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I'm in. I have never written any sci-fi, so I'll go with that. I'll also write the story in small paragraphs/fragments to make the whole experience even more unusual for me.
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Jan 2, 2013 14:55
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 18:59 |
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Well I'm sorry for the little delay. It's just that writing the story made me very uncomfortable. Since the structure is fairly important for the story I will paste a link to the doc file. If there is anything I can do for making it less inconvenient let me know. Stretch Out and Wait 830 words. Sci-Fi and narrative in paragraphs. https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58396073/Stretch%20out.docx
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Jan 7, 2013 06:19
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I thank the judges for their clemency and i add that i'm happy to be paired with bad seafood since i tend to enjoy stream of conciousness. For poetry i would add to try to understand the author's intention too. When something doesn't seem right ask yourself why the author could have done that choice. You won't necessary come to an answer but you will acquire the charitable disposition that is essential to understand texts that have to deal with a high degree of vagueness.
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Jan 7, 2013 19:07
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Stream of consciousness is always difficult to criticize from a stylistic point of view, the idea is that after all it's how the person thinks, without any censorship, and you can't tell them how they are supposed to formulate their thoughts. Yet I believe that often in the arts when one strives for naturalness, like for example in dialogues, it is often better to go the other way around and err on the side of artificiality. Like many other techniques stream of consciousness is basically a trick, a little sleigh of hand, that you play on the reader. You make him read a highly artificial piece of prose and meanwhile you give him here and there the signals saying "look, it's just like our interior monologue". For how I understand it stream of consciousness is all about being in control of the prose: you try to keep the flow going smoothly, put in there as much information as you can while you leave here and there your cues (the sudden memory, the monologue style, the present tense, the imitation of a private language withe its jargon and unexplained references, etc). Also one must not forget that SC is mostly an instrument that has a very particular function and it's difficult to be used in all settings. So much that most writers try to use it in a hybrid way, by punctuating the flow of thoughts with more standard forms of narrative, like for example Proust or Ellis. SC it was mostly born to deal with the uneventful and highly intellectualized life of the modern man. That's why the idea of sword and sorcery story + SC was so hilarious and enjoyable, but it's also where the biggest problems emerge. Let's read the story: Bad Seafood posted:
I like this initial part. The best detail is the reference Kuraket, it's impactful and the protagonist's response (such a waste) shows the sardonic smile with which he is facing the situation. In fact his mischievous character is so obvious that I don't think you need the final "heh". quote:He’s a strong one that one strong eyes strong will won’t break I don’t think they’ll work him to death before they work him to submission. Cuts his feet on the rocks and the glass in the sand but won’t say a word course I wouldn’t either but I’m used to it. Stands a greater animal than all of us like a general or a son or a sun’s blinding hot drat this heat won’t they rest? There’s those teeth again that laugh cold as ice that man Slaglander all of them cold as ice in their blood. This is a very artful part. When I was talking about the little signals before I was talking about this. There is this free association going on from an homophony (son/sun) and then the metonymy (sun hot heat) and then you reverse this imagery in the opposite (ice) and you end up with a sudden memory (the lost son) disjointed from the rest of the narrative and the main character talking to himself(don't think). After a passage like this you would have a lot of leeway to turn back to more normal forms of narrative, to anchor your story, without anyone noticing anything. For example you could start a paragraph with "I look around..." and give a description of the setting. Or "I remember when..." and maybe tell the story of how he was captured. quote:I can’t leave him like this I can’t leave him I can’t. This is the part I have the most problems with. It's terribly confusing and I believe that it could be made less so without losing neither the style nor the action. The onomatopoeia and the little oddities (like taittakeittakeit) seem to be put there to give a sense of realism, or perceiving exactly what he thinks, but in reality they only estrange the reader. In a sense you have overreached, trying to do something that was way beyond the power of the instrument you were using. quote:He’s looking to me look to me they all look to me what do I look like I don’t understand I can’t understand his speech foreign nonsense least he’s grateful now he turns towards the sun not the way we came must have business down that way lost his sword took a new one and a horse waste not want not I suppose. Here you get in control once again. I liked the first sentence and again the one about the simile of the goddess. It's where you feel the most the personality of your character and his worldview. It is for these strong expressions of personality that one reads stream of consciousness. There is a whole life contained in that "free again slaved again what a cycle", the image it paints is much more vivid than a "heh" or a "wha-umphf!"
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Jan 8, 2013 06:55
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Bad Seafood posted:
I want to thank you about your in depth analysis. I feel that you read it extremely way, understanding most of its mechanics, while at the same time being able to point to some of its shortcomings. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I don't usually write this way. I always tended to avoid experimentation for more typical forms of expression. Only lately I'm trying to play around mostly because I realized I was writing always the same story. But it might interest you what my main inspirations were. The structure was inspired by Wittgenstein's Tractatus. My opening sentence is also a nod to his declarative style. The idea was of making a sort of fractal structure where the main story is told in the first three paragraphs (each told from the point of view of one of the characters: the peddler, the sister and the dead brother) and the rest it's just an in depth explanation mostly dealing with their past. In fact 3.2 is not the return of the (adopted) brother, who is dead and at best can be sent home as a squished paste, but how he decided to leave his planet and how his sister tried to stop him. I'll work to make that clearer. The voice instead was inspired by Master's Spoon River Anthology which I advise you to read since the parts you liked the best are where I managed to get the closest to it. And, geeky admission, I really liked the heart mechanism in dishonored, so I guess that was a part of it too. Thank you again!
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Jan 8, 2013 07:14
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 18:59 |
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Fanky Malloons posted:Why do all the new people say this? That is the best part of the thread, and I won't hear otherwise. Because we don't play by the rules, sorry.
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Jan 9, 2013 17:30
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