How true is this?
May. 13th, 2004 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafocI found this in Tephra's livejournal. Took it. I'm not sure how accurate it is.
You're a Plot writer!
What kind of writer are you?
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I admit plot is always vital. But the characters ARE the plot, really. You set up a few initial parameters, you put your character in, you start him, her, or them running, and everything else follows inevitibly from the nature of your characters. I see no way to separate character development and plot-- if your character doesn't change, even THAT drives the plot. Or at least it should.
And then there's narrative. Granted I've had to whack hunks of it out of my works. I don't use pruning shears, I use a chainsaw and a honkin' big machette. Got to hack enough of the underbrush away to let in some daylight. And yet I love describing a sunrise, with a little discourse inserted on the weather (as an allegory, for those who care to see, about why my main character had to suffer so much, and why that made him so strong, beautiful, wonderful). A book that didn't put you IN that world would be awfully weak. So you need narrative too.
Finally, the purpose of my kind of writing is to ENTERTAIN. You may not know it from my obscure meanderings, but even at my worst I'm writing to entertain you-- and myself. I would write anything, anything at all, if I thought I could do it well, if I thought it would entertain you, if I thought it would entertain me.
Literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, are ENTERTAINMENT. Hopefully they're more, sometimes, but they're ENTERTAINMENT first. Because even if you want to educate, enlighten, and get the public enraged about the plight of the endangered purple fluorescent plaid flesh-sucking Bolivian tree leech you MUST CATCH THEIR INTEREST FIRST. (pant pant pant wheeze) I wish so-called serious artists, serious writers, would ponder that fact once in a while.
I'm not sure I'm really a plot-driven writer at all, any more than anything else. What do you think?
You're a Plot writer!
What kind of writer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
I admit plot is always vital. But the characters ARE the plot, really. You set up a few initial parameters, you put your character in, you start him, her, or them running, and everything else follows inevitibly from the nature of your characters. I see no way to separate character development and plot-- if your character doesn't change, even THAT drives the plot. Or at least it should.
And then there's narrative. Granted I've had to whack hunks of it out of my works. I don't use pruning shears, I use a chainsaw and a honkin' big machette. Got to hack enough of the underbrush away to let in some daylight. And yet I love describing a sunrise, with a little discourse inserted on the weather (as an allegory, for those who care to see, about why my main character had to suffer so much, and why that made him so strong, beautiful, wonderful). A book that didn't put you IN that world would be awfully weak. So you need narrative too.
Finally, the purpose of my kind of writing is to ENTERTAIN. You may not know it from my obscure meanderings, but even at my worst I'm writing to entertain you-- and myself. I would write anything, anything at all, if I thought I could do it well, if I thought it would entertain you, if I thought it would entertain me.
Literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, are ENTERTAINMENT. Hopefully they're more, sometimes, but they're ENTERTAINMENT first. Because even if you want to educate, enlighten, and get the public enraged about the plight of the endangered purple fluorescent plaid flesh-sucking Bolivian tree leech you MUST CATCH THEIR INTEREST FIRST. (pant pant pant wheeze) I wish so-called serious artists, serious writers, would ponder that fact once in a while.
I'm not sure I'm really a plot-driven writer at all, any more than anything else. What do you think?
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-14 12:25 am (UTC)I agree about the Entertaining. You can have highly detailed characters in a well thought out world, but if it's boring people aren't going to like it.