"I de-power them with worrying about how I should craft them instead of just crafting them. I don’t even care anymore if they are good or right or wrong or bad. They just need to be written in my voice. Not one that gets committee approval. I don’t want to play by workshop rules. I don’t want amateur attempts to judge my work. I don’t want to be the tide that rises all ships. I need to do my own thing. I need to be my own stories. I just need to reclaim all those stories, all those bits of myself I tucked into those unfinished stories, before they fade completely and I am lost."
I love EVERYTHING about this. I think it cuts right through every shitty, demoralizing, "not-good-enough" message Capitalism and patriarchy and white supremacy and cisheternormativity tells us on the regular.
Jun 29, 2023·edited Jun 29, 2023Liked by Elnora Fareman
Some spontaneous thoughts on Marjorie gets robbed:
- I would lose the first part where she’s getting robbed and tries to kill herself and jump directly into the middle of the story: Marjorie is with the rebels trying to fend off the alien invasion.
- As a storytelling method I would have each chapter being a letter from the penpal club. Each letter goes through the story of how she realized that there was an alien invasion, how she was found by the rebels, how she realized that the aliens controlled them as well, how she found the galactic authority etc.
- Because you like writing by hand, you can make this the only form of recording the story in case something happens to her because the aliens can access humans only through technology or something (you’ll need an explanation for why the aliens didn’t catch on her rebellion - maybe she wears a helmet like Magneto to stop the aliens from entering her mind).
- The fact that the aliens cannot be seen or heard gives you a lot of tools for storytelling. Marjorie will doubt at any point whether what she thinks and perceives is real or a perception /thought put into her head by the aliens. It makes me think of the novel ‘The girl on the train’ by Paula Hawkins and the unreliable narrator device she uses to create tension and plot as her main character is an alcoholic who witnessed a murder but she can’t be really trusted.
The letters as chapters would also be a good tool for serialization. You can create a lot of cliff hangers by making the reader question what is real and what is not. It’s a bit like the matrix but with an alien invasion. Or rather Matrix meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
What a wonderful update. I loved everything here and I'm so happy that you've found a sense of freedom to write, worry-free.
Those images and ideas are so good. I already get a sense of place. Having interconnected stories all tied to that would work really well.
Good luck. Can't wait to read whatever comes forth from the pen!
"I de-power them with worrying about how I should craft them instead of just crafting them. I don’t even care anymore if they are good or right or wrong or bad. They just need to be written in my voice. Not one that gets committee approval. I don’t want to play by workshop rules. I don’t want amateur attempts to judge my work. I don’t want to be the tide that rises all ships. I need to do my own thing. I need to be my own stories. I just need to reclaim all those stories, all those bits of myself I tucked into those unfinished stories, before they fade completely and I am lost."
I love EVERYTHING about this. I think it cuts right through every shitty, demoralizing, "not-good-enough" message Capitalism and patriarchy and white supremacy and cisheternormativity tells us on the regular.
Some spontaneous thoughts on Marjorie gets robbed:
- I would lose the first part where she’s getting robbed and tries to kill herself and jump directly into the middle of the story: Marjorie is with the rebels trying to fend off the alien invasion.
- As a storytelling method I would have each chapter being a letter from the penpal club. Each letter goes through the story of how she realized that there was an alien invasion, how she was found by the rebels, how she realized that the aliens controlled them as well, how she found the galactic authority etc.
- Because you like writing by hand, you can make this the only form of recording the story in case something happens to her because the aliens can access humans only through technology or something (you’ll need an explanation for why the aliens didn’t catch on her rebellion - maybe she wears a helmet like Magneto to stop the aliens from entering her mind).
- The fact that the aliens cannot be seen or heard gives you a lot of tools for storytelling. Marjorie will doubt at any point whether what she thinks and perceives is real or a perception /thought put into her head by the aliens. It makes me think of the novel ‘The girl on the train’ by Paula Hawkins and the unreliable narrator device she uses to create tension and plot as her main character is an alcoholic who witnessed a murder but she can’t be really trusted.
The letters as chapters would also be a good tool for serialization. You can create a lot of cliff hangers by making the reader question what is real and what is not. It’s a bit like the matrix but with an alien invasion. Or rather Matrix meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Good luck!
This was fun, I'm so happy you are exploring again.