Of course I'm interested in writing a police-procedural/neo-noir/weird-detective novel or even series. I actually have a detective novel that is in a wider series ready to be written. I just wanna do it differently. I'll have to read some detective novels and look at the different formulas different authors use. And I'll need to either stay clear of cliches, or poke fun at them; just depends on what the novel requires.
In the introduction to the 10th Anniversary edition of American Gods, Neil Gaiman says: "I remember when it was all done in first draft telling Gene Wolfe, who is the wisest writer I know and has written more excellent novels than any man I've met, that I thought I had now learned how to write a novel. Gene looked at me, and smiled kindly. 'You never learn how to write a novel,' he told me. 'You only learn to write the novel you're on.'"
Two of my favorite writers. And Gene's words are sound advice. I not only use them with literature, but with music and now art. I only work on each song or novel/story or artwork separately and on their own. Treat them as their own entities. I like to think that all Artforms are living things and you flesh them out, you birth them, I suppose. I won't go as far as Stephen King as to say the story or song or art-piece was already there. In a way I suppose that is true, but who really knows. (And don't get me wrong, Mr King is not saying the author doesn't have to work; on the contrary, they must work very hard to flesh it all out.) But whatever the source, the point is that I make sure to approach each work as a whole new life-form. And as it is living, it is different. Listen to the piece, and see what it needs and give it its needs. Whether you misread the piece or not is another matter, but the point is to try.
Anyway, my tangent is finished.
As to whether anyone understood is another matter, but I'm not worried.
Have a great day everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment