Bigsoccer Writers Thread

[flanoverseas]

Originally posted by jamison


Oh MY god, it's George Lucas! George Lucas is the other way around.

[Jacen McCullough]

Originally posted by Michael K.



Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to eat it nevertheless. -- Flaubert


Love that quote.


If Flaubert interests you, there is a Metafictive novel called "Flaubert's Parrot" that is an outstanding read. I can't remember the name of the author though (British guy, written in 88 I think.)


JMac

[oman]

Metafictive?

Definately gives me pause...

[Jacen McCullough]

For those asking about the "How to Write books" and suggestions for books like them, I have 2 suggestions:

1: Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.

2: Anything by Jack London.


You want to learn how to form a story or create realistic characters and dialogue, get out there and experience as many things as possible. The more you see and experience the more vast your store of characters and ideas will be.


JMac

[Jacen McCullough]

Originally posted by oman
Metafictive?

Definately gives me pause...


Metafiction is a relatively new genre of writing. Flaubert's Parrot is one example. Wide Sargasso Sea is another. Basically, metafiction is a story or novel that involves another piece of writing in some way. Flaubert's Parrot is a fictional story that contains details of Flaubert's life. Wide Sargasso Sea is a story in which the main character is the insane 1st wife of Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre. Am I making sense?

JMac

[irvine]

<old fart>

Jacen, you should read Don Quixote and/or Tristram Shandy (DQ if you're only going to take on one)--or, to go back a little further, the Ramayana. Metafiction's been around a bit longer than Julian Barnes (Flaubert's Parrot is a good read, like you said) and Rhys. And it might be defined as fiction that calls attention to its fictionality, or a story that is at least partially about its own creation--so when Huck Finn says in the first line of the novel named for him, "You don't know nothing about me without you have read a book called Tom Sawyer" (I'm sure a misquote, but you get the idea), the story calls attention to itself as story. That's metafiction.

</old fart>

Originally posted by Jacen McCullough

Metafiction is a relatively new genre of writing.

[oman]

Originally posted by Jacen McCullough



Metafiction is a relatively new genre of writing. Flaubert's Parrot is one example. Wide Sargasso Sea is another. Basically, metafiction is a story or novel that involves another piece of writing in some way. Flaubert's Parrot is a fictional story that contains details of Flaubert's life. Wide Sargasso Sea is a story in which the main character is the insane 1st wife of Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre. Am I making sense?

JMac

Enough sense for me to remember not to read Wide Sargasso again...

Why does it need a seperate genre just for that?

Reminds me of this paraphrased exchange:

Military guy:"If what lies right below the surface of the story is the subtext, the hidden meaning, then what is right above that - what is right above the hidden meaning?"

Business guy: "The text."

-- Barcelona

[Ghost]

Has anyone else had this happen? I just had my first story published, and now I don't want to sit down and write. I have ideas, multiple ideas, but I keep saying this is the weekend whenI'm going to sit odwn and write it, and I haven't done it. I think it's mainly the fact that I've had my first taste of success, I want to enjoy it, and I don't want to go back and start getting rejected again. AAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[irvine]

Wow. My experience was exactly the opposite. I got the first acceptance, sat down, and reeled off four of five more stories in the next couple of months because I was so stoned on being nearly published.

Congrats on the first one, by the way. Go out to dinner or something; every sale is great, but only the first makes you feel like you're a brand new person.

[whirlwind]

Originally posted by Ghost
[QUOTE]Originally posted by irvine
[BOn a side note ----

Irvine,

In another thread, I saw you mention that you had a job in Ann Arbor in the 80s. Are you a graduate of UM? I am, class of 1995. I think Whirlwind is as well. It would be interesting that three graduates wind up on the same board, gravitating to this same thread about writing. We may have to hold these discussions in Angell Hall or East Engin.



Class of '89. BA in English.

Originally posted by irvine
My degree was in theater (after three semesters of aerospace engineering), and I spent most of my time doing plays and drinking beer.

Interesting. My little brother got his Masters in Aero Engin in '94. He's working on fighter planes now.

[Dr. Wankler]

Originally posted by oman
Why does it need a seperate genre just for that?


Reminds me of a bad attempt at metafiction I sat through in a writing workshop taught by Andrei Codrescu. If you know his accent from his NPR or occasional TV appearances, you'll get a bit more out of it, but anyway.... This guy taking the class wrote a bad metafiction about a guy writing bad metafiction about a guy writing.... etc. He read it. No one really knew how to discuss it. Codrescu decides it might help if we had a label for the type of writing, so he says, "there is in fact a name for that genre of writing. It is called ' whacking off'."

Of course, there is some great metafiction, and Irvine mentions some early examples of it from European literature, and Jacen from the 20th century. A lot of Borges' writing would also qualify, I think.

[Jacen McCullough]

Hey all, I had a quick question for the literary minds of Bigsoccer (and it serves to revive this great thread, which had been relegated to page 5! :()

I had an idea for a new project, and I basically want to know if anyone had done it before. With so many people on BS being well-read, I figured you all would know. Basically, I want to do a piece on college life. I start from the concept that only 1 out of every 5 (or whatever) college freshman go on to graduate. I would start off with a group of college freshmen at the same school, and do the piece almost documentary style (example: The students are participating in a study tracking graduation rates, and are required to keep a semesterly log. The piece will be done in 1st person, but from 5 very different perspectives.) The trick will be nailing the "voices" and making them and their experiences unique and realistic. By the end of the piece, for many different reasons (I'm thinking everything from failing out to death) only one of the characters remains.


So what's the verdict? Is this an original idea I should pursue, or has something too close already been done?

Thanks!

JMac

[Dr. Wankler]

It could work. There aren't that many college novels that pop to mind right away. There seem to be more prep-school novels, ranging from the well-known like A Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace, to lesser known works like A Good School {by Richard Yates} and The Headmaster's Papers {by Richard Hawley}. And most college novels that I can think of seem to be set at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton (i.e., the alma maters of most publishing executives). So I think this could be done with enough originality to make it interesting.

Let's see: the advantages of following five characters would be... your plot could be more episodic, so it wouldn't have to hang together in quite the same way as a more conventional narrative. The tough part would be, as you said, nailing the voices. If the characters are articulate enough to be interesting over a number of pages, you'll have to come up with compelling reasons for some of them to be flunking out of college besides just being random dumb-asses.

Something that might work to complicate things in an interesting way: the reports from the minor administrator (The Assistant Dean of Retention?) whose own memos could be sort of a greek chorus thing... but that's your call, obviously.

Main thing: I don't think you're treading on a path that is too well worn just yet...

[whirlwind]

Originally posted by Jacen McCullough

So what's the verdict? Is this an original idea I should pursue, or has something too close already been done?

Thanks!

JMac


Seems clever.

Oh, and it doesn't matter if it's been done already. Everything's been done already. Just do it in a new and interesting way, give some life to the characters, and you'll be fine.

[Ghost]

Time to revive. As I mentioned at the beginning of the thread, I had my first story published at a website earlier this year. I'ts being reprinted in a bigger magazine (one that actually has separate managing, fiction and poetry editors!!!!). Here's the link to the magazine's website.

www.circlemagazine.com

Go to the current issue. If you ever meet me in person, my day-to-day name is Kevin Bowen. When I write, i use my middle name Mark. The story is called "Train" If the astericks are trustworthy, it's apparently also in the print version of the magazine. That's news to me. Good news.