The Impossible Quote June 9, 2006 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy
My novel has 33 chapters. While wild-eyed and in the midst of writing it I thought, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have fictitious quotes at the beginning of every chapter? What a great way to explain elements of the world and set the mood without long and unnecessary expository scenes. I had several quotes written already; maybe five or six.
After struggling through twelve or so I realized, damn this is hard.
I have twenty five quotes now. Eight more to go. I promised my writers group the novel by tuesday. The quotes need to be spectacular, not superfluous. So I’m heading to the Museum of Natural History today in the hopes that I will be inspired to come up with some new and grand fictitious quotes. Things like this were much easier when I worked at a Spanish cultural center and the culture came to me.
3 Comments
Livia Llewellyn June 09, 2006 - 21:39
If the dinosaur bones can’t help you, no one can. 🙂
Jenny Rappaport June 09, 2006 - 22:37
But alas (I’m becoming extraordinarily fond of that word), no dinosaurs were really viewed today. Don’t forget the one you thought up about human history and the timeline thing. =)
Matthew Kressel June 10, 2006 - 09:03
I wrote down a few things when I got home. But they were mostly gibberish. I need to edit them (harshly). But I did end up with a really cool picture of a skeleton of a small monkey (soon to be posted here). And I figured out how to take more than 8 pictures with my camera.