RE: An Unfortunate Adventure! #freewritemadness: Day One
I had no idea what Deep POV was either until earlier this year! I was reading various writing websites, talking about voices, active/passive, do this, do that, don't do that!, and they had all the POVs listed and I was all, "Hey! That one's mine!"
When I first started writing, I was more of a narrator. My own fault. I was imagining myself sitting by a campfire and telling a story to people and wrote my words in that fashion. I was a story-teller. Then realised that apparently no-one likes story-tellers, they want story-showers. Have been training myself over the past few months to be a bit more show-y and less tell-y. I think I still fall into it sometimes, but it's hard to tell. For me anyway.
The Min-Min Lights are a real phenomenon here in Aussie-land! :D Told of in the Aboriginal Dreamtime. They've partially been scientifically explained, apparently a Fata Morgana mirage; but what the science describes and what the people describe seem entirely at odds. I like the idea of little malevolent light-orbs luring people into the great unknown.
You are a born storyteller, and I mean that in the best way possible! I get so frustrated by the show-don't-tell crowd. Dostoevsky and Homer (The Odyssey) and the Nibelungenlied and other epics were all about telling. Rhyme and rhythm were built in because without the printing press, oral storytellers relied on poetic prose because it's more easily memorized. There is MERIT in "tell vs show" - fairy tales are more tell than show! And your Min-Min lights lend themselves to that. The truth is stranger than fiction... I'm resisting the urge to google this Aussie phenom RIGHT NOW and work on my NaNo word count instead, but oh, man, the Foo Fighters of WWII, lights witnessed by American soldiers in Germany territory - what ARE these thing?? You've tapped into a national treasure! And you're balancing the show vs tell quite well. While freewriting, it's great to do more telling. Later, go back and edit in the show. Narrative flow can be impeded by descriptive details. "He was angry" is a tell, and "He shoved the chair back and slammed his fist on the table" is a show, but sometimes we get hung up in the showing and lose the narrative pace. So, just go go go go! You're telling a great story, and I really liked the "First World Problems" of the Millennial whose phone wasn't working. "How could it get worse" - those famous words of doom - I learned never EVER to say "What next!" or "It can't get any worse." There is no greater invitation to all the imps and gremlins out there looking for their next victim. ;)
You and I need to message each other by email or something!
Now I'm heading to Twitter to follow An Australian neuroscientist who solved the mystery of Min Min lights, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, a fellow in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. His latest book, Karl the Universe and Everything is published by Pan MacMillan. Follow him on Twitter at @DoctorKarl....
I will send you a quick email right now. :) Just so you have my email on hand. (don't really want to write it out in the open)
:D
You knew I couldn't resist googling it.