Direction & adjectives
Jan. 6th, 2010 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasseThe problem with writing this piece is that I’m either going into too much detail with physical movement or I’m trying to carry the narrative as if it’s coming through the filter of one of the character’s gazes.
The first issue probably stems from trying to play it out like stage direction or directing porn so I’m visualising the steps that carry the characters from one point to another without paying attention to the fact that those steps don’t need to be written out. By way of example, if I was directing a piece of pornography my instructions for the bridge between two scenes would have been: “Ok, now walk him backwards a little. Cut.” followed by “Get some of that armour off. I want you two right over by the bed and… action.” because there would really be no need to film the connecting segment.
The second problem stems from the fact that while I’m writing third person omnipotent author it’s not really that omnipotent since I’m following one of the two characters and filling in the details from his point of view which is useful up to a point until it gets clunky. I’ve reached the sex scene and if I want to keep that narrative tone I’m going to have to write the other character through the protagonist’s gaze which is somewhat awkward because it means piling on the adjectives and writing Character X gushing over the beauty of Character Y when everybody already knows what Character Y looks like because I’m writing fanfiction. And when I’m having to skim a thesaurus for synonyms for ‘muscular’ it gets old pretty fast.
Have a drabble in which I express my discontent with adjectives.
The first issue probably stems from trying to play it out like stage direction or directing porn so I’m visualising the steps that carry the characters from one point to another without paying attention to the fact that those steps don’t need to be written out. By way of example, if I was directing a piece of pornography my instructions for the bridge between two scenes would have been: “Ok, now walk him backwards a little. Cut.” followed by “Get some of that armour off. I want you two right over by the bed and… action.” because there would really be no need to film the connecting segment.
The second problem stems from the fact that while I’m writing third person omnipotent author it’s not really that omnipotent since I’m following one of the two characters and filling in the details from his point of view which is useful up to a point until it gets clunky. I’ve reached the sex scene and if I want to keep that narrative tone I’m going to have to write the other character through the protagonist’s gaze which is somewhat awkward because it means piling on the adjectives and writing Character X gushing over the beauty of Character Y when everybody already knows what Character Y looks like because I’m writing fanfiction. And when I’m having to skim a thesaurus for synonyms for ‘muscular’ it gets old pretty fast.
Have a drabble in which I express my discontent with adjectives.
