10 points:
Continue reading “how to write a short story – Kurt Vonnegut”
Tag: good advice
On mental morphology
In the Czech Surrealist tradition, “morphologie mentale” is applied to the meshing of subjective experience with an external topography, so that particular external landmarks (such as houses, staircases, or trees) are integrated into one’s psyche, and affect its formation in the same way that certain vital experiences can.
“…human consciousness is not so much determined by various childhood deprivations and traumas, but rather by the landscape in which a person has lived and the objects that they might have touched. Many years ago, the Surrealists even tried, with the help of questionnaires, to prove that the way a landscape is formed, the number of corners a house has and how crookedly a tree grows outside the window, have as much effect on the psyche as the upbringing. The Surrealists called this imprint of the external (a collection of measurable quantity, dimensions, tone and colour) onto the spiritual microcosm of a…
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Genius Loci (Cílek) p.2 /p.1
Bees of the Invisible – Awakening of a Place (Part 2)
By Václav Cílek
That time under Silbury I begun (for myself only) to compose the ‘pilgrim’s rules’. I finished them two years later amongst the Elbe sandstone, then forgot. Here they are – and they do not want to be taken too seriously, because the essence of a place, just as a human being and their essence, cannot be fitted into a single schemata.
The Rule of Home
A person is at home in a landscape, some people can encompass two or three landscapes, but no more. A small landmark of a place where we feel at home is more important than a more significant landmark of a different landscape. But despite that, we need to travel abroad – for comparison, for the recognition of the smallness of home, and the realisation of where we belong.
The Rule of…
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Akira Kurosawa
Action, drama, composition
When the story hits the wall…
Fellow writers, read this simple solution. Eureka! This happens to me a lot! Chuck Wendig is a genius.
From Slush Pile to Editor’s Desk: Build Urgency From the Beginning
Four Literary Questions
This question was posed for me by a reader on my Goodreads page. For me, the best questions are the ones that make me think more deeply about the issues involved. This was a good one:
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“What makes a great story/book? There are so many writers out there, but only a few get any acclaim, and some of the best posthumously. It is a herd mentality that snowballs into popularity?”
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The questioner is actually asking four separate questions here.
1. What makes a great story?
2. What makes a great book?
3. Why do only a few books get acclaim?
4. Is it a herd mentality that snowballs a book into popularity.
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I answered them in order–but Number 2 is the one that interests me most.
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1. A great story is one which satisfies the question it raises in the beginning. It can be a…
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THE STORY HIVE 