Thursday, August 12, 2010
Note to self: look at pacing in Hunger Games
Something seems different about the way some of the chapters end. Like maybe they're cut at a slightly unusual place in the scene, or the last line is atypical for a cliffhanger? Maybe those last lines aren't concretely set in scene? The chapter ends are working, but something seems different about them.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
To quote Scooby Doo: Ruh-roh. No work done yesterday, and only 800 the day before.
However, this presents me with a good challenging exercise, because what I must do is quit pausing to ensure that events and characters are following the world's rules and making sense in the context I've been given. I need to just start writing the damn story. So that's my challenge to myself: if I come to a place where I don't know my given parameters, then instead of stopping to figure out exactly what they are and how write within them, I need to put a placeholder. I need to leave that spot blank and move on.
This is also probably what I need to do with the dystopian ms, so it ought to be excellent practice. If I can stick with it.
However, this presents me with a good challenging exercise, because what I must do is quit pausing to ensure that events and characters are following the world's rules and making sense in the context I've been given. I need to just start writing the damn story. So that's my challenge to myself: if I come to a place where I don't know my given parameters, then instead of stopping to figure out exactly what they are and how write within them, I need to put a placeholder. I need to leave that spot blank and move on.
This is also probably what I need to do with the dystopian ms, so it ought to be excellent practice. If I can stick with it.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Around 2800 words over three days. Oh dear. I do feel like I'm getting a grip on the background material, though. The background is very complicated and a little intimidating, and requires a lot of reading.
Worked on former GN a little, but the voice keeps lapsing back into default, which is isn't helpful because that's the same old rut I've been in for several years now. Today's theory is that if I write this ms every single way it can possibly be written, eventually all that's left will be the one way I haven't written it, which will be the way. Eventually I'll use up all the other combinations of words in the universe, till all that's left will be a hole in the shape of my ms. Then I can plug the hole with the last exact combination of words I haven't tried, and it will be perfect.
Only 28,995,430,511 combinations of words to go.
Writer friend came up with an interesting approach to a problematic tangle of a ms. Said WF used sticky notes on a poster board to lay out the entire ms visually in order to see it all at once. The stickies are different colors depending on who is in the scene.
Another writer friend said that a third writer friend used a method like this, except the colors were about settings rather than characters--and that this helped WF3 to see the big picture and proceed. Sometimes with a novel you just have to step back and try to get a bead what it is you're doing. I'm thinking I need to do something like this with the dystopian ms--except I'm not sure I can really do stickies because I don't have my scenes in order yet. Those two WFs had complete or nearly complete mss. But I do feel the need to make a stab at getting some kind of mental order to the many threads of the dystopian ms, because I think doing so might possibly help me stick to something that moves forward at a brisk clip rather than going off on boring tangents. No time to try this out at the moment, though. The former GN is so chopped-up in format, it lends itself more to being worked on at the same time as other full-steam-ahead projects. Not so with dystopian, which is all of a piece.
Worked on former GN a little, but the voice keeps lapsing back into default, which is isn't helpful because that's the same old rut I've been in for several years now. Today's theory is that if I write this ms every single way it can possibly be written, eventually all that's left will be the one way I haven't written it, which will be the way. Eventually I'll use up all the other combinations of words in the universe, till all that's left will be a hole in the shape of my ms. Then I can plug the hole with the last exact combination of words I haven't tried, and it will be perfect.
Only 28,995,430,511 combinations of words to go.
Writer friend came up with an interesting approach to a problematic tangle of a ms. Said WF used sticky notes on a poster board to lay out the entire ms visually in order to see it all at once. The stickies are different colors depending on who is in the scene.
Another writer friend said that a third writer friend used a method like this, except the colors were about settings rather than characters--and that this helped WF3 to see the big picture and proceed. Sometimes with a novel you just have to step back and try to get a bead what it is you're doing. I'm thinking I need to do something like this with the dystopian ms--except I'm not sure I can really do stickies because I don't have my scenes in order yet. Those two WFs had complete or nearly complete mss. But I do feel the need to make a stab at getting some kind of mental order to the many threads of the dystopian ms, because I think doing so might possibly help me stick to something that moves forward at a brisk clip rather than going off on boring tangents. No time to try this out at the moment, though. The former GN is so chopped-up in format, it lends itself more to being worked on at the same time as other full-steam-ahead projects. Not so with dystopian, which is all of a piece.
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