08-04-2006, 12:25 PM
I believe setting is an important theme into any story, whether its mystery, war, romance, or other genre. Setting builds the foundation of where your story takes place, it makes the scenes more credible and reliable, it's literally the stage of your story. Sometimes this powerful element is overlooked, and often times neglected by the most stubborn writers.
Setting builds tone. It constructs the mood throughout the scene or the story overall. Take for instance 'The fall of the House of Usher'. It prevets a vivid mood that splays throughout the tale of that bleak November morning.
Another thing I find delightful is simplicity. A good example would be mysteries, horror, science-fiction, and fantasy. These genre's have distinct plots that are easy to keep track: The detective must solve the case; The hero unmasks the serial killer; defending worlds from unspeakable deviants; the hero slays a dragon. Sometimes the simple efforts in a story are appreciated.
War stories have imagery, metaphors, allusions, definitive foreshadowing, and symbolism--all genre's do--especially horror and mysteries. What I like about them that differs from a poet's story is the sheer simplicity of it.
Stories do need literary devices, but in moderation.
Writers should aspire to become writers, not poets. They need to learn simplicity-- the basic functions of writing, then when and if the time comes they want to develop better skills, move onto elements of poetry.
And the only reason some poets were considered higher than writers in 'the old days', it was the fact that writers got paid for every word they wrote (Mark Twain is a good example, and Tolstoy), which usually transcribed into lack luster books.
Stories with poetic depth drown the reader and are painfully hard to read without nodding off. Sometimes they're too busy to find the meaning behind the words than finishing the tacky ending.
Setting builds tone. It constructs the mood throughout the scene or the story overall. Take for instance 'The fall of the House of Usher'. It prevets a vivid mood that splays throughout the tale of that bleak November morning.
Another thing I find delightful is simplicity. A good example would be mysteries, horror, science-fiction, and fantasy. These genre's have distinct plots that are easy to keep track: The detective must solve the case; The hero unmasks the serial killer; defending worlds from unspeakable deviants; the hero slays a dragon. Sometimes the simple efforts in a story are appreciated.
War stories have imagery, metaphors, allusions, definitive foreshadowing, and symbolism--all genre's do--especially horror and mysteries. What I like about them that differs from a poet's story is the sheer simplicity of it.
Stories do need literary devices, but in moderation.
Writers should aspire to become writers, not poets. They need to learn simplicity-- the basic functions of writing, then when and if the time comes they want to develop better skills, move onto elements of poetry.
And the only reason some poets were considered higher than writers in 'the old days', it was the fact that writers got paid for every word they wrote (Mark Twain is a good example, and Tolstoy), which usually transcribed into lack luster books.
Stories with poetic depth drown the reader and are painfully hard to read without nodding off. Sometimes they're too busy to find the meaning behind the words than finishing the tacky ending.