My mind is a sketchpad

[nny]

Of course the odd thing about rambling on, in person or in letters, is that it tends to be the only time I consciously think about things. I know what I think or feel but the concepts aren't always fully illustrated in my mind; sketches only. Writing or discussing things is a voyage of discovery; this makes discussion fascinating from two directions, means that I am generally pretty open minded about things, and results in my never winning an argument. I should wander about topics on my journal more, I think.

What I have just discovered:

I like fiction to have hope. I don't particularly mind if the situation is dark or bright, provided there is some measure of hope - sad endings are fine with me if there is the suggestion that things will get better. Desolation is what upsets me. When a story is brighter in nature, I dislike complete resolution. I don't want everything to end perfectly, because the characters become less real - they must have somewhere to go when the story is done, or they are created specifically for the story and no other, and that leaves them static and stranded and suddenly two-dimensional when you run out of words. They should have a hand of Franklin to pursue.

What I have also discovered:

My extrapolations from art are very personal, frequently ridiculous, and far more developed than I ever would have imagined before I started talking. It's actually pretty pleasing.


Oh, and? I can see Callum Rennie very easily as an angel, sick and tired of humanity but helpless against loving them, cigarette dangling from his fingers as he watches the sun rise from the top of a church tower.

I get these mental images, sometimes, from nowhere. Along with them comes the desperate urge to write around them; this is why my stories so frequently lack entirely in plot.

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Desolation is what upsets me.

Ah, you see, I love that. Total despair is a very powerful thing to have in fiction.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

I am very bad at distancing myself from the fiction I'm experiencing, and I'm a fan of happy endings. Because of my lack of distance, my mood is ridiculously formed by what I have most recently consumed, and I prefer to be happy. It's probably intense shallowness, but on the upside of this my mood can be immeasurably improved by buying some pretty new stationery.

*shrugs*

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

*prod* That sounds perfectly normal to me!

[villainny.livejournal.com]

Somehow that comment came out sounding pissy, but really wasn't. I was writing letters and therefore forgot how emoticons work. :D?

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

I hardly think pointing out that you're a big emotional weenie involved in stories makes you sound pissy, though. ;) Don't worry about it. How are the letters coming?

[villainny.livejournal.com]

I have written one all about my aesthetic sensibilities and how much I love wings, and it was five sides long, and now my wrist aches.

Mental note: MAKE WRITING BIGGER

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

DOODLE MOAR.

[ashen_key]

Oh, good. Someone else feels the same way about fiction as I do.

It's why you will never, ever get me to read tragedy.

Never.

[midnight-violet.livejournal.com]

y'know- your extrapolations from art, i'd be curious to hear about. also-that mentalimage- yeeees. definitely. i have trampled fluff for brains, but on the upside i got 38 points out of having "quoth" near the top of my mind when playing scrabble on the weekend.

[liz666.livejournal.com]

I'm the same-watching or reading something depressing totally desolates me. If you can't find something positive in fiction, no matter how bad it has gotten, then what's the point? It's actually why I really don't like watching BSG *DUCKS FOR COVER* but somehow I still do, in the faint hope that there will be more of the fallen angel in it.