This...this is the good stuff right here. I can tell that you are honing your craft as a writer.
I am truly excited to see where this goes!
RE: Bringing Down The Mountain - Part 1
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Bringing Down The Mountain - Part 1
I'm glad you're digging it! This was my most recently written story. I've got other stuff coming up after that I've written months or further back, but I was really happy with how this turned out, and I think I'm getting much better at this Lester Dent formula. I might not ever be able to finish a novel, but when I finally reach a high enough plateau I'll be the match of any man or woman at short fiction!
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I've been looking into the Lester Dent formula for my own short fiction. Any advice on how to best implement it?
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Well, I'm probably not the best at writing advice, but I've been trying to kind of unconsciously work it into my fiction while consciously working at it, if that makes any sense. Like I read it over two or three times, then started writing with that in mind, in particular swatting the hero with a fistful of trouble as soon as possible. In this story, for instance, we've got the giant monster moving in on the city, then introduce the heroes as quickly and neatly as possible. Details aren't that important, the reader can fill those in.
Then I get them out into the scrum, and swat them with more trouble in the army of monsters rushing up on them. By the end of this installment, the first 1500 words, the crew are directly in the shit with no way out but forward. I don't want to give the rest of it away, but Lester says that the shit has to get heavier with each consecutive 1500 word installment, so do that as much as possible. Even reading Howard, who doesn't stick to this formula for most of his stories, keeps shoveling grief onto Conan and the menace keeps getting blacker in each story, even if he does diverge into short history lessons of the place Conan's in or little divergences like Conan getting revenge on the girl who turned him into the cops in Rogues in the House.
The most important advice I can give, I suppose, and this is to be done actively while writing until the process is committed to muscle memory and instinct, is to not waste a single word. Everything put on the page needs to be moving the story forward somehow. Even in The Slithering Shadow/Xuthal of the Dusk, when Thalis is explaining what Xuthal is and how the people act and how great their science is, everything comes to a head eventually and effects the story in some way. She mentions the golden wine they have that invigorates and heals, and later Conan gets some and it gives him the strength to escape the city after getting beaten to a pulp by their god. Ask yourself while you're writing, "Does this advance the story, or am I just jacking off on the page?" If it's the latter, it needs to go. Maybe replace it, or rework it so that it moves the action forward, or cut it entirely, but there shouldn't be a single part of the story that feels boring or unnecessary. You don't keep your readers glued to the page with boring prose.
That's another piece of advice I'd give anyone. Read Howard and observe how he keeps his prose interesting, even while he's talking about something as mundane as the history of this mysterious city Conan's found himself in. The prose doesn't need to be purple, but it does need to be alive. If you can learn how to keep your prose interesting and evocative while keeping the story tight and the action moving forward at all times, while cutting out any dross that bogs the story down or sandbags the action, you'll be on the right track so far as I'm concerned.
Granted I'm still on this path myself, but the only way to get better is to take the lessons the greats like Dent and Howard left us, read their books and find out what was so great about the way they wrote, and then write like hell until you can roughly approximate it yourself. Then keep shaving away and getting tighter and tighter until the quality of the writing is undeniable and anyone who's picking at it is just picking nits.
Also I should mention that I'm purposely not trying to write novels, here. I'm purposely specializing in short fiction. Quick, punchy stories designed purely to entertain, any deeper meaning or philosophy in them is there either unintentionally or as a small easter egg that doesn't detract from the entertainment value of the story itself. Writing novels is something completely different, and if you're looking to get into that game go talk to like Brian Niemeier or Brometheus. They've done it, and they're much better at it than I am. But so far as short fiction goes, this is the best method I've found to get the most entertaining results, and I think I'm getting pretty damn good at it, not to sound too arrogant, here.
The Dent formula seems ridiculously simple, until you actually try to implement it. Then you realize that you can try to structure your stories like this, but some things just happen, and it takes a lot of practice to get it down. I don't even have it perfected yet. I can try and justify it by saying it's my take on the Dent formula, but that's just a way to excuse the fact that I don't have it perfected yet. Give me a few more stories and we'll see how it goes.
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