[REVIEW] End of Month Reviews #45 - September 2007 [spoilers]

[Martin Phipps]

On Dec 9, 10:33 am, Tom Russell <milos_par... at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Dec 8, 8:37 pm, Martin Phipps <martinphip... at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > In the end, Tom, I think you probably plot your stories out too far in
> > advance and are then forced to have your characters behave a certain
> > way and do certain things in order to advance the plot.
>
> Yes and no.  Yes, in that I had outlined some basic character points
> to display/evolve, and I had some vague ideas-- prison break!,
> Apelantis!, duel on unicycles!-- and no in that I kinda made up the
> actually nitty-gritty of it as I went along.  Plotting might not be my
> strength.  If anyone out there in RACC-land disagrees, my plots would
> appreciate a better defense than I could provide. :-)

Plotting is probably Dave's strength more than anybody else's, mainly
due to his background in role playing games.  Saxon's strength is in
world building.  Rob's strength is in humour.  I like to think my
strength is in dialogue.  I think that writing dialogue is like
acting: you have to become the character you are acting and even try
acting it out and saying the dialogue out loud (hopefully without
anyone around) so you know the dialogue sounds right.  So basically
all my "stories" are dialogues and, instead of narration, I have
people describing what is happening in front of them, which is not all
that uncommon in fiction if you think about it.  ("Look out!  He's got
a gun!")  My "plots" are, as Saxon once described them "stripped down
racing plots" in which we skip quickly from scene to scene and the
dialogue lets people know what just happened: my "plots", essentially,
are excuses for the dialogue; they give the characters reasons to say
what they are saying so that they aren't just sitting around making
jokes and reviewing movies.  You might have noticed thet sometimes I
didn't even bother to come up with a plot. :)

I feel that lately I have been forcing myself to make my stories
longer and to give them a beginning and an end.  I respect the fact
that other people write longer stories and actually go to the trouble
of developing suspense over the course of several issues.  Really.
I've found that when I've tried to force myself to write in a more
pedantic manner that I might please some people and yet I, personally,
agree with Saxon that this then makes my writing "mundane" so I'll
stick to the snappy dialogue thank you very much.  It's the one thing
that I like to think I am good at. :)

As for you, Tom, I suppose your strength is drama, although every once
in a while you cross over into melodrama and it doesn't work.

Martin