11 Comments
User's avatar
Mariah K. Porter's avatar

Depends on the story! For one of my current WsIP, probably acid. In general, I think I don't allow myself to get too close to my characters' emotions, and that shows in my stories.

Graeme Brandham's avatar

Ooh that is interesting, so you are feeling like you need to shake up the plot a little bit get a 'twist' of lemon in there?

As for getting close to the characters emotions, what has been the reason for this. Is it a conscious choice?

Mariah K. Porter's avatar

Possibly! And, that one hasn't been conscious. I think it's out of self-protection. I've been operating on very little emotional bandwidth for a very long time, and writing emotion is usually much more dangerous for me than experiencing it in other media.

Graeme Brandham's avatar

That makes a lot of sense. We rarely get as close to other characters as we do our own. And it's not as often that other characters reflect our own inner worlds.

Hopefully you find a comfortable happy place in the future to slowly develop that relationship with your little avatars.

Niamh Celeste's avatar

I struggle with description... which is not in this recipe. I would maintain that you find that in PLATING. Samin may have missed it in her book.

Graeme Brandham's avatar

Ooh I like this thought. Description… that is a really interesting one. I had mentally put description into the ingredients category myself. Partly because you can describe many things, like how to build flatpack furniture for example, but that isn't a story. Storytelling is the art of putting those descriptions together in a way that creates an emotional and engaging narrative. Haha maybe this could be a fun project, to craft a story out of a set of instructions 🤣

Plating is also a really cool idea. Would this essentially be how the story is presented?

That said, these are all just opinions.

Out of curiosity what parts of description do you find challenging?

Niamh Celeste's avatar

I have aphantasia, so I can’t see things in my mind the way other people do. It just never crosses my mind to describe things - I have to put that on a list of things I need to do.

Graeme Brandham's avatar

That's super interesting. I have often wondered where I am on that spectrum. As an animator and illustrator in the past I often met people who could literally visualise something in their mind and draw it as if they were copying it from a reference image. I could never do that. For me drawing is like sculpting, and in that sense I find description is the same, it's a play of words to try and find the recipe that creates the feeling I'm after.

Johappy Nielsen's avatar

This analogy works perfectly! Will be thinking about this as I’m writing for sure.

Graeme Brandham's avatar

I cant wait to see what you ‘cook up’. I really need to get back to your cafe, I got to chapter 8 or 9 previously and then had to go do studies IRL. I think it is time to revist.

Johappy Nielsen's avatar

What I really need to do is go back and add more yummy food and maybe a few wine pairings into my cafe 😁