Caltrops - Cabaret Voltron

Forum Overview :: Cabaret Voltron

by Choson 08/21/2003, 1:20pm PDT

Alternate789 wrote:

I've been writing and re-writing the same story for months now, taking a stab every week or so. I've tried it in past tense, present, first-person, third-person; style doesn't matter. It can liven up an already good story (i.e. Pynchon) but until then is just dead weight. And at the end of every week I delete it because no matter how much I like parts of the style it just drags and plods and I don't give a shit about the characters. If you can make conscious decisions about the narrative and pacing of your story, slowing it down to build tension, speeding it up for excitement, then congratulations! you're a writer.

Why is everyone here on the dick of Pynchon? I still can barely make it through the first hundred pages of Gravity's Rainbow -- that's SO not the book I'd want to model my writing style after, although I can see why mrs. j is doing what he does if that's his major role model. It's like all those English majors who write Carver-manque, except at least in Carver's case I could appreciate his ability to pare down his writing to the bare minimum required to convey the devastation.

Also, I disagree with necessarily needing narrative and pacing, or even a real story, if the style is interesting enough. Those bits of writing won't be sold as Bantam novels at Costco, but they could also be considered writing. mrs. j, your writing style just isn't even impressive enough as a style to attract attention. I click on the post, and I see this giant paragraph of goo and splorch, strings of adjectives and wordiness that remind me of the shit I'd write when I opened up Word and spewed my thoughts without any particular goal in mind. Even Kerouac, who gets a lot of hatred but is in fact, a very talented writer, was editing the shit out of his stuff, the story of the endless loop of paper and straight-off-the-head writing being essentially bunk, in the sense that he didn't just take that the loop out and send it off to the publisher. I think he was also a little better at the improvisatory writing than you.

I don't think I said anything new here, but there's something cathartic about being allowed to take potshots at bad writing.

Second Note from the Recorder by mrs. johnson 08/21/2003, 2:31am PDT NEW

It's so boring and pointless. ;_; by Vomitbird 08/21/2003, 4:28am PDT NEW

AGREED. by Alternate789 08/21/2003, 12:06pm PDT NEW

Thank you for the suggestions. NT by mrs. johnson 08/21/2003, 12:21pm PDT NEW

Re: AGREED. by Choson 08/21/2003, 1:20pm PDT NEW

Happy to be your target. NT by mrs. johnson 08/21/2003, 1:22pm PDT NEW