Donald Davis compares story-making to quilt-making. The first step, he says, is scrap-gathering. Scraps are, as you might suspect, just little evocative bits of experience: an overheard conversation, a scent, the way the landscape looked out the window of a car you rode in as a kid.
When you have enough scraps, you can think about stitching them together. But you can’t do that until you have a Place, some People, a Problem, and an ending that results in some kind of Progress.
What do y’all think of this model?
kiplet
November 11, 2005 at 9:26 amDefine progress, he said, from the peanut gallery.
wildiris
November 11, 2005 at 10:20 amDia Calhoun referred to her ideas as a bag of scraps – I think her essay on this topic was published in VOYA a few years ago.
bridgeweaver
November 11, 2005 at 12:57 pmDoesn’t that partake of the same philosophy as Hemmingway saying to write what you know? I mean, if you’re attempting to write something that lives in a world with which you are unfamiliar, how does that model apply? I suppose even in a story set in the far-flung future, you ight still stitch in bits of your experience, but isn’t that limiting?
I suppose Empress of the World might fit that model; at least I can say there were a lot of bits that were recognizable by people who knew you. I suppose I’m sitting on the fence.
indulgent_el
November 11, 2005 at 10:17 pmI don’t write fiction, but this certainly works for me for essays . . . before computers I’d hand write, then cut the paper up and spread it out on the floor, moving pieces around and filling in blanks with notes.
blackholly
November 13, 2005 at 12:35 amHAPPY BIRTHDAY!
thisisnotanlj
November 14, 2005 at 3:21 pmthanks holly! and a belated happy one right back atcha. :)
capn_jil
November 15, 2005 at 3:06 amregardless of what outfit they’re wearing you’re probably still writing what you know.