I was recently presented with a challenge--write a scene about a character's boredom, but make it interesting for the reader.
The construction of this scene took longer than usual, because I had to proceed very, very carefully. In a normal scene, you can use the interesting stuff that's going on, and the narrator's engagement in it, to keep the scene moving. But what happens when the narrator is bored out of her mind?
This challenge made me consider in greater detail what it takes to make an interesting scene in the first place. First and foremost, I believe that comes through character--the reader must be engaged in what the character is experiencing.
Secondly, the reader must enjoy learning about whatever new information is being presented in the scene. Let me state for the record that "enjoy" doesn't necessarily mean that they'll like it. The reader may be horrified by what they learn, but they are drawn to find out more. Whatever happens in the scene has to scratch that itch.
Finally, the scene must in some way address the character's goals. That's not the way real life works, but it's the way a story works. There are lots of things that happen in real life that never make their way into fiction because it has no relevance to the story. So how does this scene bring the character closer to, or further away, from the goal?
I will now take the discussion out of the abstract and into the concrete. In this particular scene, Bryony was waiting. She thought she was going to be trained as an attendant, but instead, she's just sitting in a room getting more and more restless. I'm going to now describe how I attempted to address the three points above.
At this point in the novel, if the character isn't engaged in Bryony and what she wants, then I doubt they're still reading. I entered into the scene after a tense emotional moment, so hopefully the reader sympathizes with her and is willing to want what she wants. Okay, good, we've got them hooked.
Next, the new information. Here, I was handicapped because Bryony was seeing for the first time a place that we, as the reader, had visited before. The information was not entirely new. I included some reminders of what the place was like, in case it had been forgotten, then gave some more detail. Although I touched on the setting, I tried to spend more time with the people. I also attempted to demonstrate how Bryony was dealing with her boredom by describing her visual tour of the room. (In other words, working in some character beats to strengthen it.)
As for the goals, I needed Bryony to come to a new realization of what it meant to train as an attendant. I did that through the introduction of Cohenrad. He is an established character, but one that has been offscreen for a while. Bryony had never met him, but I needed to forge that connection for later on. I used him to convey to Bryony, and also to the reader, the appropriate information.
However, I didn't want to turn Cohenrad into a puppet, spouting exposition. I made sure to include Bryony's reaction to Cohenrad, and his reactions to her, as these first impressions will form the basis of their relationship. I tried to make the exposition come as naturally as possible.
If I had to judge my success, I'd say I got about a 3 out of 5. When I revised, I'll want to make Bryony's desires clearer, so that the drama of her boredom is more sharply defined. It was definitely a slow scene, but there's not much I could do about that. We'll just have to see if the next few scenes can build some more momentum.
29 October 2010
27 October 2010
Repeated Phrases are Repeated
Something I've been struggling with lately is the fear that all of my writing sounds alike. I'll be reviewing something I've written earlier, and suddenly I realize that I used the precise same phraseology to describe two similar scenes. I didn't know I was doing it at the time... in both instances, I felt that the description was new and creative.
That's scary, because it calls into question absolutely everything I've written. Am I repeating myself?
Have I already posted about this?
Part of the problem is a language limitation. There are only so many words in the English language. Even with our huge array of synonyms, not every word with a given meaning is appropriate in every context. Despite our vast store of words with the same meaning, some lexical items that bear an equivalent significance are not fitting in all places.
See?
What I'm telling myself, and I think it's true, is that the problem is one of revision, not composition. If I find that I have written a scene using language similar to one that came before, I'll change it. If it's still too similar, then I'll approach the scene from a different angle. Then the temptation to use the same language won't be as great.
And above all, my tendency to repeat myself comes with a bit of comfort too. How many times have I wondered how the story would have come out if I hadn't stopped writing it at various points? Turns out, there's nothing magical about the way I did it the first time. Chances are, if I had it to do over again, it would come out the same.
That's scary, because it calls into question absolutely everything I've written. Am I repeating myself?
Have I already posted about this?
Part of the problem is a language limitation. There are only so many words in the English language. Even with our huge array of synonyms, not every word with a given meaning is appropriate in every context. Despite our vast store of words with the same meaning, some lexical items that bear an equivalent significance are not fitting in all places.
See?
What I'm telling myself, and I think it's true, is that the problem is one of revision, not composition. If I find that I have written a scene using language similar to one that came before, I'll change it. If it's still too similar, then I'll approach the scene from a different angle. Then the temptation to use the same language won't be as great.
And above all, my tendency to repeat myself comes with a bit of comfort too. How many times have I wondered how the story would have come out if I hadn't stopped writing it at various points? Turns out, there's nothing magical about the way I did it the first time. Chances are, if I had it to do over again, it would come out the same.
26 October 2010
OOW (Object-Oriented Writing)
Let me get a holla from all the programmers out there!
Actually, I don't know how many programmers are also writers. My instincts tell me not many, but my instincts have been wrong before. ("Heroes had a great first season... let me watch the next two!")
But for those of you who cross over, let me give you some truth. Good writing is object oriented.
First, what do I mean by that? Well, in programming terms, an "object" is a particular collection of data paired with what you can do with it. In essence, it is a self-contained capsule of programming that can be used by other programs in a predictable way. You can change the programming behind that object, but so long as it behaves the same to the programs that use it, it doesn't matter. Like I said, encapsulated.
It gets deeper than that. One object can be essentially a special case of another. We say that it inherits from the original class. If you change the original, you also change the classes that depend on it.
So what does this have to do with writing? It all comes down to good scene structure. A scene has to establish setting and point of view. (Think of that as declaring your local variables.) It must then introduce the conflict that the scene is about. The conflict is developed, comes to a brief climax, and then ends with a hook for the next scene. You could think of all of these things as methods that are defined for the Scene class.
But to achieve good writing, we can't just close off the whole scene so that nothing else can affect it. Otherwise, we've got a series of short vignettes, not a novel. A scene has to foreshadow future scenes, and to pay off previous ones. In order to make the novel hold together cohesively, you have to be aware of what you're foreshadowing and what you're paying off.
The reason you have to be aware of it is because of revisions. Let's say I've finished my novel, and I want to revise it. I get to a scene that needs to be rewritten. I rewrite it. And suddenly, the foreshadowing I used to set up later events just isn't there anymore.
In object-oriented terms, I changed the definition of the class, and now the old method and property calls don't work right anymore. Instead of changing the class definition, I really just want to make the code work better, while leaving all the structure in place.
In order to make a revised scene work, you have to understand precisely what it accomplishes in the overall narrative. Then, make sure the rewritten scene accomplishes the same goals.
No program, and no novel, works right the first time. Don't be afraid to debug.
Actually, I don't know how many programmers are also writers. My instincts tell me not many, but my instincts have been wrong before. ("Heroes had a great first season... let me watch the next two!")
But for those of you who cross over, let me give you some truth. Good writing is object oriented.
First, what do I mean by that? Well, in programming terms, an "object" is a particular collection of data paired with what you can do with it. In essence, it is a self-contained capsule of programming that can be used by other programs in a predictable way. You can change the programming behind that object, but so long as it behaves the same to the programs that use it, it doesn't matter. Like I said, encapsulated.
It gets deeper than that. One object can be essentially a special case of another. We say that it inherits from the original class. If you change the original, you also change the classes that depend on it.
So what does this have to do with writing? It all comes down to good scene structure. A scene has to establish setting and point of view. (Think of that as declaring your local variables.) It must then introduce the conflict that the scene is about. The conflict is developed, comes to a brief climax, and then ends with a hook for the next scene. You could think of all of these things as methods that are defined for the Scene class.
But to achieve good writing, we can't just close off the whole scene so that nothing else can affect it. Otherwise, we've got a series of short vignettes, not a novel. A scene has to foreshadow future scenes, and to pay off previous ones. In order to make the novel hold together cohesively, you have to be aware of what you're foreshadowing and what you're paying off.
The reason you have to be aware of it is because of revisions. Let's say I've finished my novel, and I want to revise it. I get to a scene that needs to be rewritten. I rewrite it. And suddenly, the foreshadowing I used to set up later events just isn't there anymore.
In object-oriented terms, I changed the definition of the class, and now the old method and property calls don't work right anymore. Instead of changing the class definition, I really just want to make the code work better, while leaving all the structure in place.
In order to make a revised scene work, you have to understand precisely what it accomplishes in the overall narrative. Then, make sure the rewritten scene accomplishes the same goals.
No program, and no novel, works right the first time. Don't be afraid to debug.
21 October 2010
Digital Hygiene
First of all, I'd like to commemorate my 255th post. If life were Zelda, that would be as many as I could do, because 255 is the largest number.
The real point of my post today is digital hygiene. You know how the bulk of your early childhood was spent learning how to keep yourself clean, the difference between number one and number two, the joys of napkins, etc? It's all hygiene, right? It's figuring out how to use the human body in the proper way.
Of course, different people may have different ideas about what constitutes proper, but in general, hygiene is there to keep you healthy, and to make it easy for you to get along with other hygienic individuals.
But the parents never taught us digital hygiene because it didn't exist. And you know, a lot of people from my parents' generation (my actual parents being exceptions) have terrible digital hygiene.
You've seen the symptoms. A desktop full of documents, so much you can't see the default Windows wallpaper behind it. 57 Windows updates waiting to install, and a Yahoo toolbar they don't remember installing on Internet Explorer. They were never taught how to clean up after themselves, so they don't.
Now, I'm not saying I have perfect digital hygiene. There is a folder on my desktop called "Desktop Documents." Whenever I'm too lazy to save something where it's supposed to go, I'll use my desktop. And then, when it starts to get too crowded, I'll just dump everything in that folder. I have no idea what's in there, but if I can't find something, that's a good place to start.
But for the most part, I keep myself digitally hygienic. Which brings me to writing, which is the whole point of this blog anyway.
If you're a writer, it is of supreme importance to keep good digital hygiene for your typed stories or other writing. For me, that means a directory by genre. Inside the Fiction folder, which is the largest by far, I have folders for each individual story or novel. They are arranged, not by name, but by date. Down at the bottom is a sad little folder called "Abandoned," where bad little stories go to die.
Within each story folder, I may have multiple copies of each story. I name each one with the current date in yyyymmdd format (so they sort chronologically, natch) and save each day's work separately. I cannot stress enough how important this is. I mean, c'mon. Haven't you ever written something, decided it was crap and rewrote it, and then started thinking that the original version was brilliant and you should never have gotten rid of it? Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but if you never save over your work, you'll never have to wonder.
For longer projects, like Bryony's Market, I have a folder called "Daily Work." Each day of writing is in its own file. I do this because it makes getting a word count for the day easier, and allows me to easily keep track of progress in a way that a single long file can't. I do copy and paste these into a "Combined" file, which I maintain for sending to interested friends, or for editing purposes. (And yes, with a different one for each day.)
I have a folder for notes, a folder for compilations, etc., etc. I do all of this because the organization makes it easier to find what I want when I want it. I'm keeping my digital house in order, and I think my writing is better for it.
The real point of my post today is digital hygiene. You know how the bulk of your early childhood was spent learning how to keep yourself clean, the difference between number one and number two, the joys of napkins, etc? It's all hygiene, right? It's figuring out how to use the human body in the proper way.
Of course, different people may have different ideas about what constitutes proper, but in general, hygiene is there to keep you healthy, and to make it easy for you to get along with other hygienic individuals.
But the parents never taught us digital hygiene because it didn't exist. And you know, a lot of people from my parents' generation (my actual parents being exceptions) have terrible digital hygiene.
You've seen the symptoms. A desktop full of documents, so much you can't see the default Windows wallpaper behind it. 57 Windows updates waiting to install, and a Yahoo toolbar they don't remember installing on Internet Explorer. They were never taught how to clean up after themselves, so they don't.
Now, I'm not saying I have perfect digital hygiene. There is a folder on my desktop called "Desktop Documents." Whenever I'm too lazy to save something where it's supposed to go, I'll use my desktop. And then, when it starts to get too crowded, I'll just dump everything in that folder. I have no idea what's in there, but if I can't find something, that's a good place to start.
But for the most part, I keep myself digitally hygienic. Which brings me to writing, which is the whole point of this blog anyway.
If you're a writer, it is of supreme importance to keep good digital hygiene for your typed stories or other writing. For me, that means a directory by genre. Inside the Fiction folder, which is the largest by far, I have folders for each individual story or novel. They are arranged, not by name, but by date. Down at the bottom is a sad little folder called "Abandoned," where bad little stories go to die.
Within each story folder, I may have multiple copies of each story. I name each one with the current date in yyyymmdd format (so they sort chronologically, natch) and save each day's work separately. I cannot stress enough how important this is. I mean, c'mon. Haven't you ever written something, decided it was crap and rewrote it, and then started thinking that the original version was brilliant and you should never have gotten rid of it? Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but if you never save over your work, you'll never have to wonder.
For longer projects, like Bryony's Market, I have a folder called "Daily Work." Each day of writing is in its own file. I do this because it makes getting a word count for the day easier, and allows me to easily keep track of progress in a way that a single long file can't. I do copy and paste these into a "Combined" file, which I maintain for sending to interested friends, or for editing purposes. (And yes, with a different one for each day.)
I have a folder for notes, a folder for compilations, etc., etc. I do all of this because the organization makes it easier to find what I want when I want it. I'm keeping my digital house in order, and I think my writing is better for it.
20 October 2010
The Experimental Film Scene
Every so often, I'll run across a scene that I have defined more by its effect than its content. I try not to do this, because that's when writing tends to get contrived. But sometimes, you just need something to happen. Something--but you're not sure what, just what it's supposed to accomplish.
I call this an "Experiment Film" scene, based from a line in the They Might Be Giants song of that name.
And in reality, I don't think I quite managed it. All the pieces were there, but it lacks smoothness and consistency. I'm going to leave it behind and continue on with the story, secure in the knowledge that I can revise it later. Maybe when I do, it will make your face implode properly.
I call this an "Experiment Film" scene, based from a line in the They Might Be Giants song of that name.
I already know the ending,The scene that I was dreading two days ago was something of an Experimental Film. There's a lot of weight riding on this little scene, since it has to support motivations for a couple different characters moving forward. I knew what it had to do, but I didn't quite know how to carry it off.
It's the part that makes your face implode.
I don't know what makes your face implode,
But that's the way the movie ends.
And in reality, I don't think I quite managed it. All the pieces were there, but it lacks smoothness and consistency. I'm going to leave it behind and continue on with the story, secure in the knowledge that I can revise it later. Maybe when I do, it will make your face implode properly.
19 October 2010
World Building the Right Way
After my post yesterday, I didn't want anyone to think that I was against the concept of world building. Far from it, actually. Having a fully realized world is a big part of fantasy. A good world is a character itself, one that the reader wants to get to know.
The bigger question is how much world building is enough? For me, the dividing line is the story. If the world that your characters are living in starts seriously getting in the way with the story you want to tell, there's a problem. Either your story should change, or the world should. Both approaches are valid, but both come with a warning.
Let's say you've done a huge amount of world building, and it all hangs together as a huge, coherent, historical whole. Well, great. Are your readers going to feel the same way? They only see this world through your characters, and perhaps through your narrative voice. They follow those characters to find out what happens to them. So if suddenly, the thread of your narrative is broken because of some esoteric fact about the way your world is built, it feels unjustified. It's a deux ex machina, no matter how real that world, and its rules, seem to you.
You can do it, but it will mean a thorough reworking of what you've done up to that point to justify the plot going in that direction. That's something that Tolkien did very well. For him, the world came first, and the story came second. When the story conflicted with the world, he adjusted the story. But Tolkien did it right: every action his characters took felt justified because by the time it happened, we knew the world well enough to believe it.
On the other side of the spectrum is someone who does little to no world building. I think of Terry Goodkind as an example of this. The Sword of Truth simply doesn't feel like it's set in a real place. Each place met along the characters' journey feels like an obstacle put there specifically to make the next section of plot happen. I think savvy readers pick up on this too, and it feels just as unjustified. It breaks the illusion of a real place, and turns it into the creator tormenting his created.
I believe that Robert Jordan is a good model for world building. Before he started The Wheel of Time, he had a sketch of the personality and culture of the many nations in his novels. As the characters arrived in that national, he developed those cultures, made them whole and fully realized places.
Tolkien had the advantage of writing his entire trilogy in advance of publication. If he wanted to go back and change things to make it work, he could. Jordan did not have that option. He had to make sure that the first book, and each subsequent book, could adequately set up anything he wanted to do elsewhere in his world. Tolkien's approach would not work here. Goodkind's approach would be the easy way out. Jordan took the middle road, the harder road, and to me, the more rewarding road.
In the case of Bryony's Market, I did only a small amount of world building at the beginning of the story, because the story was small. Initial chapters take place only within the walls of the market itself. As it became natural for the characters to make references to the world outside, they did, and I sketched out where these places were, and what they were like. Whether my characters ever visit those places or not is irrelevant; those notes form the backbone of my world building.
But that doesn't mean I have to develop an entire history of each of these places. When it becomes important that those places have a history, I'll give them one. Until then, they are only important insofar as I know they're there and how they affect my characters.
I think about it this way. Let's say you have your eyes closed. You stretch out your hand and touch a smooth hard surface. You automatically assume that there is a smooth, hard obstacle there. If it doesn't move, you decide it has weight and substance. It is a thing.
You open your eyes and discover that the "surface" is really just a handprint, placed exactly where your hand went. But you believed something was there, because that's all you touched.
Story is like that too. World building means knowing where the boundaries are, what they feel like. It means knowing what the results will be when your character interacts with the world. If the story causes the character to explore that boundary in greater detail, then create it. But if you only introduced elements of your world when they make sense for your plot, you might discover that your characters had been walking through places that should have been walls all along.
The bigger question is how much world building is enough? For me, the dividing line is the story. If the world that your characters are living in starts seriously getting in the way with the story you want to tell, there's a problem. Either your story should change, or the world should. Both approaches are valid, but both come with a warning.
Let's say you've done a huge amount of world building, and it all hangs together as a huge, coherent, historical whole. Well, great. Are your readers going to feel the same way? They only see this world through your characters, and perhaps through your narrative voice. They follow those characters to find out what happens to them. So if suddenly, the thread of your narrative is broken because of some esoteric fact about the way your world is built, it feels unjustified. It's a deux ex machina, no matter how real that world, and its rules, seem to you.
You can do it, but it will mean a thorough reworking of what you've done up to that point to justify the plot going in that direction. That's something that Tolkien did very well. For him, the world came first, and the story came second. When the story conflicted with the world, he adjusted the story. But Tolkien did it right: every action his characters took felt justified because by the time it happened, we knew the world well enough to believe it.
On the other side of the spectrum is someone who does little to no world building. I think of Terry Goodkind as an example of this. The Sword of Truth simply doesn't feel like it's set in a real place. Each place met along the characters' journey feels like an obstacle put there specifically to make the next section of plot happen. I think savvy readers pick up on this too, and it feels just as unjustified. It breaks the illusion of a real place, and turns it into the creator tormenting his created.
I believe that Robert Jordan is a good model for world building. Before he started The Wheel of Time, he had a sketch of the personality and culture of the many nations in his novels. As the characters arrived in that national, he developed those cultures, made them whole and fully realized places.
Tolkien had the advantage of writing his entire trilogy in advance of publication. If he wanted to go back and change things to make it work, he could. Jordan did not have that option. He had to make sure that the first book, and each subsequent book, could adequately set up anything he wanted to do elsewhere in his world. Tolkien's approach would not work here. Goodkind's approach would be the easy way out. Jordan took the middle road, the harder road, and to me, the more rewarding road.
In the case of Bryony's Market, I did only a small amount of world building at the beginning of the story, because the story was small. Initial chapters take place only within the walls of the market itself. As it became natural for the characters to make references to the world outside, they did, and I sketched out where these places were, and what they were like. Whether my characters ever visit those places or not is irrelevant; those notes form the backbone of my world building.
But that doesn't mean I have to develop an entire history of each of these places. When it becomes important that those places have a history, I'll give them one. Until then, they are only important insofar as I know they're there and how they affect my characters.
I think about it this way. Let's say you have your eyes closed. You stretch out your hand and touch a smooth hard surface. You automatically assume that there is a smooth, hard obstacle there. If it doesn't move, you decide it has weight and substance. It is a thing.
You open your eyes and discover that the "surface" is really just a handprint, placed exactly where your hand went. But you believed something was there, because that's all you touched.
Story is like that too. World building means knowing where the boundaries are, what they feel like. It means knowing what the results will be when your character interacts with the world. If the story causes the character to explore that boundary in greater detail, then create it. But if you only introduced elements of your world when they make sense for your plot, you might discover that your characters had been walking through places that should have been walls all along.
18 October 2010
The Freeze
Writer's block really isn't the inability to write, in the cartoony blank-page-on-the-typewriter sense. Not for me, at least. What I get is the certain conviction that the scene I'm about to write won't be any good. Instead of writing it, I feel like I should wait until I can write it well.
Except that time never comes, and the scene just gets built up in my head as an insurmountable obstacle of suck that I'll never get over.
It's the Freeze. Last year, I got distracted from my writing on Bryony's Market because of a Devan scene I just couldn't get a handle on. I put it off by a day, two days, and suddenly it was ten months later. I wound up changing up the whole scene anyway.
I hate the Freeze, because it's what's keeping me from getting to the better parts of my story. If only I could get past this one scene, I think, everything would be all right.
The freeze can hit at the beginning of a project, too. I spent months developing the project I call Dairhenien's Library, working out elaborate world-building and character outlines and the like, without every actually starting the story. Eventually, the bulk of all that world-building weighed me under so much that I backed off of the project.
What was I thinking? I was so afraid that the finished story wouldn't live up to the really cool stuff I had developed, and as a result, I just didn't start. I've got lots of great notes out there. Someday, maybe after I finish Bryony, I'll pick them up again.
And that brings me to today. The upcoming scene is one that I don't believe I'll be able to write well. And so I've been spending the last twenty minutes writing this blog post, and started thinking about researching magazine fiction markets instead of writing today. If I were a cat, I should get squirted with a spray bottle for that kind of thinking.
I'm going to write the scene. And there is a very good chance it won't come out well. I'll shake my head and move on. A year from now, or whenever it is that I revise this story, I'll come back and do it right.
But here's the thing--I'll have accomplished so much in that year. For the last year, I stopped until I felt able to tackle the scene, and did nothing on the story in the interval. I was trying to compose the story linearly.
The reader may read the story that way, but why do I have to write it that way? It'd be like building a car front to back, or painting a picture like an ink jet printer, top to bottom.
All right, enough of this small talk. Let's write.
Except that time never comes, and the scene just gets built up in my head as an insurmountable obstacle of suck that I'll never get over.
It's the Freeze. Last year, I got distracted from my writing on Bryony's Market because of a Devan scene I just couldn't get a handle on. I put it off by a day, two days, and suddenly it was ten months later. I wound up changing up the whole scene anyway.
I hate the Freeze, because it's what's keeping me from getting to the better parts of my story. If only I could get past this one scene, I think, everything would be all right.
The freeze can hit at the beginning of a project, too. I spent months developing the project I call Dairhenien's Library, working out elaborate world-building and character outlines and the like, without every actually starting the story. Eventually, the bulk of all that world-building weighed me under so much that I backed off of the project.
What was I thinking? I was so afraid that the finished story wouldn't live up to the really cool stuff I had developed, and as a result, I just didn't start. I've got lots of great notes out there. Someday, maybe after I finish Bryony, I'll pick them up again.
And that brings me to today. The upcoming scene is one that I don't believe I'll be able to write well. And so I've been spending the last twenty minutes writing this blog post, and started thinking about researching magazine fiction markets instead of writing today. If I were a cat, I should get squirted with a spray bottle for that kind of thinking.
I'm going to write the scene. And there is a very good chance it won't come out well. I'll shake my head and move on. A year from now, or whenever it is that I revise this story, I'll come back and do it right.
But here's the thing--I'll have accomplished so much in that year. For the last year, I stopped until I felt able to tackle the scene, and did nothing on the story in the interval. I was trying to compose the story linearly.
The reader may read the story that way, but why do I have to write it that way? It'd be like building a car front to back, or painting a picture like an ink jet printer, top to bottom.
All right, enough of this small talk. Let's write.
14 October 2010
Index Cards and Ambiguity
Last year during my composition of Bryony, I moved to a system of using index cards to represent scenes. I went back to everything I did in 2008 and put one scene on each card. Then I created cards for everything I had been doing lately, and every scene I had conceived of for the future of the book.
The thing is, I've known from the beginning what some of the big "set piece" scenes are. I also know what some of the smaller moments should be. With the index cards, I've been able to first, put them in order, and second, figure out how to connect the dots. I've noticed that my writing tends to be the best when I can make the smaller moments do double duty as the connective tissue between big set pieces.
Let me define some terminology first. I think of a set piece as the big events that move the plot along. Bryony being set middling is a scene like this. Sure, there are some great character moments that come in along the way, but the purpose of the scene in the narrative is to accomplish that plot point.
The smaller moments are targeted character development. Usually, my index cards for these scenes involve listing the characters in the scene and how they're interacting. "Bryony meets Illiantine," for example. These two characters need to have met for later elements of the plot to work, so this small moment involves these two interacting for the first time.
On the card, I did not specify where they were, or what sort of interaction they would have. The setting arose naturally from where the characters happened to be when that scene was placed. If I moved the card to another point in the narrative, then the setting would be entirely different. As for how they interacted, that has to do with who the characters are, what they want at that moment, their mood at the time, that kind of thing.
That's how I'm trying to balance the need to keep the story along the pre-determined path, while still allowing room for creativity. It's how I can know where I'm going, yet still make discoveries along the way.
One of the things I enjoy most about writing is figuring out how something I had set up earlier in the story, without knowing exactly how or when I was going to pay it off, has surprising relevance to the present moment. Occasionally, a plot point is introduced earlier than I anticipated, because the interaction between characters is driving the story towards it without my help. If it happens too early, I have to figure out how to divert that flow without making it unnatural. If it doesn't happen when I want it to, I have to figure out if it makes sense to do the introduction there at all.
I say all of that to say this: I have just finished revising the outline for the part of the story I've been calling "Book 2," although at this point, I'd have to say it'd be more accurate to call it Part 2, or even Chunk 2. In order to write some of the upcoming scenes, I need to do the same for Chunk 3.
So... time to write some more index cards, and tape them together.
The thing is, I've known from the beginning what some of the big "set piece" scenes are. I also know what some of the smaller moments should be. With the index cards, I've been able to first, put them in order, and second, figure out how to connect the dots. I've noticed that my writing tends to be the best when I can make the smaller moments do double duty as the connective tissue between big set pieces.
Let me define some terminology first. I think of a set piece as the big events that move the plot along. Bryony being set middling is a scene like this. Sure, there are some great character moments that come in along the way, but the purpose of the scene in the narrative is to accomplish that plot point.
The smaller moments are targeted character development. Usually, my index cards for these scenes involve listing the characters in the scene and how they're interacting. "Bryony meets Illiantine," for example. These two characters need to have met for later elements of the plot to work, so this small moment involves these two interacting for the first time.
On the card, I did not specify where they were, or what sort of interaction they would have. The setting arose naturally from where the characters happened to be when that scene was placed. If I moved the card to another point in the narrative, then the setting would be entirely different. As for how they interacted, that has to do with who the characters are, what they want at that moment, their mood at the time, that kind of thing.
That's how I'm trying to balance the need to keep the story along the pre-determined path, while still allowing room for creativity. It's how I can know where I'm going, yet still make discoveries along the way.
One of the things I enjoy most about writing is figuring out how something I had set up earlier in the story, without knowing exactly how or when I was going to pay it off, has surprising relevance to the present moment. Occasionally, a plot point is introduced earlier than I anticipated, because the interaction between characters is driving the story towards it without my help. If it happens too early, I have to figure out how to divert that flow without making it unnatural. If it doesn't happen when I want it to, I have to figure out if it makes sense to do the introduction there at all.
I say all of that to say this: I have just finished revising the outline for the part of the story I've been calling "Book 2," although at this point, I'd have to say it'd be more accurate to call it Part 2, or even Chunk 2. In order to write some of the upcoming scenes, I need to do the same for Chunk 3.
So... time to write some more index cards, and tape them together.
12 October 2010
The 1,689 Habit
In the past, I have had a daily target of 1,689 words. That has been... let's just say, difficult to maintain if I want to live any life other than writing. But that's pretty much what I have to do if I want to win at NaNoWriMo. I need to find a happy medium.
So, for my statistics, I'm now looking at aggregate writing production. That means my actual goal for each day is not to do 1,689 words--it's to reach a cumulative level of 1,689 a day on average.
That's a much less scary proposition. I have a graph with a cumulative production line and my target line, and so long as I keep close to that target line, I'm doing good.
That being said, I haven't written anything for the last three days. And chances are, I won't be until Thursday (getting to that in a minute). But at the same time, I'm unwilling to count blog posts and outlines toward my word count. Only finished product, man.
My compromise is to set a target of 500 words for those days. Writing is a ravenous beast always hungry for more. I owe it something every day. So that's my goal: 500 words on non-writing days, and 1,689 on writing days.
Now, this Thursday is something special. I have enough time left here at the end of the year that I can afford to take a day to write. Today and tomorrow, I'm going to get back into the swing of things, Bryony-wise. Then Thursday, it'll be time to write. I kind of got mired down in plot last time, and it will be nice to have several hours to throw at the problem, then use that momentum to push forward.
In fact, I'm going to set myself a new target for Thursday: 3,000 words. 1,500 before lunch, 1,500 after. I think I can do it.
So, for my statistics, I'm now looking at aggregate writing production. That means my actual goal for each day is not to do 1,689 words--it's to reach a cumulative level of 1,689 a day on average.
That's a much less scary proposition. I have a graph with a cumulative production line and my target line, and so long as I keep close to that target line, I'm doing good.
That being said, I haven't written anything for the last three days. And chances are, I won't be until Thursday (getting to that in a minute). But at the same time, I'm unwilling to count blog posts and outlines toward my word count. Only finished product, man.
My compromise is to set a target of 500 words for those days. Writing is a ravenous beast always hungry for more. I owe it something every day. So that's my goal: 500 words on non-writing days, and 1,689 on writing days.
Now, this Thursday is something special. I have enough time left here at the end of the year that I can afford to take a day to write. Today and tomorrow, I'm going to get back into the swing of things, Bryony-wise. Then Thursday, it'll be time to write. I kind of got mired down in plot last time, and it will be nice to have several hours to throw at the problem, then use that momentum to push forward.
In fact, I'm going to set myself a new target for Thursday: 3,000 words. 1,500 before lunch, 1,500 after. I think I can do it.
04 October 2010
October... Again
So somehow, I've gotten into a yearly habit. That's tough to do, but I've managed it. I start writing in early October, I push all the way through the month of November, make it partway into December maybe... and then I fizzle.
I started this post intending to brainstorm how to extend that time, but you know what? I've got a good thing going. I've got a solid six weeks where tradition and habit tell me it's time to write. And that's awesome. The reason I fizzled out in December last year was because of the holidays, and that's not going to change.
See, I love writing in the fall. Something about the cooling weather, the rainy vistas, the darkness of the early morning, has gotten encoded into my DNA as Writing Time.
So what I need to do instead is to start new yearly habits starting in January, lasting another six or eight weeks. Then another, and another. I need to write in seasons, each with their own traditions and habits.
I am about to start the Fall 2010 writing season. And when it's over, I'll start planning the Winter 2011 season, and so on. I look forward to writing in the fall, and with a bit of effort and planning, I can capture a feeling for the other seasons. Not the same feeling--that's the point. A different, individualized feeling I can look forward to.
--
I'm going to continue keeping statistics about my writing, but not necessarily in the same form. A cumulative word count graph, NaNoWriMo style, will definitely be in there. I'd like to see a graph of my daily word count too, with a trend line and boundaries above and below to indicate standard deviation. Then there will have to be a target graph, with its own target line, and perhaps a few more esoteric ones, like a graph showing what percentage of my writing comes from each day of the week.
Why do all these graphs? They do kind of sound like a distraction from the business of writing, don't they? Early on, at least, I need to have things that show I'm making progress. The feeling that I'm not accomplishing anything is one of the things that kills my writing the fastest.
So here's my plan. This week, I'm going to work on a project for Writers on the Verge, where we take turns writing in the style of each member in trun. This Sunday's meeting features Abbey, and I have to do an extra special job given that she's my fiancée and all.
Once I'm finished with that, I'll start plotting out my graphs, and then worming my way back into writing for Bryony. I plan to hit the ground running on Monday, October 11th.
I started this post intending to brainstorm how to extend that time, but you know what? I've got a good thing going. I've got a solid six weeks where tradition and habit tell me it's time to write. And that's awesome. The reason I fizzled out in December last year was because of the holidays, and that's not going to change.
See, I love writing in the fall. Something about the cooling weather, the rainy vistas, the darkness of the early morning, has gotten encoded into my DNA as Writing Time.
So what I need to do instead is to start new yearly habits starting in January, lasting another six or eight weeks. Then another, and another. I need to write in seasons, each with their own traditions and habits.
I am about to start the Fall 2010 writing season. And when it's over, I'll start planning the Winter 2011 season, and so on. I look forward to writing in the fall, and with a bit of effort and planning, I can capture a feeling for the other seasons. Not the same feeling--that's the point. A different, individualized feeling I can look forward to.
--
I'm going to continue keeping statistics about my writing, but not necessarily in the same form. A cumulative word count graph, NaNoWriMo style, will definitely be in there. I'd like to see a graph of my daily word count too, with a trend line and boundaries above and below to indicate standard deviation. Then there will have to be a target graph, with its own target line, and perhaps a few more esoteric ones, like a graph showing what percentage of my writing comes from each day of the week.
Why do all these graphs? They do kind of sound like a distraction from the business of writing, don't they? Early on, at least, I need to have things that show I'm making progress. The feeling that I'm not accomplishing anything is one of the things that kills my writing the fastest.
So here's my plan. This week, I'm going to work on a project for Writers on the Verge, where we take turns writing in the style of each member in trun. This Sunday's meeting features Abbey, and I have to do an extra special job given that she's my fiancée and all.
Once I'm finished with that, I'll start plotting out my graphs, and then worming my way back into writing for Bryony. I plan to hit the ground running on Monday, October 11th.
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