so I have been writing down my dreams for quite some time, and I've become inspired to compile them into a long 1st person narrative. It will be very surreal, with very odd situations, some coming from real life incidents that are just too odd to leave out. my favorite writers as of late are HP Lovecraft, Poe, Lewis Carroll, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Ken Kesey. I also like the style of The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test and Hunter S. Thompson, and the way they describe these odd situations. Films like waking life, a scanner darkly, also superbad, knocked up, all of those style of seth rogan films. I'm not very well-read, and I've never written a legit story, though I always have for fun since I can remember. I'm looking for tips to help me write something that will effectively communicate to the reader. I know using a lot of descriptive language, also amphetamines (responsibly), and using imagery. i've never been in this forum, so hello nice to meet you all, hopefully this forum is not too dead. any help would be appreciated.
Make sure you have a strong narrative structure that you stick to. Otherwise it is going to come across to readers as a meandering, loose collection of nonsense, and nobody really wants to read that. What I'm talking about are the basics: a beginning, middle, and end with a protagonist who has some sort of end goal, but of course there are obstacles including an antagonist keeping him from that goal which he has to overcome, etc. Basic story structure. Biggest mistake of novice writers is to think they're being "edgy" and throw classical narrative structure out the window. But they've been doing the Three Act Structure since the ancient Greeks and it's still alive and well. All the films and authors you mention use this structure as well.
Best advice I ever got was: don't write your dreams. But then, that's probably good advice for me because most of my dreams just seem to be variations on whatever video game I just played. Rig's giving good advice. Structure is more important the more way out the content is. Look at Edward Lear's nonsense rhymes - all highly and conventionally structured. I find that conventional structures, the more traditional and classical the better, are great when you're dealing with a more outlandish plot. They force you to rein yourself in. Of course, some people don't need reining in, they need letting off the reins and can deal with the freedom to wander. But I think if you have a good imagination, keeping it on a long leash can be the hard challenge.
Read your work aloud to yourself. Don't be afraid of deleting things you're attached to but doesn't fit. Be aware of what's implicit. When it comes to creating a character, don't just say, show. Know that both simple and fancy words can be used badly.
Rigamarole's advice about getting the basics in place is worth listening to. Hemingway was asked the same question about how to write and responded, "Write what you know." Kerouac, Kesey and Thompson wrote very closely about personal experience or fictional situations based on it. Burroughs is practically unique because he does share his dreams and nightmares with us, and does it effectively. The result disgusts some and sends many (including me) into fits of hysterical laughter. The idea that his nightmares might be very close to his real life is pretty frightening. No other writer that I know about has been able to put his nightmares into print in such an effective manner. Poe is deliberately surreal, kind of a nineteenth century Burroughs. Burroughs was a self proclaimed heroin user, Poe was an alcoholic. Kesey and Thompson were druggies. So, if these are your favorite authors, you might need to do some serious drinking and drugging so that (if you survive that) you can write from experience.
I recently discovered that the Speech function on my computer is very good for this. It's a good way of hearing how the words sound as they're written, and also of cancelling out how you as an author think they're meant to be read (because you can't rely on people to read them that way). I've always felt that this is good advice, but perhaps need not be taken literally as simply writing one's experiences. I think it's more obvious when someone is trying to write about emotions or sensations that they're never experienced firsthand, rather than specific subjects or situations, which can be researched.
Reading more helps you pick up the distinct styles and description methods of authors, as well as some vocabulary and improved sentence structure. I think "write what you know" is as helpful advice as any; put your voice into your work.
vonnegut said that a writer must pity the reader. dont be preachy and don't be whiny. dont just say this happened then this happened then this happened. have the character act, not just talk about it. reveal the character through their actions rather than saying i am this, i am, i am... ive kept a dream journal and i find the most effective way to recreate dreams is to just turn off your mind and just record what's playing in your head. then you can edit later.
That's interesting, pitying the reader. Meaning, don't waste the reader's time. If you don't waste his time, he's less likely to shut your book and move on to something worth while. The 'this happened then this happened' problem tends to appear in climber's journals. For example, how do you convey that your character (or narrator) is shitting his pants with terror, that he thinks he'll never get out of this firefight alive, or off this cliff alive? How can you make your reader feel that he's right there on the cliff with you, with his fingers going numb and his boots not finding a foothold? (For my pieces here, go to Writers Forum, select Display Options, sort by threadstarter, from beginning, ascending, look for Dirtydog on about page 9.)
The computer? I guess that makes some sense. But sometimes the computer's pace and stress and intonation is completely nuts, and if you get five or six people to read out the same paragraph chances are that each and every one varies in the way they read it. Though I guess anything that knocks you out of your own way of reading it would be good.
