1 / 9

Kitchen Sink Day

Tangent: The Powerpoint. Kitchen Sink Day. On Eloquence. Eloquence is virtually impossible to teach. Different situations call for different methods. Forced eloquence often overlaps with purple prose or thesaurus syndrome.

karsen
Download Presentation

Kitchen Sink Day

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Tangent: The Powerpoint Kitchen Sink Day

  2. On Eloquence • Eloquence is virtually impossible to teach. • Different situations call for different methods. • Forced eloquence often overlaps with purple prose or thesaurus syndrome. • If used in excess, it can disrupt the reader or even overshadow other, better-executed factors of the work. • The best way to learn eloquence is to read it. • Osmosis!

  3. On Titles • Things to (generally) avoid: • One-word titles. • “Moonlight” • Titles featuring a character’s name or a place. • “Eleanora Blake” “Raymanthia” • Made-up words in general. • “Jjfdngkjgd” • Acronyms. • “S.P.Y.” • Cliched words or phrases. • “The Hero’s Sword” for fantasy, “Gunfight at High Noon” for a western, “Plant People from Jupiter” for a space opera.

  4. Escaping Your Comfort Zone • Research is King. • There are countless resources online for writers looking to learn about a particular genre or subgenre. • Look through the works of other authors in your chosen genre – not just the successes, but the trainwrecks. Use what you’ve discovered to figure out what and what not to do. • Pick a genre you love. Otherwise, find things to love about it.

  5. Protagonists By the Numbers • 1 Protagonist. • Requires a distinct character voice, especially in first person POV. Memorability is required here. • 2 Protagonists. • Unless they have very different character voices (which they should anyway), third-person limited is the way to go here. • 3 Protagonists. • Third-person limited all the way. Make sure they share equal levels of connection with each other – no unbalanced triangles. • 4+ Protagonists or Ensemble. • Dangerous waters. Amateurs should not attempt this. Requires an expert grasp on third-person limited or an even better one on third-person omniscient.

  6. Magic and Science Systems • “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke. • “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.” Maggie “Not Actually Arthur C. Clarke” Chan. • If you’re going to have rules, follow them to the letter. If you’re going to break said rules, do it in a plausible and reasonable way. If you can’t do that, then make the handwaving funny.

  7. Nonhumans and Humans with Nonhuman Abilities • Applies to nonhumans (vampires, werewolves, elves, etc.) and humans with nonstandard abilities (mutants, psychics, wizards, etc.) • Think in terms of evolution. Nature has no reason to let a predator like a vampire just gallivant off without some weaknesses to keep it from wiping out its prey species. • For any major benefit, there must be a detriment. Don’t ignore potentially interesting flaws because you’re convinced your character/species has to be all-powerful.

  8. Avoiding Cliches • Let this song do the talking. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=K5sXSix359M#t=36s • Quick fix: Try to summarize the thing you’re concerned about. If the phrase “like in [thing X]” or “like [character Y]” shows up in your head more than once, you’re in trouble.

  9. Open Questions • Ask me anything! • Within reason.

More Related