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Drabble writing advice from you
Nov. 16th, 2004 09:24 pmThe results of the drabble questionnaire:
The majority of you spend between 10-30 minutes on drabbles, which frankly amazes because I know that you produce very good drabbles. A handful of people said they spent several hours on them, which made me feel better because that's how long it takes me. Quite a few people said they planned for quite a while before writing. Most of you think they should be 100 words long.
Your drabble writing advice was my favorite part. I wasn't gathering it specifically to use. Rather, I wanted to see the sorts of things that you thought were important and perhaps to have an insight into how you write. I found it so interesting that I've posted it all here-- there were some lovely contradictions but that's really only to be expected with any advice. However, on the whole, to each comment my reaction was always, 'oh - they're so right!' And thanks for the recs- I read some wonderful things.
( Your words of wisdom on the art of writing drabbles )
I think drabbles are more like poems than anything else - the best of them are a concentration of words that produce a resonant, powerful effect. So, I spent my journey home writing a drabble and thinking about all this good advice, which was rather fun: contrary to habit, I thought about my end point or punchline, hoped that it wasn't going to be lame, fixed it in my mind and wrote towards it, I considered each word, the rhythm of the sentences, kept my focus narrow yet attempted to make the story complete, edited, thought, pruned and re-read and... it felt pretty much like any other time I write, except for the slight self-consciousness and the fretting that it only takes some of you buggers 10 minutes to write something amazing! Time: 2 hours, rewrites: about 4. What, you think I've finished it?
The majority of you spend between 10-30 minutes on drabbles, which frankly amazes because I know that you produce very good drabbles. A handful of people said they spent several hours on them, which made me feel better because that's how long it takes me. Quite a few people said they planned for quite a while before writing. Most of you think they should be 100 words long.
Your drabble writing advice was my favorite part. I wasn't gathering it specifically to use. Rather, I wanted to see the sorts of things that you thought were important and perhaps to have an insight into how you write. I found it so interesting that I've posted it all here-- there were some lovely contradictions but that's really only to be expected with any advice. However, on the whole, to each comment my reaction was always, 'oh - they're so right!' And thanks for the recs- I read some wonderful things.
( Your words of wisdom on the art of writing drabbles )
I think drabbles are more like poems than anything else - the best of them are a concentration of words that produce a resonant, powerful effect. So, I spent my journey home writing a drabble and thinking about all this good advice, which was rather fun: contrary to habit, I thought about my end point or punchline, hoped that it wasn't going to be lame, fixed it in my mind and wrote towards it, I considered each word, the rhythm of the sentences, kept my focus narrow yet attempted to make the story complete, edited, thought, pruned and re-read and... it felt pretty much like any other time I write, except for the slight self-consciousness and the fretting that it only takes some of you buggers 10 minutes to write something amazing! Time: 2 hours, rewrites: about 4. What, you think I've finished it?