Posts Tagged ‘writing’
“There is no work of art without a subject,” said Ortega — and with him here I do not demur. Subject matter isn’t the only component of art, nor is it the most complicated, but it is the most fundamental. It is the component toward which all others are geared. Subject is what the artist presents. It […]
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Chapter 9 A peach-colored moon hung aloft over the edge of the sparkling city, and there were nightingale among the fig trees. On the outskirts of town, through which the three trashmen now drove, a squadron of bull bats, like little angels of black death, tacked and veered through the twilight air. Farther […]
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Poems, unique among all literature, were for many centuries specifically meant to be learned by heart. They were meant to be memorized and then recited aloud. This is called the oral tradition of poetry. It means holding literature in the mind and heart, and then reciting it. Thus we find in the oral tradition of […]
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Here’s how you create a setting: One hour before nightfall, on a pink-and-blue evening in the third week of August, 2011 … Here’s how you create a character: a solitary man traveling on foot … Here’s how you introduce a situation: entered the small, tree-shadowed town of Clifton — an isolated village around which many […]
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Suppose someone were to tell you that you could become a better writer in a single week — would you believe it? Me neither. And yet that’s precisely what I’m about to do. And more: I’m about to make a believer out of you. I tried this on a bet — and lost. Here is how you […]
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Literarily, the meaning of the word plot comes from the Old-French word: complot — which means to conspire. But what actually is plot? Plot is the method by which you present your story. Plot is a vehicle. Plot is a purposeful sequence of events — and in a well-plotted story, those events all connect logically […]
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtM5yIQm6jw&w=420&h=315] Bartending, which, for better or worse, consumes a great deal of my time, is a subject that evidently interests people to no end — judging, at least, from the sheer number of questions I get on the matter — and often I’m asked: Ray, why bartending? The answer is, my love of literature, […]
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Plot is a vehicle. It is the method by which you present your story. Plot is a purposeful sequence of events. In a well-plotted story, those events connect logically, culminating in a specific goal, or climax. “Life is an unceasing sequence of individual actions.” Said Ludwig von Mises. That is true. Plot is similar, but […]
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(c)Ray Harvey 2011