I figured it was time I got back into writing creatively so last night I didn't write a blog post. I didn't do any of my spreadsheets.
Instead I began a new work in progress.
I have a Title
I have an opening paragraph
I know how it ends, I even know how the twist at the end works
But I have no idea how to do the bit between the first paragraph and the end.
It is about a young girl but I don't know whether to write it about her but aimed at an older audience or whether to aim it at young girls. If the latter then I have to be c
areful not to be too clever in the vocabulary and grammar that I use.
does anyone have any thoughts.
Instead I began a new work in progress.
I have a Title
I have an opening paragraph
I know how it ends, I even know how the twist at the end works
But I have no idea how to do the bit between the first paragraph and the end.
It is about a young girl but I don't know whether to write it about her but aimed at an older audience or whether to aim it at young girls. If the latter then I have to be c
areful not to be too clever in the vocabulary and grammar that I use.does anyone have any thoughts.
3 comments:
Well, don't be too clever with vocabulary and grammar, but don't simplify them either. There is far too much dumbing-down these days.
Aim for the older audience, but bear in mind that the universal appeal will lie not in the type of language so much as the universality of the emotions and situations. Every grown woman was once a girl, and can relive girlhood in your book, in someone else's eyes. Some men will be interested to gain insight into what they have only seen from the outside.
My other thought would be never mind too much about the twist at the end. Be that girl and let the plot unfold by itself. When it does, then prune every sentence and paragraph to have relevance to the story: the unfolding of this unique girl's life according to the circumstances she finds herself in and her inner necessities.
I never wrote fiction in my life, but like telling others how to do it! Especially what I hate is that horrible modern fashion of bombarding the reader with detail from the first paragraph, as if the detail matters. But then I love Conrad and hate Dickens.
What matters is that the reader's own imagination shall be allowed to take flight on its own and not weighted down by the author's. Just remember that the reader and not the author creates the story.
i agree with vincent on this - no dumbing down. many young girls have quite an extensive vocab - and grammar is grammar, unless you have a flair for the kind of patois my teenage son speaks?
Yeah no need to dumb things down, even as a teenager I enjoyed good writing. Yes I took different things from it than I do now but I still read a lot and enjoyed it.
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