Athelstone

Just wanted to extend my appreciation to Ath and Jules for starting & maintaining/updating/supporting this place. I’m afraid I have very much drifted off, largely just because of the other demands on my writing time. It’s nice to know this place is here & I look forward to the annual challenges, but I honestly don’t spend enough time here to be…[Read more]

Sorry Sandra, I copied it in from my phone and forgot the ever-imperative word count: 500 words excluding the title.

I think ‘potentially static’ probably referenced one of those generalised statements that crop up when creative writing is discussed. There could be a nugget of wisdom in there but as shorthand it’s too cryptic to decipher and I couldn’t reverse engineer it to anything that might be a pitfall we should be aware of. It doesn’t seem to be like the…[Read more]

I too fail to understand what ‘static’ is supposed to mean in this context, or why it should apply to present tense. I have no problem whatever with reading present tense stories: sometimes I think I even prefer them. With past tense you’re always at one remove, as if listening to someone tell a story. Present tense is immersive, immediate. After…[Read more]

It is odd. Almost as if the commentator was doing a list for a creative writing course: what are the pros and cons of etc etc. But among the reasons I have for not enjoying a novel or short story, static-ness (?) isn’t among them. Slowness, yes of course, and an apparent lack of narrative thread, and straightforward dullness, but I don’t think…[Read more]

Just realised, quite a few of my Challenge stories are written in first person present. I think to give myself an extra treat!!Would definitely deny they are static!

I find the idea of present tense feeling static quite odd. Because you are in the moment, I think it’s hard to pause in a way that is possible in past tense. So I’d say the opposite of static.

Like Sandra, sometimes I’ll find a book jars a little initially in present tense, but I’ll quickly cease to notice as I adapt to the books style.

I read a…[Read more]

Brief, and not necessarily well-thought out reply, (nor am I 100% I’ve got the terminology right), but Elly Griffith’s ‘Ruth Galloway ‘ series is told in present tense, with sentences/Pov  as “Ruth watches as C and C get into the Rolls” (second person??) Every time I start a new one I think “Oh no, forgot how much I dislike this” then very…[Read more]

<p style=”text-align: center;”>THE LIBRARIAN</p>
“Come here.”

Mayrie tensed at the grave, inscrutable timbre of his voice. Some would call it a salt-of-the-earth voice but she was under no illusion about the nature of the man seated before her. The slight narrowing of her eyes all but said, if it’s just the same to you Guv, I think I’d rather…[Read more]

Hmm, essay alert — me pontificating. I think Modernists such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf had an excellent  grasp on the categories of psychic distance, although they probably didn’t call it that, going instead for stream of consciousness, free indirect style and omniscience. They announced themselves to be influenced by cinema and used it…[Read more]

Very true. There are precious few lighter moments. Mind you, he’s not quite the worst author I know for that. Not exactly fantasy (although he did write a collaborative series with Terry Pratchett), Stephen Baxter has the habit of making you identify with and root for particular characters, and then watch as their responses to ever tougher…[Read more]

I discussed that last point with the person who recommended the series to me, and we agreed that that’s actually one of its strengths. In real-life situations of war, revolution, unrest etc good people are just as likely, or even more likely, to get killed as bad people. The atrocities that occur at regular intervals are paralleled in real life…[Read more]

@woolleybeans wrote: “For me, that aspect [the defining factor of PD] was/is the level to which the POV character’s thoughts, feelings etc influence/become part of the writing style itself.

As for how that correlates to film/TV…

The saturation of colours? Whether the shot angles up through something? The somewhat cliché blurry/wobbly scen…[Read more]

You’re probably right re urban fantasy, I have a rather vague grasp on the various subgenres, and that’s when authors oblige and ensure that their work falls squarely within one category. I have no idea where to put China Mieville’s Bas-Lag novels, and I suspect he likes it that way. They have the epic sweep and complex magical systems of high…[Read more]

Thank you for this Richard, on the strength of which I’ve just recommended it to my daughter.

I’m not sure that I’d call The Ten Thousand Doors urban fantasy, exactly, as I understand it (yes, I did go and look it up). it has some of the tropes, like fantastical elements intruding into our world, but the setting is neither urban nor contemporary.

I take your point about some modern fantasy being more original (I’ve sampled George R R…[Read more]

I find it interesting how different people absorb PD in different ways.

I feel two aspects, at least, were being discussed on the Self-Edit course.

The actual physical distance of the description, which would correlate more to the wide or medium or close shot, seemed to be part of it. It certainly turned up in examples. It did not, however, seem…[Read more]