Writing Excuses 12.50: Form and Function
Dec. 14th, 2017 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Writing Excuses 12.50: Form and Function
From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2017/12/10/12-50-form-and-function/
Key points: Different media may change how you tell a story. For example, keyboards, typewriters, longhand, and quill pen, all impose their own rhythms and pauses while writing. What happens when you write flash fiction on your business cards? Slam poetry, with strong audience participation, reinforces repetition, rhythm, and other tools in a way that writing on a page does not. Audiobooks versus the text! Although WhisperSync imposes limits for those books. Graphic novels and audiobooks. Converting short stories into TV episodes, how do you dramatize the internal struggles? Often movies and stories are different, due to adaptation. Hypertext may be a way to experiment with taking the linearity out of the narrative experience.
Special bonus! Why do you love telling stories? It allows me to tilt the world on its side and see what's underneath, and the act of communicating that understanding makes me a better person. It allows me to be somebody I know I can't be in real life. I can be the hero, I can become a better person. Stories let me explore taboos, let me process things and say things that I can't any other way. Stories are the closest I can get to magic in real life. I can imagine something, and engage in telepathy with my readers!
( Put that in a box... )
[Mary] So, since we've been playing with Mary Anne and Wesley, and it's the end of the year and things are sometimes kind of busy, we thought that this homework we would give you is a little bit of play. We're going to ask you to just play Exquisite Corpse. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, write the first line of a story. Hand that first line to someone, ask them to illustrate it. Then, they will fold the… Your first line back, and hand just the illustration to someone else, who will then describe what is happening. Then that illustration gets folded back, and the new first line goes to someone else in your circle of friends or family. Let that create this strange, strange interactive storytelling that is completely nonlinear.
[Mary Anne] Writers think this is a really fun party game. Actually, it's great to do with kids.
[Wesley] Or drunk.
[Brandon] Anyway. We are running out of time. But there's a couple of things I want to do before we go. The first is to give a special thank you to Mary Anne and Wesley.
[Mary Anne] Awww.
[Wesley] Yay.
[Mary Anne] Yay.
[Brandon] You guys have been great this year. We have loved having you. We want to thank our listeners, specifically those who supported us on Patreon. Because we were able to afford doing this. We're actually paying our cohosts now.
[Yay]
[Brandon] We are able to pay for flights and things like this.
[Mary] And our engineer.
[Brandon] And our engineer. Specifically because you guys directly support us. And we are beholden to no advertisers, specifically because you guys support us. So check out the Patreon. We do give some cool little bonuses on the Patreon. But mostly, the bonus comes in the form of being able to do things like this.
[Brandon] I thought we might close out this year with the Chicago team by returning to the beginning, as is a great storytelling archetype. We began with first person narratives, so I've asked each of them to think about a little first-person narrative… Doesn't have to be long… Of why they love telling stories, spoken in the first person. Mary, will you take first stab at this?
[Mary] Absolutely. So, I love telling stories, specifically science fiction and fantasy, because it allows me to take the world that I live in and tilted to its side in a way that makes it easier for me to see the kind of interconnected tissue. It helps me understand the world more, but it also… The act of attempting to communicate my understanding to other people, I think makes me, as a writer… Not just as a writer, but as a person, a richer and more aware person. I love that connection between story and new person.
[Brandon] Awesome. Wesley?
[Wesley] Well, I love telling stories because it allows me to be somebody that I know I can't in real life. So, not only am I smart and witty and a kung fu master and a secret agent, I…
[Mary] That's in real life?
[Mary Anne] Hmmm…
[Wesley] I'm actually not, in real life. But, not only can I do these things, I'm allowed to really explore myself, and see who I can be, how I can be not only more… Oh, man. Not only can I be more… I guess…
[Brandon] Articulate?
[Wesley] Articulate. I'm sorry.
[Laughter]
[Wesley] [garbled] I can be the hero I want to be. I can be the self improvement that I want to be. Really, it… What I do in my stories affects how I am in real life. So really, for example, my debut novel, Lives of Tao, is really how I look at self improvement. Because of my stories, I became a better person in real life.
[Mary Anne] I love telling stories because they let me explore things that are taboo to say and to talk about in nonfiction or over the dinner table. So when I first started writing, I was writing about sex. Sex was a huge area of conflict in my life. My parents had had arranged marriage, they expected the same for me. They certainly did not want me to date. I was dating. We were fighting about it. All of that emotion and frustration went into my fiction. It let me process things and say things that I couldn't find a way to say otherwise. That sort of evolved into writing about race and ethnicity, and war and parenting. So anytime I am feeling very stuck, I tend to turn to fiction to figure out what it is I really want to say.
[Brandon] I love telling stories because it's the closest I can get to magic in real life. I can imagine something, and then put it on paper. Someone else, who doesn't speak my language, across the world, can read this and imagine the same thing. I have just engaged in telepathy. Right? We are reading each other's minds in this kind of weird way, that if you think about it is just kind of bizarre and cool and magical, to use the phrase. So, that's part of why I love stories. I also love stories because they let me hang out with people like you guys.
[Awww, Wow! Chuckle]
[Brandon] Writing Excuses will be back for a couple more episodes this season before we introduce our next season. But this is our last time with Wesley and Mary Anne, so, thank you guys again.
[Mary] Thank you. [Inaudible]
[Mary Anne] Thanks for having us.
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2017/12/10/12-50-form-and-function/
Key points: Different media may change how you tell a story. For example, keyboards, typewriters, longhand, and quill pen, all impose their own rhythms and pauses while writing. What happens when you write flash fiction on your business cards? Slam poetry, with strong audience participation, reinforces repetition, rhythm, and other tools in a way that writing on a page does not. Audiobooks versus the text! Although WhisperSync imposes limits for those books. Graphic novels and audiobooks. Converting short stories into TV episodes, how do you dramatize the internal struggles? Often movies and stories are different, due to adaptation. Hypertext may be a way to experiment with taking the linearity out of the narrative experience.
Special bonus! Why do you love telling stories? It allows me to tilt the world on its side and see what's underneath, and the act of communicating that understanding makes me a better person. It allows me to be somebody I know I can't be in real life. I can be the hero, I can become a better person. Stories let me explore taboos, let me process things and say things that I can't any other way. Stories are the closest I can get to magic in real life. I can imagine something, and engage in telepathy with my readers!
[Mary] So, since we've been playing with Mary Anne and Wesley, and it's the end of the year and things are sometimes kind of busy, we thought that this homework we would give you is a little bit of play. We're going to ask you to just play Exquisite Corpse. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, write the first line of a story. Hand that first line to someone, ask them to illustrate it. Then, they will fold the… Your first line back, and hand just the illustration to someone else, who will then describe what is happening. Then that illustration gets folded back, and the new first line goes to someone else in your circle of friends or family. Let that create this strange, strange interactive storytelling that is completely nonlinear.
[Mary Anne] Writers think this is a really fun party game. Actually, it's great to do with kids.
[Wesley] Or drunk.
[Brandon] Anyway. We are running out of time. But there's a couple of things I want to do before we go. The first is to give a special thank you to Mary Anne and Wesley.
[Mary Anne] Awww.
[Wesley] Yay.
[Mary Anne] Yay.
[Brandon] You guys have been great this year. We have loved having you. We want to thank our listeners, specifically those who supported us on Patreon. Because we were able to afford doing this. We're actually paying our cohosts now.
[Yay]
[Brandon] We are able to pay for flights and things like this.
[Mary] And our engineer.
[Brandon] And our engineer. Specifically because you guys directly support us. And we are beholden to no advertisers, specifically because you guys support us. So check out the Patreon. We do give some cool little bonuses on the Patreon. But mostly, the bonus comes in the form of being able to do things like this.
[Brandon] I thought we might close out this year with the Chicago team by returning to the beginning, as is a great storytelling archetype. We began with first person narratives, so I've asked each of them to think about a little first-person narrative… Doesn't have to be long… Of why they love telling stories, spoken in the first person. Mary, will you take first stab at this?
[Mary] Absolutely. So, I love telling stories, specifically science fiction and fantasy, because it allows me to take the world that I live in and tilted to its side in a way that makes it easier for me to see the kind of interconnected tissue. It helps me understand the world more, but it also… The act of attempting to communicate my understanding to other people, I think makes me, as a writer… Not just as a writer, but as a person, a richer and more aware person. I love that connection between story and new person.
[Brandon] Awesome. Wesley?
[Wesley] Well, I love telling stories because it allows me to be somebody that I know I can't in real life. So, not only am I smart and witty and a kung fu master and a secret agent, I…
[Mary] That's in real life?
[Mary Anne] Hmmm…
[Wesley] I'm actually not, in real life. But, not only can I do these things, I'm allowed to really explore myself, and see who I can be, how I can be not only more… Oh, man. Not only can I be more… I guess…
[Brandon] Articulate?
[Wesley] Articulate. I'm sorry.
[Laughter]
[Wesley] [garbled] I can be the hero I want to be. I can be the self improvement that I want to be. Really, it… What I do in my stories affects how I am in real life. So really, for example, my debut novel, Lives of Tao, is really how I look at self improvement. Because of my stories, I became a better person in real life.
[Mary Anne] I love telling stories because they let me explore things that are taboo to say and to talk about in nonfiction or over the dinner table. So when I first started writing, I was writing about sex. Sex was a huge area of conflict in my life. My parents had had arranged marriage, they expected the same for me. They certainly did not want me to date. I was dating. We were fighting about it. All of that emotion and frustration went into my fiction. It let me process things and say things that I couldn't find a way to say otherwise. That sort of evolved into writing about race and ethnicity, and war and parenting. So anytime I am feeling very stuck, I tend to turn to fiction to figure out what it is I really want to say.
[Brandon] I love telling stories because it's the closest I can get to magic in real life. I can imagine something, and then put it on paper. Someone else, who doesn't speak my language, across the world, can read this and imagine the same thing. I have just engaged in telepathy. Right? We are reading each other's minds in this kind of weird way, that if you think about it is just kind of bizarre and cool and magical, to use the phrase. So, that's part of why I love stories. I also love stories because they let me hang out with people like you guys.
[Awww, Wow! Chuckle]
[Brandon] Writing Excuses will be back for a couple more episodes this season before we introduce our next season. But this is our last time with Wesley and Mary Anne, so, thank you guys again.
[Mary] Thank you. [Inaudible]
[Mary Anne] Thanks for having us.
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.