Form: Short Note

Nov 1, 2019, 4:02 PM 1) If you can’t write the dialog you haven’t observed the category of people your character is a proxy for in similar circumstances. Go study people instead of reading books about it. Do your research. 2) If you can’t write the scene, you can’t role play your characters init, because you haven’t studied people like your characters. Most of the time your characters are talking (crap) is because you’re actually writing to yourself to convince yourself, because your scenes and your characters aren’t acting rationally in context, in furtherance of the plot, because you can’t empathize with them. (Most people write lower middle class characters in middle class conditions, with upper middle class resources, because that’s all the people they know, the contexts they find attractive, and the wealth making the condition possible. The classes think, speak, act very differently.) Do your research. 3) Dramatic tension is only possible for people who share concerns that would provide them with tension. What constitutes tension for gender, class and age varies. Status and self image is important at the bottom, wealth as you rise, but insults mean nothing, and power at the top because money is plentiful – but power is given to leaders they don’t ‘have’ it. It’s all loyalty alliances and opportunity with similar people who merely ‘shop’ for opportunities. Do your research. 4) Leave open mystery, have the characters react, rather than explain, and use mystery (the unknown, uncertainty)…. Do your research. If you did your research the story will come out of you. If you think you have ‘talent’ then you have failed before you put prose to print.

Nov 1, 2019, 4:02 PM 1) If you can’t write the dialog you haven’t observed the category of people your character is a proxy for in similar circumstances. Go study people instead of reading books about it. Do your research. 2) If you can’t write the scene, you can’t role play your characters init, because you haven’t studied people like your characters. Most of the time your characters are talking (crap) is because you’re actually writing to yourself to convince yourself, because your scenes and your characters aren’t acting rationally in context, in furtherance of the plot, because you can’t empathize with them. (Most people write lower middle class characters in middle class conditions, with upper middle class resources, because that’s all the people they know, the contexts they find attractive, and the wealth making the condition possible. The classes think, speak, act very differently.) Do your research. 3) Dramatic tension is only possible for people who share concerns that would provide them with tension. What constitutes tension for gender, class and age varies. Status and self image is important at the bottom, wealth as you rise, but insults mean nothing, and power at the top because money is plentiful – but power is given to leaders they don’t ‘have’ it. It’s all loyalty alliances and opportunity with similar people who merely ‘shop’ for opportunities. Do your research. 4) Leave open mystery, have the characters react, rather than explain, and use mystery (the unknown, uncertainty)…. Do your research. If you did your research the story will come out of you. If you think you have ‘talent’ then you have failed before you put prose to print.