Persiflager asked this question on IRC today and with her blessing, I am swiping it to post here:
What would be your most out-of-your-comfort-zone writing?
This arose from a conversation about the things we feel we do well or do poorly and for some of us *cough* me *cough* how we ache sometimes to see things done well that we feel we couldn’t.
Persiflager’s question was both illuminating and also (as things do when her witty self is involved) led to some humorous observations.
For me, I am incapable of a literary style, rich with allusions, deep themes, and an underlying quest for meaning. It is something I find very admirable but I cannot produce.
I also can’t do horror which I also admire, but from a safe distance, looking through my fingers.
Anyone else care to share?
Persiflager is so smart.
Novel-length stories are my Achilles heel (why do I keep trying?!). I’m beginning to think I’m catching the glimmerings of how they work successfully (for which I almost entirely credit BobRoss), but holy shit, this learning curve is STEEP.
Novels aren’t like short stories. You read a bunch of short stories, you know how to write a short story. I’ve read novels all my life and THEY DO NOT GIVE UP THEIR SECRETS. You wade in, thinking you know what you’re getting into, and then it’s a leech-infested swamp and the bottom is washing out from under you and you’re adrift and mired somewhere in the middle story with no idea how this even happened. ;_; How do people do this?!
(Outlining. I get it now. I get why IvyBlossom is so obsessed.)
Um. Stories in which I don’t think too much, also. And non-chronological order (how do?!). Intricate, dynamic plots such as good casefic, those are like magic to me.
So many things, basically.
But it’s good, right?! MORE FOR ME TO LEARN. AW YEAH. WON’T GET BORED SOON. >.>
