The best fiction writing tips I've received (so far)

[Rich.]

Really Rich?

Yes, really. With respect, I'm not a fan of dubious and unsubstantiated claims of fact (we were discussing your assertion that To be or not to be was Shakespeare's jab at passive voice). But you're quite right, our Shakespeare discussion has veered away from this thread's purpose. Please PM me if you'd like to continue our debate.

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What are the best tips/advice you've received? Have any transformed how you write?

I do like the one attributed to Vladimir Nabokov:

The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.​

Once I internalized this, my writing improved a lot, but it took significant practice before the sadism came naturally.

 

[Barbara]

Re: the Shakey discussion: Well, it's a thread about tips on writing, and analysing the very man who is considered to be one of THE best story tellers in history is perfectly reasonable in my humble oppinion. There's much we can learn from the Bard. Analyses of the Great Wil are welcome in any thread as far as I'm concerned.

But then again, I'm biassed. 'I'm an Actoahr, Darling.' *INSERT DRAMATIC GESTURE*

 

[Carol Rose]

Re: the Shakey discussion: Well, it's a thread about tips on writing, and analysing the very man who is considered to be one of THE best story tellers in history is perfectly reasonable in my humble oppinion. There's much we can learn from the Bard. Analyses of the Great Wil are welcome in any thread as far as I'm concerned.

Good point.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Ok, so what do you think Shakespeare's top writing tips would be? When in doubt, make a ribald joke? He'd go for 'kill your darlings', I bet.

 

[Barbara]

Ok, so what do you think Shakespeare's top writing tips would be? When in doubt, make a ribald joke? He'd go for 'kill your darlings', I bet.

LOL. And maybe he'd say: 'dress up your characters as someone they're not'...

 

[Carol Rose]

When in doubt, go for wordy???

 

[Barbara]

When in doubt, go for wordy???

Or go for incomprehensible. Dazzle them with with intricate and complicated verse. (But I might be the only person who doesn't understand everything he writes.)

 

[Carol Rose]

Or go for incomprehensible (but I might be the only person who doesn't understand everything he writes.) Dazzle them with with intricate and complicated verse.

You're not the only one!!

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Or go for incomprehensible. Dazzle them with with intricate and complicated verse. (But I might be the only person who doesn't understand everything he writes.)

It helps so much to read it aloud, I find. He did write plays, after all; they weren't meant to be understood without all the inflection, props, and body language. A while back, we did Midsummer Night's Dream with the kids as our evening reading--we all took parts and had a blast.

 

[Carol Rose]

It helps so much to read it aloud, I find. He did write plays, after all; they weren't meant to be understood without all the inflection, props, and body language. A while back, we did Midsummer Night's Dream with the kids as our evening reading--we all took parts and had a blast.

Good point!

 

[Carol Rose]

 

[Rich.]

It helps so much to read it aloud, I find. He did write plays, after all...

This! Novels they ain't.

As for his advice, I wouldn't be surprised if he told us to know our audience and know them well.

 

[Nikky Lee]

Or go for incomprehensible. Dazzle them with with intricate and complicated verse. (But I might be the only person who doesn't understand everything he writes.)

You're not alone @Barbara. But now that @Robinne Weiss mentions it, I find I do think his stories much easier to engage with when they are presented on stage as intended, rather than read.

 

[Barbara]

You're not alone @Barbara. But now that @Robinne Weiss mentions it, I find I do think his stories much easier to engage with when they are presented on stage as intended, rather than read.

Very true. It's a bit like watching a movie in a foreign language and still getting the gist.

 

[Rich.]

Exactly! Which makes modern-language versions (like these, for example) a good way in. Those 400-odd years between him and us have changed English so much it's no wonder we struggle with much of his text.

 

[Barbara]

I love the modern adaptations.

 

[Barbara]

Here's a bit of irony: I've acted in some Shakespeare plays, and I still don't understand it all ...

And at drama school we did an all female version of Kig Lear. I was King Lear. Good old storm scene ... I like a rant.

 

[Rich.]

I love the modern adaptations.

They're great, aren't they? What's your favourite? Have you performed any moderns?

 

[Barbara]

They're great, aren't they? What's your favourite? Have you performed any moderns?

I love the Scotish Play (don't mention Macb) and King Lear too, modern or original. I find them the most 'raw' and 'stripped down' in terms of humanity, if that makes sense.

Like I said above, I was King Lear. Sounds weird, I know. It was an adaptation, but with the original text. I've done a speech from Romeo and Juliet as well as scenes from Hamlet. I haven't done any moderns, apart from an experimental movement piece as an excersise. I was also in a few battle scenes, waving a sword around.

Oddly enough, from an acting POV, I found that not understanding all of it, forces you to go beyond the language and concentrate on what Shakespeare wanted to say. You have to 'live' the subtext of the character that you're performing. But that's for a different forum.

 

[Nikky Lee]

Exactly! Which makes modern-language versions (like these, for example) a good way in. Those 400-odd years between him and us have changed English so much it's no wonder we struggle with much of his text.

Ah, where was this when I was in school? It would have saved me so much hair pulling and cursing.

 

[Emily]

Exactly! Which makes modern-language versions (like these, for example) a good way in. Those 400-odd years between him and us have changed English so much it's no wonder we struggle with much of his text.

This is brilliant @Rich. , we are doing a Shakespeare project with our kids (we home ed) and will be perfect for some translations! In my research on him, I was interested to note that apparently, the Irish vernacular is similar to the dialect of the Olde Bard's time (we use lots of "ye" and I remember, not too long ago, hearing older people, especially in rural parts, use Thee, thine and thy in everyday speech) Can't find the piece I had read originally, but it went something along these lines: Romie O’ and Juliet – An Irishman’s Diary on why the accents of Shakespeare may sound strangely familiar

 

[Rich.]

Oddly enough, from an acting POV, I found that not understanding all of it, forces you to go beyond the language and concentrate on what Shakespeare wanted to say. You have to 'live' the subtext of the character that you're performing. But that's for a different forum.

Maybe for this forum as well. You and I have discussed elsewhere bringing method acting techniques into our writing. I think there's something very powerful about the idea of tapping our emotions to inform our characters' behaviour and then writing when in that state. Writing is a kind of performance, isn't it? I reckon it is.

Ah, where was this when I was in school? It would have saved me so much hair pulling and cursing.

Right! I had an English teacher at school who showed us Roman Polanski's Macbeth when most of us were a year away from being able to legally watch it. It freaked me out good and proper!

In my research on him, I was interested to note that apparently, the Irish vernacular is similar to the dialect of the Olde Bard's time (we use lots of "ye" and I remember, not too long ago, hearing older people, especially in rural parts, use Thee, thine and thy in everyday speech) Can't find the piece I had read originally, but it went something along these lines: Romie O’ and Juliet – An Irishman’s Diary on why the accents of Shakespeare may sound strangely familiar

Love it! And shame on the dandy! I wonder if there are any contemporary performaces that try to use the original pronunciations.

 

[Carol Rose]

Right! I had an English teacher at school who showed us Roman Polanski's Macbeth when most of us were a year away from being able to legally watch it. It freaked me out good and proper!

Pretty much everything about Roman Polanski's life freaked most people out. Sorry to say I never saw his Macbeth. Probably best that I didn't.

 

[Rich.]

Sorry to say I never saw his Macbeth. Probably best that I didn't.

Yeah, freaky Polanski, I think it was his first film after his pregnant wife was murdered. To say the film was dark would be an understatement.

 

[Barbara]

Maybe for this forum as well. You and I have discussed elsewhere bringing method acting techniques into our writing. I think there's something very powerful about the idea of tapping our emotions to inform our characters' behaviour and then writing when in that state. Writing is a kind of performance, isn't it? I reckon it is.

@Rich. Writing is def a kind of performance. In writing as in acting, the story sort of plays out in the mind as it happens. Only the expression is different (either you act it out or write it down). At least it does for me. The inner movie. I have been known to walk around, talking as my characters to try see how a conversation would sound like, and how it might play out. There is something about moving the text physically.

Writing has also helped the thesp in me. I used to HATE acting improvisation, but since I've been writing, impro holds no fears. I'm happy to explore what 'could be' (acting rehearsals are very much that). Writing helped me tap into that creation part of the brain where you can 'live truthfully under imaginary circumstances' (check out Sanford Meisner acting technique). In turn, acting (the Meiser Technique) has helped me open up as a writer to let the creation flow. It makes you open and 'reactive' to what is happening in the moment. When I write, I sit and feel it, see what response comes up; not just in dialogue but also what comes up from the problems I throw at my characters.

It's kinda the old saying about you should write what you know. If you can experience it in the imagination you don't have to actually perform your own moonlanding to know what it MIGHT feel like. The more intense you feel it, the more you can describe it in the text.

Incidentally, 'voice' was a relevation to me when I started writing. I've never heard anyone in any rehearsal talk about, or bother to analyse, the playwight's voice. The actors are the playwright's voice.

But now I'm blabbering. It happens when someone mentions the acting subject.

 

[Carol Rose]

Yeah, freaky Polanski, I think it was his first film after his pregnant wife was murdered. To say the film was dark would be an understatement.

Yes. Sharon Tate. She and seven other people were brutally killed in two locations by Charles Manson and his band of crazies, over the span of two days. One of the most horrific crime sprees in the country's history. I still remember it breaking on the news.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Yeah, freaky Polanski, I think it was his first film after his pregnant wife was murdered. To say the film was dark would be an understatement.

We were taken to see it on a school trip. English Literature.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

This! Novels they ain't.

As for his advice, I wouldn't be surprised if he told us to know our audience and know them well.

Particularly when it's MacBeth, your patron is the monarch, and there's rather a lot of twitchy royal ancestral stuff implicit in the story-line of the play.

 

[Rich.]

Yes. Sharon Tate. She and seven other people were brutally killed in two locations by Charles Manson and his band of crazies, over the span of two days.

Yeah, horrific, right? It leaves me hollow just thinking about it superficially.

We were taken to see it on a school trip. English Literature.

I guess, like me, you had a teacher hell-bent on broadening your mind! What was your impression of it?