Lately

Quarantine Project Day 17

The two fundamental building blocks for writing a novel are Scene and Summary.  All exposition is a kind of summary to get you from one scene to the next.  That's not to say the scenes are more important than the exposition, but they are somehow more vital, alive.  And this novel seems to want to tell itself through a great deal of Scene.

This is a variable.  Roddy Doyle often tells his novels exclusively through scenes.  I don't know whether to be concerned or not, and any imbalance will have to be rectified later, but that's how it's working out right now.

The nightmare is the reverse scenario, when your characters have nothing to say to each other.

Though I'm definitely of the school that says dialogue must move plot along.  The more "literary" novel might allow characters some languid chat.  La la la.  Nope.  Can't be bothered with all that la la la.  If I want la la la in my life I'll sit in a café wearing a beret, nursing an espresso and pretending to be a film-maker.

Today is a teaching day.  I'll be very strict with my students about la la la.

Short ante-meridian burst offers up a wordcount of 1020

(For previous blogs in the Quarantine Project click on "achives")