Oh boy, critiquing one of my own plays. You may have noticed that the articles analysing our radio plays stopped at “Voices” a few weeks back. This is why. Talking about my work feels like driving nails into my feet. But long-time followers of the blog know it is supposed to be a reflective journal. Self-critique is a way to improve my writing by thinking about writing. So, I can’t get out of this one. What was right, what was wrong, and what was interesting about Mine?
Just in case you haven’t listened to it yet, here’s the audio link, the iTunes link, and the YouTube version with subtitles. Thorough, aren’t we? This article has mega spoilers for Mine, so I’ll see you after the break.
“My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others that I keep well hidden in the woods.” (The Hunger Games, Chapter 1)
How many bowyers is Katniss hiding in the woods?[i] Did she free them before the bad guys destroyed District 12 or are the poor buggers still there, stuck under a tree, waiting for rescue? And how many readers care that bad grammar riddles the book?
If Suzanne Collins can sell 17.5 million copies of The Hunger Games, do we need to study grammar at all?
I just finished the second full draft of a novel. I’m going to take a couple of weeks of for Christmas, then get started on the third. But the titles “second” and “third” don’t refer to a number of revisions (I have worked through each chapter many, any times). Rather they refer to specific stages in the drafting process. In this article I will describe what I mean by a second and a third draft, and illustrate my personal checklist for revising third drafts. How do you turn a rough draft into a ready draft?
English is a subject/object structured language. A normal English sentence goes like this: Subject -> Action -> Object. But, because English is a wonderfully flexible language, we are allowed to re-order our sentences. We can hide both subject and object within subtle layers of meaning. So how do you choose your sentence structure? And why have years of academic writing left me struggling with my fiction edit?
I am close to finishing the first draft of a novel on which I have been working for nearly two years. But close, as Rene Russo mysteriously observed in Lethal Weapon 3, is a lingerie shop without a front window[i].
What possessed me to write a novel? Why a fantasy novel? Will anyone take me seriously if I write genre fiction? Why do I care if people take me seriously? What if the story is rubbish? Not good enough to be published? Not good enough to make any money? How much longer can I keep doing this without making any money? What will I say to my wife when the rejection letters start pouring in?
This constant stream of doubts and negative thoughts is slowing me down and making it harder to write. I don’t think I’m the first writer to feel this way! This article is about getting over the finish line in the face of my own fears, without killing my creativity and just writing “fish” twenty thousand times.
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Oh boy, critiquing one of my own plays. You may have noticed that the articles analysing our radio plays stopped at “Voices” a few weeks back. This is why. Talking about my work feels like driving nails into my feet. But long-time followers of the blog know it is supposed to be a reflective journal. Self-critique is a way to improve my writing by thinking about writing. So, I can’t get out of this one. What was right, what was wrong, and what was interesting about Mine?
