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#s:bodies #s:writing #t:article/essay | If your character has a physical form, then the matrix of the story must act upon it just as the body must act upon the story. If a character breaks a leg at the start of a story. It is not enough for them to limp occasionally. The pain becomes part of the filter of the story. It becomes not just fact to document here or there. There will be blood. Pain that is sharp, pain that is deep, throbbing, ever running like a river. They will make a familiar move because they cannot help it and find themselves brought up to the sheer cliff face of pain. They will slowly, perhaps, have to remap and reinscribe the dimensions of their circumstance and their world.

2 years ago | View Shared by zeiat

On the Many Different Engines That Power a Short Story

#s:writing #t:article/essay | Character and plot are fine, reliable engines. You can put them in your novel draft and, with a good amount of luck, drive it to the bestseller list. But they are only two ways of powering a story. In my own writing, I typically find that plot and character are not enough and that my stories are inert until I find a different kind of engine—a thematic engine perhaps or a structure engine or a linguistic engine—that makes the thing get up and running.

2 years ago | View Shared by zeiat