brissett q&a notes

"Fiction is a kind of truth."
"I wanted to wake people up to the reality of what war really is..."


started to use index cards, blank ones, to move stuff around. maybe try this? perhaps even for an FE thing
"braided narrative"--diff PoVs, weaving them together

don't number your chapters--at least for a nonlinear thing
WINGDINGS!!!

maybe do something with shapes. like chapter "1" is triangle, but in reality it's chapter 3. then chapter 2 is a line, chapter 1 is a point

BRAIDED NARRATIVE TIPS:
Just do it! Just start!
"To be a writer is to be brave... means you're absolutely TERRIFIED of writing something stupid... I'm scared all the time! I'm worried 'this is just gonna be dumb'... but at some point, you have to say, 'I'm gonna do something anyways.' If you write something bad, nobody's gonna see it anyways..."
"First drafts are supposed to be TERRIBLE. That's the name of the game."
"Writing is really editing."


"I'm just gonna do this thing, and if I fail, I fail... but maybe I might not."

"Making up words is part of speculative fiction... but it's also part of literature. [...] *Verbizing* a word--it's a made-up word, but you know what she means. [The reader might say] I get what she's saying, but that's not a real word! [...] Be flexible. Have purpose."

approaching a topic in an alien way lets you talk about it so openly/honestly... allegory for social issues lets you talk about it. by "otherizing" it, it becomes a topic of freedom.

"People fight about skin tone! We have wars over this! ...an alien shows up, they'd hear about what our wars are about, and they'd say... 'What? You're fighting about... what?'"

when it comes to writing, nobody has to see it... but also, nobody has to publish it.
"Restrictions are there to be fought... for you to examine 'what is going to stop me?' If you want to be stopped, you can be stopped! ...or you can say, 'No, I'm gonna do this.'"

trunk story:

"You don't know why people are rejecting your work... you gotta keep going. When you keep going, eventually, they start to call you."

look at the story you have, the kernel in your mind.
use tangents and logic. just let your mind flow. step 1 goes to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to [etc]. it's fine to go backwards too!

STORY CONCEPT:
Stoplight Demon. a sort of demon or ghost or something which lives in a stoplight. maybe torments people?

be honest with yourself. be merciless with your sentences, but don't kill yourself.

as a writer, you have to let go of the idea you have complete control. put out a piece, but the piece exists without you; it exists without you in the room, it exists without you *alive*. communicate a time and space. let go of the control; be okay with what you put out there.

"it's okay to have fun. if you don't have fun doing this, how are you gonna keep doing this?"

"re-interpreting stories is what we do."

"Why do you need justice?"