What are some patterns in your writing?
I've written a few tales on the dangers of apathy and doing nothing.
Almost every story i've written lately is from the point of view of a female. I just find them more interesting and fun to write.
I've always been intrigued by the concept of an adultless society, kind of like Lord of the Flies but expanded. If i write about teenagers or kids, i keep adults out of it or i keep them in the background somewhere.
Revenge always makes great fodder for a story. I think i've written one too many revenge tales.
A world inside someone's head that's bigger than the outside world. Kind of like Dexter. How you'll have this long internal dialogue, then a short reply or comment from the character. Like they're keeping their true intelligence and true reality hidden.
Guns. It takes a lot of creative effort on my part to have a story where no one gets shot. Or killed, actually.
Good topic.
I think I write too much about pregnancy in one way or another. My last story, I had to struggle not to make it about a pregnancy. And that's probably my own laziness as a writer and leaning on "what I know".
In my fiction I can see a tendency to write stories set in a world full of struggle rather than stories about struggles which interrupt otherwise pleasant and peaceful lives.
Great topic.
I've definitely written a handful of stories about someone who has a job but is looking to move on, which SHOCKER, is where I'm at in my life.
Kind of reminds me when I used to do a lot more songwriting. I had a period where I was writing these badass death folk ballads and the such. Then I went through a pretty bad breakup. Then all I could write were these really introspective love/hate relationship/breakup songs (I even wrote one called, "I'm a Sensitive Bitch" because I was sick of myself). Now I'm kind of getting back into the swing of songs that don't revolve around that time period.
I think you kind of write around a lot of where you're at. At least for me.
I try and hide where i'm at by symbolizing it with something or exaggerating it so people won't think i'm just writing to pacify myself or vent about something when really, that's all i'm doing.
I've had it brought to my attention on a number of different occasions that I write about the elderly far more than anything else. I can't exactly deny it, but I like to think that I have other characters inside my head. As far as the overarching concepts in the vast majority of my stories, poems and novels-yet-to-be, I think the most attractive and repeated theme for me has been/is/will be the ambiguities of what constitutes a good or bad man, and those lives where there is no cosmic justice (the whole bad things happening to good people issue). I like shedding light on situations and characters where there is no hope, no redemption, no happy ending other than the end of suffering, yet the main character keeps going because if he doesn't he might as well kill himself right then and there.
That's another theme I see in my work a lot. Suicide. It fascinates me the myriad choices and paths one makes and takes that all bring them to that moment, and what might happen next.
I try and hide where i'm at by symbolizing it with something or exaggerating it so people won't think i'm just writing to pacify myself or vent about something when really, that's all i'm doing.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that, unless you fail. Absolutely, one-hundred-percent-fictive stories (if such things are possible—which I doubt) are not automatically better or more worthy than semi-autobiographical or experience-based writing. (Then again, since I doubt such a thing is possible, were a story to be proven to be completely and utterly derived from imagination, with no meta-contextual reference whatsoever to reality, I'd be impressed.)
I write a lot about death, either from the perspective of the dying or from the survivors dealing with it (family, friends, etc.) Something that comes up in my writing that I usually have a lot of fun with is religious and/or historical references that are turned on their heads.
Sex and feminism usually ties into every story I write. I realize I'm a bit of a one-trick pony and that I stick to a specific format, but I at least like to think that I've got a knack for adding a little bit of panache to the fictional sex scene.
I really like writing about sour marriages, situations where couples don't interact the way they should. I like exploring girlhood insecurities and overbearing masculinit and self-destructive tendencies.
I think you kind of write around a lot of where you're at. At least for me.
I definitely agree with you, Otis. Although for me, I take where I'm at and write about the reverse. Being happily married and working to pay the bills does not for an interesting life make. It's a happy life, but I tend to live my excitement through my writing because I'm really not much of a party girl. I'll take my teen angst experiences and try to learn about some of the hardships other people go through. There's a bit of me in every story I write. It's just creative licensing with your own life, is what writing is.
Life and death, loved ones returning from the dead, inevitability, the power of imagination and belief, the failings of skepticism and human tenacity, desolation of civilization and the loneliness of isolation, children becoming adults, adults regaining some of the purity of childhood, the hero complex, the separation of social classes, dystopias, apocalypses. Zombies. I write about zombies a lot. I love their allegoric potential. In some of my more recent stories, I've used zombification as allegories for indecision and stagnation as well as neglect and the passage of time.
Hmmm...that all makes my writing sound really abstract.
Mostly I write about death and love and heartbreak and relationships. I like to explore the emotions created by these events. My narrator is often an underdog and usually there is a mix of emotion and satire in my stories because I like to make you laugh before I pull it all away from you.
LOVE that last line of yours, Em.
I love stories where you're feeling one emotion and they make you feel another one at the same time. I don't think i've accomplished that yet.
Being funny. I can't do that. Mostly because I'm not funny in general. But I haven't managed to figure out how to give a line and make it seem natural and genuinely funny.
I think the key - and take this with three and a half tons of salt - is to let what makes you laugh seep into your writing. There are many different types of humor, as many as there are people, I imagine. So, starting with what you find funny, and just going on from there, with that specific tone in your mind as you write, I imagine the humor will grow naturally, like a seed that wasn't planted by anyone but sprouted nonetheless right where it hit fertile soil when the wind died down.
So, what makes you laugh, Avery?
NOTHING!
You're probably right. And I know another writer who just likes to add things he thinks are funny into his work, and he's usually pretty happy with what he writes when he does that. And it's usually pretty funny.
Are you serious???
I could've sworn you were laughing at something in that recording you did a long time ago on the thread about recording your voice reading something. I don't remember much from it, but I think you were laughing about your son being a Spiderman or Batman fanboy, or something like that.
Surely there is something that makes you laugh. But, really, I suppose humor isn't for everyone. Non-Existent God knows I am not too successful at writing humor even though I'm a huge fan of it. I'm shocked, though, that you couldn't name even one thing that makes you laugh. Parents gotta laugh to keep from going insane sometimes.
I write about shit that matters to me and should matter to you. Period.
I'm suddenly hanging onto every word drea writes.
Well, fuck me, because Beka and Drea summed my writing up.
I write about women and sex, usually from a feminist perspective, more than anything. When I'm given a prompt, I usually don't write about feminism, but the edits almost always work it in somehow. Every longer work I've ever conceived has always been about being a woman or what it means to be in love with a woman.
And I think that fucking matters and that everyone should care about it.
Grief. There's always some kind of mourning in my stories, whether it is mourning a person who has passed or mourning a past that wasn't what it could/should have been. Even my "funny" stories revolve around some major loss.
For me, I think the feminist aspect works its way into my writing because I'm a horrible debator and I'm terrible at explaining my beliefs straight-up. I tend to use examples when I explain things, so my stories are basically just extended examples of the way I feel about the world.
ie. All men are rapists.
All men are rapists.
In one way or another............
Sorry dudes. I just got buffaloed by one of you recently(AGAIN) and I'm still smarting so if that makes me a dick racist for awhile, please forgive me and my obliterated heart.
@Avery ~ that story you wrote a while ago about the wife cooking dinner for her cheating husband and he's paranoid she's poisoned it... I found that funny (especially in the build up to the end)
God, how did I forget to list God? Not in a religious way, though. I write about God from a skeptic point of view. Since I tend to write about terrible things, I think it's natural for people to search for reasons and who's responsible, and by extension, that leads to faith, fate, and the existence of a God.
@Em - I forgot about that one! Thanks!
You women and your fictions are funny. Ain't that right, fellas?
Fellas?
you and your Y chromosome can suck it, Otis.
lol
I wanted to post this song by The Fling called Cuz a Good Man's Hard to Find...but I couldn't find it. So i didn't.
Double post and stuff.
Regret. My characters either make terrible mistakes and then regret them or already made those mistakes and spend the story looking for redemption.
It's a great question, I'd never really looked at my own writing that way. Now that I think about it, it weirds me out that I go with regret and how much that says about me as a person.
Sorry dudes. I just got buffaloed by one of you recently(AGAIN) and I'm still smarting so if that makes me a dick racist for awhile, please forgive me and my obliterated heart.
It's cool, all women are manipulative teases, so I assume that you only feel that way because you want to manipulate someone. ;)
Or.... alternatively... hos and tricks, but I'll let Ben Folds elaborate on that.
People of all genders, backgrounds, and religious affiliattion suck.
@Nick
I try and follow the "have regrets you can live with" thing in life. It helps mitigate the "ahh fuck" factor. A little bit.
AND...Manipulative only applies to my writing. I am the straightest shooting motherfucker you'lll probably ever meet. Real time and online.
Enough about me though. For real.
People of all genders, backgrounds, and religious affiliattion suck.
YAY! Nihilist Fridays!
XX vs XY
- If you were to write these letters using only toothpicks, you'd need fewer toothpicks to write XY, making it both more economical and enviromentally sound.
- XY is how they refer to the graphic coordinate axis, and math is cool.
- XX is just a little redundant, don't you think?
- XY leads to Z, which is the one of the top 5 coolest letters. XX leads to nothing.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. And would you be interested in speaking at the next NO MA'AM (National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood) meeting?
One of my favorite themes, bros who do awesome things because they're bros and they can.
XX leads to nothing.
Disagree.
It always bugs me to read a story where a victim is obviously the writer's ex girlfriend or a girl who rejected him and he's just taking it out on the character. It's a pattern, all of the female characters in these stories are flat and unremarkable or they're strippers and prostitutes or just ugly characters. Then all of the males in the stories are the same hapless underdog who can't seem to get a break or something. I love femininist stories the most and i feel like most of my stories are written that way. I love all of my ex girlfriends, i'd never sully their images in a story just to make myself feel better.
If you were to write these letters using only toothpicks, you'd need fewer toothpicks to write XY
Actually, that isn't true. I count 4 toothpicks for each one. ...right?
Large bodies of water tend to seep into my writing. Mixed feelings of fascination and terror could be an explanation, but then that how I feel about most things in life, like food stands, the EU, and people.
Also youth. It always intrigues me. Young people are always up to more than we give them credit for.
Conley, I'd have to disagree with you on that. I'm a youth and I'm shallow as fuck.
You can tell by how often she fucking says the word "fuck".
Did... did you just respond to me in less than a minute? When my browser refreshed with my own post, yours was there too. You're fucking scary.
Also, fuck.
I wanted to post this song by The Fling called Cuz a Good Man's Hard to Find...but I couldn't find it. So i didn't.
Alternatively
I write about feminism too.
I feel really good about this chat.
I tend to have mythological creatures in the background as well.
Morphine is the shit. I'm lucky to live in the area where the sax player lives so I see him playing around a bunch. There's a square in Cambridge, "Mark Sandman Square."
I like exploring psychological states, the nature of reality, perception, suicide, detatchment, identity. I like playing with symbolism, since i'm into dreams. If there were any recurring themes it'd be self-destruction, detatchment, and misplaced anger, probably.
I write about cancer way too much. Or diseased people in general. In every story I've written someone either dies, is dying, or is already dead.
Other themes besides death and/ disease:
religion, faith, psychosis, supernatural shit, power of imagination,adolecence, puberty, the south, manual labor, social classes, the working man
@Renfield - that song was BA.
