How to write fiction
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What we see, we covet
The moment Hannibal lecter is giving Clarice Starling the crumbles to solve Jessica Bimmels murder —the very first Buffalo Bills murder; he says: We covet. And what do we start coveting but what we see every day?ADAPTATION, THE VIRTUES OF ONE INTO THE VIRTUES OF THE OTHER Speaking about adaptation difficulties and the reasons why the book will never be the movie and viceversa in case it is well done and in case it isnt; but what I mean is that Robert McKee (Story) was speaking of something else when he mentions, as any of those ham smears in a ham sandwich sold in a poor street, something more interesting.…
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McGuffin go fetch my plot slippers
A MCGUFFIN IS THE STARTING GUN SHOOT. Important or not important,they come about at some point in the beginning of the plot and represent the desire. They can completely disappear to reappear in the climax. They can cause a city to be put inside out. Or they can become a totem hero object. A magic sword, phoenix tear, death's hollow, Maltese falcon. This objects are the justified desire of the character. Either a main or a secondary character.
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Marketing’s magic
Magic is a behaviour that's become popular in most narratives; such as in: Macbeth, Faust, LOTR, Harry Potter, Charmed, Bewitched, Zelda, Dungeons and dragons, Final fantasy, A song of ice and fire... The idea of magic being an exchange. Who is able to manipulate the elements and who is able to foretell the future? Only those who are special.
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And so comedy wasn’t a joke
COMPLAIN Is the river dirty? Make the Mork river almost solid enough to never sink in it. Do we dislike the snobish hat? Let's have it punched out from a head. This is Robert McKee's image of comedy. A frontal disappointed attack AGAINST anything that could be... Better. Anything the frustrated idealist of a writer hates.
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Summoning
It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from our view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summons. Franz Kafka, October 18th 1921. The diaries of Franz Kafka: 1914-1923 ( in Goodreads for I haven’t read the book)
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About visits
Once when I had everything settled about a new apartment in Manhattan— advance rent paid, the lease signed, the movers ready —I was informed that I could not have it because it was a professional apartment. Writers are not professionals, because “their clients do not come to them.” I thought of writing to the Department of Housing or whoever made this law, “You have no idea how many characters ring my doorbell and come to me every day, and I absolutely need them for my existence,” but I never wrote this, only reflected that prostitutes could probably qualify, but writers couldn’t. Patricia Highsmith. Plotting and writing suspense
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The imminent danger of metaphor p3
As a writer you need command of the language. Not to make of it something beautiful [additional problem]. To persuade. To enchant. To create metaphors. To listen and be able to pick up the metaphors that could work in most places.
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The imminent danger of metaphor p2
It might be and it might not be that reality is shaped by language (nonetheless the gravity works in all of them, despite the name). Nor Sapir or Whorf were able to prove it. Let's imagine for a moment that what happens in English does in Spanish as well. The use of the generic engineer, doctor, physician, lawyer and driver is deceitful, sly and manipulative to the point we rarely imagine a woman upon hearing these words.
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The imminent danger of metaphor p1
Without our knowledge, simply the COVID 19 has increased the number of words we use further away from Shakespeare or Cervantes. From the name of the virus — Coronavirus and its a lot less common symptoms like— apnea, fatigue, pulmonary obstruction, cutaneous eruption... Plus derivates such as: willingly quarantine, mortality, asymptomatic, K19 grade, sanitary measures, thrombosis, gen, risk group. That's 13 new words! 13 new words for an average individual. Tough daily life doesn't require as many as a poetic ode to imply we're going to the loo, any number. So we underestimate language by rating a raggaeton song's listeners to be unschooled just cause the song uses 30 words…
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Sometimes on Sunday
Edna O’Brien, the talented Irish novelist, said in an interview, “Writers are always working. They never stop.” This is the nature of the job of writing, at least of writing fiction. Writers are either developing an idea or they are questing, even if unconsciously, for the germ of an idea. I create things out of boredom with reality and with the sameness of routine and objects around me. Therefore, I don’t dislike this boredom which encroaches on me every now and then, and I even try to create it by routine. I do not “have to work” in the sense that I must drive myself to it or make myself…
