Here's another creepy fairy tale I wrote:
bit.lyWyss: 'The Patchwork Child'Fiction by Allison Wyss
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Here's my little witch story.
(I love a journal that releases on the solstice.)
MoonPark Review · The Witch and the SpaceshipBy Allison Wyss There was once a witch who didn’t know how to sew, but she tried to anyway. She wanted to make a child–a daughter, to be precise. And she had all the materials necessary: a he…
I’ve been thinking about what a gift it is to be allowed to read another writer’s WIP. I get to do it a lot as a teacher & book coach & also in my writing group.
There’s just so much you can learn from a _draft_, when the possibilities are endless & before it’s all buttoned up.
There’s craft & there’s also how another person’s brain work &—maybe most important—there are these big, fresh, exciting IDEAS.
I have less of a point or argument here than a musing. But I wrote about my fascination with fairy-tale time, its unpinnability, and how I keep wondering what relation that might have to the pseudo-contemporary non-time we find in many realistic stories.
What do you think?
#WritingCommunity #WritingConversations #FairyTale #imprompt2 #Bookstodon #PrincessBride
imprompt2 · Magical Time
I'm interested in how stories make space for readers inside the storymaking. I mean, readers are always collaborators by having sensory images or emotional responses or asking questions in their heads. But often readers are also sort of solving for how a story fits together or makes meaning.
How do you make space for the reader in your writing?
I wrote about one small way it happens, but there are many more!
I wrote about an interesting prologue. So let's talk about prologues!
Not whether you love them or hate them--but what they are uniquely able to do. What's the difference between a prologue and a first chapter? What is the function of a prologue? And what's the fun of it too? How do you think about whether to include one?
Suite du fil
Because there's a distancing and processing. Unless it's in present tense (and even usually when it is in present tense) we know the narrator has since stepped away from the action. They survived it long enough to process it. That creates an extra layer of story--one that I quite love. But it's also so interesting when that layer is stripped away. Then the reader must process what is happening all on their own.
Suite du fil
But the other thing the diary does is shape how time works. The storyteller doesn't know what happens next. They can be right inside the moment and worried that they'll die the next moment. And we're worried with them because we know they don't know what happens next. This is otherwise really hard to pull off in a first-person narrator.
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I always think that POV determines everything else. It's not quite true, but when you consider how the sensibilities of a narrator give you a narrative strategy... And then I often structure my story around the way that character's brain works--their obsessions and such. And the voice gives the flavor.
But I like thinking about how something like a diary format gets you closer to the character somehow--at least closer to their obsessions.
I got to interview Elliott Gish about her amazing debut, Grey Dog. (Released today!)
One of the things we talked about was the diary format and how it influences time and structure and narrative distance.
Does anybody here like to write in this format?
Whatever structure you like, how do you make choices about POV and narrative distance?
The Brooklyn Rail · Elliott Gish with Allison WyssElliott Gishs Grey Dog is a haunting debut novel about a 1901 school teacher with a traumatic past.
Lit!Commons--the new thing I'm doing--is live!
It's a virtual space for writers, featuring short, asynchronous classes about craft, creative process, & publishing. It's also a place for connection & community & conversations. And every week, there will be 10 live zoom sessions that you can drop into to talk about writing. (Like we do here--but with voices too.)
#WritingCommunity #WritingConversations #Writing #AmWriting #WritersOfMastodon #WritingCraft
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Writing groups? Feedback trades? Author and editor? Author and agent? Publishing reviews for journals? Posting reader reviews to book sites? Role playing games? Interactive storytelling with a child? Improv? Book clubs? Conversations on social media? Blogs? Collaborative writing? Thinking questions back to the writer REALLY LOUD in your head? What else?
Ok. I have reason to go meta here. What about a conversation about conversations?
What sort of literary conversations are you involved in? (Please interpret that broadly!) And how do they benefit you as a writer? And how do keep them strong and positive and generative?
A répondu dans un fil de discussion
What makes a character feel most alive for other folks?
So often people say they need to know more about characters--they want to know EVERYTHING--but for me, that's really not it. After all, I often don't know that much about people in my real life! But I need to know _enough_ and it's fun to think about what can be enough.
Suite du fil
And then, you know, I love flat characters too! (I adore fairy tales.). I think they can feel just as alive as the sort that we call "round" or "complex."
Some of that happens through implied or intuitive depth. (A favorite theory of mine!)
I haven't thought as much about this, but I think it probably happens through character change, as well. Which might part of why folks conflate dynamic and complex.
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So we talked about how learning about a character's past deepens our understanding of her--that's one way to make a complex character. But Ali also gestured to what's next for her & if she might change--that's the creation of a dynamic character.
I think dynamic and complex (deep, round) are often conflated but are useful to separate. A character can be one or the other or neither or both.
Which kind do you like to write?
I got to interview Farah Ali about her beautiful debut novel, The River, The Town. We talked about building complex characters who make unexpected choices, writing about climate catastrophe, and the importance of hope.
Heavy Feather Review · Allison Wyss Interviews Farah Ali about Her Debut Novel The River, The TownFarah Ali’s The River, The Town is a gorgeous first novel about a Pakistani family navigating poverty, drought, and generational trauma. Farah and I spoke on September 27 about climate disast…
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OK. I wrote a thing a while back about fairytale retellings (and more things about retellings, even further back) but it was an a platform that I wasn't proud of. It's moved to a new place if anyone is interested. (And more things from the new place are coming soon.)
imprompt2 · Fairy Tales As MultiverseA Conversation Across the Red-Riding-Hood-Verse
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And of course it's how tropes work too. Except the specifics are perhaps removed? I'm not sure. Is there an "original" when we talk about tropes? Or is there sort of a blank form?
(And of course there _was_ a first, but it's not necessarily true that the reader remembers the first, or any specific example, so much as the form itself.)
Suite du fil
So, at the simplest level, this is subtext. The subtext of a retelling is the original story.