Ronda 1 (4ªed) del concurso de microrrelatos. ¡SILVER GANADOR!

Elsanbenito escribió:Que quería poneros esto desde hace dos días pero no me organizo. Unos consejitos de Elmore Leonard sobre escribir. Que nos hacen mucho falta.

Never open a book with weather.
If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

Avoid prologues.esto viene a ser como tus citas, salakas
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” …
…he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range.

Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it

Spoiler:

Stoneheart escribió:Pues yo quería ganar el Negro Poeta ése.

Stoneheart escribió:La Fibra Óptica de Vodafone jodiendo right now.

David Z. escribió:
Por cierto, que una cosa muy sencilla que le puedes hacer y ayuda a pasar malos ratos es una buena hectortilla.

Rhonda escribió:Están bien para escribir best sellers resultones y trepidantes. No hay nada peor que un best seller aburrido. ¡Queremos anfetamina literaria, no diazepan!

salakov escribió:

Stoneheart escribió:Pues yo quería ganar el Negro Poeta ése.

Persevera y lo lograrás.

Rhonda escribió:

Tu piel morena sobre la arena
Si estás sobre la arena, no nadas como una sirena.
Si nadas como una sirena, es que en el agua estás.
Nadie sabe cómo nadan las sirenas,
así que no te las des de guays.

Rhonda escribió:

salakov escribió:

Stoneheart escribió:Pues yo quería ganar el Negro Poeta ése.

Persevera y lo lograrás.

Tu piel morena sobre la arena
Si estás sobre la arena, no nadas como una sirena.
Si nadas como una sirena, es que en el agua estás.
Nadie sabe cómo nadan las sirenas,
así que no te las des de guays.

Víctor Hugo

Neska escribió:Disculpad el retraso. Me he dejado las llaves de casa en casa y he tenido que localizar a mi suegra.  

Ahora vengo.

Rhonda escribió:

salakov escribió:

Stoneheart escribió:Pues yo quería ganar el Negro Poeta ése.

Persevera y lo lograrás.

Tu piel morena sobre la arena
Si estás sobre la arena, no nadas como una sirena.
Si nadas como una sirena, es que en el agua estás.
Nadie sabe cómo nadan las sirenas,
así que no te las des de guays.

Neska escribió:Disculpad el retraso. Me he dejado las llaves de casa en casa y he tenido que localizar a mi suegra.  

Ahora vengo.

salakov escribió:

Elsanbenito escribió:Que quería poneros esto desde hace dos días pero no me organizo. Unos consejitos de Elmore Leonard sobre escribir. Que nos hacen mucho falta.

Never open a book with weather.
If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

Avoid prologues.esto viene a ser como tus citas, salakas
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” …
…he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range.

Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it

No estoy de acuerdo ni con la mitad.

Spoiler:

Stoneheart escribió:La Fibra Óptica de Vodafone jodiendo right now.

RegSound escribió:

Neska escribió:Disculpad el retraso. Me he dejado las llaves de casa en casa y he tenido que localizar a mi suegra.  

Ahora vengo.

Espero que aparezca porque un cerrajero es un dineral

Elsanbenito escribió:

salakov escribió:

Elsanbenito escribió:Que quería poneros esto desde hace dos días pero no me organizo. Unos consejitos de Elmore Leonard sobre escribir. Que nos hacen mucho falta.

Never open a book with weather.
If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

Avoid prologues.esto viene a ser como tus citas, salakas
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” …
…he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range.

Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it

No estoy de acuerdo ni con la mitad.

Spoiler:

Es evidente. Tampoco yo estoy de acuerdo con todo pero lo de Gaiman me recuerda mucho a otro decålogo o similar de Bradbury y son los dos mås inocentones en sus consejos, centråndose en la persistencia, en el trabajo. Yo soy más del 80/20, o del 60/40 si puede ser, por eso me gusta lo expeditivo. Y que nos sobran palabras, vaya, que a mí se me atranca bastante la retórica. Me dispersa, me despista.

Rhonda escribió:Están bien para escribir best sellers resultones y trepidantes. No hay nada peor que un best seller aburrido. ¡Queremos anfetamina literaria, no diazepan!

salakov escribió:

Stoneheart escribió:La Fibra Óptica de Vodafone jodiendo right now.

Vodafone = Discípulos de Satanás

Nomeko7 escribió:

Toro escribió:

salakov escribió:Laureolas para:

25. Protagonista secundario: cortazariano, como ya dije recuerda a “Continuidad de los parques”. Muy hábil rompiendo la cuarta pared. Sobresaliente. (3)

20. Viaje de vuelta: la memoria a través de los olores, es increíble lo indisolubles que son la una y los otros. Relato cargado de aromas, el autor sabe la importancia de los mismos de cara a construir una atmósfera de recuerdos, una “memoriología”, y los utiliza bien. (2)

12. Retina & Rutina: funciona casi como un poema sobre el paso del tiempo. Es evocador, y eso me gusta. (1)

31. Óbolo: buen cuento, borgiano, que sugiere un misterio que no muestra. Excelente trabajo. (1)


Y menciones destacadas para:
5. Ignominia: ocurrente relato a través de los gnomos. Funcionan la anáfora y la analogía social.
7. Rebajas: buen nano. La deshumanización y el mercantilismo llevados a su última expresión.
26. une centaine de mètres au dessus du sol: buen relato distópico que recuerda a “Soy leyenda” de Matheson. Me gusta la búsqueda de inmortalidad del personaje a través de las letras. No me gustan los galicismos, por el contrario (nota mental: no usarlos más)

Y el Premio Negro-Poeta de Tele5 de esta semana es para el relato “8. Para hacer kilómetros”. Más allá de la vacuidad del texto y la retórica engolada, lo de “puentes elevadizos” me mató. Elevadizos, oigan. E-le-va-di-zos. Me se abren las carnes.




Y eso.

Al principio pensaba que el 20 no iba a tener tantos puntos, pero tengo la sensacion de que puede dar la sorpresa...

Vaya palo al 8. Está bien y no ha acentuado "ti". Me recordaba a esta canción.

Stoneheart escribió:Elsan, ¿cómo es que te salen tildes blackmetaleras?

Elsanbenito escribió:

salakov escribió:

Stoneheart escribió:La Fibra Óptica de Vodafone jodiendo right now.

Vodafone = Discípulos de Satanás

Pues acabo de casarme con ellos un año más. Todo por la pasta.



Por cierto que el otro marido, el señor m, me pide que excuse su ausencia. Un percance tecnológico de alto impacto le impide conectarse desde Vitoria.

Una gran pérdida, quédudacabe.

salakov escribió:

Stoneheart escribió:La Fibra Óptica de Vodafone jodiendo right now.

Vodafone = Discípulos de Satanás

Elsanbenito escribió:

Pues acabo de casarme con ellos un año más. Todo por la pasta.

Elsanbenito escribió:Por cierto que el otro marido, el señor m, me pide que excuse su ausencia. Un percance tecnológico de alto impacto le impide conectarse desde Vitoria.

Una gran pérdida, quédudacabe.

Stoneheart escribió:Elsan, ¿cómo es que te salen tildes blackmetaleras?

Elsanbenito escribió:

Stoneheart escribió:Elsan, ¿cómo es que te salen tildes blackmetaleras?

Pereza. 60/40. Algo va mal en mi mòvil y no voy a arreglarlo.

borogis escribió:

salakov escribió:

Stoneheart escribió:La Fibra Óptica de Vodafone jodiendo right now.

Vodafone = Discípulos de Satanás

Spoiler:

Toro escribió:Parece que es un susto si, tenia atascado el intestino, y parece que ya lo ha conseguido solucionar.

Tienes razon eloy, pero soy primerizo... y durando mucho los 40º y haciendo memoria de cuando fue la ultima vez que tuve tanta fiebre, te asustas, claro, por mucho que te digan

Despues de que lo pase tan mal un hijo, es cuando te dan ganas de entrar al hilo ese de Juana a explicar que todas las cabalas mentales que te hagas sobre si hay que tener hijos o no, se derrumban con solo una sonrisa, o un grito de alegria o un bailoteo

Neska escribió:Ya estoy. Enseguida empezamos.

salakov escribió:Lo del Premio Negro-Poeta es porque todo no van a ser alabanzas en la vida. El necesario contrapunto canalla.

4 loas / 3 menciones honoríficas / 1 Premio Negro-Poeta

Un 12,5% de maldad.

salakov escribió:Lo del Premio Negro-Poeta es porque todo no van a ser alabanzas en la vida. El necesario contrapunto canalla.

4 loas / 3 menciones honoríficas / 1 Premio Negro-Poeta

Un 12,5% de maldad.

Eric Sachs escribió:According to the Atchison Daily Globe of November 19, 1888, the Austin American-Statesman reported that a Malay cook "running on ocean vessels" was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders. The newspaper reported that "a Malay cook had been employed at a small hotel in Austin in 1885." Furthermore, the newspaper reported that the Austin reporter:

...investigated the matter, calling on Mrs. Schmidt, who kept the Pearl House, near the foot of Congress Avenue opposite the Union depot, 3 years ago. It was ascertained that a Malay cook calling himself Maurice had been employed at the house in 1885 and that he left some time in January 1886. It will be remembered that the last of the series of Austin women murders was the killing of Mrs. Hancock and Mrs. Eula Phillips, the former occurring on Christmas eve 1885, just before the Malay departed, and that the series then ended. A strong presumption that the Malay was the murderer of the Austin women was created by the fact that all of them except two or three resided in the immediate neighborhood of the Pearl House.

Eric Sachs escribió:According to the Atchison Daily Globe of November 19, 1888, the Austin American-Statesman reported that a Malay cook "running on ocean vessels" was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders. The newspaper reported that "a Malay cook had been employed at a small hotel in Austin in 1885." Furthermore, the newspaper reported that the Austin reporter:

...investigated the matter, calling on Mrs. Schmidt, who kept the Pearl House, near the foot of Congress Avenue opposite the Union depot, 3 years ago. It was ascertained that a Malay cook calling himself Maurice had been employed at the house in 1885 and that he left some time in January 1886. It will be remembered that the last of the series of Austin women murders was the killing of Mrs. Hancock and Mrs. Eula Phillips, the former occurring on Christmas eve 1885, just before the Malay departed, and that the series then ended. A strong presumption that the Malay was the murderer of the Austin women was created by the fact that all of them except two or three resided in the immediate neighborhood of the Pearl House.

Elsanbenito escribió:

salakov escribió:

Elsanbenito escribió:Que quería poneros esto desde hace dos días pero no me organizo. Unos consejitos de Elmore Leonard sobre escribir. Que nos hacen mucho falta.

Never open a book with weather.
If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

Avoid prologues.esto viene a ser como tus citas, salakas
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” …
…he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range.

Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it

No estoy de acuerdo ni con la mitad.

Spoiler:

Es evidente. Tampoco yo estoy de acuerdo con todo pero lo de Gaiman me recuerda mucho a otro decålogo o similar de Bradbury y son los dos mås inocentones en sus consejos, centråndose en la persistencia, en el trabajo. Yo soy más del 80/20, o del 60/40 si puede ser, por eso me gusta lo expeditivo. Y que nos sobran palabras, vaya, que a mí se me atranca bastante la retórica. Me dispersa, me despista.