that's fairly normal as a writer's practice. I've never changed my structure much, but what I had wasn't what the story needed and I can't find the right way to tell it. Every workshop I get, everyone agrees that i'm not getting to the center of my story.

Hm. Still obnoxious.

I mean I restructure my essays a lot and paragraphs end up in fun places sometimes. But overall I don't edit it that much.

I think you just contradicted yourself though....

I think I meant restructure it that much. Like I may move one or two paragraphs but not do an entire restructuring.

well, I'm mostly just changing the first half of my story. I rewrote the ending, but most of the second half is the same. My story was originally in chronological order though. now it starts with a statement saying Teddy shot himself. then jumbles through his sister's hours leading up to it and then the aftermath.

ah well at least that makes sense.
why chronologically tell the story. That's too straightforward.

It's like A Rose for Emily

but that's the way most of my stories deserve to be and it's easier to write. I mean, you have to write a story with a thriller element in chron order and that's what most of my writing has to it. suspense is like my favorite thing in the world, which was why I was loath to change this story at first because it started out like it would be about Alex and her boyfriend which weren't exactly cheery, but then she wakes up in the morning and bam!

I don't remember that being in a rose for emily. but i havne't read that since high school.

But you can use the lack of a chronological order to create suspense since you aren't giving your reader all the necessary information in a straight line.

A Rose for Emily is told in just a series of random events. It's not chronological and yet through reading it you can recreate the chronological timeline. It's awesome. You should reread it.

but it doesn't really work the same way. when you take things out of chron order, it's usually takes away all of the suspense so you can focus on getting deeper into the emotions. you put your cards out on the table from the start, then go back and show why they're important. that's a hook not suspense.

I thought it was told by a narrator and was just one scene with backstory added in....

Well it depends on how you do it.
Since I'm using A Rose for Emily as an example. You have a hook at the beginning that Emily is dead.
However, the suspense in the story is how her lover died, why he vanished, and what the awful smell around her house has been all these years.

um... not really. It's told by a community narrator (the townspeople, for the most part) but it's basically a series of various different scenes over the life of Miss Emily.

I don't consider the hook and suspense the same thing. suspense is carefully planned and worked with over the course of the story, not just simply about a question you want answered.

whatever. I only read it once.

But I'm saying in that story they are different things.
Seriously. Just read the story again.
That story is why I have so much respect for William Faulker

but that's not really suspense to me. that's just the occasion for the story.

But it is though.
I don't know how to prove that to you though. Like, to me that story is so suspenseful because nothing makes sense until the end.
and you're just horrified when it's done.

Like the fact that Emily is dead in the story is almost a non-fact. It's an agent for allowing the information to be discovered.
Everything else is the story.
And I think the lover's death is one of the last thing you learns.
The smell of the house is one of the first, but you need that first even though it's a later event to create the suspense.

I don't remember it being that suspenseful. I remember very clearly how I felt at the end of it and I loved it, but I didn't feel horror at the end really or suspense when reading it.

Are we talking about the same short story?
Where the crazy old lady kills her lover (because he wants to leave her) and then sleeps next to his dead body for a number of unknown years?

I don't remember her killing him, but yes, we're talking about the same story!

Yes, she killed him with arsenic.

You look at literature very differently from the rest of the world.
Like how is that not horrific to you?

just had to be arsenic didn't it?

I didn't say it wasn't horrific necessarily, but those things never get under my skin.
oh, I'm going to watch Cabin in the Woods when I get the chance. it's supposed to be scary and I want to see if it makes me laugh.

of course. Arsenic is good for killing husbands. I mean The Cell Block Tango tell you that

Tae called you a sociopath.
I've never seen it so I don't really know much about it

I know right? first thing I thought of was cell block tango.

XD I can feel remorse thank you very much! I am not a sociopath!!!
I've heard mixed feelings about it, but because I know people who have seen it, I figure I might too just so I can compare opinions.

I love that song.

haha. still you have like no horror reflex. I really wonder how you'd react to like Blood Meridian
yeah makes sense.

I think we have good twin, bad twin avis once again.

i haven't heard it in a while.

Blood Meridian? what's that?
but I'm sure I'd scream if it was real. I can't get into fake things so much. Maybe a movie/video/song will get me to cry, but it's way less likely for it to scare me. I'm too aware of the devices that make it up.

is it our specialty? and never once have you been good and me evil I think. I swear, one day will just have to rp a good/evil twin situation because we just do it naturally I think.

you should go listen to it. or go find the reverse cell block tango with a bunch of guys

It's a book by Cormac McCarthy. It's creepy but not in an overt way more in a settle in your bones type way
That's why you have suspension of disbelief and your turn those parts of your brain off.

I think we really really do.
Though our rp characters more even balanced as for evil and not.
I mean Declan is such a goody two shoes and Koda isn't. And then there's Gary and William

and I can't wait for school to end because I want to rp but I literally shouldn't

Kat where did you go?

I will at some point.

hm.

but they really are more similar than not. Koda is totally a good kid in disguise and what are Gary and william? opposite yes, but...yeah.

I was missing this thread too.