StoryCrafting and StoryTelling

“Interesting” is subjective. What doesn’t interest some people may excite others. 🙂

I take part in book review groups – you review mine, I’ll review yours – and I let people know going in I’m a tough reviewer.

The reason I’m a tough reviewer is fairly simple: I review books based on an author’s storycrafting and storytelling skills, not a book or story’s genre.

…good writing is good writing is good writing.

 
I’ve reviewed romance, poetry, chicklit, adventure, MG, and early readers, along with sf/f/h, and regardless of genre good writing is good writing is good writing.

Likewise, sometimes a writer is incompetent and their work sucks.

Storytelling – does the author have an interesting story to tell? Storycrafting – does the author tell the story in an interesting way?

 
For me, it comes down to storycrafting and storytelling. Storytelling – does the author have an interesting story to tell? Storycrafting – does the author tell the story in an interesting way?

Someone can have an amazing story to tell and do it poorly, kind of like a college prof who’s expert in their field and boring as heck in the lecture hall. That’s good story to tell told poorly. The prof who isn’t expert in their field and keeps the students interested has craft but no story.

Then there’s Door #3 – The prof who is both expert in their field and keeps the students interested, enthused about the subject and wanting to know more has both crafting and telling down cold. This is where you want to be if you want to be (in my opinion) an author worth reading.

The statement “What’s interesting is subjective” is true to a point. But yell Fire! or Rape! or Gun! and you’ll get people’s attention because some things aren’t subjective. Get someone’s attention first, they’ll decide if what got their attention is interesting enough to keep their attention.

But the key is getting their attention first, and that is done through good to excellent storycrafting and storytelling skills (and if you’re wondering what gives me the right to talk about such things, take a look at my patents and/or read Reading Virtual Minds Volume I: Science and History).

You’re sharing this because…?


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The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 1 (backstory)

Long Ago and Far Away…okay, starting in August 2022, I shared chapters from The Alibi. That lasted to mid-September when life and starting a new business got in the way.

Life and a new business consumed more time than I expected. I still wrote – actually updated, edited, and got ready for publication my first non-fiction in six years, That Th!nk You Do (due out 15 Jan 2023. You should all buy a copy and leave glorious reviews) – but The Alibi took a backseat (and it annoyed me I did so, by the way).

But I’m also sensitive to my own cycles, transits, methodologies, dispositions, … . I knew the story wasn’t going where it was suppose to go, but I didn’t know where it was suppose to go.

So shelve it. Give it time. Ruminate.

Some time late-September 2022, Susan and I talked about it. I mentioned my biggest challenge with the story was not seeing a character who would change through the course of the novel, didn’t know who or what would act as the throughline, both of which are (to me) critically important.
Continue reading “The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 1 (backstory)”

My “Marianne” now in Visions anthology

Kaye Lynne Booth gathered some amazing authors for Visions anthology. Reviewers can pick up a copy on Bookfunnel and readers can use this universal book link.

 
About the Author
Easiest way to do this is to head over to my About page. Alternately…
Joseph Carrabis told stories to anyone who would listen starting in childhood, wrote his first stories in grade school and started getting paid for his writing in 1978. He’s been everything from a long-haul trucker to a Chief Research Scientist and holds patents covering mathematics, anthropology, neuroscience, and linguistics. After patenting a technology which he created in his basement and creating an international company, he retired from corporate life and now he spends his time writing fiction based on his experiences. His work appears regularly in several anthologies and his own published novels. You can learn more about him RIGHT HERE! (exciting, isn’t it?) and find much of his work at http://nlb.pub/amazon.

 
How the story came about? Continue reading “My “Marianne” now in Visions anthology”

Toing and Froing Again, Part 2

This is the second post regarding teaching myself to recognize Toing and Froing when I commit it (a most heinous act done by inept writers on hopeless prose, poetry (it’d be tough but I’m sure it can be done), scriptwriting, playwriting, (possibly) non-fiction, creative non-fiction, …).

And remember, folks, I’m including myself in the above. I’m writing this Toing and Froing arc to teach myself better writing techniques because I Toed and Froed like a marathon runner who’d lost their bearings while writing The Alibi chapter 3 (of my current work in progress which I’ll start posting in August 2022).

Toing and Froing occurs when the writer/author has their characters move around or do things for no real story purpose; there’s no character development, no character revelation, the atmosphere doesn’t change, no plot elements are furthered or revealed, the movement is irrelevant to any established or impending plot points, the movement is unnecessary to the dialogue, et cetera.

Toing and Froing Again, Part 1 ended with “My writing speed slows down,” meaning I’ve lost my rhythm, and I pick up from there…
Continue reading “Toing and Froing Again, Part 2”

Throughlines

a recurring character/setting/element anchoring the reader in the story that keeps the reader interested

I use throughlines in my own writing and mentioned them previously in Using One-Line Summaries to Write Better Stories and Writing Mentoring.

Recent conversations demonstrated confusion; some people thought a throughline is the same as a plot line, some thought a throughline was an expanded TOC (Table-of-Contents), some thought…

I appreciate the confusion.

I also appreciate Einstein’s “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

Therefore, I’m either about to explain throughlines to a six-year old or demonstrate I don’t understand it myself.

Let me know which I achieve.


Greetings! I’m your friendly, neighborhood Threshold Guardian. This is a protected post. Protected posts in the My Work, Marketing, and StoryCrafting categories require a subscription (starting at 1$US/month) to access. Protected posts outside those categories require a General (free) membership.
Members and Subscribers can LogIn. Non members can join. Non-protected posts (there are several) are available to everyone.
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