Posts Tagged ‘characters’

  • A Novel Shouldn’t Make You Think, It Should Make You Shiver

    A Novel Shouldn’t Make You Think, It Should Make You Shiver

    February 27th, 2012 | philosophy of art | journalpulp | 2 Comments

    In a lecture he delivered at Cornell University, Vladimir Nabokov said this: “A work of art shouldn’t make you think, it should make you shiver.” And yet in reply to that one must ask: what about those of us who actually like for a book to make us think? What about those of us who […]

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  • How To Begin Your Story

    How To Begin Your Story

    August 17th, 2011 | Beginnings, Characterization, Plot | journalpulp | 3 Comments

    Establish your setting early on. Give us The When, The Where, The Weather — the overall tone. Is your story happy, soft, somber? John Steinbeck does this so well in the beautiful opening of Of Mice and Men: A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and […]

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  • Characterization (Part 1)

    Characterization (Part 1)

    July 22nd, 2011 | Characterization, Literature, Storytelling | journalpulp | 1 Comment

    If plot is the skeleton — that vital framework upon which the rest of the body is built — then characters are the soul. Characters are the reason we ultimately love or hate a story. “I’m sick to death of the inarticulate hero,” said John Fowles. “To hell with the inarticulate.” Characterization is in essence […]

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