The title is "Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eunuch of the imperial court of the last dynasty, Peking, 1949."
I seem to start story lines and never much get back to continue or finish them. I have not decided if that is the way I want to leave them, kind of mysteriously hanging like a delicate set of you-know-whats, or if I should do something about my span problem and work on developing a middle and end game in the chess maneuvers of life that is the attempt to write.
General advice on that would help, and specific information or insights on the eunuch picture would help too. TY and TTYL.
Henry Cartier -Bresson was a very well known photographer who specialized in capturing every day people in their enviornments. One of his most famous works is a compliation of his pictures of Galveston texas , when it was crumbling away in the early 60's. The once vibrant beach resort had fallen on hard times. Some of his photos are the only pictures of amazing homes that are now demolished.
I would guess that the photo you found is from his travels.
Fiction writing comes from your fantasy/dream life, in my experience. The characters are avatars of your own memories, emotions, imaginings, etc. This makes them very personal. Our hidden life is not always logical and structured.
People reading your stories usually expect a logical structure that they can follow. They want to understand. They want to feel the story is complete - that it's reached its "climax." The problem is that story writing is about your feelings, but story reading is often about bringing feelings into focus. Sometimes, this means pushing your feelings and your thoughts about them much further than you would otherwise. Writing is often therapy for the writer. The reader who finds his feelings in sympathy with those of the writer can share in the therapy.
You asked whether you should leave things hanging, or go for closure. Writers have done it both ways. Some use the "truck" ending, as in "and then a truck came out of nowhere and ran them all down. The End." That sort of abrupt ending is actually rather common. Another approach is the suggestive ending, where you don't actually say what happened, but pave a road so clearly leading in one direction that the reader can fill in the end himself. Some writers use an epilogue - the action continues, but then the reader finds himself far in the future looking back.
There are so many ways to end a story. Probably a book full. (If you one day write "The Book of Endings," I get a cut of royalties.) The one basic requirement, I think, is that something has to happen. When you get to the end of a story, things must be different than when it started. This makes a story different from an essay, a musing, etc. So end any way you please, so long as something happened.
One more thing. Stories may have an "end," but life doesn't, until you die. That means that real stories are always part of something bigger. They can be self-contained snippets of a life, but they also come from a bigger, deeper context, and return to it. The greatest literature recognizes that. What stories great and profound or whatever you choose to call art have in common is their intimations of the life before, after, and around the story. These stories illustrate a world. They talk about particular people and events in ways that suggest the world of which they're a part.
bobover3 (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2011 2:09 am
You asked whether you should leave things hanging, or go for closure. Writers have done it both ways. Some use the "truck" ending, as in "and then a truck came out of nowhere and ran them all down. The End." That sort of abrupt ending is actually rather common. Another approach is the suggestive ending, where you don't actually say what happened, but pave a road so clearly leading in one direction that the reader can fill in the end himself. Some writers use an epilogue - the action continues, but then the reader finds himself far in the future looking back.
A good post, Narcissus.
Regarding 'truck' endings they are a real cop out and highlight that the author's creativity was not up to the mark when he wrote the story.
However, it doesn't take much thought to 'seed' the truck into the story earlier on. Have a link of some kind between the truck driver and the character(s) that he knocks down.
Say Joe Trucker's wife leaves him, takes his kids and marries a rich lawyer. After a while she realises that she really loves Joe and is driving back to him. Joe in despair has taken to jerking off while driving. He's on the vinegar stroke, loses concentration, and smashes into his ex-wife's car, killing her and the kids. There you have plot with a tragic ironic ending. Alternatively you could have the lawyer alone in his car getting killed and a warm fuzzy happy ending as Joe and his family reconcile.
Everything in a plot should be logical with true cause and effect. If you have someone killed by a lightning bolt, have it at the start of the story and the story is about the consequences of it. What you do NOT do is have your hero saved from certain death by having the would be assassin struck by lightning at the end of the story.
Generally, with a little thought and practice, most people who want to write can come up with a good story.
A deus ex machina (Latin for "god out of the machine"; plural: dei ex machina) is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object.
Wow, have not been here in a while and got some new surprises today.
Thank you to all who commented. I will say more when I digest some of the wisdom that has been thrown my way.
"Writing is Therapy" is an interesting concept -- no wonder it hurts in varying shades of good to bad, and with good often feeling bad and bad often feeling good.
Okay, I am a little more ready to grade what I heard. Just how this mind-expanding dialog is hitting me so far:
My own posts: 7.5 (typical drivel)
raymar2020: 9.0 (good solid facts and quickly delivered)
Narcissus: 10.0 minus 0.5 for the Nobel Prize wise crack plus 2.0 for world-class wisdom eloquently presented, total 11.5 (10.5 percent more than perfect)
Kortpeel: 9.0 (most points for helpful sincerity)
uikue69: 9.5 (a profound terse punch of seed planting)
Regarding endings and motivations, it is not where you end up that makes the book, but how you got there... I enjoy a good ending as well as a tragic ending. Both have their message. However, the twist at the end that leaves a question in the readers mind allows each individual reader to internalize the story with their own needs and experiences.
Writing is such good therapy. There is nothing quite like it.
:dong:
