I just finished rereading "What Did You Jazz Say?", and to say that I was disappointed that I posted it on my blog would be correct. However, it cannot be helped. To pretend that I am a wise man, I will use an analogy: A statue's basic shape and structure are bound to be imperfect, and obviously, that phase is not where the sculptor stops. Simply put, he has to refine it until his work does not just pass off as a statue, but as an art.
First drafts are like statues in their infancy stage. To make myself clearer, I figured that it would be better if I give an example, so I will.
The familiar ambiance of the place completely overwhelms her senses in an instant, a moving red light crossing her eyes and the smell of cigarettes twitching her nose.
The excerpt is from "What Did You Jazz Say?", and it is an example of a misplaced dangling modifier (the clause after the comma). The subject ("The familiar ambiance") of the sentence shall always be what the dangling modifier describes, not the predicate ("her senses"), but it is clear that the dangling modifier describes her senses (eyes, smell, and nose). On a related note, twitching her nose is grammatically wrong; I wanted to tell the readers that her nose is twitching, but instead, the sentence came out to be in a way that the smell of cigarettes is the doer of the twitching.
I have revised it.
Her senses are completely overwhelmed by the familiar ambiance in an instant, a moving red light crossing her eyes, the smell of cigarettes making her nose twitch, and the music pounding her eardrums.
This time, I revised the sentence so that the dangling modifier would describe what it should describe: her senses (which is the subject this time). Also, note that the smell of cigarettes is still the doer, but I made it clear that it is the reason why her nose twitches. I added the sense of hearing to make the clause that describes her senses seem more complete.
I found several more errors, but I am not going to elaborate further. What I am trying to say is that creative writing is simply not putting fancy words into papers; like a statue, it is a piece of art that demands a lot of energy, time, and effort. If anything, rereading and revising are tougher than the writing itself. One day you will find yourself amazed by that you have written, and the next day you will tell yourself, "Does this pass off as 'writing'?" Next thing you know, you are holding the Backspace button of your keyboard, deleting paragraphs and obsessively thinking of a better alternative for that sorry excuse of a prose.
That is one of the reasons why writing is lonely.
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Isisingit ko lang.
The educators in FutureLearn's "Start Writing Fiction" course has asked its "students" to discuss these questions regarding our radio story.
1. Did you think what you wrote was a story?
- Yes. More accurately, I think it could be considered a minor part of a vaster story that I have in mind.
2. What made it a story?
- Simply put, it tells of an event. It also has some elements that make up a story: setting (Deadpan Pub), and characters (Eve, Ben, and Bill). Throwing in a conflict is, I think, a nice addition too.
3. Did it have a structure?
- I think so, but it is incomplete. I have presented the place where the events of the story happen. It has a conflict (albeit a minor one: a disagreement between Deadpan's regulars and Ben) that implies a larger conflict. Also, I tend to use comic reliefs (I always have fun writing them), and in this case, the comic relief is the part where people in Deadpan teases Eve for defending Ben.
That said, I think my story lacks two parts: an introduction of my characters, and the event's ending; the former probably because I wrote the 500-word story with the thought of putting it in the middle of the storyline and the latter because it would take a thousand more words to properly end it.
(If you are interested in how it ends: essentially it is Bill explaining the inspiration and rationale of punk rock music to Ben and how it is not just a "meaningless noise", but a powerful medium of truth in regards to social issues.)
(Seriously, read about the punk subculture.)
4. How did you go about portraying characters?
- Lacking in physical description and personal history aside, I think I have described my characters in an implying way. For example, when I wrote that Ben resists the urge to wipe his expensive coat and that he is deliberately using body language to insult, I wanted to imply that Ben is rich and arrogant. Moreover, it was also implied that Bill is respected in Deadpan Pub (Like a conductor, Bill puts his fists up and the crowd goes back to their own businesses.). Lastly, it is implied that Eve has some sort of feelings for Ben (or does she?).
Actually, these characters already have a complete (I like to think so) description written on a separate word file, but it is so wordy that I would be breaking the purpose of writing a 500-word story had I decided to include them. That said, I am quite disappointed that I was not able to at least tell concisely what they look like, but I am confident that readers would come up with an appearance on their own. Still, it is not an excuse.
I must do better next time.
Source:
The Open University
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