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| Dear Edward Lee http://horrorworld.org/msgboards/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=13982 |
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| Author: | DecayedFace [ Thu Jun 19, 2014 3:43 am ] |
| Post subject: | Dear Edward Lee |
Dear Edward Lee, First let me say that a letter like this I would rather have penned and sent to you through the mail rather than a public forum, but unfortunately I do not know your address nor have I endeavoured to track it down, though I am grateful for this mode of contact. I simply hope for a response, given my current frustration with a story I am writing and my enormous appreciation for your work. I have read close to thirty of your novels now, and everyone of them has blown me away constantly showing me something new about writing, especially, as of late, GHOULS, which is now actually one of my favourites. Still, every time I am always left with the same questions in my mind. How do you Plot your stories? And how many character points of view (angles) are too many? I have read McCammons, Kings, Ketchum's and Piccirillis insights into writing but still find myself struggling. I can see the thing in my head, the scenes and characters, but yet I am unable to write consistently. For six months I sat in my room, wrote 45,000 words and in the end ended up with ten pages worth of material, that has since changed direction, calling for serious revision. Am I overthinking it? I have 17 characters, and they are all awesome, but it all seems like soo much to me. Narrowed down I have about four separate groups of people, once all characters have been introduced and have united to their assigned groups, but prior to that there are about seven to eight characters that demand serious introductions. Given that your style is one I hold as most appealing in a lot of ways, in terms of style and content, would you be able to elaborate on this for me? Presently I am composing a story line, but I feel like it is taking too long. I have endless notes, am thinking myself into absolute frustration and cannot seem to hold the premiss in my mind very long without it changing on me. I've noticed you use numerous story lines in some of your novels, like Coven, which has so many characters, but you made it work so well. Do you limit yourself to a certain amount of converging points of view? This idea I have is eating me alive, I need to get this resolved, and it's only out of desperation that I'm asking you, given that your words would better be served to compose Header 3. But I believe in it, I just need to surmount this hurdle. To narrow this ramble down, these are my specific questions. Any elaboration on them would be enormously beneficial to me. Not that I wish to demystify your work, of which I am a true fan. I just think that you would have a lot to offer an extremely frustrated, but persistent aspiring author. How do you Plot your stories? How many character points of view (angles) are too many? Do you limit yourself to a certain amount of converging points of view? What tools could help me put it all in perspective? What do you use? Do you web your stories out scene by scene before hand? Matt |
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| Author: | Edward Lee [ Tue Jul 01, 2014 3:24 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dear Edward Lee |
Matt: these are indeed questions all new writers ask and I regret to say tthere are no set answers. Every story and novel is different just as every author is different. As for style, decades ago I wrote Robin Cook (Coma) a fan letter and asked him is he could explain how style evolves and he said that one unconsciously imitated the tyle of authors he or she likes, isolating the element of that style and incorporating them into one's own work. And in order to have an accessible style, he recommended reading the current fiction bestsellers and analysing each author's style to interpret its proper function. This is very workable and makes perfect sense. And If you're not so much worried about accessibility of your style, skip the besteller list and stick with the authors you like most. Employing this, over time, leads to your own original style. When you think about it, the only kind of author who could write a book in a completely original style would have to be an author who has NEVER READ anything! Plot is even less definable; some stories don't even call for a plot--it all depnds on the story's context and its characters. If you're a fan of McCammon and King (whose books are often very long) you may be thinking that your books need to be as long; hence your worries about too many story convergences, too many characters, etc. All I can tell you here is that you should let the story dictate these thing and you will simple "know" what is too much. Of course I must admit one of my biggest flaws is disregarding this tenet, and I do wind up with too many things happening that wind up cluttering the book (you should've seen the first draft of LuciferS Lottery!) Here's about the only objective advice I cn give you about these abstract things: if you think you may have too many plots points or too many character POV's, then you probably do; so eliminate some of them from the bottom up. This is very hard sometimes but it's a discipline that really is part of the turf. Hope this helps! Best Edward Lee |
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| Author: | DecayedFace [ Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:06 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Dear Edward Lee |
I know I'm probably asking really common questions, but what you said was really helpful. Thank you. |
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