Sins

(via kystianbladde)

mattjankiewicz:

Some days, my writing seems to pour effortlessly out of me and onto the page, as though my inspirational antenna is perfectly in tune with the muses. Other days, however, the writing process is sluggish and forced. These are the days when the story seems frozen, the kind of days when I could make a permanent dent in my wall from hours of head-banging. These are the days when the writing just feels stale, stuck, unoriginal and, worst of all, boring.

After cursing everything in the universe for making me feel so inadequate, I take a step back from the story at hand and do some detective work to figure out what is amiss. The language seems fine, the dialogue seems appropriate, the structure of the story is mapped out in my mind. What could possibly be wrong?

And then it hits me: the narrative is repetitive and predictable. Predictability in form and style is when I feel most trapped during my writing, bouncing around from narrative to description to dialog and then back again to narrative. It is all rather boring, don’t you agree?

The act of writing should not be intimidating, but rather, as inviting as a playground is to a child. That’s why, in order to keep myself and my readers entertained, I play with various forms in my fiction.

Over the next several weeks, I will be dispensing all of my knowledge about each of these forms, providing examples of where they work and how to use them correctly. I will also explain why each form works best in certain parts of a story arc. There are many forms that you can incorporate in your manuscript to heighten the story. Many of them you have probably heard of before. Some, perhaps not. But all of them, like ingredients in a recipe, serve a special purpose in fiction at different times. Here is a comprehensive list of forms from which I’ll be discussing in future posts.

• List
• Model Telling
• Comparison/Contrast
• Instance
• Short Scene
• Dreams
• Script/Dialog shift
• Story-within-a-story
• Letter
• Folktale
• Scene
• Parody
• Monster form
• Q & A
• Personal Essay
• Memoir
• Review/Critique (written from the perspective of a character)
• Journal/blog entry
• Flashback
• How-to form
• How to do it better form
• Cycle story (novel in stories)
• Stream-Of Consciousness
• Flash Fiction
• Monologue

Once again, the purpose of employing these sundry forms into your fiction is to allow you to have the freedom to see the story with a fresh perspective. And, of course, they’re a lot of fun to experiment with.

Until next time, may your day be filled with great writing and wonder.