Form and Challenge Part Two
Yesterday, Sara Lewis Holmes and I talked about establishing a formal challenge for yourself when constructing a work of fiction -- how such a challenge can serve as motivation, can underscore the spine of the book, and can structure the work in such a way as to make it manageable. Here's that conversation. And if you're not sure what I mean when I say spine, I'm using it in a particular, Twyla Tharpian way, which you can find explained here.
There were tons of interesting comments in the trail and since I brought up poetic forms yesterday, I thought I'd highlight these two contributions from the poets in the crowd
kellyrfineman said this:
As I've said before in writing and in workshops I've presented, I find working within actual forms to be very freeing - closing off a lot of doors leaves you inside a very stable-feeling room, so that other levels of crazy challenge seem tackle-able. As when I wrote the plot of Pride & Prejudice as a double sestina for the Jane project. Absolutely crazy? Yep. And I loved every moment of it, even as I knitted and unknitted stanzas time and again. I think that working with poetic forms establishes a solid frame on which you can hang words, and you are free to be daring in your word choices because you have the strength of that frame to hold you up. At least that's how I envision it.
liz_scanlon would agree, I think, though she also feels the frustration with the challenge that Sara described yesterday:
I think rhyme serves as both spine and challenge in many of my manuscripts. It gives me somewhere to go when I'm starting out, sort of sets the latitude lines, thank god, because things are not pretty when I'm a free-range chicken, and allows me to actually finish a draft. That probably stinks but at least the skeleton's there to mess with.
And that's when rhyme becomes a challenge -- sometimes feeling like a fun little puzzle (a la Sara's Rapunzel) and then eventually, almost always, a madness-making worry. "Why on earth have I boxed myself in like this," I scream and gnash my teeth. Forgetting that I boxed myself in because otherwise I'd still be cleaning out the silverware with a whole bunch of wild ideas in my head.
What do you think?
Poets, do you agree?
Novelists and picture book people, do the confines of a form offer you freedom?
And does the challenge of the form propel you in your writing?
More on this coming up next time.
There were tons of interesting comments in the trail and since I brought up poetic forms yesterday, I thought I'd highlight these two contributions from the poets in the crowd
kellyrfineman said this:
As I've said before in writing and in workshops I've presented, I find working within actual forms to be very freeing - closing off a lot of doors leaves you inside a very stable-feeling room, so that other levels of crazy challenge seem tackle-able. As when I wrote the plot of Pride & Prejudice as a double sestina for the Jane project. Absolutely crazy? Yep. And I loved every moment of it, even as I knitted and unknitted stanzas time and again. I think that working with poetic forms establishes a solid frame on which you can hang words, and you are free to be daring in your word choices because you have the strength of that frame to hold you up. At least that's how I envision it.
liz_scanlon would agree, I think, though she also feels the frustration with the challenge that Sara described yesterday:
I think rhyme serves as both spine and challenge in many of my manuscripts. It gives me somewhere to go when I'm starting out, sort of sets the latitude lines, thank god, because things are not pretty when I'm a free-range chicken, and allows me to actually finish a draft. That probably stinks but at least the skeleton's there to mess with.
And that's when rhyme becomes a challenge -- sometimes feeling like a fun little puzzle (a la Sara's Rapunzel) and then eventually, almost always, a madness-making worry. "Why on earth have I boxed myself in like this," I scream and gnash my teeth. Forgetting that I boxed myself in because otherwise I'd still be cleaning out the silverware with a whole bunch of wild ideas in my head.
What do you think?
Poets, do you agree?
Novelists and picture book people, do the confines of a form offer you freedom?
And does the challenge of the form propel you in your writing?
More on this coming up next time.