Then again, one of my all time favorite stories is Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville. In it, it is the main character's inaction that drives the plot.
So I shouldn't send you my 200K YA "fictional novel" about an Emo vampire who attends high school written from the point of view of the high school then?
Speakin' of inanimate objects being important, nay loved by humans...
True story. Hemingway drank on a afternoon/nightly basis at a bar called Sloppy Joes in Key West Florida. The owner decided to install a new urinal in the men's room. (We're talkin' an eight foot long piece of porcelin that for years received the waste of ingested libations associated with festive evenings). After disconnection and laying like a long yellow/brown stained tooth on the floor, Hemingway, pissed as a newt, picked it up, balanced it across his back and carried it home, citing - (paraphrasin' here)... "Some of the best of me splashed upon this stone! How can I not give it relief!"
I LOVE this--I'm saving it, I'm sending it a couple of other writers...it is genius. This is why I hated a lot of writing workshops when I was at university. If I had to hear one more touching story about someone's Oh-So-Poignant Fishing Trip With Grandpa, it was going to be projectile city, right into the middle of the circle the prof made us arrange our desks into for such things. Hurrah!!!
I have to agree with the Editorial Anonymous. I can't enjoy anything, no matter how pretty the language, where nothing happens.
In high school I was deliberately asked to do a report on how a certain novel described a "woman's descent into madness." I opened my report with: "There is no descent, the narrator belly-flops into madness on page one, and spends the next 125 pages complaining about it."
Though people assume it must be easy to write a picture book, it's very hard to write a good one. The word count constraints, as well as keeping in mind what *not* to say (leaving out just enough so the illustrator can fill in the blanks, but not too much so an editor will understand your story), as well as the usual suspects (write a story with a great plot and compelling characters)...well, I could go on. But I love the format. I always have. LOVED this post about inanimate objects! :-)
I have often been a victim of "the perversity of inanimate objects." The bathroom rug that threw me, the rollerskate that left me and the laundry on the floor, the things from nowhere that stay hidden until found by my unwary toe. Inanimate objects DO things...they wait, potent, patient, powerful, for the unwary. They are not like Thomas Henry Huxley's The Player on the Other Side. They are never fair, never just, but they are patient.
I had to write countless stupid ass stories from the point of view of something inanimate in college. I remember pulling them from a paper bag once, and I got "teen's smelly sneakers" as my choice of main character. LAME! I was 22 at the time!
Maybe it's just set in our minds from minute one...must follow crappy assignments from writing 101. I KNEW they were stupid when I was writing them then! I can't believe anyone would query them as a real story. BLECH!!!
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Then again, one of my all time favorite stories is Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville. In it, it is the main character's inaction that drives the plot.
This link is good. I'm saving. I have a list of these things that I read every day before I start working on anything.
And this is about as real as it gets.
*Now* you tell me. I'm 18,000 words in on my historical novel told from the POV of Thomas Jefferson's chamberpot. Back to the old drawing board.
So I shouldn't send you my 200K YA "fictional novel" about an Emo vampire who attends high school written from the point of view of the high school then?
(evil smile)
I want a birthday cake or something like that lil monster. It's just so CUTE!
Ok, turning off my girly side for a few hours to go revise a section about a battle. :)
Speakin' of inanimate objects being important, nay loved by humans...
True story. Hemingway drank on a afternoon/nightly basis at a bar called Sloppy Joes in Key West Florida. The owner decided to install a new urinal in the men's room. (We're talkin' an eight foot long piece of porcelin that for years received the waste of ingested libations associated with festive evenings). After disconnection and laying like a long yellow/brown stained tooth on the floor,
Hemingway, pissed as a newt, picked it up, balanced it across his back and carried it home, citing - (paraphrasin' here)... "Some of the best of me splashed upon this
stone! How can I not give it relief!"
Haste yee back ;-)
I LOVE this--I'm saving it, I'm sending it a couple of other writers...it is genius. This is why I hated a lot of writing workshops when I was at university. If I had to hear one more touching story about someone's Oh-So-Poignant Fishing Trip With Grandpa, it was going to be projectile city, right into the middle of the circle the prof made us arrange our desks into for such things. Hurrah!!!
The monster IS cute. :)
I have to agree with the Editorial Anonymous. I can't enjoy anything, no matter how pretty the language, where nothing happens.
In high school I was deliberately asked to do a report on how a certain novel described a "woman's descent into madness." I opened my report with: "There is no descent, the narrator belly-flops into madness on page one, and spends the next 125 pages complaining about it."
I got an "A" for that one.
That was hilarious. Wrong. As in things like metaphor, personification, anthropomorphism. But very funny.
Though people assume it must be easy to write a picture book, it's very hard to write a good one. The word count constraints, as well as keeping in mind what *not* to say (leaving out just enough so the illustrator can fill in the blanks, but not too much so an editor will understand your story), as well as the usual suspects (write a story with a great plot and compelling characters)...well, I could go on. But I love the format. I always have.
LOVED this post about inanimate objects!
:-)
Furios D, I would've given you an A for that report as well.
I have often been a victim of "the perversity of inanimate objects." The bathroom rug that threw me, the rollerskate that left me and the laundry on the floor, the things from nowhere that stay hidden until found by my unwary toe. Inanimate objects DO things...they wait, potent, patient, powerful, for the unwary. They are not like Thomas Henry Huxley's The Player on the Other Side. They are never fair, never just, but they are patient.
good for a few chuckles, but she has valid points :)
I had to write countless stupid ass stories from the point of view of something inanimate in college. I remember pulling them from a paper bag once, and I got "teen's smelly sneakers" as my choice of main character. LAME! I was 22 at the time!
Maybe it's just set in our minds from minute one...must follow crappy assignments from writing 101. I KNEW they were stupid when I was writing them then! I can't believe anyone would query them as a real story. BLECH!!!
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