read – Jaye Em Edgecliff

A Discussion of Story

From Steering the Craft:

Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Mariner and the Mutinous Crew

Ursula K. Le Guin

I define story as a narrative of events (external or psychological) which moves through time or implies the passage of time, and which involves change.

I define plot as a form of story which uses action as its mode usually in the form of conflict, and which closely and intricately connects one act to another, usually through a causal chain, ending in a climax.

Climax is one kind of pleasure; plot is one kind of story. A strong, shapely plot is a pleasure in itself. It can be reused generation after generation. It provides an armature for narrative that beginning writers may find invaluable.

But most serious modern fictions can’t be reduced to a plot, or retold without fatal loss except in their own words. The story is not in the plot but in the telling. It is the telling that moves.

Modernist manuals of writing often conflate story with conflict. This reductionism reflects a culture that inflates aggression and competition while cultivating ignorance of other behavioral options. No narrative of any complexity can be built on or reduced to a single element. Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. (continued here)

Storyville: Writing a Novel Without Plotting it Out (litreactor.com)
Tips for Storytelling in Learning (christytucker.wordpress.com)
Iron & Glass, the author’s journey (part 10) (ideastoworlds.wordpress.com)
The Fundamentals of Psychological Theories (criminologyjust.blogspot.com)
If You Know Anything About Climaxes, Please Help (insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com)

Ready or Not is a step closer to release.

I’m in the process of another proofreading pass. This one, sadly, is less a polish run and more of a revision/redraft/rewrite than when I’d don’t this for Love or Lust, but such is life. The importance of that distinction is that it means I’m that much more likely to need till June to release. With luck things will be swift and smooth enough that I’ll be done with this by March and able to give over to my editor for that last check for typos and grammar mistakes … if that’s the case we could see release by April or May. So, fingers are crossed.

I’ve written one, and may write other short stories that expand things from the final book. Still trying to decide if I ought to do that before or after putting the book out. Probably after, at least for the one written already, since it spoils a surprise.