Interview 2.0 by: Zev Goldberg Interviewing Steven Goldberg
1. What helps you stay on topic, and not lose sight of what you want to write about?
Response: Usually the starting point in my mind, and then it extends to the end of a chapter, so it’s a bit more of a destination in mind. Also it seems to go chapter to chapter.
2. What do you describe, to be the most consistently, successful design for a story (what makes a good story)?
Response: In music the start in the chorus (the most exciting part of the piece), he likes to start or get as close as possible to the hook of the story. There has to be some form of unresolved something that makes the reader keep reading.
3. What is your personal balance to have your real life to be intertwined into your story (what is a really good ratio for you)?
Response: 95% real life, 5% unreal….however the 5% can still over power what is in fact real.
4. Besides dreams, what is your favorite way to come up with story ideas?
Response: Meeting strangers and finding out there backstory, the other ways I accomplish this task by challenging frustrations were there are none.
5. How do you get the reader/audience to not only stay entertained by your stories but actually make relatable and dare I say likable characters?
Response: You need to design your characters with a lot of variation, since no one in real life is all evil or good, it’s all a big grey area. Keep the character venerable so as to keep them mortal, since failure is in fact the best form of relatability.
6. How do you keep writing from getting boring; because a lot of people out there don’t really like writing because of it being tedious. So what would you say to them?
Response: Sometimes there can be a tedious part to write something, but if it’s an agony to write it might be too bad to read. So take a new direction, or add something new to it all.
7. So what do you think is more important (generally speaking) when it comes to writing stories; interesting situations or well-made characters?
Response: I specialize exotic characters in mundane situations and Vis versa. Neither is really the better of the bunch, but if I had to choose one is the character’s reaction to what occurs.
8. In a lot of your stories you don’t seem to have clear cut villain, do you have a reason for that?
Response: There is always a villain just not necessarily a person whom plays the villain, because they create the best conflict. You need to have less than 20% for the begging portion, but you do want to save something for the climax. But in the beginning the antagonist and protagonist are interchangeable.
9. When describing environments you seem to find the perfect point between enough detail to get a great idea of the world you have created, and not too much detail that it takes up entire paragraphs of describing the same thing over and over; how do you find this balance?
Response: The way I balance my detail, is to keep the plot and character development to be top priority, and you need to have some vagueness so people can all see the same thing in different way. The best way to find your balance is to show the outline, and keep the critical points with the most detail. But not the highest level, about 4 sentences.
10. So how big of a part, of your stories is completely dedicated to choice(s)?
Response: So it’s not that I have choice but the situation were you are forced to get the better situation of the bunch (to choose from). Also how far should this choice go?
11. What part of your writing would you say you wish you could improve upon the most?
Response: Writing a lot more pages, without going in circles; filler, getting too far from original idea, are the biggest challenges. But to keep a level of intensity is really another problem, also when you build too quickly you have no place to go. Also impatience is a bit of a problem, due to the desire of not having things (the plot) to slow.
Reflection
So my father has given me great insight into what it takes to be an enjoyable writer. How to make an exciting look into what or whom someone really is in a given situation. However my biggest flaw right now is that I write my previous stories like I play chess, Immensely well in the beginning and then gradually, get more and more disappointing as the story goes on. Which is why this 'new' story is so special, for yes it incorporates experiences from real life as always and has many metaphors. But this one I am doing a overly convoluted way to write it, I write it at inconsistent periods of time to keep the overly crazy ideas going, I am also making everything as on edge as possible. In that people will act differently because of past experiences like in most stories yes. But since my mood effects the way I write, every chapter has a different feel. Ok it`s not drastically different but if you compare page 6 to page 10 the underlying tone feels off. I kept the changes minimal, and gradual to keep the story from getting annoying and repetitive. But if you do look for the comparisons between chapters they are definably there.
Like I said in my proposal I feel as though literature I feel is under appreciated, and a semi common complaint is that stories get repetitive and clichés run rapid. So that's why I introduced a new concept to story telling that as far as I know has never been done yet: Where you are able to not only talk to future you without the universe blowing up but it actually furthers the plot. How many time travel stories or even stories themselves can you say were it`s encouraged to talk to the future version of yourself. Plus the characters are mostly self aware so if you are looking for paradox's in the story, well there are none thanks to the annoying system I set up that was kept at the begging of the first five pages and are rarely brought up again to keep the story focused on what it needs to be, the plot.
I have said on many updates that there is a mystery in the story, and that it is 100% possible to solve it, in that what you see (read) is what you get. No mysterious near 'random' characters that were either mentioned once or not even mentioned at all and stated to be the big twist. NO, no Shyamalan nonsense here. I also made the message sidle, because hammered in messages are just, don`t do that. Because my goal is make people read more not less, I just want them to know that not all ideas have been done. Plus if people think they can do a better story than me, I encourage them to do it, because that will lead to a greater justice to an idea than I can ever do. Like I said I write like how I play chess, great beginning with a 'meh' ending. So that should be interesting to see if this very idea does make an effect to others, but if it doesn`t that won`t be the biggest loss.
So what my dad told me what would be good to have in stories are as follows: metaphors when you don`t want to waste the readers time while still maintaining a good level of detail. Have relatable characters made from whom ever you want, but the way that tends to work best for writers out there is by making representations of people in their real life world. That if you want to write a fantasy make it go all the way, where the laws of physicals cannot follow, but if you are one or those 'mix-and-match' kind of people have ratios that are radically different, because if you go a true 50/50 then the rules will become annoying. For example in my story its 10/30/60 (science fiction/real life/fantasy). But that is the way I designed it, and that's the way I like to make my work. So tell me in the comments what would your ratio be? Oh that is all the tips I will give you since earlier on there is a literal list of near 'tips and tricks' style ideas. So happy writing and reading the story will soon be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment
So nice comment, That I can 'see' totally.