climax – Anjuelle Floyd

Of Memoir, Climax, and “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”…

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Writing teacher and mentor, Clive Matson, always said that if a writer found her or himself wanting and/or needing to explain her or his story that the reader might gain the author’s intended message, the author needed to revise their story further.

Completing a manuscript requires more than simply writing the story, editing and revising it for clarity regarding grammar and typos, or even for development of plot.

Within each story or novel lives the narrative of that story, and how it came into being.

The author’s understanding and exploration of this process informs

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Of Love, Dreams and Waking Up…

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“Love is one long sweet dream and marriage is the alarm clock.” BLOOM OF LOVE on Twitter

When reading this on Twitter I immediately thought of how living so closely with someone, waking up to them next to you when your breath does not carry the aroma you would like to hit your nose, never mind that of another, their seeing you sick and the reverse, and their witnessing your various responses to life’s trials can and does reveal your inner core, the essence of your personality.

Yes, love by itself and unfettered by the commitment of marriage, “…for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health…and unto death…”

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Of Books, Tension, and The Mind on the Page…

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Presently I am reading Anuradha Roy’s novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing .

As with any good novel, interactions between the main characters are strained.

Tension abounds, but not in a melodramatic way.

The story moves with a nice speed for an opening.

I look forward each evening–a hallmark that I have found a jewel of a novel–to settling into bed,

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Of Revelation, Illusions and the Parallel Processes of Writing and Discovery…

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Revelation plays an important role in constructing and/or assembling the middle section of a novel.

Revelation also encompasses the uncovering of truth of what has always stood present, but remained hidden by strong held illusions and beliefs.

Stories and novels stand upon revelations, ones that sustain the cause-and-effect events that comprise, most particularly, the plot of a novel and that lead towards crisis and onto climax.

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Of Intimacy, Revelation and Redemption…

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In my recent interview with Tabitha Vinson of Praise and Worship ICU (PWICU), we discussed human intimacy, an aspect that, for Tabitha, played heavily in my recent novel, The House.

That night, it struck me that as with The House, and all good works of fiction, intimacy plays an important role in not simply the emotional narrative of a story.

Intimacy heavily contributes to the establishment of the opening of a work of fiction.

Through presenting the protagonist in a series of intimate relationships, readers get to know the personality of the central character, flaws and all.

From this we gain entrance into their yearnings.

And yearnings always relate to desires and wants, ultimately inner conflicts that get ignited once the protagonist enters the quest to achieve her or his goal.

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Of Symbols, Change and Arc of Growth and Transformation…

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The display the revelations that take place during the denouement and resolution, end, of a novel must take place in scene, not summary.

End of story revelations work much like the action taking place during the crisis and climax points where the immediacy of the characters’ actions impress upon readers the significance and meaning of the ordeal the central character/characters are undergoing, surviving and ultimately growing stronger by enduring.

Just as the crisis and climax point of a novel provide places of major transition and transformation, so to the revelations presented during denouement and at resolution offer one last stage of growth and change.

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Of Kings, Strategies and Tactics…

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Capture of the King in chess ends the game. And thus the role of each piece or character’s movements works towards the larger goals of protecting the King of the same color and capturing the King of the opponent.

The players move their characters and/or chess pieces towards accomplishing these two tasks.

In this way process of playing the game of chess resembles that of writing a book. While writers do not move our characters around the chessboard of our stories like the pieces of a chess game, each character of a novel or short story carries her or his own role, both in the narrative line and the structure of the plot.

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