Beauty Behind A Pane Of Glass: free indirect narrative

Sunday, 18 November 2012

What are you afraid of?

Demons and monsters? Dark secrets from the corners of your mind leaking out into deathly exposure? Judgement?

Writing is almost too sacred for me to work on regularly. I mean, I adore exhaling my thoughts and imaginations through words with infinite interpretations, I really do, but when it comes down to the actual willingness to do it, I often find myself apprehensive. I think it has something to do with the trepidation of coming out with something horrifying, in the sense that I am ashamed to have written such crap and that if read by other human eyes they are sure to reach desperately for the holy water.

I want to develop my writing skills. Unfortunately, I am prone to start with promising ideas and then give up after only a few lines of creativity, not allowing enough time for the ol’ steam train to get moving. This is probably due to laziness and lack of concentration, so I will need to find a way to stick with things, I guess.

Also, a common feature of my writing style is abstract thoughts and first person narrative, but not generally containing a plot. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the deity Virginia Woolf disagrees with the idea that ‘to provide a plot, to provide comedy, tragedy, love interest’[1] is required to create a story, depicted exquisitely in her masterpiece Mrs Dalloway.

Indeed, I intend to use my knowledge of describing and bringing to life the emotions of the speaker (or should I say my own emotions, as I have lazily not bothered to create characters) and devise a plot in a free indirect narrative for my own satisfaction. I will just write whatever drifts in and out of my mind, reflecting this narrative style and hope for the best. I can always edit and remove the ‘fat’ of globular nonsense when I finally lose steam and force myself to come to an abrupt and exasperated finish to my story.

Wish me luck!

Jaguar

[1] V Woolf 'The Common Reader' via http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c/chapter1.html#chapter1

Sunday, 10 June 2012

Free Indirect Narrative (practice..): To be revised

I am an aboriginal being. I come from quitea distance, actually. My mother brought me here in her automobile. It’s big,this city, a labyrinth of leaden streets, winding this way and that.

The elderly man, sitting opposite the brownboy noted these odd utterances, shaking his head, admiring the fluidity of thechild’s speaking (for one does not tend to speak English in The Saway);glittering rays smile over the huts, the stream trickles on, nothing bites atthe soul more than the hard antithesis between two worlds: the status struggleof the city and the tranquil serenity of the countryside. For that, Gregorycould account for.

I want to help. I can change things – stalewords. Stale, cold, undeniably false words. I know where the power lies, whatreally lies beneath the silt of the world; but they had after all brought thisupon themselves, it was their transgressions, their obstinacy which evoked thetar of the soul, the Maelstrom. Twisting and untwisting, the pale blue smoke,inhaled by the darkbeaters palpitates around the room. Mr Clark seems to beunaware and continuous looking on with admiration at the wonderfully rare,bronzed child in front of him.

Of course, of course, Gregory. His eyes,mismatching, both light brown, but the left, spiced with yellow flecks, staredahead, statuary and determined; this is the Son of the Souls, thought Mr Clark,scribbling a conclusion conveying the maturity and conscientiousness of theboy. He was glad that the youthappreciated the severity of the situation, for he was their only hope.