{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1626", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1626, "subject": "Pulp Fiction", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-05-11T09:39:57+00:00", "last": "1999-05-11T17:24:26+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-05-11T09:39:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Pulp Fiction", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Lebling joked:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...All the\ntalk we hear about multiple drafts is just publicity; he races through each book\nlike the early-career Silverberg, and lets the errors fall where they may." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, there may be a germ of truth to this. Not about the multiple\ndrafts, obviously, but the \"racing through\" bit. I can still remember a\nlong ago Gene Wolfe interview in Interzone in which, talking about\nSeverian fishing Dorcas out of the lake, Wolfe said \"I had a hell of a\ntime working out who she was and how she got there.\"\n\nThe implication being that he really does make things up as he goes\nalong, and then papers over the cracks, as opposed to working to an\nelaborate, preconceived plan. Personally speaking, that's always been\nthe impression I've got from his novels in any case: they have that\nfast-paced, picaresque style symptomatic of a writer who doesn't have a\nclue what's going to happen next." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-05-11T10:27:17+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Pulp Fiction", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 11 May 1999, Tony Ellis wrote:\nDavid Lebling joked:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "...All the\ntalk we hear about multiple drafts is just publicity; he races through each book\nlike the early-career Silverberg, and lets the errors fall where they may." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually, there may be a germ of truth to this. Not about the multiple\ndrafts, obviously, but the \"racing through\" bit. I can still remember a\nlong ago Gene Wolfe interview in Interzone in which, talking about\nSeverian fishing Dorcas out of the lake, Wolfe said \"I had a hell of a\ntime working out who she was and how she got there.\"\n\nThe implication being that he really does make things up as he goes\nalong, and then papers over the cracks, as opposed to working to an\nelaborate, preconceived plan. Personally speaking, that's always been\nthe impression I've got from his novels in any case: they have that\nfast-paced, picaresque style symptomatic of a writer who doesn't have a\nclue what's going to happen next." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure how much you can conclude from that one example. I'd think\neven the most \"plan-ahead\" type of writers occasionally come up with a\ncool scene they want to write without really knowing yet where it's going\nto go. I imagine most writers having some combination of planning and\nworking things out as they go.\n\nThen there's Philip Dick writing \"The Man in the High Castle\" by\nperiodically consulting the I Ching to decide which way the plot would go. \n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-05-11T17:24:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) re: re: Pulp Fiction", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Rostrum wrote:\nI'm not sure how much you can conclude from that one example." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, it's an example with significant repercussions: the whole thing\nabout Severian's parentage traces back to this one event. Dorcas gives\nus Ouen gives us Catherine gives us Katherine." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...I'd think\neven the most \"plan-ahead\" type of writers occasionally come up with a\ncool scene they want to write without really knowing yet where it's going\nto go. I imagine most writers having some combination of planning and\nworking things out as they go." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh for sure. But which is Wolfe: a \"plan ahead\" writer, or a \"make it up\nas you go along\" one? Fifty-fifty? I wanted to raise the \"makes it up as\nhe goes along\" argument because it seems to me the natural assumption\nmight be the opposite. As I said, to me the structure and pace of\nTBOTNS is very much that of a story being made up on the spot (and then\npolished by a grade-A genius, mind you) -- but what do other people\nthink?" } ] } ] }