81–89 of 89 posts
Only prejudice, and a trick of the Mercator projection, prevents us from recognizing the enormity of the African continent.
Then it launches into a modern high-tech version of Heart of Darkness.
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This sounds fun! Can you please reply with the name of the game?
I believe the game they are referring to is Dixit. It is a great way to share in each other’s creativity. The game’s scoring incentives keep the story telling from being gamed in a way that diminishes the fun. Similar games, where you lobby others with creativity, are: Snake Oil. When I’m not gaming, I love defining customer needs and determining benefits in the sales process. Snake Oil is a light game that lets me p…
Rory’s Story Cubes we played a few times but couldn't quite feel like it was a game enough. The kids will sometimes tell a quick story, but it doesn't last more more than five minutes.
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reminded me of this great piece of writing advice from Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder: " I do have a trick that makes things easier for me. Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” The…
I use this technique for my work writing, I first read about it as "vomit draft". When you give yourself permission to write a truly vomitous first draft, man it's easier. Even if you completely rewrite it, it's a fantastic way to get your thoughts in order.
Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice Gabriel Garcia Marquez's opening line from One Hundred years of Solitude was enough for me to pick up the book. Personally, I feel that this is one of the best openings of any book I've read.
Maybe it is from all the years I have spent trying to trim my overly verbose writing, but "was to remember" grates on me as a needlessly inflated way of saying "remembered."
My extended family owns an old country house with loads of fiction books, a fair bit of it genre fiction from the 50s and 60s. We have a great game that we play when we go up there with friends, a bit like the Dictionary game / Balderdash . Everyone peruses the shelves a picks out a promising book. Then, one round at a time, someone gives the title of their book, reads the back, and maybe reads a few choice paragraph…
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reminded me of this great piece of writing advice from Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder: " I do have a trick that makes things easier for me. Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” The…
I use this technique for my work writing, I first read about it as "vomit draft". When you give yourself permission to write a truly vomitous first draft, man it's easier. Even if you completely rewrite it, it's a fantastic way to get your thoughts in order.
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It's kinda amusing that this particular opening line is considered terrible in English literary tradition. I would argue that it's the rest of the sentence that makes it a terrible opening — it keeps going on about the weather while most people presumably would rather start reading about the main character and his actions at this point already, — but the line as quoted is perfectly fine on its own.
Well, I don't know many stormy nights that are not dark... I am not a writer but usually, the idea is to limit repetition, especially in the opening line.
You can convey the same feeling in a more effective way, but I don't think it's awful.
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The idea that an author would just sit down and write a novel starting from the first line seems alien. Like a film not getting made because the director obsesses over the opening shot. Seems like a detail that should fall into place only once much of the groundwork has been laid.
Serial fiction has always been a thing. Most novels 150 years ago were written for magazines. Only in the past century did the write a novel as a complete book really take off. Even then though, authors often wrote trilogies where you wrote a third at a time. (publishers like this because people hooked on the first book at the library or discount store would buy the second and third at full price when it came out). N…
My wife has been writing in preparation for it, already has three chapters written and intends to have at least six when she launches. I've helped her come up with some ideas for it, and been her sounding board.
I was intending to write for it myself but I haven't quite landed on an idea I think could work in serialized form and I feel compelled to write yet.
A fabulous first line, from The Crow Road by Iain Banks. Doubly good for me since a friend asked me for a recommendation for an interesting read, and I later discovered that he had sent it, unread, to his grandmother for her birthday.