writing thread

[zabu of nΩd]

“Welcome to Wyrd’s Inn,” the elderly woman said, smiling pleasantly as I strode through the slender doorway trailing my single piece of luggage. A quick glance around the lobby confirmed my exterior suspicions – a small, quaint, quiet place. Perfect for working. “And welcome to Burns Hollow.”

...

Love your writing as always man. You've got a solid weird fiction style, and I felt myself often sinking into the microcosms of detail you've got filling this world. I want to know what happens. I also want to know what the deal is with the main character - his underlying "cosmic chaos" and occasional nonreflection in mirrors. His weird self-descriptions really jumped out at me, and I wonder if there's a way you can make them more tense by integrating them more into the action you're slowly building up. Another of my favorite parts was the apparent change in the painting, and hence the main character beginning to doubt his memory/perceptions.

 

[Einherjar86]

Thanks so much man, always appreciate your thoughts.

I wonder if there's a way you can make them more tense by integrating them more into the action you're slowly building up.

I think I've actually done this more in recent passages that I haven't shared yet; but it's something I should go back and work into earlier passages. My sense of the character's interiority has evolved as the story's gone on. I think you're right that the narrative would improve if his/her (I'm trying to keep it androgynous--I don't think I've slipped up anywhere, but I may have) reflexive moments occurred during crucial plot developments.

Another of my favorite parts was the apparent change in the painting, and hence the main character beginning to doubt his memory/perceptions.

Thanks! I was excited to write the painting. The inspiration came from two places: the painting that Ishmael sees in the Spouter Inn, in Moby-Dick, and the profile painting of James Clerk Maxwell in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (which may or may not change in front of Oedipa's eyes).