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From: DEBORAH CHURCHMAN <CHURCHMAN>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:18:24 -0400
Seeing nonlinear narration as being the way a story comes to an author is a really interesting idea. I've always divided the world of novelists roughly into two camps--storytellers and character writers. The storytellers come up with these great plots and then try to figure out what kinds of characters would fit them; the character writers come up with this great set of characters and try to figure out what would happen when you put them together. There are other kinds of novelists, of course-?rbara Kingsolver says she starts with a question, e.g. Why does one family produce such wildly different offspring? or What kind of person would go off and give themselves to a cause, to the point of endangering his/her own life, if the cause didn't directly affect themselves, their family, or their community? Then she puts together a plot and characters that would answer the question. I know mystery writers who start with the scene in the drawing room in which someone explains a complex murder, then they work their way backwards, planting clues and red herrings. My experience is that I start with a set of characters and how I want them to change, and start writing; by the end of the book, the characters have changed significantly from the way I first imagined them, the plot has veered wildly, and I have to start over again to make the beginning match the end.
None of these techniques, I notice, are linear--linear seems to be what we aim for, not what we start with. It's a kind of mold we impose on the elements of a story.
Debby
Received on Tue 13 Oct 1998 08:18:24 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:18:24 -0400
Seeing nonlinear narration as being the way a story comes to an author is a really interesting idea. I've always divided the world of novelists roughly into two camps--storytellers and character writers. The storytellers come up with these great plots and then try to figure out what kinds of characters would fit them; the character writers come up with this great set of characters and try to figure out what would happen when you put them together. There are other kinds of novelists, of course-?rbara Kingsolver says she starts with a question, e.g. Why does one family produce such wildly different offspring? or What kind of person would go off and give themselves to a cause, to the point of endangering his/her own life, if the cause didn't directly affect themselves, their family, or their community? Then she puts together a plot and characters that would answer the question. I know mystery writers who start with the scene in the drawing room in which someone explains a complex murder, then they work their way backwards, planting clues and red herrings. My experience is that I start with a set of characters and how I want them to change, and start writing; by the end of the book, the characters have changed significantly from the way I first imagined them, the plot has veered wildly, and I have to start over again to make the beginning match the end.
None of these techniques, I notice, are linear--linear seems to be what we aim for, not what we start with. It's a kind of mold we impose on the elements of a story.
Debby
Received on Tue 13 Oct 1998 08:18:24 AM CDT
