Thursday, July 13, 2000

Day Thirty-One

Eureka! I think I've got it. Well... maybe not really. I'll know in a bit. My story, Promises Made, Debts Collected went through the gauntlet today and the big breakthrough for me is what Maureen said about distancing and then Greg clarified as filtering. There's always been a distance between my stories and the reader and I just couldn't seem to get past that. Today, Maureen's critique focused on that emotional distance (or maybe she didn't focus on it and that was just the part that ressonated with me), and she clarified what the problem is and how to fix it.

So now I take the recently completed story and revise it, being careful to remove all the filters that stand between the reader and the narrator. Remove all the he said's that don't belong. See through the pov's eyes rather than pulling back and viewing it all through the camera. Describe what the pov sees and senses rather than trying to draw descriptive phrases around him. Ack!

We'll see how it goes.

Tomorrow, I have a day of rest. It's 1215 hrs as I type this and my meeting with Maureen and Greg is at 1400 hrs. It'll be interesting to see what they have to say about my mammoth stack of stories written, experiments conducted, and what I can do to progress.

Linda

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