on writing moods and conflicts of style
when i began to write stories in my second year in high school, i began with an short story written in poetic form, using the iambic meter, with an 14-line chapters that ended with couplets.
later on, in canlubang, i learned and observed that there were three general styles of writing: formalist, structural and stream-of-consciousness. i had three close friends with whom i shared my poetry. darwin tolentino was the formalist, who wrote beautiful poetry that takes weeks and several outlines to finish, chad miel, who was structural, and knew to dot his "i's" and cross his "t's," and readily argued the merits of plot and circumstance, and daxx simbol, who wrote what his muse whispered to him at that moment, at that place, at that specific time.
i mirrored daxx in that it didn't matter to me what meter or form shaped the poem i wrote. i just wrote. apart from these three friends, i had begun reading on the some poets was very much taken and influenced by jose garcia villa, so much so that in my early attempts to write poetry would try to emulate his style. i would fail constantly. when i began to write professionally, i began reading the contemporaries like erma cuizon, noel villaflor, gerard pareja, ronald villavelez, januar yap, margie evasco, adonis durado, and cora almerino, and realized from their works, that structure and style were secondary to the story.
i've always wondered how ian z. writes stories. he is very conscious of structure and form. and honestly, it clashes with how i write my own. given that this is the first time i am collaborating with him on a fantasy piece (prose, this time, as i try to overcome my own self-indulged hesitation to critique), it is a trying time. there is virtue in plotting out your storyline, true. but then again, i argued, that structure and style were secondary to the story. let me write the story out first, then, we can dissect and critique its development. and so it was back and forth.
until niel quisaba asked my help for a collaborative project. he was to interpret patrick woodcock's stirring ode to his late mother, in digital illustration. niel knew how difficult it was to collaborate: different people bring different ideas, backgrounds, styles and peeves to the table. it's such a delicious recipe for disaster. or, for serendipitous beauty.
the experience in helping niel out solved my dilemma for me. it is not structure, style, different conflicting ideas and approaches to writing that is the focus. these are simply secondary to the telling of the story. and so, here i am, finishing chapter three of what may be, a most interesting fantasy short story, written by caffiene fiend, and his friend, the songwriter with a penchant for structure. and japanese gardens (though i never quite figured that one out).
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