I have to laugh that I thought I'd cut words with all the rewriting of the first fifteen pages. Not so much. Sure I cut a scene. I also added one. According to the over all word count once I'd shuffled my Word doc back into Scrivener, I added about 500 words with a honkin' huge 4550 word first chapter that defies chopping up.
So I've been glancing through--not reading thoroughly--making a list of the scenes I have and seeing what seems choppable. Or at least snippable. I'm on Chapter 7 of 21 and have a growing list of places to tighten. I think I can do this without losing too much. And I think I must resist the siren call of all the places that beg to have the theme expanded, and deeper characterization. Etc.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Conflict
Some stories are bigger on conflict than others. But whether you're writing action-adventure or relationship stories, there had better be conflict. I'm one who avoids it like the plague in real life, so I've had to learn to enjoy inflicting it on my characters. I like nice people, but stories have to be populated with the less than perfect to be of any interest. I'm curious why this is so--why we are bored stiff reading about the kind of people we want our kids to turn out like? And yet it's true--stories without conflict don't catch hold of the reader and propel him or her to the other end like a rocket launcher.
Conflict doesn't have to be big stuff. There doesn't have to be a dead body on every page to keep momentum. In fact, that's the kind of conflict that will turn me off, as a reader. Not everyone, of course. Conflict can be as small as characters arguing over what's for dinner. I think the main thing is that the minor conflicts need to play into the major conflicts. Why are the characters arguing over dinner? Is it a symptom of a problem in the relationship? A refusal of one to acknowledge the life-threatening allergies of the other? Or something else? Because honestly, if *what's for dinner* makes no difference to the growth of the characters or to the main story plotline, it doesn't work as a source of conflict.
Sure, it allows the maxim of conflict on every page to be fulfilled, but a novel is more than random conflict. They have to build and intertwine and matter to one another. If the conflict is merely an irritant and doesn't actually matter, it isn't the kind of conflict they're talking about here.
In the same way, if the characters keep tripping over dead bodies, the story had better be about the dead bodies. They'd better not be in there to represent conflict unless it matters to the story's plot line. There's lots more to writing a novel than stringing 100,000 words together. Even pretty words. Or gritty words. They need to be more than loosely related vignettes, at least in genre writing.
That's my thought for tonight!
Conflict doesn't have to be big stuff. There doesn't have to be a dead body on every page to keep momentum. In fact, that's the kind of conflict that will turn me off, as a reader. Not everyone, of course. Conflict can be as small as characters arguing over what's for dinner. I think the main thing is that the minor conflicts need to play into the major conflicts. Why are the characters arguing over dinner? Is it a symptom of a problem in the relationship? A refusal of one to acknowledge the life-threatening allergies of the other? Or something else? Because honestly, if *what's for dinner* makes no difference to the growth of the characters or to the main story plotline, it doesn't work as a source of conflict.
Sure, it allows the maxim of conflict on every page to be fulfilled, but a novel is more than random conflict. They have to build and intertwine and matter to one another. If the conflict is merely an irritant and doesn't actually matter, it isn't the kind of conflict they're talking about here.
In the same way, if the characters keep tripping over dead bodies, the story had better be about the dead bodies. They'd better not be in there to represent conflict unless it matters to the story's plot line. There's lots more to writing a novel than stringing 100,000 words together. Even pretty words. Or gritty words. They need to be more than loosely related vignettes, at least in genre writing.
That's my thought for tonight!
Sunday, March 08, 2009
MICE
Ha, I bet that got your attention! I'm talking about Orson Scott Card's four-cornered story foundation, not four-legged cat food.
MICE stands for: Mileu (or setting), Idea, Character, and Event. Novels need to have all of these in place to be a well-rounded story. (I'd like to say they'd have to have all four to be on a store shelf, but I'm sure someone could point to an example of a book that doesn't!)
What I'm curious about these days is: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The rage these days is for character-driven stories. Trust me, I totally understand that. I like nothing more than to get right in there in characters' heads and experience life through them. It's why I prefer novels in tight third POV or even in first to pretty much anything in omniscient.
But is it necessary to have the character appear in the writers' mind first for the story to be character-driven? I'd like to think that, no matter what the starting point, an experienced writer can pull all the parts of MICE together seamlessly so that it isn't obvious to the reader where the story came from originally.
That said, I tend to come up with ideas first, then audition characters to find the ones who'd like to explore my ideas. What comes first in your mind?
MICE stands for: Mileu (or setting), Idea, Character, and Event. Novels need to have all of these in place to be a well-rounded story. (I'd like to say they'd have to have all four to be on a store shelf, but I'm sure someone could point to an example of a book that doesn't!)
What I'm curious about these days is: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The rage these days is for character-driven stories. Trust me, I totally understand that. I like nothing more than to get right in there in characters' heads and experience life through them. It's why I prefer novels in tight third POV or even in first to pretty much anything in omniscient.
But is it necessary to have the character appear in the writers' mind first for the story to be character-driven? I'd like to think that, no matter what the starting point, an experienced writer can pull all the parts of MICE together seamlessly so that it isn't obvious to the reader where the story came from originally.
That said, I tend to come up with ideas first, then audition characters to find the ones who'd like to explore my ideas. What comes first in your mind?
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Story Math
So the original romance novel that I wrote during NaNo was about 54,000 words. The market I'm aiming for is 55-60K. I threw out a bunch of scenes and added new ones. Apparently they are longer ones!
Today I discovered that, at 38K, I've reached the half-way point of my printed-out copy of the original draft. Kinda scares me. I can't afford this book to come in at 76,000! I'm on scene 25 of 53, which seems to tell me about the same thing, lengthwise.
On the other hand, half of the original length is 27K, so if I add 27 (what's LEFT to rewrite) to the current 38, I get 65, which should be much easier to whittle down to 60 than 76 would be.
I'm always on the other end of this stick, trying to lengthen without padding! It's new to be worried about over-length. However I slice it, though, I have a whole bunch of words to go, so I refuse to sweat about it this week. When I actually get through Scene # 53 is when I'll figure out a plan of attack.
I'm still on target for finishing this pass by the end of March, unless it really does turn out to be 76... Nah. I'm NOT going to worry about that today.
I'm not.
Still, that's kinda long, isn't it?
Today I discovered that, at 38K, I've reached the half-way point of my printed-out copy of the original draft. Kinda scares me. I can't afford this book to come in at 76,000! I'm on scene 25 of 53, which seems to tell me about the same thing, lengthwise.
On the other hand, half of the original length is 27K, so if I add 27 (what's LEFT to rewrite) to the current 38, I get 65, which should be much easier to whittle down to 60 than 76 would be.
I'm always on the other end of this stick, trying to lengthen without padding! It's new to be worried about over-length. However I slice it, though, I have a whole bunch of words to go, so I refuse to sweat about it this week. When I actually get through Scene # 53 is when I'll figure out a plan of attack.
I'm still on target for finishing this pass by the end of March, unless it really does turn out to be 76... Nah. I'm NOT going to worry about that today.
I'm not.
Still, that's kinda long, isn't it?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Rewriting versus Revising versus Editing
Seems like folks have different definitions for these three terms. Today you get mine.
Editing a novel is the final polish. It's the act of catching typos and clarifying confused sentences and adding in a bit of five-dimensional senses. If your novel is in good enough shape that all it needs is an edit, you can expect to make speedy progress through this draft.
Revising is where most of my second (and sometimes third) drafts live. I need to shift scenes around, rewrite some scenes completely to get more depth, maybe change up the pov character. When I'm revising, I've got the bones of the story pretty well but still need to wrastle it into shape.
Rewriting is more drastic yet, and that's where I am this week with the romance novel. Some scenes in this book needed revising, mostly in depth of character point-of-view. But the scenes that needed replacing really really needed replacing in their entirety. As in, parts of the over all novel plotline worked and parts didn't. This week I'm in the midst of a section that didn't. (The lame part that had me scrawling Seriously???? in the print-out margins...) I've added a complete new subplot and other new bits to amp up this part and help to complete the whole.
Still, to get through the entire 60,000-word novel by the end of March means I need to keep to about 10K a week. This week that 10K has been all new material. Take out a day to intensely revise a one-page synopsis in chat, and suddenly you're looking at 2500-word days instead of 2000. Lose a second day to customers, and you're mighty thankful you got a bit ahead last week. However, I've made 3K each of the last two days and if I can pull off 2K tomorrow, I'm still pretty much on track. Big if, being as it's a half day. Wish me luck!
Editing a novel is the final polish. It's the act of catching typos and clarifying confused sentences and adding in a bit of five-dimensional senses. If your novel is in good enough shape that all it needs is an edit, you can expect to make speedy progress through this draft.
Revising is where most of my second (and sometimes third) drafts live. I need to shift scenes around, rewrite some scenes completely to get more depth, maybe change up the pov character. When I'm revising, I've got the bones of the story pretty well but still need to wrastle it into shape.
Rewriting is more drastic yet, and that's where I am this week with the romance novel. Some scenes in this book needed revising, mostly in depth of character point-of-view. But the scenes that needed replacing really really needed replacing in their entirety. As in, parts of the over all novel plotline worked and parts didn't. This week I'm in the midst of a section that didn't. (The lame part that had me scrawling Seriously???? in the print-out margins...) I've added a complete new subplot and other new bits to amp up this part and help to complete the whole.
Still, to get through the entire 60,000-word novel by the end of March means I need to keep to about 10K a week. This week that 10K has been all new material. Take out a day to intensely revise a one-page synopsis in chat, and suddenly you're looking at 2500-word days instead of 2000. Lose a second day to customers, and you're mighty thankful you got a bit ahead last week. However, I've made 3K each of the last two days and if I can pull off 2K tomorrow, I'm still pretty much on track. Big if, being as it's a half day. Wish me luck!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
How Writing Changes
I wrote a contemporary inspirational romance novel a few years ago, for NaNo 2005. I promptly pushed it off to the side and proceeded on my merry way playing with fantasy novels and ideas again, but the story resurfaced about a year ago when I was chatting with my friend Jean. I snippeted her a few bits and then she read the whole thing. The first draft, scary thought. And said nice things. (Not ONLY nice things, mind, but included them).
Through that the idea of revising and shaping up this story took hold, though certainly not to the exclusion of anything else, lol. I played with it a bit at the time, but soon came to realize the problems were deeper than I'd thought at first and set it aside again.
So, the other day I printed out the whole thing and began to read through, making brief notes on every scene. Along about fifty pages in, the note for one scene was simply a large X and "delete." And for the next scene, I scrawled across the page, "Seriously?" I'd found a few really good bits (the ones I'd first shared with Jean!) but way more dross. A LOT of dross.
I sat back in my chair and thought about the characters, their kids, their issues. She's too nice, I thought. She takes monumental stuff totally in stride. Superwoman! Okay, so it's official. She needs a makeover. I began mulling over *logical* makeovers that would tweak things but not necessitate ALL new scenes!
After a few minutes, I turned my attention to the hero. Also a pretty good guy. Slightly less perfect than the heroine, but nothing that really qualifies as a character flaw. A little case of temper, perhaps, would go a long way. Or maybe...
In just over three years, my writing style has changed a lot. I've learned to characterize much better (even my stupid whiny hero from Tempest has more personal issues than these folks). And I've learned to get much deeper into point-of-view. Quite a bit I've done since then has been in first person, which helps with the deeper, but the potential markets for this romance novel want third.
Even in third, this main character thinks too much! So the first thing is to bring someone directly into that opening paragraph/scene so she can TALK about stuff instead of THINK about it. The meeting with the hero later in the scene is reasonably okay as is. She shouldn't tell him all this stuff yet. But she needs a new best friend to bounce issues off of.
I've set aside the month of February to hit this novel and bring it into line. I'd like to think I could do it all in one month--after all, I wrote the entire 52K in one November!--but I'm thinking it may take a little longer. Hopefully not a lot longer, though. Maybe six weeks? Two months tops.
I'm reworking character profiles as we speak, and I still need to mine the previous manuscript for more good stuff to carry over. It's in there. The bones are decent, and worth rebuilding from.
If you're wondering why I'm not writing either Tempest or Dottie these days, the answer simply is that I'm not. Though I've been poking at Dottie recently and getting good ideas of how things need to proceed. One thing her story does not suffer from is weak characterization. The novel is populated with true individuals and they agree on very little. Lots of fun sparks. I'm stopping short of calling Tempest dead. But she's on life support, which is sad as it is some of my strongest writing thus far. One day the answers to my questions about her will erupt in my mind and she'll hit the road running again. I hope.
Through that the idea of revising and shaping up this story took hold, though certainly not to the exclusion of anything else, lol. I played with it a bit at the time, but soon came to realize the problems were deeper than I'd thought at first and set it aside again.
So, the other day I printed out the whole thing and began to read through, making brief notes on every scene. Along about fifty pages in, the note for one scene was simply a large X and "delete." And for the next scene, I scrawled across the page, "Seriously?" I'd found a few really good bits (the ones I'd first shared with Jean!) but way more dross. A LOT of dross.
I sat back in my chair and thought about the characters, their kids, their issues. She's too nice, I thought. She takes monumental stuff totally in stride. Superwoman! Okay, so it's official. She needs a makeover. I began mulling over *logical* makeovers that would tweak things but not necessitate ALL new scenes!
After a few minutes, I turned my attention to the hero. Also a pretty good guy. Slightly less perfect than the heroine, but nothing that really qualifies as a character flaw. A little case of temper, perhaps, would go a long way. Or maybe...
In just over three years, my writing style has changed a lot. I've learned to characterize much better (even my stupid whiny hero from Tempest has more personal issues than these folks). And I've learned to get much deeper into point-of-view. Quite a bit I've done since then has been in first person, which helps with the deeper, but the potential markets for this romance novel want third.
Even in third, this main character thinks too much! So the first thing is to bring someone directly into that opening paragraph/scene so she can TALK about stuff instead of THINK about it. The meeting with the hero later in the scene is reasonably okay as is. She shouldn't tell him all this stuff yet. But she needs a new best friend to bounce issues off of.
I've set aside the month of February to hit this novel and bring it into line. I'd like to think I could do it all in one month--after all, I wrote the entire 52K in one November!--but I'm thinking it may take a little longer. Hopefully not a lot longer, though. Maybe six weeks? Two months tops.
I'm reworking character profiles as we speak, and I still need to mine the previous manuscript for more good stuff to carry over. It's in there. The bones are decent, and worth rebuilding from.
If you're wondering why I'm not writing either Tempest or Dottie these days, the answer simply is that I'm not. Though I've been poking at Dottie recently and getting good ideas of how things need to proceed. One thing her story does not suffer from is weak characterization. The novel is populated with true individuals and they agree on very little. Lots of fun sparks. I'm stopping short of calling Tempest dead. But she's on life support, which is sad as it is some of my strongest writing thus far. One day the answers to my questions about her will erupt in my mind and she'll hit the road running again. I hope.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Good news and bad news
There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that I've been pretty much stalled on Tempest for the better part of two months. The good news is that I discovered that my story had problems before I'd written 100K. I was only half way there.
I've spent the past couple of weeks going through many of the lessons in the How to Think Sideways course from Lesson 7 through 16. This time I've actually done the assignments instead of just reading them :P I also have open (and am working back and forth between) Create a Character Clinic and Create a Plot Clinic, also both by Holly Lisle.
I wish I didn't have to report that I've removed every scene from Aben's viewpoint in the draft thus far. (I moved them to an out-take file, so don't panic. They're not deleted! But I doubt there will be much in them I can re-use.) You'll notice Tempest's status bar on the right went from 47571 to 33618.
I've deleted all Aben's plot cards, completed and *future*. I found out that I'd written a character whose one redeeming feature is that he's a hard worker. He's also full of himself, afraid of heights, and a whiner. How did I not notice this months ago? I have no answer for that. I'm trying to hang onto the fact that I AM seeing it now, before I've finished the novel, before my crit partners look at him and go *huh*?
It's a bit humbling to find myself a third finished a first draft I thought I was half done. It's a bit humbling to find myself making such a simple but complex error when this is my eighth novel. But I'm trying to look on the bright side. Reading through the entire draft this week, Tempest herself is fairly strong. She has a strong voice and she certainly has conflict in every scene and she has a lot at stake in this novel. Sure there will be stuff to revise--it's not perfect--but I'm not throwing out anything but Aben's scenes at this time. I can work with Tempest as a character.
But my job for the next few days is to recreate Aben into a worthy love interest. Sure he needs a flaw or two, but he needs more positives than a good work ethic. Honestly. Where's the romance in that? :P
I've spent the past couple of weeks going through many of the lessons in the How to Think Sideways course from Lesson 7 through 16. This time I've actually done the assignments instead of just reading them :P I also have open (and am working back and forth between) Create a Character Clinic and Create a Plot Clinic, also both by Holly Lisle.
I wish I didn't have to report that I've removed every scene from Aben's viewpoint in the draft thus far. (I moved them to an out-take file, so don't panic. They're not deleted! But I doubt there will be much in them I can re-use.) You'll notice Tempest's status bar on the right went from 47571 to 33618.
I've deleted all Aben's plot cards, completed and *future*. I found out that I'd written a character whose one redeeming feature is that he's a hard worker. He's also full of himself, afraid of heights, and a whiner. How did I not notice this months ago? I have no answer for that. I'm trying to hang onto the fact that I AM seeing it now, before I've finished the novel, before my crit partners look at him and go *huh*?
It's a bit humbling to find myself a third finished a first draft I thought I was half done. It's a bit humbling to find myself making such a simple but complex error when this is my eighth novel. But I'm trying to look on the bright side. Reading through the entire draft this week, Tempest herself is fairly strong. She has a strong voice and she certainly has conflict in every scene and she has a lot at stake in this novel. Sure there will be stuff to revise--it's not perfect--but I'm not throwing out anything but Aben's scenes at this time. I can work with Tempest as a character.
But my job for the next few days is to recreate Aben into a worthy love interest. Sure he needs a flaw or two, but he needs more positives than a good work ethic. Honestly. Where's the romance in that? :P
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Learning to stop when stuck
You'd think a stuck person would automatically stop. It pretty much works on vehicles, doesn't it? I guess not entirely--one can spin tires and slide sideways and make a small amount of forward motion for the price of a lot of fuel.
Same can be with writing. I've been more-or-less stuck on Tempest for the past couple of weeks. I can see the rough shape of what needs doing to it to un-stick it, but the sheer amount of work has had me stalled. It's not work itself I'm afraid of. More the fact that while I'm shuffling things, I could lose parts and have a hard time putting the parts back into some kind of a whole. Pathetically, that means I seem to prefer a flawed whole over a shredded-but-possibly-closer whole. (Whole not meaning whole as in an entire novel. More like meaning the whole of what I've written so far.)
Today's lesson from the How to Think Sideways workshop by Holly Lisle is about middles that go awry and some tips on how to deal with them. How to recognize the issues and find solutions.
I'm almost glad I've stalled out and been taking the easy way of working on another project, just ignoring Tempest for the time being. You see, I want to FIX Tempest. Holly's advice (which I've seen in her other workshops) tends more to analyzing the problem, figuring out what you should have done, making notes on it, and then CARRYING ON as though you've already fixed it.
Yup.
Keep going all the way to the end, then use your notes as the beginning of your revision guide.
But I want to fix it now. Well, in theory. Really I want to already have fixed it. But I haven't.
Meanwhile I've been having a great time with Dottie, writing from one to two thousand words a day. I need to get back to Tempest, though. It's like she's standing on the side, watching, waiting. Ready to take the baton from Dottie and carry the next lap herself.
Maybe next week.
Same can be with writing. I've been more-or-less stuck on Tempest for the past couple of weeks. I can see the rough shape of what needs doing to it to un-stick it, but the sheer amount of work has had me stalled. It's not work itself I'm afraid of. More the fact that while I'm shuffling things, I could lose parts and have a hard time putting the parts back into some kind of a whole. Pathetically, that means I seem to prefer a flawed whole over a shredded-but-possibly-closer whole. (Whole not meaning whole as in an entire novel. More like meaning the whole of what I've written so far.)
Today's lesson from the How to Think Sideways workshop by Holly Lisle is about middles that go awry and some tips on how to deal with them. How to recognize the issues and find solutions.
I'm almost glad I've stalled out and been taking the easy way of working on another project, just ignoring Tempest for the time being. You see, I want to FIX Tempest. Holly's advice (which I've seen in her other workshops) tends more to analyzing the problem, figuring out what you should have done, making notes on it, and then CARRYING ON as though you've already fixed it.
Yup.
Keep going all the way to the end, then use your notes as the beginning of your revision guide.
But I want to fix it now. Well, in theory. Really I want to already have fixed it. But I haven't.
Meanwhile I've been having a great time with Dottie, writing from one to two thousand words a day. I need to get back to Tempest, though. It's like she's standing on the side, watching, waiting. Ready to take the baton from Dottie and carry the next lap herself.
Maybe next week.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Re-re-replotting
Does this happen to anyone but me? Every single time I feel like I'm home free, that I have a solid outline and am confident that the story from here on in makes sense, I hit a wall.
Every. Single. Time.
I'm writing a structured novel, which is likely a mistake to start with. Every chapter has three scenes, two from Tempest's viewpoint, and one from Aben's. They start out the story in the same location, and will (I think!) end it there. But in between, the threads are somewhat independent.
This means that two independent story lines must both have a similar amount going on, similar amounts of tension and disasters. It's hard to keep this balanced. Today I got to the next scene of Aben's in the outline, and it's horrible. Not only that, but he's practically treading water for the next few chapters waiting for the big slide into the inevitable that signals the beginning of the end.
My first impulse is to just write him out of the story. You know, drown him or something. But it's kinda hard to have romantic fantasy without the male lead character, and besides, the story has plenty of tragedy already. I think the boy needs to live. (Probably unmaimed...though that gives an idea...)
So I pulled out Holly Lisle's Create a Plot Clinic. She's got it laid out in three main sections: Plotting Before Writing, Plotting While Writing, and Plotting While Revising.
Clearly I need the middle one. I open it and read this:
Yep. Holly has pretty much nailed where I'm at. I have a few glimmerings of ideas but nothing that looks concrete. In fact, my thoughts at the moment are quite will'o'wisp. When I look straight at them, there's nothing there, but if I look sideways, pretending I don't care, there is *almost* something over there.
Back to reading the plot clinic. Hopefully something will coax those will'o'wisp thoughts out where they can be scrutinized.
Every. Single. Time.
I'm writing a structured novel, which is likely a mistake to start with. Every chapter has three scenes, two from Tempest's viewpoint, and one from Aben's. They start out the story in the same location, and will (I think!) end it there. But in between, the threads are somewhat independent.
This means that two independent story lines must both have a similar amount going on, similar amounts of tension and disasters. It's hard to keep this balanced. Today I got to the next scene of Aben's in the outline, and it's horrible. Not only that, but he's practically treading water for the next few chapters waiting for the big slide into the inevitable that signals the beginning of the end.
My first impulse is to just write him out of the story. You know, drown him or something. But it's kinda hard to have romantic fantasy without the male lead character, and besides, the story has plenty of tragedy already. I think the boy needs to live. (Probably unmaimed...though that gives an idea...)
So I pulled out Holly Lisle's Create a Plot Clinic. She's got it laid out in three main sections: Plotting Before Writing, Plotting While Writing, and Plotting While Revising.
Clearly I need the middle one. I open it and read this:
This is the most common scenario. You're somewhere in the middle of the writing and you hit a bad plot card. It sounded like a great idea at the time, or maybe it only sounded like an iffy idea at the time but you put it in there anyway, confident that when you got to it, you'd be so into the story that you could make it work. Only now you and your Muse look at each other and go, "Uh-uh. Not gonna do it."
Yep. Holly has pretty much nailed where I'm at. I have a few glimmerings of ideas but nothing that looks concrete. In fact, my thoughts at the moment are quite will'o'wisp. When I look straight at them, there's nothing there, but if I look sideways, pretending I don't care, there is *almost* something over there.
Back to reading the plot clinic. Hopefully something will coax those will'o'wisp thoughts out where they can be scrutinized.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Multi-tasking
This is something I'm really good at in Real Life, and not so good at in writing. Why? I'm guessing because each story I work on requires a certain depth of thought immersion. It's not easy to dip in lightly and then off to something else, at least not if I want to make progress. And of course I do! Also there's the idea that each project takes so very long that if you mix two or more of them, it'll take twice as long to get anywhere.
The only time I've tried two first drafts was about four years ago when I did NaNo for the first time. I hadn't finished my previous novel when NaNo started, so I dropped everything for the new novel (to officially participate in NaNo, you need to begin and write a novel you haven't previously started). At the end of November I had two partially completed novels and then spent several months alternating between the two to finish both first drafts. It was difficult and I vowed never to do it again.
Even playing with world-building or revising one while writing on another is difficult for me. All of these areas require a real depth of focus that makes it hard to shift gears from one to the other. I've been trying to learn how to do this better, especially in the last couple of years where I've been spending so much more time revising and therefore feeling stifled without the *rush* of creating that a first draft brings.
I started writing Tempest in July, thinking that once I got rolling on it, I'd pull out one of my older novels to revise. I tend to write in the mornings (my best time), then, the idea was, spend the afternoon on revising. I haven't started a revision project, though. Instead I started taking the Thinking Sideways class and bounced some new ideas around for that, then resurrected an old partial first draft--Dottie.
And now I'm finding myself doing the unthinkable and actually enjoying it: having two first drafts on the go at once. It helps, I think, that they're quite opposite stories. Tempest is fantasy set in a harsh environment. Dottie is contemporary women's fiction and quite humorous at times. So when I find that Tempest depresses me, I can switch gears and work on something fluffier.
This has been working well for the past couple weeks. I'm making steadier progress on Tempest and plan to keep it the higher priority until the draft is done. At this rate, that should be sometime in December, but if it takes longer, so be it.
I guess this means that I'm not revising anything more until next year. Two projects is ample to keep me out of trouble!
The only time I've tried two first drafts was about four years ago when I did NaNo for the first time. I hadn't finished my previous novel when NaNo started, so I dropped everything for the new novel (to officially participate in NaNo, you need to begin and write a novel you haven't previously started). At the end of November I had two partially completed novels and then spent several months alternating between the two to finish both first drafts. It was difficult and I vowed never to do it again.
Even playing with world-building or revising one while writing on another is difficult for me. All of these areas require a real depth of focus that makes it hard to shift gears from one to the other. I've been trying to learn how to do this better, especially in the last couple of years where I've been spending so much more time revising and therefore feeling stifled without the *rush* of creating that a first draft brings.
I started writing Tempest in July, thinking that once I got rolling on it, I'd pull out one of my older novels to revise. I tend to write in the mornings (my best time), then, the idea was, spend the afternoon on revising. I haven't started a revision project, though. Instead I started taking the Thinking Sideways class and bounced some new ideas around for that, then resurrected an old partial first draft--Dottie.
And now I'm finding myself doing the unthinkable and actually enjoying it: having two first drafts on the go at once. It helps, I think, that they're quite opposite stories. Tempest is fantasy set in a harsh environment. Dottie is contemporary women's fiction and quite humorous at times. So when I find that Tempest depresses me, I can switch gears and work on something fluffier.
This has been working well for the past couple weeks. I'm making steadier progress on Tempest and plan to keep it the higher priority until the draft is done. At this rate, that should be sometime in December, but if it takes longer, so be it.
I guess this means that I'm not revising anything more until next year. Two projects is ample to keep me out of trouble!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Thinking Sideways--plotting
Tempest is continuing on. I'm trying hard to set aside my first work hour of the day to focus on this moving this story forward. Some days are quiet and my mind is clear(ish) and I get a thousand words. Other days I'm getting in the neighborhood of 600-700. I'm reasonably pleased with those days. Yesterday it was about 300, but I'd had a lot of interruptions: boss guys, customers, phone calls. At the end of the hour, I thought: I should keep going with this because I have so few words.
Did a bit of soul-searching on the concept of things I should do. The main reason I switched from a word count goal to a timed goal was because my time isn't always my own at work (go figure). Some days reaching a WC goal can take all day, and right now I have to divide my time, and not just with work duties. Tempest is a hard story to write; there is no comedy or fluff within its scenes. She is living a nasty life in a nasty place with little hope of relief, and things are still getting worse every time I sit down at the keyboard. (I'm about 1/3 of the way into the story.) If I spent all day every day on this novel, I'd get depressed.
Don't ask where it came from. I'm not a dark person. I don't like dark books. And this isn't dark in the sense of a horror story, but in its hopelessness. Because my life (thank God) is NOT hopeless, I have to struggle to immerse myself in her troubles in order to depict them, and it's not a pretty place. So, all in all, I'm glad I also have other things to think about, and why it's not a bad idea for me to be working on timed goals rather than word count.
Quite a bit of the rest of my time (around the work stuff, which is fairly busy this time of year) I'm spending on the Thinking Sideways classwork. (If you click the link in my previous post now, you'll notice that the brief window for signing up for the class is over for now.)
I can't begin to tell you how much my mind is being stretched with every week's lesson. It is being pushed and pulled and folded and then pulled some more--much like making taffy, perhaps. I'm so logic-oriented that it's amazing I write novels at all. I shouldn't be good at it. (And maybe I'm NOT good at it, but I enjoy it and have written seven of them to date, so there's obviously something in there calling me to the process!)
This week we're talking about plotting and I'm beginning to understand that I've blown off advice I've read prematurely. Holly Lisle talks about writing a Line-for-Scene outline, and I've always thought that I needed more information than that to remember what should go in that scene.
Today I've come to the sad realization that there is a difference between a focused sentence and the...junk...I write in my short paragraph or two. Because I've been writing AROUND the central issue, not being able to figure out ahead of time what the core purpose of the scene is. I can look at my scene and, I believe, tell you that it is important, that it moves the story forward. And I believe that I'm right! But I can't tell you WHY.
So I pulled Tempest back out. I just wrote a new scene this week, after all. It's still fresh in my mind. If I was having trouble figuring out a concise sentence for a vague idea of a scene for my yet-unfleshed-out novel, surely I could do better for the scene I had just written in a novel I know.
Or not.
This is a really really REALLY key concept. I can feel the importance of it. But catching a hold of it is like tackling a greased pig.
I may need something for my headache.
Did a bit of soul-searching on the concept of things I should do. The main reason I switched from a word count goal to a timed goal was because my time isn't always my own at work (go figure). Some days reaching a WC goal can take all day, and right now I have to divide my time, and not just with work duties. Tempest is a hard story to write; there is no comedy or fluff within its scenes. She is living a nasty life in a nasty place with little hope of relief, and things are still getting worse every time I sit down at the keyboard. (I'm about 1/3 of the way into the story.) If I spent all day every day on this novel, I'd get depressed.
Don't ask where it came from. I'm not a dark person. I don't like dark books. And this isn't dark in the sense of a horror story, but in its hopelessness. Because my life (thank God) is NOT hopeless, I have to struggle to immerse myself in her troubles in order to depict them, and it's not a pretty place. So, all in all, I'm glad I also have other things to think about, and why it's not a bad idea for me to be working on timed goals rather than word count.
Quite a bit of the rest of my time (around the work stuff, which is fairly busy this time of year) I'm spending on the Thinking Sideways classwork. (If you click the link in my previous post now, you'll notice that the brief window for signing up for the class is over for now.)
I can't begin to tell you how much my mind is being stretched with every week's lesson. It is being pushed and pulled and folded and then pulled some more--much like making taffy, perhaps. I'm so logic-oriented that it's amazing I write novels at all. I shouldn't be good at it. (And maybe I'm NOT good at it, but I enjoy it and have written seven of them to date, so there's obviously something in there calling me to the process!)
This week we're talking about plotting and I'm beginning to understand that I've blown off advice I've read prematurely. Holly Lisle talks about writing a Line-for-Scene outline, and I've always thought that I needed more information than that to remember what should go in that scene.
Today I've come to the sad realization that there is a difference between a focused sentence and the...junk...I write in my short paragraph or two. Because I've been writing AROUND the central issue, not being able to figure out ahead of time what the core purpose of the scene is. I can look at my scene and, I believe, tell you that it is important, that it moves the story forward. And I believe that I'm right! But I can't tell you WHY.
So I pulled Tempest back out. I just wrote a new scene this week, after all. It's still fresh in my mind. If I was having trouble figuring out a concise sentence for a vague idea of a scene for my yet-unfleshed-out novel, surely I could do better for the scene I had just written in a novel I know.
Or not.
This is a really really REALLY key concept. I can feel the importance of it. But catching a hold of it is like tackling a greased pig.
I may need something for my headache.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Thinking Sideways Sign-ups Open!
Last week I posted about the writing course I'm taking, Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways.
For this week only, signups are available for the second session, which begins, I believe, in February. Looks like I'm not the only one struggling a bit to keep the pace as one of the options will be for lessons every second week, thus stretching the course to a full year rather than the six months that the first session will be completed in.
(**edited to say: The current signup is for a course that starts right away, so your first payment and first lesson would be within 24 hours. Or you can put yourself on a waiting list for later, if you prefer.)
Doesn't mean, of course, that I'll be done all the work for the course in six months. Folks are welcome to work at their own rate, just download each lesson as it becomes available and then read it (and work on it!) as you (I) get caught up.
I mentioned in the other post that I didn't expect the course to be so challenging right out the starting gate. I have a very practical mindset and wasn't expecting to get so much out of the mind-mapping aspects of early lessons. Instead, I've come to a better understanding of my brain (never a bad thing!) and am using clustering for a wider variety of problem-solving than the course even calls for. I'm really excited about the ideas I'm working with now and look forward to learning how to think sideways to include plot twists that the reader won't see coming--but still be logical.
All I can say is that it's worth every penny I'm paying for it (roughly $300 total--I pay in Canadian funds so the monthly amount varies a bit month by month.) The 12-month course will cost the same, just be spread out more.
If you'd like to kick your writing up a notch and learn new ways to create and plan projects, click through and read Holly's write up. I don't think you'll be sorry you did.
The course is touted as A Survival Guide for Career Novelists. Some folks in my session have never completed a novel. Several have been multi-published. Doesn't matter, as there are many things writers of all abilities can use.
For this week only, signups are available for the second session, which begins, I believe, in February. Looks like I'm not the only one struggling a bit to keep the pace as one of the options will be for lessons every second week, thus stretching the course to a full year rather than the six months that the first session will be completed in.
(**edited to say: The current signup is for a course that starts right away, so your first payment and first lesson would be within 24 hours. Or you can put yourself on a waiting list for later, if you prefer.)
Doesn't mean, of course, that I'll be done all the work for the course in six months. Folks are welcome to work at their own rate, just download each lesson as it becomes available and then read it (and work on it!) as you (I) get caught up.
I mentioned in the other post that I didn't expect the course to be so challenging right out the starting gate. I have a very practical mindset and wasn't expecting to get so much out of the mind-mapping aspects of early lessons. Instead, I've come to a better understanding of my brain (never a bad thing!) and am using clustering for a wider variety of problem-solving than the course even calls for. I'm really excited about the ideas I'm working with now and look forward to learning how to think sideways to include plot twists that the reader won't see coming--but still be logical.
All I can say is that it's worth every penny I'm paying for it (roughly $300 total--I pay in Canadian funds so the monthly amount varies a bit month by month.) The 12-month course will cost the same, just be spread out more.
If you'd like to kick your writing up a notch and learn new ways to create and plan projects, click through and read Holly's write up. I don't think you'll be sorry you did.
The course is touted as A Survival Guide for Career Novelists. Some folks in my session have never completed a novel. Several have been multi-published. Doesn't matter, as there are many things writers of all abilities can use.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Haven't been posting much
I guess there are a few reasons. One is that you all don't seem to be answering much!
Life is quite randomly busy. Home is busy because there is a hyper puppy who ALWAYS needs walking and attention, a garden that needs weeding and harvesting, a daughter and son-in-law who are considerably less demanding than the puppy!--but still there. I've been going to Aquafit Tuesday and Thursday evenings as Hanna is teaching. I enjoy it, but it does shoot the whole evening all to pieces. I've got book tours coming up and almost no time to read.
There've been stressy health issues in the extended family, my own recurring back and hip pain, a hubby working too much over time, and an electrical breaker that keeps shutting off in my kitchen.
At work there's been a transient camped out between the store and the building next door (moved on, with aid, this morning), lots to juggle in ordering and freight, and it seems to have been the week for bizarre and random questions.
Writing-wise, I'm slowly getting words on Tempest, teaching a workshop at Forward Motion, and signed up for a six-month paid class offered by author Holly Lisle called How to Think Sideways. Right now it's a challenge to think at all: frontwards, backwards, let alone sideways.
I needs a vacation. How come December is so far away?
Life is quite randomly busy. Home is busy because there is a hyper puppy who ALWAYS needs walking and attention, a garden that needs weeding and harvesting, a daughter and son-in-law who are considerably less demanding than the puppy!--but still there. I've been going to Aquafit Tuesday and Thursday evenings as Hanna is teaching. I enjoy it, but it does shoot the whole evening all to pieces. I've got book tours coming up and almost no time to read.
There've been stressy health issues in the extended family, my own recurring back and hip pain, a hubby working too much over time, and an electrical breaker that keeps shutting off in my kitchen.
At work there's been a transient camped out between the store and the building next door (moved on, with aid, this morning), lots to juggle in ordering and freight, and it seems to have been the week for bizarre and random questions.
Writing-wise, I'm slowly getting words on Tempest, teaching a workshop at Forward Motion, and signed up for a six-month paid class offered by author Holly Lisle called How to Think Sideways. Right now it's a challenge to think at all: frontwards, backwards, let alone sideways.
I needs a vacation. How come December is so far away?
Friday, July 11, 2008
August Workshop at Forward Motion
A group of moderators has been running writing workshops every month so far in 2008. I've been involved in facilitating several of them thus far, and just completed the first draft of Interactive Description which I'll be teaching in August.
What do I mean by interactive description? In a way, it is much like showing instead of telling, providing an emotional experience for the reader instead of a bare-bones report. We'll be spending a week working with characters, a week with settings, and a week with actions. Then putting it all together in a scene. Really, we'll only be skimming the surface of the topic, but I'm hoping it will be enough to springboard the participants into recognizing when they've achieved that level of interaction in their writing.
If you're a member of Forward Motion, feel free to join in. If you're not--and you're a writer, why not? FM is the web's premiere website for writers. A great place to call home.
What do I mean by interactive description? In a way, it is much like showing instead of telling, providing an emotional experience for the reader instead of a bare-bones report. We'll be spending a week working with characters, a week with settings, and a week with actions. Then putting it all together in a scene. Really, we'll only be skimming the surface of the topic, but I'm hoping it will be enough to springboard the participants into recognizing when they've achieved that level of interaction in their writing.
If you're a member of Forward Motion, feel free to join in. If you're not--and you're a writer, why not? FM is the web's premiere website for writers. A great place to call home.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Tempest is ready to roll
It's only been a couple of weeks since Tempest erupted in my brain with her sort of complete story synopsis. I tried to ignore her for a couple of days, thinking I knew best. When that didn't work, I jumped in with both feet. By the time I'd fleshed out what I knew of the synopsis, built a story world that allowed this story to live in it, then expanded the outline based on the story world (leap frog, anyone?), I found myself with a full, though nasty, culture and a handful of characters with their own ways of reacting to it. And a lot of random characters who may or may not come to play in a larger way.
Of course some of that original synopsis turned out not to be accurate, but it was surprisingly close being as I've never had a story start that way for me before this.
I have quite a full Scrivener file--high five to Scrivener!!--and plan to start writing the novel tomorrow.
You know how long it's been since I've rough drafted? Nano '06 (The Girl Who Cried Squid, aka Off Beat). Yeah, it's been awhile. I hope I remember how. I never intended to have such a large gap.
At any rate, here we go again...
Of course some of that original synopsis turned out not to be accurate, but it was surprisingly close being as I've never had a story start that way for me before this.
I have quite a full Scrivener file--high five to Scrivener!!--and plan to start writing the novel tomorrow.
You know how long it's been since I've rough drafted? Nano '06 (The Girl Who Cried Squid, aka Off Beat). Yeah, it's been awhile. I hope I remember how. I never intended to have such a large gap.
At any rate, here we go again...
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Story Compost
The Matchmaker world needs to be quite complex for a couple of reasons. First, I can see several novels taking place in it, so there needs to be plenty to explore. Second, each novel should be 100-150,000 words. That's a lot of story, to the uninitiated. Longer than the average novel. Why? I figure if you're going to think at all, you might as well think big, and so this world and novel are being designed with the Luna imprint in mind. Luna is a division of Harlequin that features novels in a fantasy setting with a strong female protagonist and a romantic subplot.
The first draft of Majai's Fury (aka Marks of Repentance) came in about 93K, my longest ever. The re-re-revised version that is currently seeking its fortune is 101K. The matchmaker novels could/ should come in at one and a half times that.
Gulp. That's a lot of story. That's a lot of world.
I've been *seeing* this world for a couple years now, catching glimpses of Kaesa, the first heroine to have her tale set here. About a month ago I decided to focus on her story and see if I couldn't get her ready to write in just a few short weeks.
Insert maniacal laughter here.
I've followed my mind into whatever paths seemed to entertain it and possibly pertain to the Plan. I've played with mythical flying beasts and Yiddish matchmaking sites. I've downloaded Scrivener and created characters and twists and plot cards.
There are many layers composting in the Scrivener binder called Matchmaker. Trust me on that. There is a very cool story in there. Somewhere. But many holes remain. What I don't know is if the projected length of the project is messing with my mind or whether there's something else wrong. I'm pretty sure it's fixable, but I can't quite grasp the problem.
Metaphorically speaking, I've added layers of leaves and vegetable peelings and rotted hay to the compost. I've sprinkled it with water, and I can see the steam coming off the pile, so I know something in there is doing its job. I've taken the pitchfork and turned it over a few times. I've spread it out on the story seeds, but the sprouts are small still. Nothing can hurry growth. You can apply light and rain in the appropriate amounts--add a bit of fertilizer--but a strong story needs time to grow, to reach its roots into the good stuff in the compost and be strong and green and beautiful.
And the Matchmaker novel isn't ready to do that. Not this week, anyway. I'd welcome that flash of inspiration that would pull the threads together, but it seems it has to come to me--that going out and looking for it isn't quite working.
Enter Tempest, stage left.
She presented me with a complete, if skeletal, synopsis on Sunday and I've been trying to ignore her ever since. Today I gave up and created a new binder in Scrivener for her. It looks like her story should have no trouble coming in at 80-90K. I'll let it land there if it likes as I'm not sure it's really a Luna story anyway, though it meets the other basic requirements. I guess we'll see.
I hate abandoning projects, and I feel like I've been doing a lot of that lately. It does feel better when I tell myself that they're just composting. Let's see if I can convince myself.
The first draft of Majai's Fury (aka Marks of Repentance) came in about 93K, my longest ever. The re-re-revised version that is currently seeking its fortune is 101K. The matchmaker novels could/ should come in at one and a half times that.
Gulp. That's a lot of story. That's a lot of world.
I've been *seeing* this world for a couple years now, catching glimpses of Kaesa, the first heroine to have her tale set here. About a month ago I decided to focus on her story and see if I couldn't get her ready to write in just a few short weeks.
Insert maniacal laughter here.
I've followed my mind into whatever paths seemed to entertain it and possibly pertain to the Plan. I've played with mythical flying beasts and Yiddish matchmaking sites. I've downloaded Scrivener and created characters and twists and plot cards.
There are many layers composting in the Scrivener binder called Matchmaker. Trust me on that. There is a very cool story in there. Somewhere. But many holes remain. What I don't know is if the projected length of the project is messing with my mind or whether there's something else wrong. I'm pretty sure it's fixable, but I can't quite grasp the problem.
Metaphorically speaking, I've added layers of leaves and vegetable peelings and rotted hay to the compost. I've sprinkled it with water, and I can see the steam coming off the pile, so I know something in there is doing its job. I've taken the pitchfork and turned it over a few times. I've spread it out on the story seeds, but the sprouts are small still. Nothing can hurry growth. You can apply light and rain in the appropriate amounts--add a bit of fertilizer--but a strong story needs time to grow, to reach its roots into the good stuff in the compost and be strong and green and beautiful.
And the Matchmaker novel isn't ready to do that. Not this week, anyway. I'd welcome that flash of inspiration that would pull the threads together, but it seems it has to come to me--that going out and looking for it isn't quite working.
Enter Tempest, stage left.
She presented me with a complete, if skeletal, synopsis on Sunday and I've been trying to ignore her ever since. Today I gave up and created a new binder in Scrivener for her. It looks like her story should have no trouble coming in at 80-90K. I'll let it land there if it likes as I'm not sure it's really a Luna story anyway, though it meets the other basic requirements. I guess we'll see.
I hate abandoning projects, and I feel like I've been doing a lot of that lately. It does feel better when I tell myself that they're just composting. Let's see if I can convince myself.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Scrivener
If you're writing on a Mac, hie thee over to download the trial version of Scrivener. Seriously. There's a decent video there to show you why you need it.
Here's why *I* needed it! I often plot/ outline with physical 3x5 notecards, but I have issues with them. I like color-coding things, but committing to writing plot points on a green card is difficult. Green cards belong to the MC. What if I later I decide to write the scene from another character's POV? Then it should have been on a yellow card! Or even a pink card. You can imagine the dilemmas this causes. Seriously. I've sat and stared at the cards, afraid to commit.
Okay, so that's silly. I can just use white ones, and once I for sure decide whose scene it is, I can run a highlighter across the header to match the character. That helps, but I still lack space to spread them out at work.
And then there is the issue of what to do with the random bits of information that I'm not sure what scene it's going to belong in. I see a setting, but what will happen there? So really, I need to know quite a lot about the story before I pull out the notecards. And then...I may as well go straight to Word or Excel, eh?
Only the cells in Excel really aren't big enough for all the information I might want to have in them--notes for each scene. And sometimes they're a pain to rearrange. I've lost stuff doing that.
Back to Word. There each scene takes as much space as it needs. I can list the POV character, the setting, etc no problem. But there still is that random stuff that might become a scene if it found the right other information to collide with.
And with the matchmaker, I've gone round and round in Word and Excel and was pulling out the notecards a couple days ago (in desperation!) when I remembered that I now have a MacBook.
You'd think I couldn't forget such a thing. I've overcome much of the learning curve and am no longer panicking every five minutes that I don't know how to DO whatever it is I'm trying to do. (That's now reserved for like once a day!) But with the remembrance that I now use a Mac, I remembered that Holly Lisle uses Scrivener. (Ha. You thought I'd never get to the point.)
So I asked around a bit and then downloaded the trial version this morning. By the time I'd gone through the tutorial I had a bit of a headache. So much information! But then it was lunch break and I went for a long walk, came back, and decided it was time to see what would happen when Matchmaker met Scrivener.
I think they're in love.
First, importing files from Word is easy-peasy. (And they're still there in Word, too, should I need them in that application.) Scrivener arranged things fairly intuitively. I only moved a few things to new locations, and it was easy to do. So on the left of the screen, it's like an organizational tree program. There's tons out there, several of which I've used from time to time and quite liked. But this does more.
It has a virtual corkboard with 3x5 notecards! :D And because I am not actually wasting notecards by changing my mind later what color I want them (lame, I know...), I can randomly type whatever I want on a given card, and change it later.
Each card has three *levels*. There's a title, which shows in the tree down the left side. Then on the actual card itself, below the title, is enough room to write a decent synopsis of the scene (about the same amount as on a physical card). BUT, for all the little details, you can add them basically behind the cut. All of these can be color-coded and rearranged to my heart's content.
Which is cool. At the moment, I'm resisting the urge to title the cards in my outline section of the file, though of course I've labeled them in the character section. I'll save the title slot for numbers when I have them the way I want them. But one synopsis section simply says *picnic*. Because I think one scene will take place on a picnic. But I have no idea what will happen there that is significant, and I don't know if it will be early in the story or late. But for now, I have a card for picnic. Later, hopefully, one of the other cards with some other random word will decide it wants to hang out with the picnic card, and I'll combine them. Eventually, I hope, I'll have 80-90 cards with actual scene synopses on them.
The few cards that I know for sure belong to the beginning of the story--ones where characters meet each other, I've tinted light aqua. I've reserved pale yellow for middle scenes and pink for climax/ending scenes, but I haven't used any of those yet.
A person can easily write the entire novel in Scrivener. (Exporting back to Word is just as easy as importing, for the final formatting and such.) I think it would be especially cool for folks who write scenes out of order, because you can rearrange all the scenes simply by moving their cards around. So far I've always written linear, but this setup loosens the cells in my brain a little and makes it okay to play. I don't know if I will, though!
So, after one day, I'm really excited about some of the odds and ends that are stuck to my virtual corkboard and how I might arrange them and add to them. I've still got quite a ways to go to have a full and complete plot, but it's really looking positive at the moment!
Here's why *I* needed it! I often plot/ outline with physical 3x5 notecards, but I have issues with them. I like color-coding things, but committing to writing plot points on a green card is difficult. Green cards belong to the MC. What if I later I decide to write the scene from another character's POV? Then it should have been on a yellow card! Or even a pink card. You can imagine the dilemmas this causes. Seriously. I've sat and stared at the cards, afraid to commit.
Okay, so that's silly. I can just use white ones, and once I for sure decide whose scene it is, I can run a highlighter across the header to match the character. That helps, but I still lack space to spread them out at work.
And then there is the issue of what to do with the random bits of information that I'm not sure what scene it's going to belong in. I see a setting, but what will happen there? So really, I need to know quite a lot about the story before I pull out the notecards. And then...I may as well go straight to Word or Excel, eh?
Only the cells in Excel really aren't big enough for all the information I might want to have in them--notes for each scene. And sometimes they're a pain to rearrange. I've lost stuff doing that.
Back to Word. There each scene takes as much space as it needs. I can list the POV character, the setting, etc no problem. But there still is that random stuff that might become a scene if it found the right other information to collide with.
And with the matchmaker, I've gone round and round in Word and Excel and was pulling out the notecards a couple days ago (in desperation!) when I remembered that I now have a MacBook.
You'd think I couldn't forget such a thing. I've overcome much of the learning curve and am no longer panicking every five minutes that I don't know how to DO whatever it is I'm trying to do. (That's now reserved for like once a day!) But with the remembrance that I now use a Mac, I remembered that Holly Lisle uses Scrivener. (Ha. You thought I'd never get to the point.)
So I asked around a bit and then downloaded the trial version this morning. By the time I'd gone through the tutorial I had a bit of a headache. So much information! But then it was lunch break and I went for a long walk, came back, and decided it was time to see what would happen when Matchmaker met Scrivener.
I think they're in love.
First, importing files from Word is easy-peasy. (And they're still there in Word, too, should I need them in that application.) Scrivener arranged things fairly intuitively. I only moved a few things to new locations, and it was easy to do. So on the left of the screen, it's like an organizational tree program. There's tons out there, several of which I've used from time to time and quite liked. But this does more.
It has a virtual corkboard with 3x5 notecards! :D And because I am not actually wasting notecards by changing my mind later what color I want them (lame, I know...), I can randomly type whatever I want on a given card, and change it later.
Each card has three *levels*. There's a title, which shows in the tree down the left side. Then on the actual card itself, below the title, is enough room to write a decent synopsis of the scene (about the same amount as on a physical card). BUT, for all the little details, you can add them basically behind the cut. All of these can be color-coded and rearranged to my heart's content.
Which is cool. At the moment, I'm resisting the urge to title the cards in my outline section of the file, though of course I've labeled them in the character section. I'll save the title slot for numbers when I have them the way I want them. But one synopsis section simply says *picnic*. Because I think one scene will take place on a picnic. But I have no idea what will happen there that is significant, and I don't know if it will be early in the story or late. But for now, I have a card for picnic. Later, hopefully, one of the other cards with some other random word will decide it wants to hang out with the picnic card, and I'll combine them. Eventually, I hope, I'll have 80-90 cards with actual scene synopses on them.
The few cards that I know for sure belong to the beginning of the story--ones where characters meet each other, I've tinted light aqua. I've reserved pale yellow for middle scenes and pink for climax/ending scenes, but I haven't used any of those yet.
A person can easily write the entire novel in Scrivener. (Exporting back to Word is just as easy as importing, for the final formatting and such.) I think it would be especially cool for folks who write scenes out of order, because you can rearrange all the scenes simply by moving their cards around. So far I've always written linear, but this setup loosens the cells in my brain a little and makes it okay to play. I don't know if I will, though!
So, after one day, I'm really excited about some of the odds and ends that are stuck to my virtual corkboard and how I might arrange them and add to them. I've still got quite a ways to go to have a full and complete plot, but it's really looking positive at the moment!
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The Villain
So the matchmaker novel (that needs a name) is starting to pull together. I've done a few character bios the last few days, playing around with the voices of the major characters in journal format. I've learned some interesting things about them that way, though I'm planning to write the novel in a single third person point-of-view: Kaesa.
However, the villain had me stumped. Not all my stories have a clearcut bad guy, but this one will. But why? Why does he do his evil deeds? What are his history, his motivations, his quirks? I could envision him sitting in an armchair across from me, leaning back, arms crossed, a sardonic grin on his face, waiting for me to figure him out while offering no clues.
Weeks like this, the store gets a really thorough cleaning. I was nearly desperate enough to start a round of price checks. Definitely time to break through Petrek's shell and figure out some things.
He likes power. He doesn't like to gamble, but goes for the sure thing with as little risk as possible. Once we got going (this one I wrote as a Q&A instead of diary) I quickly had over 1K in notes.
The villain ticks.
All I need now is an outline and a little more worldbuilding. I have a rough synopsis, so it should be possible to build an outline out of it. Maybe tomorrow.
Book needs a name. It's driving me crazy.
However, the villain had me stumped. Not all my stories have a clearcut bad guy, but this one will. But why? Why does he do his evil deeds? What are his history, his motivations, his quirks? I could envision him sitting in an armchair across from me, leaning back, arms crossed, a sardonic grin on his face, waiting for me to figure him out while offering no clues.
Weeks like this, the store gets a really thorough cleaning. I was nearly desperate enough to start a round of price checks. Definitely time to break through Petrek's shell and figure out some things.
He likes power. He doesn't like to gamble, but goes for the sure thing with as little risk as possible. Once we got going (this one I wrote as a Q&A instead of diary) I quickly had over 1K in notes.
The villain ticks.
All I need now is an outline and a little more worldbuilding. I have a rough synopsis, so it should be possible to build an outline out of it. Maybe tomorrow.
Book needs a name. It's driving me crazy.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Language Creation
Sometimes you think you can slide by with a few made-up words and other times you know you can't. Puppet Prince would be one of those novels where I know I can't.
I have an empire, which is made up of at least 20 smaller nations, most of whom are not going to feature in this story--I hope. But at least two of the minor nations will, and of course, the empire itself will. The most recent nation to be overtaken by the empire is Tainn. I decided on its name a couple years ago and I still like it. Just looking at that one word and the three people from Tainn that feature in this story, whom I also named a couple years ago, already gives a pattern for this language. I'm expecting this to be a *pure* language, with pretty much nothing borrowed from anyone else's.
The other absorbed nation has been part of the empire for much longer, so it will have taken on some words from the empire as well as, most likely, words from other languages in the empire. I have a rough idea of what their base language sounds like, but I only had one name ahead of time to work around.
And the empire, bless them, has been cheerfully overtaking the known world for a couple hundred years. They are swallowing languages, cultures, art forms, and religions whole, mashing them all up, and spewing them back out. So THAT language can be as messy as English, at the other end.
What to do?
Well, this is what *I* did! I pulled out an e-book I bought quite awhile ago, read, but did not yet have occasion to put to use: Holly Lisle's Create a Language Clinic.
The Tainnish language now has some missing letters, some common consonant/vowel combinations, and a wee bit of structure to hold the thing up.
Next on the hit list: the other language, which will soon have a name!
I have an empire, which is made up of at least 20 smaller nations, most of whom are not going to feature in this story--I hope. But at least two of the minor nations will, and of course, the empire itself will. The most recent nation to be overtaken by the empire is Tainn. I decided on its name a couple years ago and I still like it. Just looking at that one word and the three people from Tainn that feature in this story, whom I also named a couple years ago, already gives a pattern for this language. I'm expecting this to be a *pure* language, with pretty much nothing borrowed from anyone else's.
The other absorbed nation has been part of the empire for much longer, so it will have taken on some words from the empire as well as, most likely, words from other languages in the empire. I have a rough idea of what their base language sounds like, but I only had one name ahead of time to work around.
And the empire, bless them, has been cheerfully overtaking the known world for a couple hundred years. They are swallowing languages, cultures, art forms, and religions whole, mashing them all up, and spewing them back out. So THAT language can be as messy as English, at the other end.
What to do?
Well, this is what *I* did! I pulled out an e-book I bought quite awhile ago, read, but did not yet have occasion to put to use: Holly Lisle's Create a Language Clinic.
The Tainnish language now has some missing letters, some common consonant/vowel combinations, and a wee bit of structure to hold the thing up.
Next on the hit list: the other language, which will soon have a name!
Friday, April 11, 2008
Worldbuilding
It's been so long since I got down to serious novel planning that I've almost forgotten how. Some writers have ideas jumping up and down, begging to be written. Mine are a little more recalcitrant. I've got several novel ideas that I've worked with a bit on and off for the past couple of years, but every time I've turned my attention to them, they've stood there scuffing their feet and trying to elbow their neighbor forward.
So a couple of weeks ago I reached into their group, grabbed someone by the shirt front, and hauled him over to the examining table. Jhonal from Puppet Prince has been hanging around the longest, actually. A little over two years ago I started dreaming him up for Forward Motion's 2-year-novel program. Then I got busy revising and let him sit back for a bit. I thought I'd pull him out for Nano '06, but another novel jumped forward and grabbed hard.
And you know my tale of revisions ever since then.
So here we are, then. I've read the notes I made two years ago and set them aside. I figure that the parts that are meant to be important to the story will come to mind again.
I've discovered the problems with my initial idea that no doubt led to the story pulling back constantly. The conflict was unbalanced--too much external and not enough internal. Once upon a time Jhonal was a victim of sorts. Things happened TO him. He was a bit too nice. Isn't that sad? Writers...
Anyway I've spent my afternoon researching everything from forms of execution for traitors to the names of God. And I'm finding a new Jhonal, one who acts as well as reacts, and two young women who are complex (or at least getting that way) actors in their own right.
Yes, I think a braiding of three characters. That should be fun.
So a couple of weeks ago I reached into their group, grabbed someone by the shirt front, and hauled him over to the examining table. Jhonal from Puppet Prince has been hanging around the longest, actually. A little over two years ago I started dreaming him up for Forward Motion's 2-year-novel program. Then I got busy revising and let him sit back for a bit. I thought I'd pull him out for Nano '06, but another novel jumped forward and grabbed hard.
And you know my tale of revisions ever since then.
So here we are, then. I've read the notes I made two years ago and set them aside. I figure that the parts that are meant to be important to the story will come to mind again.
I've discovered the problems with my initial idea that no doubt led to the story pulling back constantly. The conflict was unbalanced--too much external and not enough internal. Once upon a time Jhonal was a victim of sorts. Things happened TO him. He was a bit too nice. Isn't that sad? Writers...
Anyway I've spent my afternoon researching everything from forms of execution for traitors to the names of God. And I'm finding a new Jhonal, one who acts as well as reacts, and two young women who are complex (or at least getting that way) actors in their own right.
Yes, I think a braiding of three characters. That should be fun.
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