(no subject)

[tielan]

Curious question: do they teach 'show don't tell' anymore?

I seem to be reading a disproportionate number of stories lately where I've been told everything that's going on, using a character's headspace and thoughts, rather than being shown it in a character's interaction with other people and the universe around her. And it kind of makes me want to rewrite the story to be better...

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I have eaten an awful lot in the last week, thanks to Sydney's Night Noodle Markets, which is full of amazing Asian-esque food.

Granted, I went with a couple of friends on Monday, and am going again with a couple more friends on Thursday, and I went and bought some last night (taking it home in a takeaway container)

Restaurant first in bold, then the dish in italics.
Chat Thai: the sticky mango pudding and the chicken skewer (ya gaang) are both very decently sized.
One Tea Lounge: Peking Duck Waffle Fries (Waffle fries loaded with Shredded duck, housemade spicy hoisin sauce, fried shallots) - scarily delicious.
Montanita: Classic Ceviche (Citrus marinated Fish ‘cooked’ in lime juice with hot peppers and garlic, and then mixed with lime marinated red onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, and herbs) - there was a lot of this and it was very good, although the flavours were pretty heavy on the tongue by the end.
Din Tai Fung: Dumpling Box Night Noodle Market Special (Hawaiian, Seafood with Fish Roe & Special Dip, Fried Cream Cheese Wonton, Crispy Peking Duck Roll) - a friend got this box, and while I didn't taste everything, I had the Hawaiian dumpling and I think a Crispy Peking Duck Roll, and it was pretty damn good!
Cloud Thief: Old School Trifecta – Braised Pork Belly, Fried Chicken and Peking Duck Bao, maybe Peking Duck Fries (Crispy fries with shredded Peking duck and Peking duck sauce) - again, I didn't get this, but a friend did, and it looked pretty amazing.
Mamak: Roti Canai Original roti with boneless chicken curry or vegetarian curry - I've eaten at Mamak before, and it's always good food, pretty much no matter what you order.
Hoy Pinoy: Boneless Cebu Lechon (Cebu style roast pork chopped and served on rice with atchara & spiced vinegar) - I really liked this, but it needed more to go with it. Also, I've cooked Cebu lechon (roast pork) before, although it was more Balinese in style, less Philippino. Still good!
Inihaw na baboy (Pork belly skewers with banana ketchup glaze) - delicious! I mixed it with the Cebu Lechon, packed it in a box, took it home, and ate it with some home-cooked vegies.
Gelato Messina - O-Not-Giri (Green tea gelato & pistachio mousse dipped in rice bubbles & white chocolate) - worked really well - the thick casing keeps the gelato from melting, and the nori 'serviette' with which you hold it was neat (if a bit chewy at the end).

That said, there's still half a menu to get through, and I've only been able to get there this week (it's been running for the last fortnight, as well as this week, but ends this Friday), plus it only operates from 5pm onwards, not for lunch.

I went for a walk, but the wind proved problematic for my skirts, so I ended up taking the elevator to the floor six below the one I work on (also owned by the client) and walking up. It was a good walk; I must do that more often...for the seven days that I have left working here.

Comments

[scribblemyname]

Guilty of lots of telling myself. My sister keeps trying to get me to walk with her. I should.

[tielan]

I'm bad at solo exercise, whether jogging or gym. I need either a class or a team to really get into it and keep going. But this might be doable.

[havocthecat]

This restaurant description is making me very hungry, and all I have is my matzo ball soup with homemade beef broth. :) But I am glad you get a chance to eat there! We have a local community college that runs a student gourmet restaurant and I try to get there at least once a semester, because their students really are very good budding chefs and their food is very enjoyable! (Though I have a cold, so I don't know if I can go this week.)

I think that writing schools teach "show, don't tell," but a lot of authors rely on "tell, don't show" to write shorter books, which is the fashion for things like self-published paranormal romance novels. (I've been reading a lot of those lately.)

I get called on not showing enough with my writing, which frustrates me sometimes. What if I want my main character to be a cipher? What if the POINT is that she's a cipher and it's hard to get to know her? What if that's part and parcel of her ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC, for fuck's sake? I have an entire trilogy with that character. I'm on book two. Even after she has determined to try to be less of a cipher, she's still a cipher. People don't change fast.

That's just original fiction. When it comes to fanfic, I think "tell, don't show" is almost the order of the day, sometimes, because people pick up style from reading other fanfic. I know that when I beta for other writers, not all of them want to listen to my advice to make a scene longer and show something instead of just fixing their grammar for the section they have. Which is why I now ask people what kind of a beta they're looking for instead of assuming what they want is a full-on edit!

I still prefer showing to telling and I love main characters who are ciphers.

[tielan]

It's actually a 'food markets' in Hyde Park (the central park in the city). Kind of like a growers' market, only instead of selling the raw ingredients, each restaurant has a stand, and they sell a small selection of their staple dishes. Which means you can go with friends and everyone can get what they want, from the standard to the outlandish...

Okay, so, what's your opinion of self-pubbed paranormal romance novels? I know someone who's trying to break into the genre, but it's not her writing specialty, and she's rather disparaging of the popular novels that sell in great numbers. I'm actually thinking of setting my hand to it - is there anything you think I should read to get a feel for the genre? (Or should I just plunge in and see what I can do?)

My experience in PNR tends to be the published class of writers: Nalini Singh, Susan Sizemore, Lara Adrian, Meljean Brook - not always the best in all aspects (I felt like Sizemore defanged her vampires in the later books, and something about Adrian's stories kept me at arm's length, although I was impressed by her worldbuilding, and Singh tends to get overdramatic with the ellipses... "DOT...DOT...DOT...". I know that trad publishing is no guarantee of good writing, but generally these authors are pretty good at the details and 'the feels'.

Re: showing vs. telling - I'm pretty sure you read my Black Jewels Atlantis fic back in the day, where I had both a familiar and an unfamiliar fandom to sell to reader fans. So I think there's a balance to be found. On one hand, yes, you will need to sow the seeds of worldbuilding as you go, on the other, there's no reason why they can't be intermingled with character interactions. And I definitely feel you about ciphers - I mean, hey, Teyla and Maria are both very much 'ciphers' in their canon, particularly for the majority of readers - some of it is unpacking why they're not easy to know, and some of it is showing who they are emotionally and personally in spite of their external reserve (getting behind the scenes, rather than labelling a woman who doesn't obviously and openly emote as a robot and saying she has no feelings - oh hai oldskool slash fandom).

[havocthecat]

Oh, I read the shit out of your Black Jewels Atlantis fics back in the day, and there weren't many Black Jewels AUs that I would read. :) Or touch. I was pretty picky about what Black Jewels AUs I was interested in.

I'm actually starting to get into self-published PNR myself! So I have lots of thoughts and also some experience with the writing and plotting thereof, though I haven't actually published anything yet. You can definitely make good money at it, based on what I've seen. I wouldn't disparage all of the popular novels, though some of them are...well, people seem to like them even though I don't understand why. But you can mine those for tropes!

I feel like the word count on self-pub PNR is shorter than a lot of the professionally published writers, but that's only a matter of choice. I think profit in self-pub is a matter of publishing frequency, so it also matters how fast you get something out, not just how well you write it. Plus you have to write a full story, not a cliffhangered arc story, because readers got very tired of buying a "book" and discovering that they only got a few chapters.

I am on a private email list and DW group that is very, very useful and has some people who have a lot of very good information about PNR and self-pub, plus the marketing and everything you need to do to get set up. I'll email you about it.

[heliopausa]

Seven sixes = forty-two floors you'll be walking up. Impressive! :)

[tielan]

Spread out over time, though! Not all at once!

[umadoshi]

The food market sounds amazing. Wow.

[tielan]

It's pretty awesome. All the food you can eat...and then some!

This has been running for, oh, a dozen years or so. They started off with just one week in October ("Good Food Month") during the weeknights for people coming home from the city, and now it runs every night for two weeks straight during October, plus the weekends, getting bigger every year. It's pretty well organised by now, and, yeah, the food is kind of amazing.

[eggsbenedict]

M&Y do show and tell every week at daycare and they're not even 3 yet! No guarantees on what happens later, though.

Oh gawd that Cloud Thief pack sounds amazing. We need to reorganise our catchup, or maybe we can visit you sometime?

[tielan]

Do they do the twin thing and trade-off the stories? Because B1 and B2 used to do that, and apparently their pre-kindy teacher would use them as 'babysitting' to hold the class spellbound (or story-entranced) while she ran an errand down to the office...

(Can you imagine a teacher doing that today?)

You could certainly come and visit - we have chickens now! They arrived just this afternoon, and although I haven't seen them because I was out late at the NNM again, B1 says they're really cute. (And she's named them 'Hainan' and 'Honey Soy'. *facepalm*)

[eggsbenedict]

We tend to get totally different stories out of them - Y used to do all of the talking but now M speaks first, so you have to ask them separately. They've just started to fight over the adventure box (which we usually pack photos/cues etc in to help them remember what they're going to talk about) so I guess they're doing the developing-as-individuals thing nicely! XD And ha ha I've seen the daycare educators at the cafe sometimes at lunch, but I assume someone's still left behind looking after the kids.......

Hooray for chickens! I'll talk to J about setting a date, maybe we can come over and cook with you. (Sorry, but those names are hilarious. ^o^)

[eggsbenedict]

Oh god, this is so late but did I read "show don't tell" as "show and tell"?! Someone get me another brain...

[tielan]

I did note the disconnect, but figured it was a case of parenting brain...