It's always bad form and almost always bad luck to talk about one's own writing while it's still in progress. "Show, don't tell" is one of the most popular pieces of advice in fiction-writing workshops, and more writers should apply that to their own lives. (For instance, writers shouldn't keep blogs.) But I'll forge ahead here anyway.
I'm trying to write stories in which an older person (usually fifty or older) faces a crisis of some kind. I'm trying to condense plot (not eliminate it, condense it) into one moment of time, while also trying to convey an entire life in the space of a couple pages.
What bothers me about some of the stories is that they veer more towards journalism than I would like--almost like reading someone's obituary rather than reading a story.
When I succeed, the characters advance beyond the two dimensions of the obituary to reveal something desperately true about themselves.
I don't know which side of "reality" I'm on (see yesterday's post) but I'd like to try to combine the slice-of-life story with something a bit more surreal--in the space of one or two pages.
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