Lots of people in this community have decided to get the pens and the keyboards to start writing something interesting for everyone or themselves. That, in an on itself, is commendable.
However, when someone worked for years creating their own stories and using other tales as entertainment or learning tool, one ends stablishing a series of very internalized concepts.
An objective: What do you want to show to the world? What do you want to yell to yourself? What do you want to illustrate in an unique and personal manner?
A law: You can follow a stilistic archetype (noir literature comes to mind); or a series of personal bans (if you dislike romance, you can ban yourself of writing that); or, simply, choosing a specific way to express yourself (only dialogues, only first person perspective…). The question is that the author wants to be faithful to some forms that they consider their own.
An exception: Of course, no one is so inflexible to maintain an objective or a law all their life. Following rules can coerce creativity to a very few posibilities. Here’s where the exceptions come to play.
So, self considered veteran writers, which is your objective? Your law? And the exception?
My objective: I want to follow a literary pattern similar to the classical fantasy. The “fantasy” is an “unexpected rupture with reality”. It’s not needed to be sudden, like appearing in a different world. If something i learned out of Maria Gripe’s works is that fantasy can be deliciously subtle and integrated into our daily routines, inside the littlest of details that make everything more enjoyable. Or more fearsome, if we turn our sights into 19th century fantastic literature. Want to talk about strange creatures? As long as our reality is at hand, in narration or symbology, so be it. It must be a before and an after that fantasy. And this rupture must dramatically change something, for good or ill.
Bastian return changed from Fantasia.
All of those who saw Cthulhu in person ended comprehending how little they matter in the universe.
My law: I don’t use violence as much. Yes, i consider that conflict is needed, but i deny violence as solution. Even if i use it to solve the problem, i clearly state in the plot that it shouldn’t never have ended like that, that there was a lot of chanes to finish the story if, simply, someone sat down, talked and listened. I deny stories where war is the center of everything, as a problem and as a solution.
And, at the same level, i don’t use love as a force that move every interpersonal relationship. It’s tiring seeing people who goes from indiference to absolute love in four pages. Oh, i love well narrated sex. I don’t care about affection demonstrations. Neither i care about having a favorite: it’s perfectly natural. However, why sometimes does look like the soldiers go to war to hit on girls? Nope.
There’s friendship, loyalty, respect, faithfulness… a lot of alternatives to the traditional romance. But that would be hard to write, isn’t it?
My exception: I can’t ignore cultural facts, neither social facts. The war will finally break up, no matter what i say; and some people will end in love with others, today and tomorrow. And, when that happens, welp, what can i do?: i’ll write “war” and the word “lovers”. I’m not so pacifist neither so bitter towards love.
But, let’s not forget, this is my exception.
Whose are your objectives? Your laws? And your exceptions?
