Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Wed, Jan 13 2010
How Google and China matter in fiction
It seems that Google is talking about the possibility of not doing business with China. A lot of political pundits are expressing kudos to Google for its bold moves on this issue. But it could have far-reaching effects into other business and the politics/relationships of other companies and organizations that deal with China.
Since I've been trying to tie regular life to writing life lately, I started thinking about the way characters "do business" in a novel, a screenplay or other work that's fictional. Particularly in a longer work, there may be characters in your story who interact only with a few other characters and never even meet certain minor characters. Or they may interact with other characters at a specific point in the story. I was making notes about a current project this morning and wondered what would happen if I started my about a third of the way into the story instead of at the beginning. I would have to rearrange the way certain characters interacted and would have to assume they had already met one another. After doing some preliminary sketches on paper, it all made better sense. I had been preparing too much backstory in my head and had been trying to fit it into the beginning. What I needed to do was start farther along in the story and have the characters already in the thick of events with one another. The readers are smart enough to figure out what's going on and they might even appreciate a little more pedal-to-the-metal approach. It could be a lot more compelling than setting up the serene little place I had first imagined at the start of this project.
The next nail-biter is going to come if I have to decide whether two major characters have to "stop doing business" by disappearing, agreeing to dissagree or fighting to the death. It's a dirty business, but some writer's got to do it.
posted at: 14:10 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
It seems that Google is talking about the possibility of not doing business with China. A lot of political pundits are expressing kudos to Google for its bold moves on this issue. But it could have far-reaching effects into other business and the politics/relationships of other companies and organizations that deal with China.
Since I've been trying to tie regular life to writing life lately, I started thinking about the way characters "do business" in a novel, a screenplay or other work that's fictional. Particularly in a longer work, there may be characters in your story who interact only with a few other characters and never even meet certain minor characters. Or they may interact with other characters at a specific point in the story. I was making notes about a current project this morning and wondered what would happen if I started my about a third of the way into the story instead of at the beginning. I would have to rearrange the way certain characters interacted and would have to assume they had already met one another. After doing some preliminary sketches on paper, it all made better sense. I had been preparing too much backstory in my head and had been trying to fit it into the beginning. What I needed to do was start farther along in the story and have the characters already in the thick of events with one another. The readers are smart enough to figure out what's going on and they might even appreciate a little more pedal-to-the-metal approach. It could be a lot more compelling than setting up the serene little place I had first imagined at the start of this project.
The next nail-biter is going to come if I have to decide whether two major characters have to "stop doing business" by disappearing, agreeing to dissagree or fighting to the death. It's a dirty business, but some writer's got to do it.
posted at: 14:10 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
