Vimeo teaches me something about writing
Block Tests 01 from Dylan Hayes on Vimeo.
This person has taken Street Fighter and broken it down to its simplest shapes.
So, this and fiction. I’m not just thinking about minimalism v. maximalism here. I’m curious about breaking a story down to a simple shape. I’m thinking about Stephen Dixon’s amazing story “Said,” in which the dialogue tags remain, but all the dialogue has been removed. A pair of lines from the story (which, sadly, I don’t have in front of me) can be as simple as:
He said.
She said.
The actions, free of dialogue, remain.
I’ve been writing a story in nothing but dialogue for the past couple of weeks, and trying to figure out what, when you strip away the other constituent parts of a story, needs to remain.
This is what I think needs to remain. I came up with this watching that video.
The story must, no matter what you take away, move. In the video, Blanka and Ken continue to contend, lacking arms, lacking faces. They continue to move. In Dixon’s story, he says, she says. We don’t have anything other than context to interpret what would happen before or after the dialogue tags.
So. Move. Maybe? Just a guess, I suppose.
Tags: Stephen Dixon, Vimeo
That video made me want to write a story about blobs that beat each other up.
I also thought of the word “abstract” in a good way.
I almost e-mailed you this morning when I saw this, because I knew you’d dig it. Glad you found it on your own, and made good use of it.
I almost e-mailed you this morning when I saw this, because I knew you’d dig it. Glad you found it on your own, and made good use of it.
There’s that Sopranos where Chris does an acting class where the exercise is one person says ‘A’ and the other responds ‘B’, over and over again, so the meaning is in the expression. He ends up beating the shit out of his partner because the guy reminds him of his dad.
There’s that Sopranos where Chris does an acting class where the exercise is one person says ‘A’ and the other responds ‘B’, over and over again, so the meaning is in the expression. He ends up beating the shit out of his partner because the guy reminds him of his dad.
I wonder why they did that. Is it meant to be art, or an aid? I didn’t click the link, but it seems to me that seeing the “total” outlines of your SF character would make you a better player because you see the boundaries you need to cross in order to score a “hit”.
I wonder why they did that. Is it meant to be art, or an aid? I didn’t click the link, but it seems to me that seeing the “total” outlines of your SF character would make you a better player because you see the boundaries you need to cross in order to score a “hit”.