stillsostrange

matociquala talks about the things we get for free as writers, and the things we earn and learn.

I'm not sure what I got for free. Part of it was a halfway decent command of English, because I look at workshop subs and these resumes on my desk and all sorts of things and see that no, that's not a given. I look back at stuff I wrote in high school and I shudder at the cliches, but the process of stringing sentences together was always something I took for granted. (In fact, there was a period in college when I somehow taught myself to write worse on a sentence level than I did in HS--it was scary.)

I like to think I got the character card. My characters have always come to me as people, and not constructs needed to fill a plot need. (needed to fill a need? What did I just say about decent sentences?) I don't know how well I get them on the page sometimes, but they're quite lively in my head.

As for the others...I sure don't have the plot card yet, and I'm still working on voice and theme and emotional impact and all that jazz.

It'd be nice if I could collect some more, because I'd like to fix Dogtown sometime this year, not to mention The B*@k.