I'm starting to like this new covid-sick Chuck. We're getting story critiques in record numbers. Three in two days and they are all for everybody. The delirium has scrambled his brain! All this man has time to do now is vomit, sneeze, and cough "Attribution!" from his bed.
Oops, that was a series of three, he's gonna yell at me now.
So weird that you wrote that. I was thinking about that last night. People must get that benefit from attending workshop for so many years. You become like a permanent voice in someone's head. Is workshop a way to get people to teach themselves? That's kinda deep.
Love Gloves Off, LOVE it! But I have the hardest time interpreting how to decide what’s *worth* unpacking as a minimalist. In Kerri’s write-up there were several nuked areas of, what I thought, fell into the ‘worth particularizing’ realm. And other times, like here in Victor’s story, there are calls to particularize things I wouldn’t initially think need it (the kind of champagne, for example) Chuck is there any kind of litmus test to run a story through to help discern what’s worth unpacking?
Hello Chuck, hello community, I got a question for a rather generell recommendation. Here and there terms occure like dicovery process, beat, plot point, all the specific terms. Is there a book on fundamental on story structure that can be recommended. („Consider this“ gives great advice, but I got the impression it tackles rather advanced problems)
But I also wanna give a big thank you for the Gloves Off series. It offers great advice and helps tremendously.
Hey there, Victor! Thank you for sharing "Beautiful Children" with us.
I like the tension created by the scenario of breaking into the dressing room. And I think Chuck has some useful suggestions for how to keep that tension going as the story progresses. I'm on the fence about whether or not to lose Laura, but leaning more toward she could go. The real fun starts when Laura is asleep and Carly meets Emma. I'm in agreement with Chuck that we need to get to Emma as quickly as possible.
You have some nice verbiage going on:
"Laura pinched some weed out of the bag." -Pinched is a great verb here!
"She dabbed her face dry..." -Dabbed is great!
And I love this line, "I’m not that kind of girl." from the Fleshlight, haha. So great.
I love when Tom barges in--an excellent way to end the story.
Chuck, really enjoy you showing us how to unpack things (the word "stale" for example). Also the advice on not needing to say why a character is doing something. AANd love the suggestion on having Carly mistake Emma for something else at first, and how that will tell us something about her character. Finally, I am glad to see examples of where it is ok to replace the attribution "said" with more expressive words such as "purred" and "murmured." Sometimes I think we get it hammered into our heads that "said" is the only dialogue tag to use, but there are instances where it works better to use words like purred/murmured.
Thanks Victor! Nice work, and can't wait to see where you take it.
Thanks for sharing Victor. I was starting to believe that Emma was somehow real, great concept. Chuck’s insights into building tension and strengthening and highlighting the strongest parts are great. Looking forward to seeing your next draft.
Thanks for reading, Brandon!
Thanks for reading, Chuck, and for such great feedback. I just may have to kill off Laura now.
I'm starting to like this new covid-sick Chuck. We're getting story critiques in record numbers. Three in two days and they are all for everybody. The delirium has scrambled his brain! All this man has time to do now is vomit, sneeze, and cough "Attribution!" from his bed.
Oops, that was a series of three, he's gonna yell at me now.
Working on it, Brandon :)
My work is done once I get you to yell at yourself...
So weird that you wrote that. I was thinking about that last night. People must get that benefit from attending workshop for so many years. You become like a permanent voice in someone's head. Is workshop a way to get people to teach themselves? That's kinda deep.
https://open.substack.com/pub/waranwrites/p/peace?utm_source=direct&r=23tlvh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Love Gloves Off, LOVE it! But I have the hardest time interpreting how to decide what’s *worth* unpacking as a minimalist. In Kerri’s write-up there were several nuked areas of, what I thought, fell into the ‘worth particularizing’ realm. And other times, like here in Victor’s story, there are calls to particularize things I wouldn’t initially think need it (the kind of champagne, for example) Chuck is there any kind of litmus test to run a story through to help discern what’s worth unpacking?
Hello Chuck, hello community, I got a question for a rather generell recommendation. Here and there terms occure like dicovery process, beat, plot point, all the specific terms. Is there a book on fundamental on story structure that can be recommended. („Consider this“ gives great advice, but I got the impression it tackles rather advanced problems)
But I also wanna give a big thank you for the Gloves Off series. It offers great advice and helps tremendously.
Hey there, Victor! Thank you for sharing "Beautiful Children" with us.
I like the tension created by the scenario of breaking into the dressing room. And I think Chuck has some useful suggestions for how to keep that tension going as the story progresses. I'm on the fence about whether or not to lose Laura, but leaning more toward she could go. The real fun starts when Laura is asleep and Carly meets Emma. I'm in agreement with Chuck that we need to get to Emma as quickly as possible.
You have some nice verbiage going on:
"Laura pinched some weed out of the bag." -Pinched is a great verb here!
"She dabbed her face dry..." -Dabbed is great!
And I love this line, "I’m not that kind of girl." from the Fleshlight, haha. So great.
I love when Tom barges in--an excellent way to end the story.
Chuck, really enjoy you showing us how to unpack things (the word "stale" for example). Also the advice on not needing to say why a character is doing something. AANd love the suggestion on having Carly mistake Emma for something else at first, and how that will tell us something about her character. Finally, I am glad to see examples of where it is ok to replace the attribution "said" with more expressive words such as "purred" and "murmured." Sometimes I think we get it hammered into our heads that "said" is the only dialogue tag to use, but there are instances where it works better to use words like purred/murmured.
Thanks Victor! Nice work, and can't wait to see where you take it.
Thanks for sharing Victor. I was starting to believe that Emma was somehow real, great concept. Chuck’s insights into building tension and strengthening and highlighting the strongest parts are great. Looking forward to seeing your next draft.