For All You Writers Out There!

For all you writers out there!

When To Keep Your Writing Stiff (pt 7)

Part 6

Part 1

Gonna shoutout a specific fanfic, “Salvage” (ATLA) for writing that is even leaner than mine is, and mine has zero fat whatsoever. This was really good. I particularly like how some scenes were only 2 or 3 lines long as an example of what I’m going for here.

When I say “stiff” in the following examples I’m specifically talking about a lot of the same syntax, few similes and metaphors, few ‘said’ synonyms, very little, well, “life” in the prose. And this can be good in a few situations.

1. Your narrator is in shock

Shock doesn’t all look the same, but the kind of shock I mean is the one where the person is really quiet and un-emotive, they’re probably not speaking or reacting much to whatever catastrophe just happened and probably not responding to their name or anything spoken to them. Their body is pretty much going “uhhhhhhhhh factory reset!” when whatever it is, is too much to process.

A asks them a question. Once. Twice. B stares ahead. There’s a brown stain on the wall that looks like a thumb.

So if they’re narrating, they’re probably going to be giving the absolute bare minimum, need-to-know information and won’t be thinking about the best adjectives and adverbs. Especially if you normally write with fluffier prose, a jarring shift like this can really help sell the shock and dissociating of the character, something so traumatizing that it effects how the story is told.

2. Your narrator is depressed

Somewhere between New Moon’s 4 pages of just Months to show Bella did absolutely nothing in a depression rot and normal prose (though it was effective, particularly in the movie when they could draw out the words on the screen for longer and did the whole spin-around-her-depression-chair montage).

January came. It rained a lot.

They’ll probably either narrate very thinly, or listlessly. They might focus on a random detail and start going on a long ramble about that one detail that isn’t at all important, but it’s either all they can think about or all that can move them to feel anything in this moment, like:

On the bedside table, that coffee mug still sat there in a thin sheet of dust. What had been liquid now long since dry and gluey. It still sits there, collecting cat fur.

This might be the best place for sentences that all sound and flow exactly the same, but use it sparingly.

3. Your narrator is having a panic attack or trapped in a traumatic situation

Different from shock in that while they are physically capable of moving and interacting, they can’t let themselves describe what they’re seeing and feeling in grand detail. Maybe they’re moving through the horrific aftermath of a battle and all they can describe is the mud under their feet and how it squelches. Or they simply say that “there’s bodies everywhere” because looking too long or too hard at who those bodies belonged to is too much.

4. You’re writing something that has incredibly fast pacing

This post was inspired by a fic I just wrote that spanned about 5 months in about 18k words. Narrative was skipping days ahead between paragraphs at some point as my character was processing the end of an abusive relationship. It sped up and slowed down where necessary, but compared to its sequel that I also just finished (22k words across 7 days), I’d covered a whole month in about 2 sentences in the first one.

See nearly any part of Salvage (or my fics if you feel like it)

What happened in that month didn’t matter, only what was before and what’s different now and how this character realizes how their life is slowly changing, some things they never noticed that are suddenly right in their face or things that quietly slipped away.

—

TLDR; sometimes the lack of emotion and sensory details and frenetic, dynamic syntax is the point, that can sell the reader on the narrator’s mental state far better than picking the juiciest adverbs. If it’s so impactful to them that the physical telling of the story is changed, you’ve done your job.

More Posts from Borntoexplore11-blog and Others

borntoexplore11-blog

3 years ago

This will be useful in my drawing practice

How to Draw and Design Gryphons and Hippogryphs by using photo references of eagles, lions and horses?

Draw everything individually, from multiple angles.

How to draw horses || How I practice anatomy || Gesture drawing

It's like juicing up for a very tasty dream by consuming your favorite genre, characters, settings, etc and hoping your subconscious combines them.

If the final result is your target, and you see your drawing arm as a gun taking aim, then references are your bullets. Fill the chamber with reference unless you want to play roulette.

Your first step in reference gathering is to be specific. Know what you want and stick with it. I searched specifically for African Lion and Gold Eagle. Being specific helps you observe detail more accurately, and it already puts you one step ahead of generic designs.

I'm only going to tackle Lion + Eagle today for simplicity, but you can use this advice to combine two, three, or dozens of animals including horses.

Get your reference, and start practicing. Keep it simple and undetailed, only drawing the essence of the photo, rather than exact position and proportion.

Use action poses to practice! Even though they're more challenging, they will infuse your final result with action as well. Look up things like hunting, fighting, walking, running, landing, etc to get action reference.

How To Draw And Design Gryphons And Hippogryphs By Using Photo References Of Eagles, Lions And Horses?

Practice most on the creature you're having the hardest time with. That was Lions, for me. I even did a separate page where I studied the structure of their manes, since I wanted that in my griffin design.

Remember: you can trace photos as part of study! This is helpful for correcting proportions and anatomy. Make sure you are tracing mass and bones, not outlines.

Now that you're weapon is loaded with reference, you'll be able to design freehand without copying a photo. This is IDEAL because you won't be slowed down by anatomy. Now what we're here for: Design.

Creature Design Masterpost || Splice Vs Blend

This is going to be yet another visit to Splice vs. Blend technique, so strap in. Here's some guys I drew after I finished studying. No photos needed at this stage because I've eaten them all.

The most common creature design technique is something I call Splicing. You take pieces of animals and graft them onto each other with stitches. Griffins are notorious for this with their bird talons on the front legs and lion paws on the back. That's a creature that was formed through magic, not evolution. This automatically makes your griffin less believable. And probably a bit awkward in the walking department.

So here's a new challenge: Blending. Take bits of each creature and put them in a mixer, letting the ingredients land all over the place and amongst each other. What if we had a lion skull, with an extra-thick bird beak in place of the jaws? What if the lion chin was still there in the form of a tuft of fur? Maybe the tear duct from the lion, and the eyelids of bird? Let's give it lion ears with the furrowed brow so typical of raptors.

It already looks like a new life form, rather than a photoshopped amateur hour of recognizable animals. I could cover it in either feathers or fur and it would still be distinct as a new species. I want the classic lion mane in some form, so I'm taking the shape and turning it into long, fluffy feathers.

Don't stop there! Try identifying what traits make an eagle and eagle, or a lion a lion, and sticking them between each other.

Keep combining! Challenge convention! Add and omit parts and pieces to your heart's content.

Take this practice to all parts of all creatures. Throw new stuff in a blender instead of stitching it together. This especially includes color! You see a lot of spliced markings in novelty griffins, with a specific cat and bird. Artists get stuck on copy-pasting animal patterns because they're afraid the ingredients won't be recognizable, or they're just lost in the sauce of loving tigers they forget to actually have fun with it.

It's still recognizable as tiger and peacock, but much more compelling, wouldn't you say? Go for something unique rather than staying with what feels "safe." There's a million griffin artists out there, but only one You.

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borntoexplore11-blog

4 years ago

BIRB FACTS!!!!

do you have any cursed/blessed harris hawk facts?

Harris’s Hawks are the only pack-hunting raptor on the planet! they go after rabbits with tactics similar to those found in a pack of wolves, driving it away from cover until one of them can go down and nab it.