you know that feeling when you’re reading an awesome fic and you look at the scrollbar thinking that surely the fic is almost over because that’s how life always goes but YOU’RE NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH IT OH MY GOD THE GLORY IS STILL ALIVE I HAVE SO MUCH LEFT TO READ OF THIS GLORIOUS MASTERPIECE SWEET PETER ON A POPSICLE STICK I CAN’T HANDLE ALL THESE FEELINGS FUCK ME IN THE NOSTRIL
(Source: werewolfhugs, via doux-amer)
Screenwriting Techniques
One of the most important/ground breaking things any teacher has ever told me is when a substitute explained that in the best screenplays, every scene (like in every movie) has a character that wants for something and at the close of the scene, they have succeeded or not. What surprised me about this piece of information was the every scene angle. The substitute explained that having a character strive for something in each scene, no matter how big or small, is the only way to ensure that every scene is vital and that the plot is constantly being moved.
My teacher used an example from Good Will Hunting, but I love looking at Nick Hornby’s script for An Education. The second scene (in the script) shows Jenny listening to music instead of studying. Her father interrupts and tells her:
“I don’t want to hear any French singing. French singing wasn’t on the syllabus, last time I looked.”
Jenny sighs. She turns the volume down and continues to listen.
The point of this scene is obvious: to show that Jenny is rebellious against her strict parents. The want is slightly less obvious but it’s there as well. Jenny wants to evade studying, she wants to listen to music, and ultimately she wants to engage in an act that’s against her father’s wishes.
So she listens to french music instead of studying. Her father catches her and attempts to stop her. She doesn’t stop and thus succeeds. It’s a tiny want but a want nonetheless and it adds to the overarching theme of An Education which is an adolescent’s reckless wish for freedom.
This technique is especially vital in writing fiction, where writing filler scenes is not only practically unavoidable but tempting (think long-winded writers ala Virginia Woolf).
(via doux-amer)
link — I’ll stop spamming about the project after this link kk ^^;v ~~
timevaulted on gmail.
I’ve been meaning to create a pearltrees link listing of various fic boards/forums/sites that I’ve mentioned on the blog. This tree is far from complete but I thought I’d share it anyway ^^ I’ll probably update it on blue moons unless anyone’s interested in being a contributor/in sending urls & sites my way. If so, feel free to e-mail timevaulted on gmail (or comment on wordpress/via tumblr’s ask box).
I think that all writing is useful for honing writing skills. I think you get better as a writer by writing, and whether that means that you’re writing a singularly deep and moving novel about the pain or pleasure of modern existence or you’re writing Smeagol-Gollum slash you’re still putting one damn word after another and learning as a writer.
(I just made that up. I imagine it would go something like: “Oh, the preciouss, we takes it our handssses and we rubs it and touchess it, gollum….no, Smeagol musst not touch the preciousss, the master said only he can touch the precioussss…. bad masster, he doess not know the precious like we does, no, gollum, and we wants it, we wants it hard in our handses, yesss…” etc etc)
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Neil Gaiman on fanfiction (via wibblywobblyotp)
BECAUSE THIS.
(via mycroftsmindtardis)
Neil Gaiman. Just wrote Smeagol/Gollum slash. Your argument is invalid.
(via roane72)
(Source: lokisathorable, via fayeuhngnihnwah)
So I went to my university bookstore with a friend and we were floored by the new journals on display… Seeing as both of us are journal-loving types, she did not stop me from purchasing two lovely gorgeous journals… As in, beautiful green covers with neat, interesting page designs that vary throughout. I’m wondering if anyone in the fic community would be interested in participating in either
Insights? Comments? Suggestions?
:) Stay inspired~
Frank Chimero:
When we build, we take bits of others’ work and fuse them to our own choices to see if alchemy occurs. Some of those choices are informed by best practices and accrued wisdom; others are guided by the decisions of the work cited as inspiration; while a large number are shaped by the disposition and instincts of the work’s creator. These fresh contributions and transformations are the most crucial, because they continue the give-and-take of influence by adding new, diverse material to the pool to be used by others.
Quoting eighteenth-century Japanese haiku master Yosa Buson:
Lighting one candle
with another candle—
spring evening.Buson is saying that we accept the light contained in the work of others without darkening their efforts. One candle can light another, and the light may spread without its source being diminished. We must sing in our own way, but with the contributions and influence of others, we need not sing alone.
Thought I’d share this article because I think it’s relevant to the creative process, as well as to any writing/reading community ^^ (Check out the source link for the whole article).
(Source: brainpickings.org)
