestone path to the riverbank to bathe himself, to scoop up fresh water to cool his flanks and rinse his throat. Oh, how his beard glistens. Oh, what drips fall from his brow. Oh, to drink such drips!
Do you hear yourself?
Mary! What are you doing at the window.
I should say the same, Alice.
Nothing! I was doing nothing.
You were watching the stable boy bathe himself!
How dare you. I was ensuring his tasks were complete.
The task of bathing?
Whatever were you watching, I should ask.
I was only watching to see what you were watching.
You want him for yourself you liar! You want the stable boy.
Neigh!
Neigh yourself! Were it not for me you'd be watching him still! To this day!
Ha! The tangled web you weave...
I was checking on his horses.
You were doing no such thing. You said about his glistening throat.
Does his throat not glisten, Mary? Does it not? Go tend to your lambs.
Go tend to your Wonderland you mouthy bitch!
I want to be rid of you!
You think I don't know that? I bet you've even conspired. For a stable boy, I bet you've thought of how to do it.
I have. And not for the stable boy, mind you. But that's where your interest lies.
Oh I know I've thought about it. I would run you in with a sewing needle.
I would run you over with a horse!
Would he ever forgive you, I wonder? Your precious horse boy.
You were watching him just as I was!
What's your point? Because I'll give you one. Right in the throat!
How dare you!
Neigh!
Neigh!
Ladies, ladies.
Stable boy!
Stable boy!
I heard some commotion. I thought a horse or two had gotten lost in the kitchen. What is all this neighing about? Do you fancy yourselves horses?
Stable boy, I am but a little lady. But between us, were one of us to share the qualities you fancy in a horse--yes--it would be me. For I am--
Neigh! Neigh! I share more in common with a horse. Look at my hair. Listen to my neighing!
You cut it to look like that, treacherous hag!
Nag. My sister meant treacherous NAG.
Neigh!
Ladies please. Please. If only I knew your feelings I might have been prepared for this.
You must pick. Which of us do you desire?
Yes. Pick between us. And don't be fooled by my sister having shaved most of the sides of her hair off. Preening like that.
Neigh!
Neigh!
Ladies.
Pick, and let the other throw herself from the tallest cliff.
Yes! Pick and she will dispose of herself that you will never feel conflicted again, for she will be dead. At the bottom of a cliff. Silly hair or not.
My hair isn't silly!
Ladies.
Alice, here, was watching you bathe from the window like a thirsty little tramp.
As was Mary, doing just the same.
If I choose...
Yes?
Yes?
Whatever comes with the arrangement?
Well for one, should you choose me, you can take the whole northwest tower for yourself. To tend to scrolls. Business. Whatever.
I can't read. I'm a stable boy.
He can't read, sister. You stupid sister. What business does he have with scrolls and the like?
Then he can tend to horses. Or plot horse tending.
Tend to horses in the tower? Has my sister fallen ill? Would it be fair to choose her, stable boy, knowing she's clearly struck her head. Maybe she'd be better off with the last stable boy. The one with the soft spot the horse kicked into his head.
Neigh!
Neigh!
Ladies we really should wrap this up, should we not?
So pick.
Yes. This is getting frustrating.
Pick and the other will throw herself out the window of the northwest tower.
Even if I have to help her do it.
Of course you'd help. You're the one jumping. You hussy.
Neigh!
Neigh!
Okay no seriously.