Monday, March 01, 2010

Monologues for an audience of one

I know myself as a writer. Too much text. So much I scare people off reading. Lengthy descriptions and unwieldy grammar make people give up and scream, "get to the point already!" Creating long, elaborate set-ups just to deliver a corny, often obscure punchline. Making people scramble for a dictionary to decipher otherwise incomprehensible vocabulary is a sign of compensating for deep-rooted insecurity in a person.

No wonder my GP Forum page (sorry, members only) is near stillborn. The kids are going nowhere near my article commentaries that are longer and more confusing than the articles themselves. It's not that they aren't reading -- the counter tells me they are -- but they're simply stunned into silence within the first paragraph. And in the end, I'm still writing monologues for an audience of one.

Ah well, I've always had trouble talking to people anyway. Conversation is just not my thing.

I do want to keep the Forum running though. Must learn to moderate my tendency towards excessive exposition and stop imposing ideas on the kids. The less I talk, the more they have a chance to say something back.

Currently reading "Ten rules for writing fiction" as a guide to developing my Forum personality. The rules may have been advocated by writers of best-selling fiction, but are still good advice for writers in general.

3 comments:

MoB said...

are you in any way related to the GP@edumall? might want to tie up with them since you are also trying to build something online :P is helmed by vara, i think. you'd remember her

xmac2006 said...

No, mine's a Litespeed thing for our 2nd year kids, nothing so ambitious. 'course I remember Vara! Might bump into her at the iCTLT this week. U going too?

MoB said...

yup going to be on duty at ictlt all the way :P manning booth :P