Consigli di scrittura da Robin Hobb

Intervento sul newsgroup a proposito di backstory dei personaggi secondari, nel senso delle loro vicende personali pregresse:

Citazione:Backstory and minor characters:

I was always told 'Don't name a character unless the character will be significant.'
Leave the stable hand as 'the stable hand' unless two chapters from now he steals your horse.

Backstory is like a special spice. And for those of us who like long tales told over several books, it's wonderful to find out that a character you thought was 'disposable' pops up again and that the back story is significant. It can create a lot of poignancy if you know just a enough about a minor character to know when he makes a major sacrifice. Or turns on an old friend. Rosy Cotton in the Lord of the Rings. We don't know a lot about her just a sentence or two. But it's enough.

Once I've named a character, I try to keep in mind that said character has a life of his/her own, and put in the bits that makes him/her believable.

Robin

Robin consiglia di non dare nomi a quei personaggi che non hanno ruoli significativi all'interno della storia. Lasciamo che il ragazzo di stalla resti tale, a meno che non rubi il nostro cavallo due capitoli dopo. La backstory è come una spezia speciale. E per coloro che amano le lunghe storie che abbracciano diversi libri, è meraviglioso veder spuntare di nuovo un personaggio che si pensava "usa e getta" e scoprire che il suo vissuto è importante. Può dare grande intensità alla narrazione il fatto di conoscere abbastanza un personaggio secondario da capire quando sta compiendo un grande sacrificio. O tradendo un vecchio amico. Robin porta come esempio Rosy Cotton nel Signore degli Anelli: di lei leggiamo poco — appena una frase o due — ma è sufficiente.

Una volta dato un nome a un certo personaggio, Robin cerca di tenere a mente che lui/lei ha una sua vita, e nella storia inserisce quel poco che basta a renderlo/la credibile.

Una benemerita Laura ha raccolto sul suo sito alcune pillole di saggezza raccolte alla WorldCon di Reno, nel mese di agosto. Un bel po' di queste sono proprio della nostra Robin, presente alla manifestazione:

Citazione:From Robin Hobb:

• If you are writing, you are a writer.
  
• There is no wrong way to write.
  
• It’s so easy to put off writing. There’s always an excuse not to write. You never actually will have any “extra free time” in which to write. You just make time. There is time if you can find it.
  
• It’s not “write what you know”, it’s write who you are.
  
• Break things down into manageable parts. Write one scene at a time.
  
• How to find your endings: Where the next story begins is the ending of this one. In other words, where a story ends is where the next story begins.
  
• Every paragraph you write has possibility. It’s like shutting doors in a corridor.
  
• Have confidence in your characters to let them do what they actually would do. Make sure they are challenged. Don’t protect them from things happening to them.
  
• Never throw away anything you’ve written. There will be something you can use in it. Always keep a paper copy and put it in a safe place.
  

Non so voi, ma io ADORO i suoi consigli!

Piccola perla di grande saggezza:

Robin Hobb Ha scritto:Balancing plot, character and setting is always the challenge. So every sentence in a book or story has to do one of those three things: advance the plot, tell something about the character, or describe the setting. A good sentence does all three. And if it isn't doing any of those things, hit delete!

Traduzione [leggi]

La sfida è sempre quella di bilanciare trama, personaggi e ambientazione. Quindi ogni frase di un libro o di una storia deve fare una di queste tre cose: portare avanti la trama, raccontare qualcosa sul personaggio, o descrivere l'ambientazione. Una buona frase fa tutte e tre le cose insieme. E se non ne fa nessuna, premete "cancella"!

Riporto due interventi di Robin di questi ultimi giorni: nell'uno parla soprattutto di POV in prima e terza persona, nell'altro dell'eventualità di sottoporre il proprio lavoro a critici o ad altri scrittori:

Robin Hobb Ha scritto:There is no wrong way to write your story, as long as you like it.

I've read books that go back and forth between first person (I thought) and third person, (Dr. Sam, he thought). It can be pulled off if that's how you want to tell the story. The trick, I think, is to stay in the point of view of the person whose brain we are in. So even if you are writing third person, see and tell things the way Dr. Sam sees them.

If you are writing a short story, I would suggest only as many viewpoint characters as you absolutely need. If it's a novel, well, then you may need more!

You can do flashbacks in italics if you want. Or you can make it clear it's a flashback with a bit of an intro. "I could still recall the color of the sky that day. I'd had a sandwich for lunch, and was going into the kitchen to wash my hands . . . "

I write things in order. I know writers who write all the exciting bits first, and then fill in the rest.

It's your story. No wrong way to do it. Just get it down on paper.

Robin Hobb Ha scritto:Writers groups and critique groups have not worked well for me, but some writers seem to love them and benefit greatly from them. So you might want to bounce the manuscript off some fellow writers.

I don't think a critique can be 'too honest' . . . but some people may be rougher than you want to deal with right now. I think it depends on where you are in developing that thick skin writers need to have.

But the 'finish it and send it in' is, of course, the only way to become a published writer!

Robin

Dal newsgroup, sui dettagli narrativi:

Citazione:We have the story so clear in our own heads that we 'supply' all the background stuff when we are working.

Then I have to go back and say,'Oh, it's winter, so I should mention that the wind is making the branches move and going down his neck, and that he's cold while he's standing outside talking to this guy. and I should mention the other guy's nose is red and that he's mad at being made to stand outside for this conversation.' It's all the background detail. Sometimes it helps to set it aside and let it cool and then come back to it and see it with fresh eyes.

Robin

Ok, il mio post è abusivo qui, e chiedo scusa.

Ecco i consigli di TERRY BROOKS (e non Robin, ma non sapevo dove postare) per chi ha in mente una storia da raccontare ma non sa come iniziare a scriverla:

Citazione:1. Start in the middle. Never start a story at the beginning. Choose a point where something important has happened and have your characters discover/react/be impacted by whatever it is.

2. Decide who your opening characters will be. Usually, you want your protagonist (s) on stage fairly early in the story so your audience can get comfortable with them.

3. Avoid long openings involving past history. Normally, this is a turnoff. Have something happen in the present and skip the history or feather it into your story later on.

4. Set up you central conflict, either directly or by reference. We need to know what is at stake early on.

marco

Riesumo il topic per linkarvi un articoletto interessante che analizza alcuni aspetti della tecnica narrativa di Robin Hobb:

BlackGate.com | How Robin Hobb Writes Lyrical Fantasy Without Being Boring


(Vorrei poter promettere una traduzione a breve, ma ne ho altre due in preparazione e tempo zero... ç_ç Abbiate molta pazienza!)