Good News: Done with my first draft. Only of 106 pages single spaced, 11 size font Cambria.
Bad News: After looking it over. Only half of it is usable. I will need to rewrite the second half of it. Many of those pages may not even be used.
By: Nippy | Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 9:42 AM | | 
Finished
Love in the Time Cholera
Learnt:
If you want to surprise your readers (or for that matter, if you want them to feel a particular emotion)the most effective way is to make them feel it First Hand. The key here is first hand. How do you tell a story (which is in itself a second hand experience)and make readers feel first hand? Marquez has this method to offer.
Take for example the passage below: (pg 217)
In a sudden inspiration, Florentino Ariza opened a can of red paint that was within reach of the bunk, wet his index finger, and painted the pubis of the beautiful pigeon fancier with an arrow of blood pointing south, and on her belly the words:
This pussy is mine. That same night, Olimpia Zuleta undressed in front of her husband, having forgotten what was scrawled there, and he did not say a word, his breathing did not even change, nothing, but he went to the bathroom for his razor while she was putting on her nightgown, and in a single slash he cut her throat.
An amazing passage, because in that last sentence, a rather long sentence, I was so shocked when I read it that I gasped audibly on the train, and was so shaken by that one sentence I was jumpy all day, as if someone really had injected ice into my veins that day.
A lot of the work is done on the sentence level. It is a rather imbalanced sentence, but it echoes precisely what happens. We get lots of pauses until that very last part where in a single breath, we readers are as taken surprise as Olimpia whose throat gets cut so quickly, so efficiently, so neatly. What a skilled story-teller to bring me on this emotional ride so effectively in such a short space.
Labels: Writing Lessons on BART
By: Nippy | Monday, June 18, 2012 at 4:38 AM | |
