Post by account_disabled on Jan 1, 2024 6:04:30 GMT
There are novels that offer you much more than just reading, much more than a few pleasant hours in other worlds and between other lives. There are authors who, especially to those who write, offer moments of reflection and involuntary writing advice. This is what I thought about while reading David Mitchell's God's Home . It's the third novel by that author that I've read, and even though I didn't appreciate the second one I read ( 9 Degrees of Freedom , which I remember nothing about), Mitchell remains a writer above many others. His style varies in each of his works, yet is at the same time recognisable, perhaps precisely because of his ability to identify with the story and the characters, to tell each time with a different voice, the most suitable one. How should you write a story? I turn the post subtitle into a question. And the answer I would like to give is: as David Mitchell writes it.
It is clear that a story must have a solid plot, diverse characters, and everything we now know by heart about writing technique and grammar. But this is not enough, a story must work, certainly, but the author, in telling it, must also demonstrate a series of skills, as I have defined them. Skills I found in Mitchell's works. 1 – Represent the characters' moods The character sheets are only little more than mug shots: they help the author to have a clear idea of ​​who that character is so that the reader can also understand it. But Special Data during the story the character will have to face pains and pleasures and his behavior and mood will change depending on events. How to represent a character's state of mind? I don't have an answer, but when I read God's House I had no difficulty in empathizing with the various characters, even though that novel is narrated in the first person by the protagonist, so it's not at all easy to describe what's going on in one's head. other characters.
Mitchell, I think, succeeded by talking about small actions, looks, using dialogues, or even the protagonist's reflections, his sensations. 2 – Draw images in the readers' minds A great skill of Mitchell's is describing the environment. She does this by using images that are both vivid and poetic. Difficult to explain. You should read it, open a random page and read it. I'm not talking about the overused descriptions that once - and perhaps still today - were used in fantasy, that set of details that often only serve to lengthen the text. Mitchell describes in parts. The boy is thinking about his day while he walks in the woods and in that flow of thoughts he slips a description: The songs of birds are the thoughts of the woods. This habit has more than one use for me: does not tire the reader with a long description of the environment in which the character moves it makes the author's style more personal reminds the reader where the character is Small phrases and metaphors like the lines of a poem.
It is clear that a story must have a solid plot, diverse characters, and everything we now know by heart about writing technique and grammar. But this is not enough, a story must work, certainly, but the author, in telling it, must also demonstrate a series of skills, as I have defined them. Skills I found in Mitchell's works. 1 – Represent the characters' moods The character sheets are only little more than mug shots: they help the author to have a clear idea of ​​who that character is so that the reader can also understand it. But Special Data during the story the character will have to face pains and pleasures and his behavior and mood will change depending on events. How to represent a character's state of mind? I don't have an answer, but when I read God's House I had no difficulty in empathizing with the various characters, even though that novel is narrated in the first person by the protagonist, so it's not at all easy to describe what's going on in one's head. other characters.
Mitchell, I think, succeeded by talking about small actions, looks, using dialogues, or even the protagonist's reflections, his sensations. 2 – Draw images in the readers' minds A great skill of Mitchell's is describing the environment. She does this by using images that are both vivid and poetic. Difficult to explain. You should read it, open a random page and read it. I'm not talking about the overused descriptions that once - and perhaps still today - were used in fantasy, that set of details that often only serve to lengthen the text. Mitchell describes in parts. The boy is thinking about his day while he walks in the woods and in that flow of thoughts he slips a description: The songs of birds are the thoughts of the woods. This habit has more than one use for me: does not tire the reader with a long description of the environment in which the character moves it makes the author's style more personal reminds the reader where the character is Small phrases and metaphors like the lines of a poem.