A Few Thoughts from Alex

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Snowball136	A Few Thoughts from Alex	Lead	[-]
Posts: 46265 (16/01/06 12:45) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Tags : None Briefly, "Rodents" had some nice visuals, good language, made me think, at least a tad. It didn't race away from the field because it finished OK but tamely. Some of the voice was very good Tennis With Dennis was again "different". A different voice and a nice idea. It did have an ending that worked, but like so many stories didn't KILL. A ending that knifes you gets remembered. Spill of Moonlight had that slight ethereality that lifts stories but then lost it near the end and became humdrum A Big Fish, an early leader is packed with a very good feel/idea about coming of age but was held back by some clumsy parts and a few POV hiccups. The IDEA of the ending was fine but getting there seemed to have a missing paragraph LOVE (about the band) was very nicely-written but it wasn't a story! TooT half Welsh wa the same. It's like people race off full of images/feelings, start to THINK and lose it. I know it's daft to say it, bu the trick is not to think. You can "see the join" in so many stories where the burst of energy stopped and the author became mechanical Alex Keegan (AlexK, Snowball136) alex.keegan(at)btconnect.com Home Page Seventh Quark
TomConoboy2	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#1	[-]
Posts: 3901 (16/01/06 14:53) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	This is the problem I have time and time again with flashes. You can see it in my FF story this time again - the moment when I suddenly think "what the hell is this story about?" and start to manufacture something. I find this really difficult. I'm pretty good at coming up with something different and arresting for the beginning. I'm good at intros. But, you also say "It did have an ending that worked, but like so many stories didn't KILL. A ending that knifes you gets remembered." And "You can "see the join" in so many stories where the burst of energy stopped and the author became mechanical." I find it very difficult to reconcile these two. I can write off-the-wall, inventive stuff, full of ideas etc, but at some stage I have to try to wrap it up into some sort of cohesive plot, and then come up with a satisfactory ending. I have loads of stories which start very well, but then I have no clue how to end them. So, "the trick is not to think", but I find I need to think in order to make the story end. And that's when my stories lose it. ---------------------------- Call me Rob. Or Tom, I don't mind really BC Free July 2005
Alexandra Fox	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#2	[-]
Posts: 19814 (16/01/06 15:04) Boot Camp 2006 Pro Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I totally agree, Rob. Particularly in the confines of a flash, you need to have some sort of shape in mind so it can end meaningfully. Otherwise it just keeps going. Are you going to let us read yours, if we haven't already? Lexie (Alexandra Fox) BC-Pro Member (5th February 2004) AIM : LexieFx E-mail: lex@hackleton.plus.com
TomConoboy2	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#3	[-]
Posts: 3901 (16/01/06 15:13) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I'm "Is it that time already?" When I started writing it I had no idea how it was going to end. I was just trying to use as many of the prompts as I could. Then I got to just past the Nigerian scam and wondered what now? The character was so dislikeably self-centred I thought it would be interesting to try to make him a bit more rounded, try to make the reader feel some sympathy for him, so I went back and wrote in the cortisone bit to suggest something amiss, and started to develop the "unspecified illness" idea. It just about works, I think, but even so it just feels to me like the looseness of the first part has just been stuck into a straitjacket. It's all I could come up with at the time. I'd love to find a way of keeping the fresh ideas flowing, but allowing them to come to a natural conclusion. ---------------------------- Call me Rob. Or Tom, I don't mind really BC Free July 2005
zobaageo	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#4	[-]
Posts: 973 (16/01/06 17:40) Boot Camp 2006 Pro Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Oh god! I have just seen AK's comment on my FF and I really ran out of time with the story but thought I'd stick as many of the ideas in place as I could. To think it could go 135 astounds me but I wouldn't in a milion years know how to! Maybe it's time I invested in a bit of AKLS? If I'd had 2 hours, maybe, just may I'd have scraped up to 110. Oh, help. <P> Hazera Forth BC PRO Member since Oct 2003 ezboard: zobaageo hazera.forth [at]ntlworld.com yahoo: zobaa.geo@yahoo.com ================== From the dark side of the moon. ^@v@^ (...)))))) =#=#======
britbird2004	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#5	[-]
Posts: 2021 (16/01/06 22:02) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I want to learn how to give my flashes that extra 'bite' that Alex mentions. Can you learn how to napalm or is it something that just comes naturally when you know the craft inside out? Cally Taylor BC Free 23/05/05 cally AT callytaylor DOT fsnet DOT co DOT uk
barrie267(d)	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#6	[-]
Posts: 0 (16/01/06 22:30) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	This was the first time I have ever 'flashed' and for what they're worth here are my thoughts. I was thrilled with the first story I wrote because it wrote itself, had shape and (I think) made the point I wanted it to without hitting the reader over the head with it. I was very pleased with it and spent the afternoon really liking the whole idea of flash writing. The second one was a disaster. The prompts did nothing for me and I wrote somethng that was just playing with the words. I finished it when I thought 'this is shit and a waste of time' but I sent it anyway. I never looked at it again. Tonight, I've checked in here and Alex has given the story I liked 81! and the one I hated 103! Go figure. But thanks for the opportunity, it was fun and it kick-started my writing. Two stories from me in one day is unheard of as it usually takes me three years or something to stop fiddling with a story and show it to anyone Best to all Barrie Barrie267@gmail.com
TomConoboy2	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#7	[-]
Posts: 3901 (16/01/06 22:37) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Barrie, I know what you mean... In the CIN night, I did one story which I thought was so dreadful I included a line in it about me losing the will to live, and sent it in but said I didn't want it included in the scoring. It averaged 107... I think your last comment is illuminating: it usually takes you a year of fiddling before it's ready to show anyone. I used to be like that till I came here and realised I had to write every damned day. And when I look back on stuff before I joined, I think it is slow and stilted and overworked. That's why I like flashing - it's utterly spontaneous. It's pretty damned frightening at first, but becomes liberating in the end. How about doing another couple of stories tonight? The night is young. And tomorrow? ---------------------------- Call me Rob. Or Tom, I don't mind really BC Free July 2005
Alexandra Fox	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#8	[-]
Posts: 19814 (16/01/06 22:53) Boot Camp 2006 Pro Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I bloody flashed! First time for months. I sat through the other five sessions hoping it would work, but suffering total page-fright. Then I told myself I'd write on the last set of prompts and send it in, even if it was just the list of prompts with "and" between each of them. I didn't come out with anything good storywise but was lucky enough for a voice to come in so I didn't have to think about writing (until near the end when she disappeared and left me to it). Tom's right about doing it every day making it easier, but I wouldn't say flashing is ever spontaneous for me. It's harder work than writing. Cally - there are several threads on napalm. I'll see if I can find them. I think it's a combination of knowing about it so you do it naturally, and sometimes giving it a bit of a boost afterwards. Doesn't Alex usually say that napalm means you put the ache/pain first, so it colours the rest of the story? Lexie (Alexandra Fox) BC-Pro Member (5th February 2004) AIM : LexieFx E-mail: lex@hackleton.plus.com
Unregistered(d)	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#9	[-]
Posts: 0 (16/01/06 23:20) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I'm sure you're right it must get easier and become liberating, but I had a horrible moment in the middle of the second one where I just stopped and thought...what am I doing. Once, just once I had the same feeling in front of a class of adults when I thought to myself, What am I doing here? I know nothing. It was just the same as that. I have a feeling that I come from a place, where like Lexie, it will never be an easy thing for me. Tell me, what do the rest of you do with yours? Make them into proper(?) stories and peddle them like that or leave them as flashes? Barrie Barrie267@gmail.com
Alexandra Fox	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#10	[-]
Posts: 19814 (17/01/06 00:12) Boot Camp 2006 Pro Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Barrie - I've only once made a flash into a longer story. In the very first practice Frantic Flash there was a prompt "The Same Fish" and I wrote a long flash about a little boy in hospital who wanted a goldfish (Alex very rudely called the story "Gary the goldfish" and said it was a button-pusher). I later added a second strand (the mother's pregnancy) and a second fish, and it was a runner-up in the Asham anthology last year. Otherwise I've always sent flashes out almost unchanged, just tidied for typos and things people might have noticed. There are lots of comps now for stories under 1500 or 2000 words, so there are lots of chances of placing them if you write enough (and if they have plots). I don't like the new 75 minute rule, personally. The first FF comps were two hours, and you had long enough to think and write a real story - but of course that's exactly what flashing is NOT about. Lexie (Alexandra Fox) BC-Pro Member (5th February 2004) AIM : LexieFx E-mail: lex@hackleton.plus.com
TomConoboy2	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#11	[-]
Posts: 3901 (17/01/06 00:17) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I tend to post them out pretty much as is. I wouldn't like two hours for a flash - it's neither one thing nor the other. With two hours I'd have far too long to sit and tinker. I'd end up with a single, beautiful paragraph. ---------------------------- Call me Rob. Or Tom, I don't mind really BC Free July 2005
Nightwriter12	Re: A Few Thoughts from Alex	#12	[-]
Posts: 1679 (17/01/06 11:44) Boot Camp 2006 Pro Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	I find that the quicker I write the better the flash. Problem comes when I stop to think where are I going with this. Only managed one FF - on Sunday evening. Was going fine until I looked at the clock and thought - eek - I've got to end this now and so the end kind of trails off. I need to do more flashes - one a day would be a good idea. It's just finding the time. I also found CiN liberating - still can't believe I wrote 13 mini stories. Caroline Caroline caroline(at)caluse.net BC Pro since Jan 06 BC Free since Sept 05

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