[video]
John Joseph Adams. I’d like to do one of these workshops one day. It may be just the thing I need…
The 4 Story Structures that Dominate Novels -
A not-profound (but kind of entertaining) “writing about writing” essay over at WritersDigest.com about what Orson Scott Card believes to be the four “meta-structures” of novels. (My words, not his.)
Posting this link here because I want to try to keep this little Tumblr alive, at least for a while longer. Life circumstances have made it difficult for me to keep my nose to my muse’s grindstone. (She also seems to have misplaced that grindstone…)
Thus: this instead of how many hours and words. (Since there haven’t been any hours and words in a while.)
How inspiration works.
Read the rest of the comic here: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things
Truth.
(via laughingsquid)
Too many irons in the fire.
Sat down to work on one story, and immediately remembered (saw?) my NaNoWriMo project from 2006. Opened that up. Started reading. Started detailing how it could be better. Got obsessed with that. Like 1.5 hours and 1,200 words (give or take) into that.
The idea was right. The approach was all wrong. Dove back in to what I wrote a few nights ago. Burned it all down. Thought about this; you need to be specific, you need to be physical.
And so I was.
About two hours. Only 811 words, but it counted for something.
Only a half-hour tonight. Give or take. Only about 300 words tonight. Give or take.
My momentum has dried up and blown away. But here I am. Chasing after it.
The past few weeks have me burnt out. And especially after last night. I’ll get back in the saddle. And it starts with 300 words and a half-hour session.
One hour on the outline tonight. I think that finishes it. I think. Parts of it still don’t sit right. But I think now it needs to be written. That’s the only way to figure out how all those other parts connect. (Not that I’m unhappy with how things turned out…) Anyway. That’s enough for one night.
why I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year -
Take your notes and throw them away. Shred your outlines. Murder your characters and burn down your settings. Do it now. Celebrate the destruction and watch something marvelous rise from the ashes. And then watch that marvelous beast contort into something hideously beautiful by the time Thanksgiving rolls around.
1.5 hours tonight. More outlining. Going through what I already have with a fine-toothed comb. Straightened out a few bits, but there are some tricky snarls toward the end. And that end. That end. That unwritten end. Where I wind up with what’s left (of what’s written down) determines that end. But in the meantime…
One hour tonight. More of the Tunguska re-outlining project (like last night). On a bit of a roll but night-time day-job work stuff calls…
One hour tonight of dedicated re-outlining on the Tunguska project. My notes had a bunch of loose ends that I surprised myself by tying up. It gives some new dimensions to the story and keeps with the spirit that I intended all along. This will be a fun one to re-write.
An hour tonight on the Tunguska story’s revisions and re-outlining. More work to do there. I got to the end of “what’s written”, so that’s good enough for one night. But I find myself wondering: What do these characters want? I know—but it’s not in the text. Time to meditate a little on that, and then finish the outline. And then re-outline again from that.