My sentences are short and grubby, because I put in a lot of time and effort into rewriting into that form. My natural Flesch runs at 12 years schooling + 11 years post grad. To be worse you have be German (and be channelling Hegel). Yes. I did speak German before I spoke English.
Anyway: the act part is important. I probably would quietly drop this and you if if that were not the case. And, agreed, essays (or as they usually turn out, sermons) are boring.
Look - what I am doing is running through a process Eric and I go through nearly every book. Eric asks hard questions. This forces me to really think deeply about the characters and story. Next thing I know I have a story. Please, you don't have to participate. But you haven't answered the second question at all (which -if I were answering it would be a sure indicator that I don't know. In your can it may just be that I am a bad questioner.) I didn't want to know what you would do. I want to know, specifically, what that protag has experienced/ feels/ wants/ is driven by/ is afraid of (or at least you must know. Do you?). And I want to know in terms I (and you) can relate to. When I wrote Cair Aidin I was basing him on one of the most notorious pirates - a mass murderer known for his cruelty - of the 16 th century. How did I try to get to like him and therefore to get readers to like him? By working out what made him into the flawed monster he was, and starting by showing his one (at that time) redeeming feature, and gradually building how that related to his childhood, his own betayals, and the man he could become -- with a nobility of spirit -- despite that. To do that I had to first understand the man I was going to write. How he thought, what had happened to him, and what motivated him. Core motivations, not superficial push-pulls. That was what I was trying to get you to think about. This may not work for you at all, but at the heart of writing for me... it is not just about pretty sentences. It's about _why_. The character faces the obstacles, but unless they are shaped rightly they will not pass those obstacles. They will have no reason to do so in the way the author envisages. The author - at least the good one - is shaping both circumstances and character so that not only will the obstacle (labyrinth whatever) be conquered but that character will do so in such a way that the reader feels that is perfectly logical and plausible (even when it isn't) and natural. This 'real' writing skill. Not merely the lovely words (and I adore sequipedalia - I just avoid it). Like the tiny stitches on a perfectly set seam - It's nearly invisible when it is done well. It's also very hard to do right. I wish I was really good at it. I can, however, see when someone else is good at it, because _I_ know what I am looking for. There are seat-of-your-pants writers who just do this instinctively. Others (Stephen King I suspect) who do this with with supreme craftsmanship. I believe they get more out of the words. I want to belong to that set of writers - but that is me. You must, of course, write as you want to.
no subject
Anyway: the act part is important. I probably would quietly drop this and you if if that were not the case. And, agreed, essays (or as they usually turn out, sermons) are boring.
Look - what I am doing is running through a process Eric and I go through nearly every book. Eric asks hard questions. This forces me to really think deeply about the characters and story. Next thing I know I have a story. Please, you don't have to participate. But you haven't answered the second question at all (which -if I were answering it would be a sure indicator that I don't know. In your can it may just be that I am a bad questioner.) I didn't want to know what you would do. I want to know, specifically, what that protag has experienced/ feels/ wants/ is driven by/ is afraid of (or at least you must know. Do you?). And I want to know in terms I (and you) can relate to. When I wrote Cair Aidin I was basing him on one of the most notorious pirates - a mass murderer known for his cruelty - of the 16 th century. How did I try to get to like him and therefore to get readers to like him? By working out what made him into the flawed monster he was, and starting by showing his one (at that time) redeeming feature, and gradually building how that related to his childhood, his own betayals, and the man he could become -- with a nobility of spirit -- despite that. To do that I had to first understand the man I was going to write. How he thought, what had happened to him, and what motivated him. Core motivations, not superficial push-pulls. That was what I was trying to get you to think about.
This may not work for you at all, but at the heart of writing for me... it is not just about pretty sentences. It's about _why_. The character faces the obstacles, but unless they are shaped rightly they will not pass those obstacles. They will have no reason to do so in the way the author envisages. The author - at least the good one - is shaping both circumstances and character so that not only will the obstacle (labyrinth whatever) be conquered but that character will do so in such a way that the reader feels that is perfectly logical and plausible (even when it isn't) and natural.
This 'real' writing skill. Not merely the lovely words (and I adore sequipedalia - I just avoid it). Like the tiny stitches on a perfectly set seam - It's nearly invisible when it is done well. It's also very hard to do right. I wish I was really good at it. I can, however, see when someone else is good at it, because _I_ know what I am looking for. There are seat-of-your-pants writers who just do this instinctively. Others (Stephen King I suspect) who do this with with supreme craftsmanship. I believe they get more out of the words. I want to belong to that set of writers - but that is me. You must, of course, write as you want to.