Am I letting Stephen King's 'On Writing' book influence my approach to writing? Yes. That's because he makes perfect sense. Ever since reading his book and little by little learning to let go of the helping hand of 'plot', my stories have grown. 'Project Aurora' was mostly plotted, but I broke away loads of times from my plan because that's where the characters wanted to go. The third part of the story wasn't plotted and it's far better than anything I could have planned for. Problem is, when I design settings, I tend to get stuck in the lore side instead of writing the damn thing. My urban fantasy idea I'll write (one hopes) next year has got plenty of lore, so much that I don't know what the story really is. Planning worlds is great fun, but they eventually sound artificial to me when I design them for too long and then I grow bored. I don't know what the ACTUAL rules are, if there are any, but I'd prefer to just write the story instead of wondering what year would work best for a certain event. I don't want to bore readers with back story when there's a story in front of them worth telling. I prefer to explore small worlds in fiction than large ones. Maybe that's because there's less chance of writing a sequel and I don't do well with sequels, but anyway. Learning about focused stories for me says more about a larger world than cramming too much in a story. Then again, you don't want your world to feel empty either. It's a tricky balance.
Breed, people, breed!
Songs of the Week:
- 'With Eyes Wide Open' by In Flames
- 'Siren Charms' by In Flames
- 'Dead Eyes' by In Flames
- 'The Chase' by In Flames
- 'Filtered Truth' by In Flames
- 'Paralyzed' by In Flames
- 'We're Not Alone' by Virtual Riot (The Machinist Remix)
- 'Hidden' by Skrux ft. Mona Moua
- 'Sliver' by Rise Against
- 'I Don't Want to Be Here Anymore' by Rise Against
- 'Too Long, Johnny' by Hugh Laurie
- 'Gimme Something Good' by Ryan Adams