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artword glimpse
May. 4th, 2006 11:00 amThe concept of the latest artword challenge involved the writer and the artist working from the same prompt—the Suzanne Vega song Wooden Horse—but not discussing anything but the main characters we would both be focusing on. Then, halfway through the challenge, we exchanged glimpses of our work to date. I showed ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
newkidfan ( my first draft )
newkidfan showed me this piece of her collage:
It was then my task to revise my story to better fit her art. An excellent thing to aspire to as damn, even the rough version is gorgeous. Luckily, I saw a lot of parallels between her concept and mine; the image of John with the city glowing and golden above (from) his head especially resonated. I also immediately latched on to the war-like images innewkidfan's collage—that was something that I thought was not emphasized nearly enough in my story, and I wanted to bring it to the forefront.
In an ideal world, I think I would have reworked the story more, found some way to tell it linearly, which I really wanted to do. I was stumped, though—I honestly couldn't figure out how to do it. Instead I just added segments that I thought brought out themes of war and violence. I can hear Stephen King shouting at me all the way from Maine (Second drafts are supposed to be shorter! Sorry, Stephen!), but I think the additions help. The scene with Michael is, I think, my favorite in the whole story, and the one with Sumner was crucial, and possibly something I would not have arrived at were it not fornewkidfan's prompting. (I also love her graves of the disposable soldiers, and everything that implies.)
I cut some stuff out of the original, too, as I think I had too many ideas working at once in the first draft. I'm not fully satisfied with the finished product—why couldn't I figure out how to do this linearly, dammit?—but the art is gorgeous, the art is true. Look to that.
artword challenge involved the writer and the artist working from the same prompt—the Suzanne Vega song Wooden Horse—but not discussing anything but the main characters we would both be focusing on. Then, halfway through the challenge, we exchanged glimpses of our work to date. I showed newkidfan ( my first draft )newkidfan showed me this piece of her collage:It was then my task to revise my story to better fit her art. An excellent thing to aspire to as damn, even the rough version is gorgeous. Luckily, I saw a lot of parallels between her concept and mine; the image of John with the city glowing and golden above (from) his head especially resonated. I also immediately latched on to the war-like images in
newkidfan's collage—that was something that I thought was not emphasized nearly enough in my story, and I wanted to bring it to the forefront.In an ideal world, I think I would have reworked the story more, found some way to tell it linearly, which I really wanted to do. I was stumped, though—I honestly couldn't figure out how to do it. Instead I just added segments that I thought brought out themes of war and violence. I can hear Stephen King shouting at me all the way from Maine (Second drafts are supposed to be shorter! Sorry, Stephen!), but I think the additions help. The scene with Michael is, I think, my favorite in the whole story, and the one with Sumner was crucial, and possibly something I would not have arrived at were it not for
newkidfan's prompting. (I also love her graves of the disposable soldiers, and everything that implies.)I cut some stuff out of the original, too, as I think I had too many ideas working at once in the first draft. I'm not fully satisfied with the finished product—why couldn't I figure out how to do this linearly, dammit?—but the art is gorgeous, the art is true. Look to that.
