Sunday picture prompt: The spirit of romance novels

My first time posting in a very long time. I am not sure what to call this. I did not write it with the intention to make fun of romance novels...well, maybe I poked a teensy weensy bit of fun at the prompt picture. Feel free to be brutal. Since I last posted here I have humbled down a lot. :-)

Name: Hi there!
             first name: Cynde
             pen name: The Write Stuff

Age:    52

Writing Experience:  I don't have a lot of writing experience.  I've had a few short stories and poems published in my local paper and church bulletin, respectively, but that's it. Right now I'm participating in the "Super SummerWrite Writing Challenge" here on Live Journal from 01 May through 31 August 2008 in which we our goal is to write 150,000 words during that time. I've never done anything like this before, so wish me the best, ok?

Preferred Genres:  Fiction is my first love, followed closely by non-fiction, then probably poetry. I have just recently become interested in fantasy

Education:  some college

Country:  United States of America

What do you hope to get from this community?  I'd like to see what other people are posting and also the kind of critiques they receive so that maybe I can pick up some good tips. 

Where did you hear of us?  I saw your community listed on someone's profile, but I don't remember who it was at the moment.

I am 99% sure that I posted an intro here but when I went to go look at the tag list (to verify I had the proper critque to ratio in order to post something new) I couldn't find username. At any rate I'm posting something for critque now and am 99% sure I have the proper ratio for that, too. I just figured I would let the mods know I haven't been tagged in the interest of community organization. I could always find my post and tag it myself in order to make things easier, if that is easier.  : )

At any rate here's a poem for you all to comment on. Please be as honest as possible. 

We haven't had a lot of discussion topics on poetry, which is ironic because it makes up a high proportion of the work people post here.*

Question/s:
Do you enjoy reading and/or writing poems? If you write poems, do you learn something from it that helps your prose writing too? If you see a poem posted here, what makes you more likely to read it?

Also feel free to name or link to a favourite poem.



If you enjoy reading poetry, do check out greatpoets, where people can read and post their favourite published poems. It's very wide-ranging.





*I'll probably try to do some more focussed topics later in the year.

Welcome to your Sunday Picture Prompt! In the spirit of romance novels, I bring you...

( Can you guess? )

(originally posted in my journal, someone pointed out that it would be pertinent to this community - especially to anyone interested in writing romance, whether in the genre or as part of a different sort of novel)

Not all Bodice-Rippers are Bad
or : Why I read Romance Novels, a Smart Girl's Guide to a Cliché Genre

I get a lot of flack for liking romance novels. And I do understand that they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. I do have a problem, however, with a few of the reasons usually cited for the dislike. People tend to dislike romance novels for one of three reasons: they simply do not like romance storylines, they think they’re trite/cliché/stupid/cheesy/unrealistic, or they think that anything remotely romantic dehumanizes women and romance novels are going to toss up back to the middle ages, equality-wise. I’m only going to rebut one of these, the second one.

( If you’re interested in a very long, rambling post about this, which I admit to being tentatively proud of, click here. And dissenting opinions, clarifications, and other comments are certainly welcome. All thoughts expressed here should be considered a ‘living draft’ and not a final, subject to change at any time, for any reason. )

Do you make much use of outlining when you write?

It's a technique that is used a lot for technical writing, and some people (and agents) like to have novels outlined too.

Outlining is a semi-graphical way to lay out the content you intend to write. You start with chapter headings and then drill down into sub-headings, possibly until you have one heading for each paragraph. The heading is a reminder of what content you want for that section/subsection.

It can be a good way of making sure that you haven't left out anything important, or checking that your plot and character arcs flow well in advance. Some people like them, others find that writing to an outline feels too restrictive.

Exercise:
Write a short story, presented as a few fully written out paragraphs followed by an outline for the rest.

I'm curious about everyone's opinions, though I'm not sure if non-moderator types like myself are allowed to post this sort of thing. Then again I don't see anything in the rules against it.

In novel writing it seems many writers reiterate information, particularly character backgrounds and essential actions that drove the plot forward. Would you all say these function merely as review or might they serve a higher artistic purpose? I'm noticing it a lot in the work of Murakami. He uses a lot of jump cuts, after which he reminds the reader of what occurred before. When do you think review in the narrative is most appropriate and most inappropriate? Are there any authors you can think of who don't use review in their narratives, or any you can think of who use it particularly well?

Note: Mods, I hope this is alright. Feel free to delete if it's not.

Hello lovelies,

So I have a project for my Theories of Networks class where I have to connect my major (writing) with networks. I wracked my brain and came up with a choose-your-own-adventure approach, but online, and unlike the book version, you can add to the adventure! (All made easy thanks to a handy script I found.)

The point of this project is to see how people will network to add to the story, as well as what kind of traffic it attracts, so, the more writers that get involved, the more interesting the data will get.

Can you help a girl out? Just click here, follow the story line, and if you don't meet an untimely end, you'll be asked to write a new scene! It'll take 30 seconds.

Thanks, and please consider passing this on. :)

Lis

Hey guys

I have just revived my writing community after a few months of downtime. Started afresh and are in need of some members. If you are interested in reading or posting your poetry/fiction then come along to inkstains. We have sections for flash fiction, short stories, non fiction, scripts, poetry, book/author discussion, and much more.

You can find us at www.inkstains.wordsoffiction.net/forums

Please pass the link on to any of your writerly friends :)

cross posted.

So for a long time I've wanted to write out this story that I have in my head. I've finally chosen a style to write it in and am working out how to get the ideas and finer details onto paper. I find having an idea and an over all picture of what I want to happen to a character is easy, but getting it into an interesting bunch of sentences is m ore difficult.. well duh I guess that's normal for someone as inexperienced as me. Anyway this is how I want the book to start. I know that if you don't get a reader in the first few sentacnes then you lose them. Help.
thanks. *crossing fingers that my lj cut works and I will it fix asap if it doesn't*


( Blogs of a life gone missing )

Hello, sweet community. Short-time reader, first-time poster. I've been meaning to read more of your stories and comment some, but school and illness and laziness have kept me from either.

The following is a story I wrote for a creative writing course I'm taking. We've already discussed it in class, but I wanted to get outsider opinions on it, so's I can snazz it up for the final draft. It's only the second piece of creative fiction I've written, so be kind, but please, constructive criticism is what I need! I do like this story enough to keep working on it after the course is through; if I can perfect it (to my standards, anyway) I might even submit it somewhere.

Anyway! Please read and let me know what you think, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. I promise I'll start critiquing / praising other stories here in due time. :) I do warn you though, in printed form it spans seven or eight pages, but it is a quick read. I hope. Thanks!


The Avalanche


p.s. Sorry for flooding anybody's friends list!

Name: HJC

Age: 19...nearly 20 but don't expect maturity much.

Writing Experience: Quite pathetic. I've been writing for fun since I was about eleven and couldn't spell - or use grammar - worth a damn. Now I'm quite articulate but deeply lacking in ideas and imagination :( (<- can't win)

So I kind of sidelined/gave up serious writing. Then I came crawling back.

 

 

((I'll think of something starting with O for next week))

We of the Microsoft Word generation are used to being able to bold, italicise and underline our text at the touch of a button**. But are we using our new abilities for good or for evil?

I was reading a friend's travel blog and thinking how much easier it would be to read if he hadn't kept bolding random phrases and sentence fragments. It only made sense if I tried to imagine him reading the blog aloud, because he just bolded every part that he'd naturally emphasise while speaking.

According to standard usage, italics are properly used for references and for phrases in foreign languages. They can also be used to emphasise words or phrases. Boldface is used for captions on pictures or graphs, and for titles/subtitles. You don't normally find a lot of boldface text in fiction.

Of course, this isn't to say that they aren't tools available to writers if you want or need them! There is a convention in scifi/fantasy to use italics to represent telepathy or someone's thoughts.

How do you use bold, italics, and underline in your writing?


** to be fair, it isn't that hard to bold or italicise text on a typewriter either

This isn't a heavy rewrite, but it has an entirely new last stanza, which I like better... (I guess the moral of this story is: look at and revise something before you submit it to a contest, instead of just pasting, printing, and turning it in at the last minute. Oh well...XP)

Again, your comments last time were very helpful, so whatever you can say on what I'd need to change further: much appreciated...

*
*
*

 

 So, technically, this poem just won me a first place prize (with cash!) and will be published in my college's Lit Review. It might feel like cheating to post something that I can't change... but if anybody's criticisms are convincing enough (I'm sure they will be), I might rewrite it anyway and then... put it in the collection?

I dunno. I'm just kinda curious what your guys' reactions would be to this, especially if you saw it in print, and hypothesize as to why it might've won the prize. I personally thought at the time I'd be lucky to get an Honorary Mention, and I'd be tempted to say maybe the other entries were really sucky, but I think this is one of my best (if not *the* best) poem I've written thus far.

So bite away!

*
*
*

***

 

I love landscapes
and animals munching
on wet leaves.
The thought behind quiet faces.
the waves coming in and going out across the sand
forever.
The everything in nothing
The sharp subtle wit.
The power
the beauty in silence