3 stories by desmodus

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Tue, 2005-12-20 20:42

fergal

3 stories by desmodus

I read these three in a row and they made me think about how writers chose to tell their stories.

After this one..

http://www.abctales.com/node/547120

...I thought, 'Hmm, cute'...

Then after this one...

http://www.abctales.com/node/547121

...I thought, 'Oh, I see what this person is doing here... summing up universal tales in short patterns.

Then after this one...

http://www.abctales.com/node/547122

...I thought, 'I'm glad I read all three together, because they sort of worked as a set - and sort of summed up lots of plots that writers base their stories on.

Which leads me to ask the question? What makes a good story? If these three snippets have a beginning, middle and end (which they do...) what (if anything) is missing?

I'm not sure I liked these pieces as such, but reading them in a three had a strange hynoptic effect on me - and made me have a think about how I choose where my own stories are headed and how they get there.

(I also wondered if this could be a good technique for writing synopsis for longer works.. just to remind you where and via what you are going...)

Wed, 2005-12-21 07:22

desmodus

Thanks Fergal. I wrote them a while back, and I think 'the beach' is probably the best one of the three. Cheers.

Wed, 2005-12-21 16:36

Jack Cade

I quite like them. I think they'd work best in some kind of context, as Fergal suggests. Either the context of each other, or introduced in a book or something. It's Vonnegutian humour - quite black, deliberately childish, almost highlighting the pointlessness of the story structure. In fact, when Fergal asks, "What makes a good story? If these three snippets have a beginning, middle and end (which they do...) what (if anything) is missing?" my answer would be that maybe this exactly what these stories are asking. Either that, or they're answering it with, "Nothing is missing. This is all you read. You just take longer over it. Marvellous, isn't it?" Which is, I think, a sound point, although I can readily imagine the counter-argument.

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