Likes and Craft

Posted by Guest Writer in WBN News & Events      1 comment

Apr
5

Hey, guys, what’s shaking? How’s it hanging? What’s up? All those clichés, right?!

I suppose what I’m trying to get at through this obtuse repetition is: what appeals to you in your craft, how do you keep it fresh and stray away from those silly-yet-easy clichés? What poetic lyricism, novelistic dialogue, film style descriptions, or other techniques do you guys employ? I can recall a particular professor in school who couldn’t wait to drop the hammer on me whenever I used a trite, redundant, overused and excessively corny line in my papers. Of course, I was writing about the canonization of literary so-and-sos from 1882 – not the most compelling subject – so I think the guy was trying to get blood from a stone, but c’est la vie.

Anyhow, what I’m getting at is, what exactly makes you tick as a writer, what conventions have you reinforced or reneged to get at the heart of your art?

For me, I greatly appreciate a delicate, subtle handling of matters (this post aside), especially in poetry. There is a delicate and meaningful relationship between an author and his/her audience, that in truly trusting the audience with the implicit (or congested) point of a piece is a sacred transaction. That being said – subtlety, yes! – I also prize strong and conjoined imagery of the obtuse or abstract. Combinations of unconventional connotations, that sort of thing. As for fiction, I greatly prize a kinetic sensibility and a vagueness, which complements my tastes in poetry, I suppose.

I ask these questions, guys, because I want to preface the latest event coming from WriteByNight, our Craft Consortium. It’s a Meet-Up group we’ll be hosting for the first time in April. The Consortium will focus on writing meditations from popular authors – basically a forum for fellow writers to come and ruminate on the thoughts of other great writers. We’ll definitely be discussing tastes in craft, so this whole post is to get that conversation going. Are you guys big fans of keeping things hidden, or do you want to sprawl a million bits of confetti all over a wall just to send a message? If talk like this gets your writing spine dripping with black ink, come our way on April 11^th (at Rio Rita) and add your thoughts on craft, taste, writing, and what-have-you.

Peace out.

Christopher Savage is a writer living in Austin. He writes poetry, short stories, non-fiction, film scripts, comic books, and one long novel, among other things. He is the founder of the Boho Coco literary zine and blog and is currently attending UT Austin as a Sociology major, English minor. He is survived by his cat Cashew.