Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Writing Genre - Process 001

Hello everyone,

I've been out all day today. However I'm here to give you all a quick update on just where I'm at with this Genre piece.

When I write, I like to make sure I have the readers attention quickly. That 'oohh what happens next' is important to me as a reader, so as I writer I like to deliver that to my audience.

Because this piece is 2,000 words it restricts the 'beginning middle and end' of a normal story. But the chunk I'm planning to write will hopefully be fast paced action, in a horror fantasy environment that will have appropriate amounts of violence in it and allow for the story to be short and sharp, but still leaving the reader satisfied.

Getting inside my readers minds.

I've literally thrown together a quick survey on genre (You'll see what I mean about thrown and quick when you click the link!) I've done it to get a better understanding of what other people think of genre, such as their favourite genre and why they like it. So if you've got 5 mins spare could you please have a look at it and answer the Q's.

Genre Survey

In the meantime - this is the opening lines to my genre piece thus far. I originally wrote a fight scene, and then the character (yet to be named, I'm open to suggestions) escapes and is then in the scene below. But I thought I might 'build' the suspense. Let me know and I'll put the opening fight scene up tomorrow and you can tell me which one works better.


A shard of light beamed into the darkened room, this sun was coming up, and the sound of his heart was deafening in his ears. He consciously control his breathing, He didn’t want to get discovered here, as he knew he’d be dead in less than a minute if he was.

He quietly moved toward the light squinting through the small crack in the wall, the outside light hurt his eyes, and took a moment to adjust, blurry vision becoming sharper, he held his breath as his eye darted left and right in search for any sign of them outside. He couldn’t hear anything, but that meant nothing.

He’d been held up in this place for two days now. Staying low, keeping as quiet as he could. He’d have to make a break for it eventually though, as his water was almost gone. He needed a weapon however, as without something to defend himself he might as well stay in this place until he withered and died.

There was nothing left in the house, it had been boarded up, and anything that could be used as a weapon had been already taken by who ever had got there before him. He squinted harder through the crack, turning his head so he could try and see further down the street. His heart pounding in his chest, his mouth dry, he swallowed hard and thought to himself. ‘Fuck I don’t won’t to die today.’


That's all I've got.

2 comments:

ScoMan said...

This one is certainly suspenseful. I'm interested to see how the fight one comes up for comparison.

I've always liked the name "Scott".

Or "Maynard"

Kimberly said...

I just want you to keep going! lol I'm interested to know what's going on and why...