1 Topic by John Hamler (edited by John Hamler 2020-07-22 06:14:52)

Topic: Beginnings

Let's face it. Hardly anybody finishes a plot anymore. It's the premise, the history, and the origin story that truly captures the imagination. The End in itself is almost always a let down by comparison.

So don't fight it.

Look at me. I've been here on TNBW just about as long (if not longer) than anybody. Seriously. I'm not as active as I used to be (I used tp be a real gung-ho pain in everyone's ass on a mission to capitalize upon all the weaklings populating this website) because I've since become self-aware of my own shortcomings and realized that to span the great divide that art appreciation implies... Well, one must empathize. I was a solipsistic writer, concerned with being true to my singular vision. But just because it worked (but did it, really?) for the likes of Salinger and Henry Miller, doesn't mean it actually works for the average man of letters. I'm not cut out to be commercially viable or even avant-garde. I'm just an extraordinary rambler with an above-average vocabulary, so...

Fair enough. I still want to see literature itself succeed, though. Especially in this day and age of video games and streaming services bleeding to lead. For I still believe there's a voice out there (if not within the confines of this website) worthy of the TNBW title. I just think he/she needs the perfect beginning.

To hell with the middle and the end. That shit will sort itself out over the course. Once the beginning is established, of course.

The Beginning.

Indeed, and over the past ten years, I've read a lot of good to great beginnings to novels on this website (and tried like Hell to write my own) but unfortunately, regrettably, and inevitably... I've yet to encounter a single one I could definitively regard as unstoppable.

This is not a referendum, mind you, but rather a challenge. Let's try and hook these Hollywood/Silicon Valley hotshots with such an impregnable and redoubtable premise, preface, prologue, whatnot/what-have-you that you leave them no other choice but to wonder:

THEN WHAT?

Cheers

John

Quote Post 1

Re: Beginnings

John,

I've been a member of tNBW almost as long, if not longer than you.

I read two or three of you beginnings to Antagony that were as good as or better than published books I loved.

You wouldn't believe me. You are too hard on yourself.

Memphis Trace

Quote Post 2

Re: Beginnings

I always wax rhapsodic when I smoke weed too. 
(I try not to post under the influence though)
https://64.media.tumblr.com/9a66929cee9b63c1db339243e02ab7f6/tumblr_n5qkvfke001slbwc8o1_400.gif

Quote Post 3

Re: Beginnings

Hello, John, I, like Memphis, have read several of your three gazillion versions of Antagony and have both enjoyed and been annoyed with some as I suppose is the case with most of us would be authors on the receiving end. And I do think you actually have that great beginning within the ad hoc presentations, but in just my personal and certainly unprofessional opinion, it just might be your modest opinion of having an "above-average" vocabulary which just might, might mind you, be holding you back. Your vocabulary is certainly well beyond a mere "above-average" and as such may put too much of the burden on the reader as opposed to the writer. While most of your "above-average" vocabulary is understandable within context, it can create too many pauses for the "average" reader which of course would mean the mass market variety. I am of the opinion that you do have a "great story beginning" and possibly middle and ending, but you seem not to really want to connect to that "average" reader and finish the story in that context. I truly believe you could throttle the "above-average" wording by half or more and still maintain the eloquent presentation you present to the world and just maybe be TNBW. As I greatly admire your work as is, I say all this with the utmost respect for your craft and it is obviously only my humble opinion. Why not give it a shot and see what happens. Take care my friend. Vern

Quote Post 4

Re: Beginnings

Temple Wang wrote:

I always wax rhapsodic when I smoke weed too. 
(I try not to post under the influence though)
https://64.media.tumblr.com/9a66929cee9b63c1db339243e02ab7f6/tumblr_n5qkvfke001slbwc8o1_400.gif

LOL. I do love your moving responses. Take care. Vern

Quote Post 5

Re: Beginnings

Thanks, everybody. In all honesty, I guess I just needed to whinge for some validation for a minute. Vern and Memphis were kindly and supportive and, as usual, Temple managed to cut to the bone.

Cheers

Quote Post 6

7 Reply by Temple Wang (edited by Temple Wang 2020-07-27 22:20:22)

Re: Beginnings

John Hamler wrote:

Thanks, everybody. In all honesty, I guess I just needed to whinge for some validation for a minute. Vern and Memphis were kindly and supportive and, as usual, Temple managed to cut to the bone.

Cheers

Jeesh c’mon, implying you’re smoking weed and waxing rhapsodic surely can’t be taken as offensive.  If I wanted to be offensive I’d have accused you of whinging for validation.
Here, have a unicorn

PS: Surprised Ray didn’t come scratch under your chin

Quote Post 7

Re: Beginnings

John Hamler wrote:

Thanks, everybody. In all honesty, I guess I just needed to whinge for some validation for a minute. Vern and Memphis were kindly and supportive and, as usual, Temple managed to cut to the bone.

Cheers

John--

The Great Gatsby was a novel cobbled together, combining some of F. Scott Fitzgerald's older unpublished work in a new plot. To Kill a Mockingbird was not so much Harper Lee's grand vision but that of her editor who took out the racially insensitive bits and edited it into the classic it is today. JD Salinger, Truman Capote and Proust only had one good book in them.

They were great writers but they all limitations, and so do you.

My advice to you, if you want to be happy, is write because you love telling a story. Write because you love the process, the thinking up the plot, the writing it down, the editing it until it's perfect. Write because it is the thing you love to do and you don't care what anyone else thinks.

smile

Quote Post 8

Re: Beginnings

John - Maybe, as Dagny suggested, you only have one book in you. You seem obsessed with one book, after all. But right now you have multiple versions of a work with no finality. I think I suggested years ago that you pull the trigger, stop making  perfect the enemy of the good, and try to get the damned thing published! Unless you will be satisfied with letting your talent wander endlessly in TNBW.

Quote Post 9

10 Reply by Randall Krzak (edited by Randall Krzak 2020-07-29 07:24:34)

Re: Beginnings

jack the knife wrote:

John - Maybe, as Dagny suggested, you only have one book in you. You seem obsessed with one book, after all. But right now you have multiple versions of a work with no finality. I think I suggested years ago that you pull the trigger, stop making  perfect the enemy of the good, and try to get the damned thing published! Unless you will be satisfied with letting your talent wander endlessly in TNBW.

John,
I agree with Jack. Go for it!

Quote Post 10

11 Reply by dagny (edited by dagny 2020-07-29 08:06:39)

Re: Beginnings

jack the knife wrote:

stop making  perfect the enemy of the good.

My favorite sentence fragment ever!
smile

I want to clarify that I didn't think John, or any member of TNBW, only has one book in them. What I meant in the first part of my post is that often the work that is published isn't the work that was written, even classics were edited. The part of my post about the authors who are famous for one book was meant to show that even though they only wrote one book, they are known by that work, where other authors of multiple works languish unknown.

I agree with you, too, Jack..

smile

Quote Post 11

Re: Beginnings

Add me to the list of those who have been around here long enough to have wrinkled. And like the others, I've read a handful of your billion attempts at Antagony--a couple of which I would put in the stellar class. Memphis is right, you're much too hard on yourself and have deleted a couple of versions that were better than most of us are capable of creating. Such a waste.

Quote Post 12

Re: Beginnings

I'm back. Older and probably not wiser. Good to see so many old friends, I do more reading than writing these days. Some of the new authors on Amazon put comas in odd places, and use passive verbs when action is screaming to jump off the page. The TNBW crew write better stories.

Quote Post 13