Now I can write that novel

johncwright: Writing in One Lesson

Science fiction writer talks about the "one trick" in writing, which I assume I am allowed to pass on here:

There is, when you right down to it, only one trick in writing, which she here calls "the trick." It consists of raising the readers expectations, but satisfying those expectations in a logical yet unexpected way. The trick is that anything has more effect if the reader things the opposite is about to happen.

If you only learn one thing about writing, learning the trick the one thing you should learn.

The trick when applied to plots is called plot twist; when applied to character, is called three-dimensionality; when applied to theme, is called wisdom; when applied to word-choice is called contrast.

I'm not sure how useful this is for my tiny brain. When I was single and had more idle time to think, I would sometimes try to think of ideas for stories or movies (or even plays, since they seem the simplest form of writing for publication possible!) But my mind would invariably float to books/movies/plays/characters I already knew or liked. I guess that other people sharing this problem explains fan fiction. It's so much easier to work in a world already created by someone else than to start in your own.

And on the rare occasion I have tried to write something, I realised that simply reading fiction gives you absolutely no idea how to write it. Just to write the simplest exchange of dialogue seemed suddenly awkward and daunting.

Actually, on this dialogue point, I have just tried to read Tim Winton's "Breath", and found it dull. His approach to setting out dialogue was to simply indent it, avoid inverted commas and strip it of surrounding "I said" "she said" stuff. I found this quite unsatisfactory. After about 25 pages, I decided the book was uninteresting thematically, and skimmed the rest. It turns out that erotic asphyxiation - sometimes auto-erotic, sometimes not - was a key plot element, although I couldn't really see the point of the whole novel really. I had thought I might like Winton, given that he is reviewed so favourably (he won the Miles Franklin Award for this book, for crying out loud) but it turns out he is a JAOAA (Just Another Overrated Australian Arthur.)

(Yay, I just listened to the BBC Saturday Review in which one person on the panel reckons the book's a bore too.)

Anyway, I'll just sit around and wait for a breakthrough idea, write it as a play set to the music of ELO, and make millions.