Why?
March 15, 2001
7:26 a.m.
For the past couple weeks I've been reading Charles Sheffield's book "Borderlands of Science," which I think is interesting and potentially useful. What this means is that I haven't been reading any fiction. So this morning at breakfast, I dug into Robert Reed's "Market Day" (on Catherine's recommendation). It's certainly an interesting story. I'll have to think about it for a while as see if I can figure out how it worked. A week or three back, I dropped a note into my old IMP stomping grounds, wherein I asked people to tell me what story they've read in the past three months that really worked for them--and what the author did to make it work. As can be expected, I got back a lot of pretty soft answers. I think it's important that a writer be able to look at someone's story and know why it works. So it bugged me that not a single response actually talked about what the author did. They touched on the aspects of the story that worked for them ... the setting, the plot was interesting, etc. But no one actually answered what the author did in order to allow them to say these nice things. There I go again. Sigh. Anyway. I challenge all new writers out there to endeavor to understand why a story works. Not just in fan/critic terms, but in basic plaster and glue language that you can bring back to your own work.   Have a great day.  Just don't use one of mine! Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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