Writing Stamina; a question of

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« on: June 02, 2013, 01:12:07 am »
Quote from: Callan S.
So, your average expectation of a book is 300 pages or so. How many times do I have to write 'fish' to fill that out?  :lol:

And it seems artificial - am I really writing what I want to say if I'm also stretching (or contracting) to 300 pages? How is this truthful writing?

What if it all comes out in one bile laden pair of sentences - okay, so you're looking at 300 yet empty pages?

Do you get no choice? No decision - no deciding to? Do you maybe perchance scratch out word on a day and maybe on a day again, ag'in, ag'in, maybe, maybe, such scratching maybe, maybe occur repeatedly enough to fill 300 pages after kludging them together? So work and hope?

How'd 300 pages even come around? Is it some kind of wheat/chaff like line someone else drew up because they could write 'fish' several thousand times without actually using the word fish?

It seems like a few words, a handful of sentences aught to be a bastion of meaning. That was *turn to the crowd*...nothing.

Or do people like to pile bastion upon bastion, in reflection of the grander glory of meaning they see throughout the world? Like it was petrol and just as unlimited.

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« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2013, 01:12:13 am »
Quote from: sciborg2
Lit-fic books, I've seen, can be much shorter. The Road, for example, really isn't that long. Neither is Morrison's Mercy or Bluest Eye.

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« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2013, 01:12:22 am »
Quote from: Callan S.
I'm looking it up and it seems to be 256 pages. Still pretty close to 300 pages. I've started some world building as an attempt to create material apart from relying purely on 'what happens next in the story' to make anything at all.

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« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2013, 01:12:28 am »
Quote from: sciborg2
Look at the font size as well as the page size. Never Knew Another is an example of a novel that isn't padded with world building...though people who want something less contemplative might say the entire novel is padding I think it's a pretty good book.

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« Reply #4 on: June 02, 2013, 01:12:34 am »
Quote from: Callan S.
I've honestly never been a world builder, not even in table top roleplay. But doing some now I think it can give a context of fail/suceed that I was clawing for in terms of just trying to write story just in itself. Sure, it's just trying to fit new material in with older material, which is like trying to get new lego to fit properly on top of old lego, but that works out alot more than my old attempted metric of pass/fail being 'what the audience wants' (to put it broadly), which is just blasting and unhelpful.

Anyway, you're right. Not so much font size but the spacing between each line, and in particular between each paragraph is pretty massive when randomly comparing it to Dresdon files: Stormfront (which doesn't even have spaces between paragraphs).

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« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2013, 01:12:41 am »
Quote from: sologdin
hmm?  write novellas, or shorts, or prose poems, or gnomics?

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« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2013, 01:12:48 am »
Quote from: Callan S.
Currently I attempt the madness which is nanowrimo. I have missed a day or two, but at day 19 I am at 29373 words.

I find figuring out ways to keep up with the par is the hard bit - the actual difficulty of writing is simply a reflection of that.