![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Generally, I'm of the opinion that there are no boring stories, only boring ways of telling them. I mean, for example: today I went out to get lunch. Tah-dah, it's a single sentence.
However: it was raining, but only lightly, so while I only had my (beloved and full of holes) sweater and no umbrella, and though I'd brought a book just in case, the worst that happened is that my hair turned kinda frizzy and my glasses got water-freckled. It was cool-ish, but the walk helped with that, and I was on my way to find this street-vendor-esque place that only is in this area on Tuesdays that I'd read about in the newspaper. When I found them, they were kind of surrounded by a huge moat of collected rainwater, so the lady taking orders waved at me to go around some of the parked cars. I got food (that turned out to be super-super tasty; gosh I like finding new good places to eat♥) and on my way back, I was struck by the color of the trees.
Which sounds kind of lame, and a bit ... well, okay, just lame, but. Because of the drizzle, the sky's kind of a flat pale gray, where your cloud clover is spread so fine that you can't see it, and the sunlight comes through muted but bright. And against that sky, there was a tree -- probably some sort of oak, I'm bad at identifying -- that was this bright almost lime-green, and even though it's the middle of May already, I looked at the tree and the first thing that popped into my head was "Spring!" I ended up just looking at the tree for a while, never mind my half-hour lunch break or the food cooling or the rain or the trucks passing by: there was me and there was a tree, and the tree made me smile because it was just. Pretty. ♥
And now I am back in the office and I'm stretching my lunch by tacking on my break with it. There's still work to do, but it's been slower today than it has for a while, I'm inside where it's dry and warm, my belly's full, and even with the terrible seesawing weather, there are trees that are bright green and forming arches with the surrounding building outside.
It's nice. :)
On the downside, there's also going too far with your metaphors and your phrasings; my mom is a fan of Harlequin romance novels, and like any good daughter, I stole some now and then when I was little and read them. (omg secret revealed?!) The thing that gets me with some of them would be that there was a good story, somewhere in there -- I think there's a reason most stories have a romance subplot, even for the non-romantics out there -- but it'd get bogged down with the ANGST and the LAYERS OF DETAIL and just. It's like stuffing someone genuinely pretty in layers and layers of stiff fancy clothing, then tossing them in the water and expecting them to float.
Of course, years later, I've substituted BL dramas for Mom's Harlequin romances, so obviously they're doing something right. Or I'm just easy. *g* And I mean, what makes a story effective, anyway? What's too much, what's enough? Will I ever figure this out without writing x100 words about it?
Nahhh, probably not.
...
♥ Thanks for reading.
However: it was raining, but only lightly, so while I only had my (beloved and full of holes) sweater and no umbrella, and though I'd brought a book just in case, the worst that happened is that my hair turned kinda frizzy and my glasses got water-freckled. It was cool-ish, but the walk helped with that, and I was on my way to find this street-vendor-esque place that only is in this area on Tuesdays that I'd read about in the newspaper. When I found them, they were kind of surrounded by a huge moat of collected rainwater, so the lady taking orders waved at me to go around some of the parked cars. I got food (that turned out to be super-super tasty; gosh I like finding new good places to eat♥) and on my way back, I was struck by the color of the trees.
Which sounds kind of lame, and a bit ... well, okay, just lame, but. Because of the drizzle, the sky's kind of a flat pale gray, where your cloud clover is spread so fine that you can't see it, and the sunlight comes through muted but bright. And against that sky, there was a tree -- probably some sort of oak, I'm bad at identifying -- that was this bright almost lime-green, and even though it's the middle of May already, I looked at the tree and the first thing that popped into my head was "Spring!" I ended up just looking at the tree for a while, never mind my half-hour lunch break or the food cooling or the rain or the trucks passing by: there was me and there was a tree, and the tree made me smile because it was just. Pretty. ♥
And now I am back in the office and I'm stretching my lunch by tacking on my break with it. There's still work to do, but it's been slower today than it has for a while, I'm inside where it's dry and warm, my belly's full, and even with the terrible seesawing weather, there are trees that are bright green and forming arches with the surrounding building outside.
It's nice. :)
On the downside, there's also going too far with your metaphors and your phrasings; my mom is a fan of Harlequin romance novels, and like any good daughter, I stole some now and then when I was little and read them. (omg secret revealed?!) The thing that gets me with some of them would be that there was a good story, somewhere in there -- I think there's a reason most stories have a romance subplot, even for the non-romantics out there -- but it'd get bogged down with the ANGST and the LAYERS OF DETAIL and just. It's like stuffing someone genuinely pretty in layers and layers of stiff fancy clothing, then tossing them in the water and expecting them to float.
Of course, years later, I've substituted BL dramas for Mom's Harlequin romances, so obviously they're doing something right. Or I'm just easy. *g* And I mean, what makes a story effective, anyway? What's too much, what's enough? Will I ever figure this out without writing x100 words about it?
Nahhh, probably not.
...
♥ Thanks for reading.
Tags: