writing experiment in style

[lobelia321]

My writing muscles have atrophied.

I have been writing a lot but not posting. Some days ago I posted my first quickie fic in ages and was rather buoyed up by it. Then I decided to send my next quickie fic to someone else to look over and discovered that I have a lot to learn, still. Some things to re-learn that I thought I had already learned, and other things to learn that I never managed to get under my belt properly.

It is sobering and humbling.

I could, of course, go away and write to myself and for myself only. But as I have found out, I am in need of posting. Writing without posting is too much like origfic. It has advantages (I do not expose myself) and disadvantages (it is so lonely, and maybe one doesn't learn from lonely). So I am going to take the risk, I think, and continue to post stuff, including stuff that is maybe not quite baked through yet. I will lj-cut, though, so as not to burden the unwary with my scribblings.

To free my mind from angst and what cupidsbow calls performance anxiety, I am going to start with some writing experiments. If anybody wants to join in...? I know that one of the things I never really got under my belt is plot structure but I'm going to go easy and start experimenting with style because plot structure requires a full-blown plot to structure. I'm adapting the Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau. I've done writing exercises like this before but haven't been able to find all of them in my Memories. Two of my previous efforts are here and here.


Writing task (invented by me): Person X enters an unknown location and is nervous.


I will make Person X be John Sheppard, not that it matters. And the unknown location be an underground chamber on another planet.




In the style of the 19th-century best-selling novel I am currently reading, Fabiola, or the Church of the Catacombs by Cardinal Frederick Wiseman, 1854
The seventh lunar period after the solar solstice on the world of Saragastra, otherwise known as Planet MX-178 P-5, is a glorious season. The sun has shed the heat of his fiercest season but retains his mellow splendour. Sweet are the rays he casts upon the briny feather trees of the slopes of Ice Mountain; he envelops the bays and coves of the southern seas in his autumnal splendour, the rocky outcrops reaching out their arms wide into the frothing foam of the surf. Rainbow fish and the lizard called eye-of-the-sky by the natives of this land, wallow in the shallows of the mud-covered beaches as the sun marches across the azure heavens, bending his divine steps ever along the path of the God of the Night. Pleasant are these last days before the great frost, as the breeze sweeps over the sandy wood groves and ruffles the papery leaves of the rich amber magasca shrubs.

It is to one of these groves that I must now guide my reader's eyes. Here, in the heat-soaked sands, we find a lonely traveller, bent upon some task of great urgency, to judge by his furrowed brows and swift steps. His build is of uncommon height, his gaze frank and manly, his bearing as of one used to listen and be listened to. His legs and bare arms are well-developed by exercise, and he wears the close-fitting leggings and elaborately-padded vest of a member of the armed forces of the world of Earth. A

While we have thus been noting him, the wayfarer has crossed the glade and come to a dark opening in the side of one of the sand hills. He bent down cautiously to inspect the door that is set into the mound. It is a door of ancient make, its hinges forged from iron and its handle of an intricate design. John, as we must now reveal our traveller's name to be, carefully manipulated the handle, and the door creaked open, spewing forth the dank vapours of an underground chamber.

John did not advance at once into the tunnel thus opened to him. He tested the threshold with his boot, then drew forth a small instrument from one of his pockets and pointed it at the gaping cavity. If we observe him closely, we may see the perspiration on the back of his neck.





Exclamation
Fuck! a door! what a find! who'd have thought! come on! go in! damn this sand! hello! an ancient door knob! well, I'll be! here we go, must open it! shit! won't open! yes! it will! here we go! into the lion's den! hush! a noise! no, just my heart, crap! in we go! not to worry! it'll be fine! sure! how dark! how dank! in I go! onwards and downwards!





No secondary clauses, present tense, no incomplete sentences
John walks in a straight line across the sand glade. He stops. There is the hill. There is the door in the hill. Where will it lead? John doesn't know. He takes out his life signs detector. The only life sign on the life sign detector is himself. He looks at the door. His neck sweats. The hinges creak. The door swings inwards. John peers into the underground tunnel. It smells dark. He doesn't like the smell. He doesn't like the silence inside. His first step falters. Then he plunges in.





First person point-of-view, subjective, homodiegetic narrator
(What is homodiegetic narration?)
I didn't like the look of the planet. I had a funny feeling about it as soon as I got through the stargate. Something wasn't right, I couldn't have said what, but I've developed an intuition for these things. Or maybe it's the gene, who knows? Maybe the Ancients had mutated, maybe they all had this sixth sense or whatever it is. Survival of the fittest and all.

The place I especially didn't like was that sand patch in the middle of those weird red shrubs. Come to think of it, the shrubs themselves had something odd about them. It was the way they smelled, and the way they waved those zigzaggy little leaves of theirs. Also, the colours were all wrong. Too golden, too molten, it was like having sunlight poured over your skin, literally.

And that door on the other side of the sand patch. I definitely didn't like that door. All right, it looked sort of Ancient but not quite. Again, I've developed a feeling for all things Ancient. It had a door knob of a kind I'd never seen before, not the usual hand-activated plate. This was a real knob. Or rather, more of a handle.

I pushed it down, like you would a door handle on Earth. Nothing happened. I tugged at it, I twisted it, I jiggled it a little, and then, bingo. The door swung open.

Inside, there was a tunnel. It was dark as pitch, no more of this molten light, not in there. An old smell came out of it, the smell of a place that hadn't been exposed to the fresh air for years, decades, maybe even centuries. It was the smell of a forgotten place. It was the smell of fear because it made the back of my neck break out in a thousand drops of sweat.

Now that's a sure sign. Once my neck starts sweating, I just know there's going to be trouble.





txt
Am on MX-178 P-5. About 2 go in undergr tunnel. Shit scared.





One sentence
Bathed by the mellow light of what on Earth would have passed for late autumn in Massachusetts, John Sheppard, having advanced across the grove with caution and not stopped until he had reached the other side where, ominous in the sandy hillside, a wooden door that was hung on rusted hinges and adorned with an elaborately worked handle, presented its impassive face to the sleepy hollow, stood contemplatively before trying out the handle, once, twice, thrice until it gave under his tentative fingers, and then adjusted his gaze to the dark shadows inside, trying to ignore the rapidly cooling beads of perspiration on his nape but, fear pushed to the back of his mind in a mental motion smooth with use, forged on ahead, not knowing what lay in the depths of this alien planet, in the bellies of its soil, at the navel of its evil heart.





Another sentence
John Sheppard walked up to the door in the hillside and, after having moved the handle around in various ways, managed to open the door and peer in fear into the dark underground tunnel behind.





Second-person point of view, homodiegetic narrator, pov of the door
How long had it been that she had seen a human? Too long. The last time was when she was made, indeed. She still remembered the calloused hands of the blacksmith who fitted her with the hinges and who caressed the ornate handle on her breast before tightening the final screws. After that, the ceremonies, the chanting, the dancing, the anointing with oil.

And then, nothing.

Nothing except the sun moving by overhead, ice melting into grasses, flowers bending in the wind, red blossoms tumbling into winter again. Once, a little lizard had snuggled up to her for a few hours, its belly soft and its breathing very fast against her wood.

Behind her, always the inexorable dark.

And then, the human.

He was quite tall, taller than she remembered humans being. He had very little hair, and what he had, grew only on his head. The stuffs hanging off his person looked different from what she remembered but he was human enough. When he came up close, he smelled human, and when he put his hands on her, the timbers shivered under his calloused skin.

He caressed her handle, just as the blacksmith had done so many moonshines ago. He stroked, he smoothed, he rubbed with practised fingers. And then she groaned and opened up for him.

It was only when the chasm yawned its blackness into the sunny glade, that she sensed the fear of the human. 'Don't go,' she wanted to say but she had no speech.





Precision
At 0800 hours, galactic meantime, on the 31st of the cosmic month of September, Major John Sheppard of the Stargate Atlantis mission, stationed in the Pegasus Galaxy of the Known Universe, stepped into the sandy glade that is situated 25.72 kilometres from the south shore of the Eastern continent of the planet MX-178 P-5 (called 'Saragastra' in the Saragan language, 'Charag' in the dialect of the Eastern Saragan, and 'Lizard Lid' in the language of the Last of the Athosians).

Major Sheppard took 134 steps across the glade which has a circumference of 20.34 metres and whose sand density is 56 to the millimetre. It took him 3 minutes and 22 seconds to cross the glade. He reached the door on the other side; this door is 1 metre 56 centimetres in height, 98 centimetres in width, attached with two metal-block dual iron hinges on its left and fitted with an iron door handle, shaped in the form of a Saragan bird of prey. It sports no key hole. It is made of feather tree wood, with three uprights latched together with 3-centimetre dowels.

The pulse rate of Major Sheppard was 110. The moisture content of a five-centimetre patch between his collar and hair on the back of his neck was 800. The pupils of Major Sheppard dilated by one fifth after the door opened. The light differential between the tunnel on the other side of the door and the surface of the sandy grove was 5.089.





Nouns
Planet. Glade. Sand. Hill. Door.

Man. Name: John. Surname: Sheppard. Rank: Major.

Handle. Activation procedure. Human factor. Fear. Nape. Sweat.

Darkness.

----

(This page: http://lobelia321.livejournal.com/430541.html)

Comments

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

it is so lonely, and maybe one doesn't learn from lonely
*disagrees, as she would do*

the writing exercises sound fun.

hee, i am sitting here writing plot notes for my second atrocious novel (not faffing on lj, honest).

b.x :D

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*g* We have a different attitude to these things as we discovered the last time this came up! I was thinking about your writing-crap today, actually, and realising that it is not for me. I have a need to post. I need to expose myself. I can go only so far writing for myself; I need fb or the possibility of fb to spur myself on.

I probably shouldn't write 'one doesn't learn from lonely', but 'I learn only so much from lonely'. I find I need the outside view to look something over. I lose sight of whether I'm communicating what I want to communicate. I grow self-indulgent. I think there is a difference between the kind of thing I enjoy writing and the kind of think others enjoy reading, and I want to find the overlap region.

I know, though, that this is not something you worry about so much! :-)

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

heh, don't get me wrong, much of the time i am *desperate* to show people what i have been working on...last night i wrote a few fairly dull paragraphs of novel no. 2, and had to restrain myself from posting them. because, hey! whoo! new novel! shiny new characters! look at them doing stuff!! - but this really isn't good for me (or anyone else, probably).

would you feel differently if you were writing origfic? perhaps this is just a fundamental difference in expectations between writing origific/fanfic.

b.x :D

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting question. The difference between origfic and fanfic. I have not been writing origfic for ages except until a few weeks ago when I started posting those snippets from a novel I was working on in the late 1980s (!) and then abandoned when I abandoned Germany and my German language got too rusty. The thing is I am familiar with the tapeworm-like, never-ending mode of writing fic -- this is what I used to do with that German novel and this is what I am now doing with HP fic. It is exactly the same. The first thing I ever finished was fanfic that I posted. It felt fantastic! So my suspicion is that, at least as far as this aspect is concerned, there is for me no difference between origfic and fanfic.

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

The first thing I ever finished was fanfic that I posted
ahaha, yes, me too. because, really, there's no greater incentive to write than a ready-made audience who will eagerly pounce on something halfway decent. if you can string a sentence together, this is extremely tempting.

b.x :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!! Only I didn't know this at the time. I believed they were applauding my superior writerly genius.

And now I'm hooked.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i love exercises in style and that was really, really cool!!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm not sure I knew you when I did my previous batch but I'm feeling in need of these again. They were amazingly therapeutic to write, and some of them lots of fun, too. But it made me remember what comes easily to me and what doesn't, as some of them I did not find that enjoyable and/or easy to write, so it was good as self-diagnosis. It would be even better if someone else told me what to do because I did veer towards some type of writing more than others, so I didn't, e.g., choose Queneau's 'litotes', *g*.

Thanks for reading them!

[sonicbookmark.livejournal.com]

I wrote you almost crack!porn!!! Go read it!!!

Those exercises are great. Both funny and sad. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

omg, this reply is two days old! I thought I had replied to it! Thank you, sweetie! It's so interesting that you find them 'funny' and 'sad' where all the time I was just thinking 'what word to choose for this style'. I love how writing works.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Really enjoyed reading these - I kept wanting to make icons with things like "his gaze frank and manly" or "About 2 go in undergr tunnel. Shit scared." on them. My fave was the door pov - door/John otp 4eva!!! :) Very impressed by the precision one - I must admit this is the one that makes my heart sink...

Here's my first effort:

In the style of a 19th-century novel (seeing as I haven’t read the one you specify)

It was an unusually balmy autumn afternoon in the ancient city of Atlantis that found Doctor Rodney McKay wending his unhappy way to the office of one Doctor Katherine Heightmeyer. It was not, he reasoned, that he had, thus far, found her to be incompetent – why, no! No one could never have accused him of ever having had such a thought cross his (unusually brilliant) mind! She was, after all, one of the best in her field. Ah. And therein lay the rub. For Doctor Heightmeyer’s field was not one in which Doctor McKay – yes, it must be admitted – had any confidence whatsoever. He had, on one memorable occasion, been heard to describe it as, "A pile of steaming horseshit about as closely allied to science as, oh, I don’t know, say maypole dancing!" It should be noted, however, that Doctor McKay had partaken of a not insignificant quantity of semi-legal alcohol when he made this statement, so perhaps we should be kind, and not think too badly of him.

At this precise moment, however, Doctor McKay was not feeling very much in the mood for grand pronouncements, which was really quite out of the ordinary for this notoriously verbose (some might even say garrulous) gentleman. On the contrary, his mouth was firmly shut and set in a grim line as he marched resolutely down the long hallway. His shoulders were squared, his back straight. His fate, it seemed, was inarguable: the appointment had been made, and must now be kept. When he reached Doctor Heightmeyer’s door, he stopped, and took a moment to compose himself. He rearranged and smoothed his clothing, lifted his chin, and, reassuring himself with a little "Hm," uttered just under his breath, he raised his hand and knocked.

***

There. My first posted bit of SGA fic. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You know, the great thing about 19th C. omniscient pov and narratorly butting in (which goes against my grain, totally, I find it very hard to do and actually copied out some phrases verbatim from my 19th C. novel to get myself going) is that it allows you to do very precise descriptions. Which, in turn, means you get to write yummy things like He rearranged and smoothed his clothing, lifted his chin, and, reassuring himself with a little "Hm," uttered just under his breath, he raised his hand and knocked. (By the end of this sentence I had forgotten I was reading a writing exercise which perhaps is the ultimate accolade?) It's freeing not having subjective pov sometimes. I found it definitely freeing to read yours (not so freeing to write mine but perhaps the self-diagnosis reveals that this is where I could be doing more work and forcing myself, too! Just like I once forced myself to stand in the ultra-boring flower stillife gallery of the Fitzwilliam Museum for 20 minutes and take notes on at least one painting and have at least one interesting thought.)

I had the feeling, with your 2 paragraphs, that by the second paragraph you had settled into the style. The first one still has traces of non-19th C. (heh, it doesn't help that you had no 19th C. novel to hand...); for example, the 'Ah': that sort of floating non-sentence doesn't happen in my 19th C. novel (but then again, maybe it happens in others?). But it is rather pov'ey, rather than narratorly omniscientally. Hm, but then Jane Austen pioneered the smooth flow from narrator to focalisor (pov - person) which, I'm trying to remember what it's called, ah yes, is called 'free indirect speech'. Because 'Ah' is said by McKay not by the narrator (I think) but it's not in quotation marks so it's not direct speech.

I am possibly over-analysing this. But I am just pleased as a punched potato that you wrote it!!!!! *grins all over face*

Also, thank you so much for your remarks on my own efforts and wanting to make icons out of them! That is so kind! I keep remembering Cesperanza's fantastic post where she says that it's good to stay in the game, even if sometimes only a handful of fans turn up. I've decided one handful of fans who want to iconise is worth every angst point and also worth as much as the 573 comments that other SGA writers seem to garner (and that intimidate us so).

Hm, now I'm thinking to give each of my posts a style. But that may drive me insane. Not that I aren't already.

:-)

More? *looks happily expectant* Also, give me a task! Be my taskmistress! Stylistic BDSM!

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

This makes me realise how long it is since I've actually read a 19th C novel! You're right, I think - the first para was difficult and felt stilted, but by the second I was starting to get into the swing of it. Very interesting, what you say about pov, I'm still musing about the 'Ah'.

I've been writing some more today - this was such an excellent idea. I feel like I'm having fun again!

I shall post today's efforts in a sec.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am having super fun! All my angsting is gone for the moment. I haven't had this much fun on LJ in years. This plus Our Glorious Leader's PEDW. I feel as if we're going places!

[hetrez.livejournal.com]

txt
Am on MX-178 P-5. About 2 go in undergr tunnel. Shit scared.

This one is my favorite. These are lovely.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Strangely, the short ones go against my grain. They are fun to write but an inner pull tends to urge me towards lyrical and rambling so I like making myself do short. I am so glad you picked this one to like because it means that maybe, I can go against my grain and pull it off convincingly enough.

[hetrez.livejournal.com]

Strangely, the short ones go against my grain.

I tend to be the opposite: I have trouble writing longer stories, worry that I'm talking too much when I could get to the point, and so on. I've written so many one-sentence stories that I just didn't want to post because, you know, one sentence. Which is to say I get what you mean, it's just that I'm at the other extreme.

I like that one section in particular for a few reasons. First, this exercise comes after a longer section, so the shortness is a surprise, and more powerful because I wasn't expecting it. Second, the first two sentences are emotionless, but the third sentence is, "Shit scared". It made me laugh. I read it twice, and the first time I was surprised and amused, but the second time I could feel Sheppard's fear in the first two neutral sentences, just under the surface, and how it came out in a burst with the last one.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I love you for saying this and reading this. I feel quite moved that my typing in of three shorthand phrases should receive such a thoughtful response. And I am always yet again bowled over by how one's sentences become independent and lead this life of their own that was never expected.

I also found it interesting that you read the sentences in the context of what had gone before. I hadn't thought (consciously) of the individual exercises being interrelated but now that you point it out, I can see that they totally were. Each one was also a response to the previous one and shaped the next one. I think I was, without quite noticing it, a bit tired of the long sentence ones by then and thought, 'well, I'd better do a really concise one'.

Interesting, also, that for you it is just the other way round: short is no problem, long is the challenge. I keep thinking that one thing these exercises might be good for is to train me a little in doing what doesn't come naturally so maybe you, too, could force yourself to do a long, rambling paragraph...? I would love it if more people joined in a little.

Exclamation

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I'm reposting this again because Rodney must have his italics and they must be correct!

Oh, for God's sake! Morons! I mean, what do they think -- they think I haven't got work to do -- very important work, I might add! No, no, this is all down to Elizabeth! What was she -- not that, you know, Kate's not -- I mean, she's, uh ... very conscientious, very hard-working, I'm sure -- no, of course I've never called her incompetent, I would never say that! That rumour was completely fabricated! As we have established, I think of her as a very ... nice person, very good person, certainly a very hot, uh ... person! All I am suggesting is that maybe, just maybe -- Oh, good God, people, the woman practices hypnotherapy, for Christ's sake! Oh, God! Oh, this is ridiculous! Oh! Oh, hey! We're here!

Re: Exclamation

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You smuggled in some non-exclamations! I fear I may have done so, too. This one was difficult. I chose it because Raymond Queneau's version was such mad fun to read. But he is very good and very strict: only exclamations, no phrase longer than three or four words really. And no punctuation at all besides the exclamation mark. Did you find this one hard? It might be easier to do with Rodney because he's such an exclaiming kinda guy.

No secondary clauses, present tense, no incomplete sentences

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

It seems a long walk. Rodney's not sure why. It's not really a long way. Sometimes he thinks Atlantis doesn't like him. It doesn't like him the way it likes John. He finds it difficult to refer to the city as a 'she'. The word sticks in his throat. Cities should be things. It's not that he doesn't love the things it does. It's wonderful. It's truly wonderful. But it's technology. It's not magic. It's not a person. He shakes his head. All this thinking is distraction. It's procrastination. It's exactly the sort of thing Kate's going to want to talk about. Rodney doesn't really want to talk to Kate. He doesn't see why he should. It's a waste of his valuable time. His time is extremely valuable. Elizabeth ought to have taken that into account. He's entitled to his privacy. It's not as though there's anything wrong with him. He sets his jaw. He's here.

Re: No secondary clauses, present tense, no incomplete sentences

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This one is so smooth I kept having to remember it had a stylistic rule behind it. :-) The rule melded into the background and all I was reading was what was happening. I liked the repetition. I wonder if short sentences make one emphasise repetition to avoid staccato prose. 'It's a waste of valuable time. His time is extremely valuable.' Whether the repetition becomes a substitute for the comma. Whatever it is, I liked it. Ditto here: 'He sets his jaw. He's here.' The two 'he's. maybe the repetition is just more noticeable because the pronouns stand out quite starkly when not hedged around with punctuation and conjunctions??

First person point-of-view, subjective, homodiegetic narrator

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

reposting...

So I'm in the lab, and -- no, no, I swear this is true -- I'm on the verge of a major breakthrough, I mean really major -- there's no point trying to explain, I doubt you'd be able to follow anyway. So, yes, so obviously I'm concentrating fairly hard, and I hear this voice, this somehow very soft yet extremely grating voice, saying over and over again, "Doctor McKay. Doctor McKay. Excuse me, Doctor McKay," as though somehow this person hasn't noticed that I'm in the middle of something, and I mean really, where do they find these people? I suspect they're being genetically engineered to be as irritating as possible. But anyway, so I turn around, because my concentration is completely broken by this point anyway, and the whole thing's probably set me back at least a week and a half, not that that would matter to some people, apparently, and I say "What? Do you mind. What?" Which I have to say I think is fairly polite of me, considering the circumstances. And it's this -- this kid I've never seen before in my life. Seriously, it looked about twelve. So immediately I know it's one of Elizabeth's flunkies. Well, I don't know, they just have a look about them. And then it says, "Oh, Doctor McKay, Doctor Weir asked me to remind you about your therapist's appointment today." No attempt at discretion, nothing. You see what I mean about these people? Well, I won't describe the ensuing scene in the lab, suffice it to say that Doctor Zelenka is not currently in my good books.

So, uh, anyway, that's why I'm walking down this corridor right now. On my way to my therapist's appointment, which is going to be a complete waste of time, thank you very much. Not that Kate isn't ... well, she's very lovely, in fact, if not perhaps quite my type. Just, you know, cities to save, etcetera etcetera. Nothing important, obviously. And why the hell am I telling you all this, anyway? You are a worthless piece of Ancient junk, you have not so far responded to anything at all that we have done to you in the last week -- why I thought talking to you might work, I do not know! Now I'm going to have to give you to John, and you're just going to light up like a Christmas tree for him, aren't you? Oh yes, because we all love John!

Hmph.

Oh, well. Here we are. May as well go in and face the music, I suppose.

Re: First person point-of-view, subjective, homodiegetic narrator

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*prostates self in front of you*

Why does McKay make us want to use lots of italics and endless sentences? I loved the kid being an 'it'! I loved Zelenka not being in his good books. I thought you got the McKay tone, and that is not even as easy as it seems! But this is so him; I revelled! And I loved the twist at the end! Did that come to you as you were typing or was that planned all along? The way the free-floating subjective pov with no particularly motivated narratee (or whatever you want to call the thing being talked to as opposed to the thing doing the talking) suddenly revealed itself to be an Ancient Device, and then was going to be given to Sheppard... Somehow, that was just very sexy.

Re: First person point-of-view, subjective, homodiegetic narrator

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Yay, glad you liked this one! I didn't plan the way it turned out at all - it just happened that way! heee, what fun!

txt

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

wll be l8 got 2 go 2 stpd thrpy y i dont no. blame liz.

Re: txt

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*l*fs* Whoops, that makes sense only in German.

I found txt not half as easy as it looks. Short is hard!

[2am-optimism.livejournal.com]

*claps excitedly*

This is such a great idea. Finding it v. interesting to see that, in sequence through all the styles, I feel like I'm building up a picture of a developing narrative, like there's more to your story with each successive experiment.

hmm...doing it myself is proving harder than I anticipated though.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Join in! That would be so great! It is also interesting that the exercises have a sequence. I had sort of subconsciously realised this while writing; I know I was using bits from earlier parts to weave into later ones but I hadn't realised that it was actually panning out into a sequence from the reader's pov as well. Thank you so much for reading these and commenting! They are very, very satisfying to write, I can tell you. Some came more naturally to me than others but each one was very enjoyable to write. You say you are finding it hard: are you finding each style hard, or just some?

Oh, and your icon?? *dies*

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

What an interesting experiment! Kudos for trying it. I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to read it.

*downloads post*

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

This is completely fantastic. *fangirls you like mad*

I've recced you over on rec_room.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! These were fantastic fun to write, fantastic to get fb on, fantastic to give fb for (because sheldrake then did some, too, see above, and it would be great if more people (*looks at you*) joined in. It's a great way to write without writing fic. So it's kind of a pretend-not-write which helped me, at any rate, to loosen up those angsty muscles.

[bibliotech.livejournal.com]

I love this.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Hey this is awesome. I really have to try this and thank you so much for commenting over at the workshop post!

I love the first version. I recently watched "The Prestige" and so I had Hugh Jackman's voice in my head while reading it.

Also loved the POV of the door and the txt message is just fabulous!

I just need a prompt. *wanders off to think or bug the friends list*

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Okay, I tried a few of them over here. I think I'm mixing up tenses at some points still, but that was fun! :)

Thanks

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched The Prestige so this is intriguing... *g*

The txt message is an adaptation from Queneau who has telegram style (he wrote his thing in the late 1940s) so I updated it. Also, it was such fun to write. I find it is really liberating to press your prose into a very tight corset of rules. Txt is very tight! You can have only so many characters, and there are conventions for abbreviating. You have to say a lot with very, very little. And pov of door is just a mad way to get into a different perspective; pov with any inanimate object.

Thanks for reading!!!!