So in my enthusiasm for answering questions, I appear to have forgotten that last week was supposed to be an Open Mic week. Here it is, late…
And apropos of questions, I was wondering if people would be interested in a post taking a real-life bit of a scene and developing it from dialog? I have a bit that was giving me trouble, and one way I get around that is to do a sketch draft and develop it more later. I can do it either in the same way I layered on in the original layering post https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/layering/ , or I can do a sort of stream-of-consciousness version, where I insert what I was thinking that made me go back and change the wording (sometimes multiple times). Whichever people would be interested in seeing.
Sounds good! Insights into a successful writer’s processes is always interesting at the very least.
I dug out an old story of mine written in 1989 that I had good memories of (it had a rejection slip still with it, so I’d thought it was publishable), thinking I’d post it in my blog.
Couldn’t find it anywhere in my computer files, so I’d written it on a computer that I either couldn’t back up, or the backup was incompatible with anything today. So I set out to retype it.
Ohhhh, does it need work. I typed it up, but added footnotes, and in around 5k words had 80 notes of what was wrong. Sometime I’ll post *that* to my blog, so people might get some insight into what kinds of things need revising. (And one of these days I’ll go ahead and revise the story, too.)
I once had a bright idea about fixing a story, so I pulled it out to put in that fix.
After several drastic overhauls, I can only report that it did, indeed, get the bright idea in it. It’s frustrating when it doesn’t.
Either version of that post sounds interesting!
I’m starting to make plans for a new webcomic, but was having trouble developing the characters beyond the two protagonists. My process for prose writing is usually to start with a general concept and write my way into the details, so I decided to write the opening scene of the comic in prose form to get my brain moving. It’s working out well, and now I’ll have a place to start from when I come to write the comic script.
I have been bitten by an idea, which is still in outline stage, and have gotten nothing done on anything else. *sigh*
Either version of that sounds as though it would be very helpful, thank you!
I would vote for the stream-of-consciousness version.
I received several comments that my main character wasn’t motivated enough. So I tried to think of what he wanted and what would motivate him to move. I finally realized the problem. He’s perfectly content where he is. He’s off the streets and has food, shelter and a job. He doesn’t want anything more. He doesn’t get involved at all until Character 2 drags him in.
Which means Character 2 needed to become a viewpoint character. Which means I needed to come up with motivation, backstory, characterization, etc., for Character 2, as well as figuring out what he does when he disappears for days on end.
My story-brain promptly closed up shop, hung a gone-fishing sign on the door, and left. I checked back periodically over the next several months, but it was still gone.
Sometime between the last Open Mic and this one, story-brain returned, and I am now starting to make progress on the second viewpoint.
I would like the stream of consciousness version, please. I’ve been doing some newspaper writing about a forgotten Southern writer. So his story is said and done, all I have to do is tell it. Trying to get back to story writing, and as NCT2 says, my story-brain seems to be awol.
Finished Chapter 10 of my WIP last night. It came in a a bit over 10k words – but all the chapters of the current WIP are coming in long. In past novels my chapters have run about half that length.
And two or three more chapters (probably) to go. Maybe two chapters and a chapter-length epilogue.
A while back, I attended a writing seminar where the presenter compared writing a book to throwing a pot. His wife is a potter. Before she can make anything, she has to put clay on the wheel. Once it’s there, she can change its shape, size, texture, etc. But she can’t do very much until there’s sufficient clay on the wheel.
The writing equivalent to putting clay on the wheel is … your first draft.
I thought this analogy might be helpful to perfectionists or those with over-enthusiastic internal editors. Just start by putting words on the page.