- Aug 2024
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www.thoughtco.com www.thoughtco.com
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Russian-born American author Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977) dictates from notecards while his wife Vera (nee Slonim, 1902 - 1991 types on a manual typewriter, Ithaca, New York, 1958. Carl Mydans / Getty Images
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www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
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Really useful video about the generation of story beats.
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- Jul 2024
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lisahallwilson.com lisahallwilson.com
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Best article on Deep POV I have ever read.
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- Jan 2024
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communicationnation.blogspot.com communicationnation.blogspot.com
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- Oct 2023
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www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
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The narrative technique owes a good deal to W. G. Sebald, who loved to ruminate on strange and troubling episodes from history, blurring the boundary between fact and fiction.
Benjamín Labatut also falls into this genre.
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- Aug 2023
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www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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Question: fiction and non-fiction .t3_164ob1y._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; }
For those that do both fiction and non-fiction work in their zettelkasten, do you consider the portion dedicated to fiction a "department" or a "compartment" within it? or perhaps something altogether different?
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www.advancedfictionwriting.com www.advancedfictionwriting.com
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The Snowflake Method is more specific, but broadly similar to those who build out plot using index cards.
As examples, see Dustin Lance Black and Benjamin Rowland.
Link to - https://hypothes.is/a/043JIlv5Ee2_eMf1TTV7ig - https://hypothes.is/a/ibFMareUEe2bqSdWdE046g
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Ingermanson, Randy. “The Snowflake Method For Designing A Novel.” Advanced Fiction Writing, circa 2013. https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/.
Designing writing in ever more specific and increasing levels. Start with a logline, then a paragraph, then acts, etc.
Roughly the advice I've given many over the years based on screenplay development experience, but with a clever name based on the Koch snowflake.
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you only have to solve a limited set of problems, and so you can write relatively fast.
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If there’s no conflict, you’ll know it here and you should either add conflict or scrub the scene.
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The first thing to do is to take that four-page synopsis and make a list of all the scenes that you’ll need to turn the story into a novel. And the easiest way to make that list is . . . with a spreadsheet.
Of course spreadsheets are databases of information and one can easily and profitably put all these details into index cards which are just as easy (maybe even easier) to move around
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Take as much time as you need to do this, because you’re just saving time downstream.
this=character development
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If you believe in the Three-Act structure, then the first disaster corresponds to the end of Act 1. The second disaster is the mid-point of Act 2. The third disaster is the end of Act 2, and forces Act 3 which wraps things up. It is OK to have the first disaster be caused by external circumstances, but I think that the second and third disasters should be caused by the protagonist’s attempts to “fix things”. Things just get worse and worse.
Interesting and specific advice about the source of disasters in act two...
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Good fiction doesn’t just happen, it is designed. You can do the design work before or after you write your novel.
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- card index for fiction writing
- read
- spreadsheets
- three act structure
- outlining
- card index for writing
- conflict
- disasters
- plotting
- fiction writing
- story structure
- writing advice
- screenwriting
- analogies
- second acts
- problem solving frameworks
- card index as database
- Koch snowflake
- productivity
- Dustin Lance Black
- design
- Randy Ingermanson
- Benjamin Rowland
- storyboarding
- Plottr (software)
- character development
- Snowflake Method
- problem solving
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- May 2023
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forum.eastgate.com forum.eastgate.com
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Tinderbox Meetup - Sunday, May 7, 2023 Video: Connect with Sönke Ahrens live, the author of How to Take Smart Notes
reply for Fidel at https://forum.eastgate.com/t/tinderbox-meetup-sunday-may-7-2023-video-connect-with-sonke-ahrens-live-the-author-of-how-to-take-smart-notes/6659
@fidel (I'm presuming you're the same one from the meetup on Sunday, if not perhaps someone might tag the appropriate person?), I was thinking a bit more on your question of using physical index cards for writing fiction. You might find the examples of both Vladimir Nabokov and Dustin Lance Black, a screenwriter, useful as they both use index card-based workflows.
Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977 leaving an unfinished manuscript in note card form for the novel The Original of Laura . Penguin later published the incomplete novel with in 2012 with the subtitle A Novel in Fragments . Unlike most manuscripts written or typewritten on larger paper, this one came in the form of 138 index cards. Penguin's published version recreated these cards in full-color reproductions including the smudges, scribbles, scrawlings, strikeouts, and annotations in English, French, and Russian. Perforated, one could tear the cards out of the book and reorganize in any way they saw fit or even potentially add their own cards to finish the novel that Nabokov couldn't. Taking a look at this might give you some ideas of how Nabokov worked and how you might adapt the style for yourself. Another interesting resource is this article with some photos/links about his method with respect to writing Lolita: https://www.openculture.com/2014/02/the-notecards-on-which-vladimir-nabokov-wrote-lolita.html
You might also find some useful tidbits on his writing process (Bristol cards/Exacompta anyone?) in: Gold, Herbert. “Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40.” The Paris Review, 1967. https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4310/the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov.
Carl Mydans photographed Nabokov while writing in September 1958 and some of those may be interesting to you as well.
Dustin Lance Black outlines his index card process in this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrvawtrRxsw
If you dig around you'll also find Michael Ende and a variety of other German fiction writers who used index cards on the Zettelkasten page on Wikipedia, but I suspect most of the material on their processes are written in German.
Index cards for fiction writing may allow some writers some useful affordances/benefits. By using small atomic pieces on note cards, one can be far more focused on the idea and words immediately at hand. It's also far easier in a creative and editorial process to move pieces around experimentally.
Similarly, when facing Hemmingway's "White Bull", the size and space of an index card is fall smaller. This may have the effect that Twitter's short status updates have for writers who aren't faced with the seemingly insurmountable burden of writing a long blog post or essay in other software. They can write 280 characters and stop. Of if they feel motivated, they can continue on by adding to the prior parts of a growing thread.
However, if you can, try to use a card catalog drawer with a rod so that you don't spill all of your well-ordered cards the way the character in Robert M. Pirsig's novel Lila (1991) did.
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- Apr 2023
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“You throw it all away and invent from what you know. I should have said that sooner. That’s all there is to writing.”
Ernest Hemingway
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Write as if you were a movie camera. Get exactly what is there. All human beings see with astonishing accuracy, not that they can necessarily write it down.”
John Gardener
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- Feb 2023
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wordcraft-writers-workshop.appspot.com wordcraft-writers-workshop.appspot.com
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Sloan, Robin. “Author’s Note.” Experimental fiction. Wordcraft Writers Workshop, November 2022. https://wordcraft-writers-workshop.appspot.com/stories/robin-sloan.
brilliant!
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"I have affirmed the premise that the enemy can be so simple as a bundle of hate," said he. "What else? I have extinguished the light of a story utterly.
How fitting that the amanuensis in a short story written with the help of artificial intelligence has done the opposite of what the author intended!
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wordcraft-writers-workshop.appspot.com wordcraft-writers-workshop.appspot.com
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Wordcraft shined the most as a brainstorming partner and source of inspiration. Writers found it particularly useful for coming up with novel ideas and elaborating on them. AI-powered creative tools seem particularly well suited to sparking creativity and addressing the dreaded writer's block.
Just as using a text for writing generative annotations (having a conversation with a text) is a useful exercise for writers and thinkers, creative writers can stand to have similar textual creativity prompts.
Compare Wordcraft affordances with tools like Nabokov's card index (zettelkasten) method, Twyla Tharp's boxes, MadLibs, cadavre exquis, et al.
The key is to have some sort of creativity catalyst so that one isn't working in a vacuum or facing the dreaded blank page.
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- Mad Libs
- Twyla Tharp
- Vladimir Nabokov
- artificial intelligence for writing
- cadavre exquis
- brainstorming
- experimental fiction
- card index for creativity
- blank page
- programmed creativity
- digital amanuensis
- group creativity
- creative writing
- writer's block
- Wordcraft
- blank page brainstorming
- creativity catalysts
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www.robinsloan.com www.robinsloan.com
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Author's note by Robin Sloan<br /> November 2022
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- Oct 2022
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benwerd.substack.com benwerd.substack.com
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Given your talents, if you've not explored some of the experimental fiction side of things (like Mark Bernstein's hypertext fiction http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/Fiction.html, Robin Sloan's fish http://www.robinsloan.com/fish/ or Writing with the Machine https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/writing-with-the-machine/, or a variety of others https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%22experimental+fiction%22), perhaps it may be fun and allow you to use some of your technology based-background at the same time?
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www.robinsloan.com www.robinsloan.com
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https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/writing-with-the-machine/
Related work leading up to this video: https://vimeo.com/232545219
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www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
- Apr 2022
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boffosockobooks.com boffosockobooks.com
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www.openculture.com www.openculture.com
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Having died in 1977, Nabokov never completed the book, and so all Penguin had to publish decades later came to, as the subtitle indicates, A Novel in Fragments. These “fragments” he wrote on 138 cards, and the book as published includes full-color reproductions that you can actually tear out and organize — and re-organize — for yourself, “complete with smudges, cross-outs, words scrawled out in Russian and French (he was trilingual) and annotated notes to himself about titles of chapters and key points he wants to make about his characters.”
Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977 leaving an unfinished manuscript in note card form for the novel The Original of Laura. Penguin later published the incomplete novel with in 2012 with the subtitle A Novel in Fragments. Unlike most manuscripts written or typewritten on larger paper, this one came in the form of 138 index cards. Penguin's published version recreated these cards in full-color reproductions including the smudges, scribbles, scrawlings, strikeouts, and annotations in English, French, and Russian. Perforated, one could tear the cards out of the book and reorganize in any way they saw fit or even potentially add their own cards to finish the novel that Nabokov couldn't.
Link to the idea behind Cain’s Jawbone by Edward Powys Mathers which had a different conceit, but a similar publishing form.
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en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Perec
Georges Perec (born George Peretz) (French: [peʁɛk, pɛʁɛk];[1] 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was murdered in the Holocaust, and many of his works deal with absence, loss, and identity, often through word play.
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- Dec 2021
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www.thehindu.com www.thehindu.com
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Good history comes from a combination of sources: in this case, private papers ranging from Lord Curzon’s letters to the diary of a royal tutor; from archival records in Delhi and London, not to speak of parliamentary papers; art, and not just paintings by Ravi Varma, to understand how princes projected themselves; newspaper records, which contain debates and ‘live’ commentary; scholarly material on connected themes; and, of course, anecdotal information from biographies and memoirs, which add texture.
sources for Anecdotal writing to history fiction
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- Oct 2021
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www.jeyamohan.in www.jeyamohan.in
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சமணர்கள் இப்பிரபஞ்சம், இந்த பூமி, தேவர்கள், தெய்வங்கள், உயிர்க்குலங்கள், மனிதர்கள் ஆகியவற்றை பல்வேறு வளையங்களாக உருவகிக்கிறார்கள். அதன் மையம் மேரு என்னும் பொன்மலை. அங்கே ஆதிநாதர் அமர்ந்திருக்கிறார்.
- info about jainism philosophy on universe
- my fiction work Meru notes
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- Sep 2021
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seltani.shoutwiki.com seltani.shoutwiki.com
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Manual for Seltani
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seltani.net seltani.net
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Platform for writing social interactive fiction.
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URL
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- Sep 2017
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ken-follett.com ken-follett.com
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Research and background
"Not knowing is an obstacle to my imagination" RE: his dedication to narratives that could have taken place within the political climate of the day.
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- Sep 2016
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motherboard.vice.com motherboard.vice.com
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“You have to realize that people can change in a lot of different ways,” she explained, “especially when they are far away from home and they are asked to make some difficult choices and do hard things.”
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- Jan 2016
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www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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Accurate and funny parody of amateur criticism of sci-fi and fantasy books whose popularity the critic doesn't understand.
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www.goodreads.com www.goodreads.com
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“We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things. We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation. ” ― Hayao Miyazaki
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“I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live - if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.” ― Hayao Miyazaki
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“The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics is hopeless.” ― Hayao Miyazaki
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