How to write a story and win the VinciRobin competition
Nov 29, 2023 13:47:54 GMT 10
Post by account_disabled on Nov 29, 2023 13:47:54 GMT 10
After exactly 3 years I won the competition organized by Robin Edizioni again. I didn't participate in all its editions, 4 a year, but only six in total. I had included VinciRobin among the 7 writing exercises to do , because I believe it is one of the most complicated and stimulating. What is it about? I'll say it again for anyone tuning into Blue Pen now. The publishing house sends 4 newsletters a year, highlighting around thirty new books from their catalogue. To participate you must write a short story - a maximum of 20 lines - using the titles of all the books listed. How to write the story This is not a story like the others, because it contains forced suggestions : the titles of the books, in fact. And those titles are nothing more than phrases to use in our story, phrases that overall must sound coherent, flowing, perfectly suited to the text.
There is no pre-set plot in VinciRobin stories: the plot is built as you write. There is no starting idea: the idea of the story will be discovered later. Phase #1: the separation of titles The first step I take is to copy the titles - excluding subtitles, as per the competition rules - into my file, in order to have the entire list of sentences to use. I don't start writing anything unless I know Phone Number Data those obligatory sentences first. Now the separation phase begins: what does it consist of? Simple: I separate the various sentences by grouping them, when possible, into categories. For example, in the last story I wrote, the one I won with, there were several detective book titles. Terms such as investigations , conspiracy , commissioner , murder immediately catch the eye. In this case they were a good number and mine became a detective story.
Then I looked for titles with names of places, settings, sentences in dialogue, etc. In short, I try to create a sort of classification in order to find, from time to time, the phrases I need at the moment. Phase #2: preparing the songs Now I work on my imagination and start writing pieces using the most immediate sentences. Here is an example: When we went out, a tip came from the usual informer, the jack of hearts , a guy who came from Oltremente and had helped us in the lateral murder case . There is a character, the infantryman , there is an imaginary place, Oltremente , and there is a fact, the murder . And 2+2 is always 4, right? In the end I find myself with a disjointed series of songs that make sense if taken on their own, but cannot make sense if read as a whole, because there is not yet a whole that binds them. Phase #3: creating bonds This, in my opinion, is the most difficult part, because I see a list of phrases still to be used, but which have nothing to do with everything I have written.
There is no pre-set plot in VinciRobin stories: the plot is built as you write. There is no starting idea: the idea of the story will be discovered later. Phase #1: the separation of titles The first step I take is to copy the titles - excluding subtitles, as per the competition rules - into my file, in order to have the entire list of sentences to use. I don't start writing anything unless I know Phone Number Data those obligatory sentences first. Now the separation phase begins: what does it consist of? Simple: I separate the various sentences by grouping them, when possible, into categories. For example, in the last story I wrote, the one I won with, there were several detective book titles. Terms such as investigations , conspiracy , commissioner , murder immediately catch the eye. In this case they were a good number and mine became a detective story.
Then I looked for titles with names of places, settings, sentences in dialogue, etc. In short, I try to create a sort of classification in order to find, from time to time, the phrases I need at the moment. Phase #2: preparing the songs Now I work on my imagination and start writing pieces using the most immediate sentences. Here is an example: When we went out, a tip came from the usual informer, the jack of hearts , a guy who came from Oltremente and had helped us in the lateral murder case . There is a character, the infantryman , there is an imaginary place, Oltremente , and there is a fact, the murder . And 2+2 is always 4, right? In the end I find myself with a disjointed series of songs that make sense if taken on their own, but cannot make sense if read as a whole, because there is not yet a whole that binds them. Phase #3: creating bonds This, in my opinion, is the most difficult part, because I see a list of phrases still to be used, but which have nothing to do with everything I have written.