Three hour after posting this story, I saw four continuously darting, circling lights up in the low clouds above my residence. You can imagine my first thought given the story's “alien” subject matter.
Yup, search lights - I'm guessing for advertising/promotion, not...you know...alien-spotting.
I received many helpful comments on this entry. 1) Resorting to the weak “As you know...” was the result of using dialog to tell the reader something that the other characters would be expected to already know - this might have been better handled by breaking out of dialog. 2) I might have overused the word “dude” in trying to portray Zach's youth and enthusiasm through solely his own voice - this might have been better handled by toning down the dialog and adding some narrative characterization. 3) I introduced a grammatical error when I changed “I” to “I’ve” during editing - this might highlight the limitations of editing one's own writing (and in my case, the danger of not being able to leave well-enough alone). 4) My attempt to tie together various story elements by having Zach's last words (which became the story title) also be used as the name of the 'carrier' image file (intended to be 'ironic' when added at the last minute as a finishing touch) might have been inappropriate - I wonder if it should perhaps be ‘dialed down’ a notch? 5) I know to not even consider attributing the ending destruction to intervention from ‘their’ home planet (the ‘timing’ would be all wrong).
I think the key lesson for me this week is ensuring that everything is written in service of the story. In overly relying on dialog to the exclusion of narrative description, I somewhat undermined the strength of the dialog itself. And in attempting to be too ‘clever’ in linking disparate story elements, I was at best “too cute” and at worst “inappropriate”. In both these cases, I allowed ‘device’ to trump ‘story’.
I enjoy reading what you learned, because it helps me learn along with you. In this case, however, I don't agree with point number 2. People who use the word "dude" tend to use it a lot. A similar word is "like" where people use it in every sentence at least once.
3 comments:
Three hour after posting this story, I saw four continuously darting, circling lights up in the low clouds above my residence. You can imagine my first thought given the story's “alien” subject matter.
Yup, search lights - I'm guessing for advertising/promotion, not...you know...alien-spotting.
This post was submitted for The Friday Challenge named “Aliens Have Invaded Pleasantville!”:
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I received many helpful comments on this entry.
1) Resorting to the weak “As you know...” was the result of using dialog to tell the reader something that the other characters would be expected to already know - this might have been better handled by breaking out of dialog.
2) I might have overused the word “dude” in trying to portray Zach's youth and enthusiasm through solely his own voice - this might have been better handled by toning down the dialog and adding some narrative characterization.
3) I introduced a grammatical error when I changed “I” to “I’ve” during editing - this might highlight the limitations of editing one's own writing (and in my case, the danger of not being able to leave well-enough alone).
4) My attempt to tie together various story elements by having Zach's last words (which became the story title) also be used as the name of the 'carrier' image file (intended to be 'ironic' when added at the last minute as a finishing touch) might have been inappropriate - I wonder if it should perhaps be ‘dialed down’ a notch?
5) I know to not even consider attributing the ending destruction to intervention from ‘their’ home planet (the ‘timing’ would be all wrong).
I think the key lesson for me this week is ensuring that everything is written in service of the story. In overly relying on dialog to the exclusion of narrative description, I somewhat undermined the strength of the dialog itself. And in attempting to be too ‘clever’ in linking disparate story elements, I was at best “too cute” and at worst “inappropriate”. In both these cases, I allowed ‘device’ to trump ‘story’.
I enjoy reading what you learned, because it helps me learn along with you. In this case, however, I don't agree with point number 2. People who use the word "dude" tend to use it a lot. A similar word is "like" where people use it in every sentence at least once.
Arisia
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