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Home > Fiction > Blog Fiction > Glimmers

Glimmers

December 14, 2010 By Mark 2 Comments

One of the things I’m still learning as a writer is how important it is to start writing so there’s something to react to and refine and revise. I’m not afflicted with perfectionism — at least not the paralyzing kind — and for that I’ll be eternally thankful. At times I do tend to think things through too much, past the point at which I should start implementing or prototyping or laying down a first draft.

In terms of blog fiction and writing a character blog, I had my own conception of what that would be like as a task, and how I could best implement that goal in terms of technique. And so far I can’t say that I’ve been too far off in a material way. What has transpired that I didn’t predict is that from time to time I’ll write something — maybe just a sentence — that suddenly springs to life for me. I can’t predict these moments, I can’t even harness them yet, but I sense them, and that’s making me want to continue the experiment.

If I can say anything useful to other authors it’s that a fiction blog is first and foremost still a fictional work, and there’s no reason not to push that aspect of the work as far as possible. I’m working with a character and a fictional world that relates closely to the real world, and in that there are some constraints. But I can also see now that I’m not pushing hard enough as an author. And that’s something I wouldn’t (and couldn’t) have predicted.

To be clear, I don’t mean that I should be throwing more drama or plot points at my characters or at the reader. I’m not trying to sucker an audience with cliffhanger antics, and I don’t want Neil’s blog to turn into a soap opera. I’m talking about authority and force: the imposition of authorial power on the text itself. I think I should be doing more of that, at least to see if it works or not.

Filed Under: Blog Fiction Tagged With: blogs, character, content, Fiction, point of view, voice

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Comments

  1. Brent Robison says

    December 15, 2010 at 9:46 pm

    I’m with you on pushing the fictional aspect of the work further, and not into melodrama. “I’m talking about authority and force: the imposition of authorial power on the text itself.” — Yes!

    I sense I richly imagined backstory for Neil, and would love to see him express more of the emotional power lurking there. Looking forward to seeing where he goes next!

    Reply
    • Mark Barrett says

      December 16, 2010 at 4:06 pm

      There’s more to Neil, of course. I’m not sure how it comes out, or even if it all does. I keep thinking about how bloggers (and diarists/journal writers before them) self-edit, and how that’s a much bigger part of the whole personal-disclosure business than most people realize. How to show that? Well, there’s the rub…

      More to come. šŸ™‚

      Reply

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