Alan McCluskey's List: Writing

• the use of negative stereotypes as literary shorthand

  • in a way this is a call to fight against stereotypes...

• YA and CoA carry with them reader expectations about the behavior of characters
• a smaller pool of acceptable characters and acceptable behavior

  • This depends on what you define as YA ... I suspect Zoe is taking a limited number of commercial successes and their imitators as the whole of the literature. 
• an alternative market for readers who feel put off by the mainstream stories
• IA explores stories and characters who have trouble fitting into the established YA and CoA formulas

  • The misfits brigade. As such name "immature" does seem to fit.

2 more annotations...

• words such as "hollered" and "bawled" often draw their attention away from the dialogue and yank them out of the story
• Editors and critics often refer to melodramatic dialogue tags as "said bookisms."
• Avoid drowning your dialogue in phrases such as exclaimed, murmured, shouted, whimpered, asserted, inquired, demanded, queried, thundered, whispered, and muttered.
• using said bookisms detracts from the dialogue
• If the dialogue is strong enough, "she said" and "he said" will do.
• Think of them as those little silver candies you use for decorating cookies
• avoid said bookisms that sound too extreme, such as cried, shrieked, snarled, barked, growled, and sniffed
• "extreme dialogue tags" make your story seem melodramatic, even silly
• they are so good at telling a story that can get away with it
• Put your energy into making sure your characters' words are strong enough, and you won't need to lean on the said bookisms

  • Sounds like good advice!
• Overly potent said bookisms can create the dialogue tags that are melodramatic.

9 more annotations...

• This type of beginning tells me that author is not yet strong enough to blend information into the narrative in a way that it doesn’t disrupt the story.
• readers like to read fiction for stories
• beginning with a “gimmick” to hook the reader in that she is unsure the overall story problem will
• weak in her understanding of scene and sequel novel structure
• Fiction is driven by conflict
• Sequels transpire as a direct reaction to a scene.

  • Although I agree that in most cases it is probably not the best way to begin things.

  • What a mechanical way of seeing writing and story telling. Must have learnt it all on the benches of some school...
• Why do I as the reader care about this person’s feelings or thoughts about anything? I don’t know this character.
• give us (the reader) time to know your character and become interested in her and then we will care
• She hasn’t yet developed the skill to blend background details with the current conflict in a way that supports the story.
• Hooked by Les Edgerton and Scene and Sequel buy Jack Bickham.

8 more annotations...

• The arbitrary nature of narrative devices irked Valéry; they pretended to an authority that was, at bottom, a sham. They invited us to treat mere fancy as hard fact.

  • He misunderstands the role of the novel.
• A novel, to be compelling, has to have plot, dramatic incident and narrative momentum, but these are the very elements that are lacking in our daily lives, confused and messy as they are
• the stories we tell ourselves

  • Everyone tells themselves stories ... but is he referring to novels?
• as we strive to fill them with coherence, dramatic logic and ultimate meaning—are hopelessly flawed, incomplete and contradictory

  • In what way are they flawed? Could not the incompleteness and the contradiction be an essential part of the 'coherence' of the story?
• the stubborn effort, especially on the part of Modernist novelists, to render those little hesitations, those sieges of doubt, those a nxious questionings that beset us even as we attempt to construct some credible narrative of our lives
• from a divinely appointed cosmos, alive with numinous presences, to a bustling marketplace of enterprise, production and rampant individualism
• he shattering of former certainties, despite the gains it offers in self-knowledge, has left us bereft
• truth, if it can be glimpsed at all, is invariably agitated.
• actively prevents us from having a realistic attitude to ourselves and the world

  • Is he refusing the reader the right to wish to 'escape' into other fantasy worlds?

7 more annotations...