andrewducker | Interesting Links for 02-12-2011

You might take a look at what's driving the conviction you're a terrible writer.

Possibly useful: 7 Secrets of the Prolific by Hillary Rettig (a book about writing while being happy and not wrecking your life) has a fair amount about the effects of traumatic rejection on writers, and how to get past it.

probably lack of consistency, or similar.

I can write a scene. I can make that scene very, very good, with convincing characters doing convincing things. Once that scene is done, I have *no idea* how to connect it to the next scene.

so what I end up with is a load of relatively well written shorts with nothing filling the space.

I thought a while ago that the ideal solution to this is to write a lot of connected short stories, but then what I write isn't short stories, it's just snapshots of something happening.

further to that, I have dirt-poor understanding of the technicalities of English. I still can't, e.g. tell you the difference between a noun and a verb. I also *absolutely don't care*.

Doing careful study of how other writers get from one scene to another might help.

Are your short scenes sometimes from what might be a single story, or are they completely separate?

That ability of yours to do convincing writing sounds really valuable.

The overwhelming majority of my writing is for a single project, a fictionalised history of Edinburgh. I have various snapshots ranging from c1600 to c1850, all seen via one family through generations of only-sons.

the fictional aspect is in assuming that the superstitions and supernatural beliefs were completely real, and genuinely happened.

this is where being able to write as though it's actually happening is fairly valuable. I'm assuming it's a direct effect of having spent my entire adult life in or around the city, and apparently knowing it better than the local historical society [who have made some truly bizarre errors and assumptions, such as getting the route of the Flodden Wall wrong]

to inject a little positivity, the thing I tend to be good at is making something convincing.
A location I write will look, sound, smell real. You'll probably picture it exactly as I intend. Conversations will feel right, as if it's something a few people really would say to each other
[dialogue in the vast majority of novels I've read is fucking dire. I read it and I think, dude, have you ever actually *listened* to a conversation? People just don't talk like that]

I just can't keep it going for more than a few hundred words.

Interesting Links for 02-12-2011

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