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Also reviews for season 2 of I Am Groot, the latest episode of Meet The Batwheels, and the novel Blaze.
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Sep. 6th, 2023
Writing thoughts...
Sep. 6th, 2023 09:18 amI have been known to disagree with Stephen King's take on writing in his how-to manual titled, yes, "On Writing". But he has said some interesting and true things both there, and in the fictional portrayal of himself in the later books of The Dark Tower series that I sort of want to go over.
King claims that as far as the story goes, he is not responsible for it. He is simply the vessel the story chose to tell itself. I relate to that idea because I actually write very little of my story anymore and it DOES tend to write itself the way the characters demand it be told. I find truth in that statement.
Where I disagree is King's claim of powerlessness there. The reality is, even if the story tells itself, the Author has a great deal of power. It's called veto power. King acting like it isn't a factor isn't right. When sharing the work with the world, the writer has a responsibility of sorts to the reader. If a story is a certain kind of story they are obligated to keep it consistent throughout its entire run. Chris Rock is allowed to guest star as himself on Sesame Street. But he's not allowed to tell his jokes there and he shouldn't be. The writer has a responsibility to the reader / viewer not to totally fuck them up or over with things they never signed up for.
I'll tell you on more than one occasion the story told itself to me and insisted it be told a certain way, and I simply declined to. I thought some of the turns I rejected although technically brilliant, would hurt both the reader and the story at large. Despite what the story told me about itself, I said "This will hurt things in the long run and breach trust. No."
Whatever King claims, this is actually self-evident. King has definitely kept certain crappy stories he's written to himself if they aren't up to his standards. And that's how it should be. Writers have an incredible amount of freedom. That's the selling point of the craft. But I think, at least as far as a long-running story goes, sending every thought you ever crapped out into the world unchanged and unfiltered isn't art. It's simply diarrhea put to paper (or screen). You have to have a certain level of standards and consistency in your writing. I don't even believe all of one's writing even needs to be good. It's fine for works of art to be imperfect and ripe for debate. But if there are bad pieces of art in a certain long-running series (like say Gilda And Meek And The Un-Iverse) I want those story failures to still fit everything else, and have good things in them that can be built upon the failure in question. I don't want to see a bad issue as a missed opportunity. I want to think of it as something setting up a future GOOD opportunity. I want both the good and bad issues of The Un-Iverse to fit together and compliment the story equally well. If I do that, chances are I won't even agree with every reader what the good and bad issues are.
Those are my random thoughts about writing for this morning. Thank you for reading.
King claims that as far as the story goes, he is not responsible for it. He is simply the vessel the story chose to tell itself. I relate to that idea because I actually write very little of my story anymore and it DOES tend to write itself the way the characters demand it be told. I find truth in that statement.
Where I disagree is King's claim of powerlessness there. The reality is, even if the story tells itself, the Author has a great deal of power. It's called veto power. King acting like it isn't a factor isn't right. When sharing the work with the world, the writer has a responsibility of sorts to the reader. If a story is a certain kind of story they are obligated to keep it consistent throughout its entire run. Chris Rock is allowed to guest star as himself on Sesame Street. But he's not allowed to tell his jokes there and he shouldn't be. The writer has a responsibility to the reader / viewer not to totally fuck them up or over with things they never signed up for.
I'll tell you on more than one occasion the story told itself to me and insisted it be told a certain way, and I simply declined to. I thought some of the turns I rejected although technically brilliant, would hurt both the reader and the story at large. Despite what the story told me about itself, I said "This will hurt things in the long run and breach trust. No."
Whatever King claims, this is actually self-evident. King has definitely kept certain crappy stories he's written to himself if they aren't up to his standards. And that's how it should be. Writers have an incredible amount of freedom. That's the selling point of the craft. But I think, at least as far as a long-running story goes, sending every thought you ever crapped out into the world unchanged and unfiltered isn't art. It's simply diarrhea put to paper (or screen). You have to have a certain level of standards and consistency in your writing. I don't even believe all of one's writing even needs to be good. It's fine for works of art to be imperfect and ripe for debate. But if there are bad pieces of art in a certain long-running series (like say Gilda And Meek And The Un-Iverse) I want those story failures to still fit everything else, and have good things in them that can be built upon the failure in question. I don't want to see a bad issue as a missed opportunity. I want to think of it as something setting up a future GOOD opportunity. I want both the good and bad issues of The Un-Iverse to fit together and compliment the story equally well. If I do that, chances are I won't even agree with every reader what the good and bad issues are.
Those are my random thoughts about writing for this morning. Thank you for reading.