could we discuss writing a bit?
Mary K. Kuhner
threads. Even after killfiling the people who aren't doing anything
else, that's almost all I'm finding.
Can we talk about writing instead? It's getting to the point where
the group is no fun to read anymore.
(Practical implementation: those who tend to agree that the politics
is getting out of hand, *don't post to those threads* no matter the
provocation. I pledge that I won't.)
I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
and different from the first part.
Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
work?
Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
the tone?
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Chris Johnson
mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> The newsgroup is filling up with passionately argued political
> threads. Even after killfiling the people who aren't doing anything
> else, that's almost all I'm finding.
Hopefully I am doing something else- if not, I deserve to be
killfiled :D
> Can we talk about writing instead? It's getting to the point where
> the group is no fun to read anymore.
Absolutely! And I'm pleased to see it :)
> (Practical implementation: those who tend to agree that the politics
> is getting out of hand, *don't post to those threads* no matter the
> provocation. I pledge that I won't.)
I won't pledge, but I have to be honest and admit that I've no
interest in going to the mat on pedantic arguments. As a result of that,
I tend to pounce gleefully on details that I can say something
entertaining about, and then stop. The fun of this is in getting to
express my ideas and then watching the opposite camp go on for pages
that I won't bother to answer. However, this is mean-spirited. That's
why I enjoy it ;)
At the same time, it means that I can quit the game fairly easily.
> I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
> and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
> energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
> But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
> an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
> The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
> and different from the first part.
> Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> work?
I didn't do NaNoWriMo. Was this some sort of 'just write every day'
thing? I do that, at least.
> Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
> the tone?
What I would do is this: come up with an ending, have a pretty clear
idea of how it'd go, and then fling myself at the ending with giddy
abandon, without knowing quite how to get there. Maintain the technique,
just have a target, even if it's arbitrary. Sounds like you can't really
craft that stuff- it bursts out. Aim it at something in hopes you'll hit
an ending at some point.
Also, maybe you can edit it through cropping and trimming, rather
than rewriting. Charge past the ending and then figure out later where
the book actually stops :)
Chris Johnson
Brooks Moses
> mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> > Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> > reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> > work?
>
> I didn't do NaNoWriMo. Was this some sort of 'just write every day'
> thing? I do that, at least.
Sort of, but not quite -- it's a "write 50,000 words in November on a
novel you hadn't started writing on at all before then."
- Brooks
--
The "bmoses-nospam" address is valid; no unmunging needed.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Chris Johnson wrote:
> > mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> > > Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> > > reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> > > work?
> >
> > I didn't do NaNoWriMo. Was this some sort of 'just write every day'
> > thing? I do that, at least.
>
> Sort of, but not quite -- it's a "write 50,000 words in November on a
> novel you hadn't started writing on at all before then."
Aw, man, that's mean. I have half a novel I need to push right now.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Nicola Browne
write every day'
> > > thing? I do that, at least.
> >
> > Sort of, but not quite -- it's a "write 50,000 words in November on a
> > novel you hadn't started writing on at all before then."
>
> Aw, man, that's mean. I have half a novel I need to push right now.
I need a substantial boot up the back side as I have a novel I need to
finish and I just can't get on with it. I don't mind posting a weekly
word count if it will shame me into doing it, but I haven't time to
start anything new. Can that count?
Nicky
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Nicola Browne
news:blobqn$pdq$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu
> I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
> and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
> energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
> But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
> an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
> The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
> and different from the first part.
Can you chop it up and intersect it with parts in your normal
voice maybe by adding another point of view or a subplot?
( I don't think I could manage this suggestion but then I usually try
to write faster than I think so I think it has become my normal style :
))
Your ending could derive from the new story thread ?
It strikes me as quite a fun thing to do - import a whole new story in
order to finish the original one. Is it too bonkers an idea?
Helen
<mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu> writes
>The newsgroup is filling up with passionately argued political
>threads. Even after killfiling the people who aren't doing anything
>else, that's almost all I'm finding.
>
>Can we talk about writing instead? It's getting to the point where
>the group is no fun to read anymore.
>
political threads. :-)
>(Practical implementation: those who tend to agree that the politics
>is getting out of hand, *don't post to those threads* no matter the
>provocation. I pledge that I won't.)
>
See above, I haven't even found them, so I'm certainly not going to add
to them.
>I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
>and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
>energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
>But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
>an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
>The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
>and different from the first part.
>
>Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
>reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
>work?
>
>Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
>the tone?
>
>Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Congratulations on getting to 25,000 words. I had an urge to do
NaNoWriMo last year, but thankfully saw sense in time as I'd have failed
by about day 3. The IWriSloMo list, set up for the tortoises who wanted
to do something like it, but knew they didn't stand a chance with
NaNoWriMo, is still going strong, by the way.
I haven't had an unfinished NaNoWri thing to deal with, but my habit of
starting lots of stories, then abandoning them, only to pick them up
later, often gives me a similar problem. What I usually do is read it
straight through, perhaps tweaking the odd word or phrase here or there,
but not really doing a revision pass (I think you want to avoid that
until the whole draft is complete), then, when the story is clear in my
head again, working out how exactly it will end and then sitting down
and writing it. You've got to where you are by sheer seat of the pants
flying. I think what you need now is some intellectual input. I would
suggest more or less what Chris has suggested elsethread, don't write on
yet, but outline the story ending in some kind of terse note form until
you're happy with it. Then, with the direction clear in front of you,
put your foot down, let her rip and rush through to the end, hopefully
picking up the tone you developed last year when writing at breakneck
speed.
If you need more detailed suggestions, then you might need to post
enough background to give us an idea *why* you're stuck. Is it the
transition from Middle to End perhaps? Transitions can be sticky. Is it
that you've written your characters into a corner with no way out that
you can see? Is it that the solution you favour necessitates a character
doing something that they just wouldn't do?
Helen
--
Helen, Gwynedd, Wales *** http://www.baradel.demon.co.uk
Helen
Nicola Browne <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> writes
weekly update here[1] or join us on the IWriSloMo list where we do this
sort of thing all the time. I think it's Boudewijn you need to contact
to join. We're completely the opposite of NaNoWriMo and will delight in
someone posting that they've written 48 new words, especially if they
were stuck previously. I suggested as our motto the Welsh proverb, "Gan
bwyll y mae mynd ymhell/Going slowly, going far".
Helen
[1] When I was revising the fantasy whodunit, I just put (Currently
revising Chapter X) at the end of any messages I posted. It was nice to
see the number click over every week or so from X to X+1. Well I found
it satisfying, anyway.
Elizabeth Shack
> I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
> and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
> energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
> But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
> an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
> The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
> and different from the first part.
Is it something that could be fixed later? Can you write to an end in
whatever tone and then revise it?
Not doing NaNoWriMo, even though I have time this year. I need to get
*out* of that straight-to-the-end no-revising style of first draft.
--
Testing a new newsreader!
Elizabeth Shack eashack at earthlink dot ent
http://home.earthlink.net/~eashack
Eric Jarvis
> Chris Johnson wrote:
> > mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> > > Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> > > reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> > > work?
> >
> > I didn't do NaNoWriMo. Was this some sort of 'just write every day'
> > thing? I do that, at least.
>
> Sort of, but not quite -- it's a "write 50,000 words in November on a
> novel you hadn't started writing on at all before then."
>
That might be interesting. Am I allowed to think about it this month, or
is it supposed to be from absolute zero?
--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin
Catja Pafort
> I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
> and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
> energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
> But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
> an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
> The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
> and different from the first part.
>
Dust it off this November. Who cares about the official rules - if you
felt that the method was what allowed you to write like that, repeat the
method on the second part.
Alternatively, pull it apart and try to find out why you're stuck. And
if you're brave, try to find out why you *weren't* stuck before.
> Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> work?
I'd briefly contemplated NaNoWriMo, but the only way I could do it would
be to cheat and have detailed notes and a plan of where to go before;
which would create a more mechanical novel than I usually write, and
that wasn't worth it. My normal speed - a little less at the moment as
I'm too busy - is somewhere around 10-25K a month, depending on a) my
time and b) how well the story flows. I cannot think fast enough to
double it, nor do I have the time.
> Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
> the tone?
Does immersing yourself in it help? If you left it alone for a long
time, it might be difficult to get the mode back.
Catja
Alma Hromic Deckert
<nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>attribution muddled I didn't do NaNoWriMo. Was this some sort of 'just
>write every day'
>> > > thing? I do that, at least.
>> >
>> > Sort of, but not quite -- it's a "write 50,000 words in November on a
>> > novel you hadn't started writing on at all before then."
>>
>> Aw, man, that's mean. I have half a novel I need to push right now.
>
>I need a substantial boot up the back side as I have a novel I need to
>finish and I just can't get on with it. I don't mind posting a weekly
>word count if it will shame me into doing it, but I haven't time to
>start anything new. Can that count?
>
i need a boot up MY backside because i am writing something new and i
KNOW i am telescoping whole chapters into mere pages but i am probably
afraid that if i let go and let rip i'm going to wind up with another
200 000 word monster on my hands and aaaaargh...
<sigh>
A.
Shelly
>The newsgroup is filling up with passionately argued political
>threads. Even after killfiling the people who aren't doing anything
>else, that's almost all I'm finding.
>
>Can we talk about writing instead? It's getting to the point where
>the group is no fun to read anymore.
As a newcomer here, I've been wondering if that was the norm. I have noticed
that some discussions that started out more or less writing oriented became
political, so I stopped reading those threads.
However, I imagine that if the political discussions ever touched on the
political issues I deal with in some of my WIPs, I'd probably be more
interested in them. The WIP now in my collaborator's hands for some major
revision, for ex, is heavily about politics--on Mars.
So I can see how political discussions could have relevancy for writing but it
seems there's a point reached, inevitably, when the value of the discussion
relevant to writing diminishes greatly and even vanishes.
>(Practical implementation: those who tend to agree that the politics
>is getting out of hand, *don't post to those threads* no matter the
>provocation. I pledge that I won't.)
I've been trying to avoid them from the start (I have a rule to avoid
discussing politics and religion online and in real life as much as possible),
but if I need an opinion regarding a political issue for my WIP, I hope a quick
question would be okay. :)
>I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
>and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
>energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
>But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
>an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
>The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
>and different from the first part.
>
>Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
>reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
>work?
>
>Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
>the tone?
>
I've never tried that mostly cuz I can't imagine trying to work that fast, not
and keep going to the day job, but perhaps you could impose a deadline on
yourself, as if continuing the time frame in which you wrote what you already
have. Then you just need to revise. It's a thought, tho perhaps not a
particularly useful one. :)
Shelly
David Friedman
My current problem is how to get seriously into the sequel to my WIS. I
have a world. I have characters. I have a reasonably clear idea of what
should get accomplished during the book. I even have a few written
fragments that I like, and an outline of one chunk of it. But it doesn't
seem to want to go anywhere from there.
My method for the WIS was essentially to think through the the plot for
a year or so, then tell the whole story to my daughter while keeping an
outline, then write the whole first draft in two months or so. At this
point I'm trying to repeat the first step, but it doesn't seem to catch
fire.
Two possible explanations:
1. The part I outlined, which probably has to be near the beginning, is
the part that I told to my daughter after reaching the end of the WIS
and mistakenly thinking that I could keep going. It makes a reasonable
chunk of a story, but perhaps not the right chunk to start this novel on.
2. I feel more enthusiastic about the plot for the third book in the
series, but would prefer to write them in order. At some point, if the
second book doesn't jell, I'll just go on to the third--but I haven't
reached that point yet.
Suggestions? Start at the end and write back?
--
Remove NOSPAM to email
Also remove .invalid
www.daviddfriedman.com
Eric Jarvis
I'd attempt first to write sideways. By that I mean that if the stuff I
need to happen won't become a story then the next thing is to use it as
independent background to an entirely different story.
Can you see any possibility of a story that would work as a counterpoint
to what you have mapped out?
Wildepad
K. Kuhner) wrote:
>The newsgroup is filling up with passionately argued political
>threads. Even after killfiling the people who aren't doing anything
>else, that's almost all I'm finding.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've only seen one thread that has gone
political. Of course, there are some posters who I don't read (I don't
killfile them, but if I see their name I just skip over the post), so
I don't see a lot of those who might have gone down that road.
>Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
>reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
>work?
I can't give you a direct answer because I have grave moral objections
to the whole NaNo-whosit thing.
One of the reasons I don't do it is because it will create the type of
problems you mention.
Imo (no, that isn't strong enough -- I'll write it out: "In My
Opinion"), you're asking how to wash garbage. The fact that it was
purposely-produced garbage doesn't alter that.
>Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
>the tone?
I have run across this problem. Usually it means setting it aside but
thinking about it from time to time to keep it fresh. When (if) I'm
ever in the same mood, have the same background noise, and have the
same imaginary character sitting next to me, dictating, then I can
come close enough to rewrite the last few paragraphs and slide into
the new section with a minimum of seams.
Helen
Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid> writes
where it goes, or that you have a skeleton plot and it's not coming
alive and reaching the stage were you can actually write? I guess that
the second is more likely if you know what happens in part 3.
What drives your stories? For me it's the characters and situation, so
once the characters come to life, a lot of it arises fairly naturally.
I also proceed by the "Aha!" method where a little bubble of inspiration
surfaces from the deep unconscious and I just *know* what has to happen
in the near story future. Then, by working out how to get *there* from
*here*, I can usually proceed. However, I really cannot suggest how you
make that happen. My brain has either just developed that way, or I've
trained it over many years to work on stuff for me without my knowledge.
Your WIP may be a book that needs to be plotted and written backwards.
I work in both directions, forward from where the story is now by
thinking, "If such and such has just happened, what would X do next?"
and also backwards from the "Aha!" moment, by thinking for example, "If
X confronts Y at location A, what was she doing there? What would be a
plausible reason for her being so far from home in the middle of the
night? What if...?" And so on until I've finally wrestled a complete
story into shape.
Perhaps other people can offer different methods for you to try?
Helen
Helen
<capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> writes
>On 5 Oct 2003 05:56:39 GMT, mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary
>K. Kuhner) wrote:
>
>>Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
>>reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
>>work?
>
>I can't give you a direct answer because I have grave moral objections
>to the whole NaNo-whosit thing.
>
>One of the reasons I don't do it is because it will create the type of
>problems you mention.
>
>Imo (no, that isn't strong enough -- I'll write it out: "In My
>Opinion"), you're asking how to wash garbage. The fact that it was
>purposely-produced garbage doesn't alter that.
>
writer Mary is. There could well be a decent story in what Mary has
produced, the problem is teasing it out. It's origins don't preclude
eventual quality. Part of the short I sold to Andromeda Spaceways
Inflight Magazine was originally written more or less as a joke for the
UK Babylon 5 group I used to read. Someone challenged people to write a
story in which all the season titles were hidden. Later I polished it
up, removing most (but I think not all) of the titles in the process,
and after adding a frame story, managed to sell it. It's not the
process that matters but the finished product. However, if Mary's the
kind of writer that once something's written it's fixed, then it will be
more of a problem.
Carl Dershem
news:blobqn$pdq$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu:
> The newsgroup is filling up with passionately argued political
> threads. Even after killfiling the people who aren't doing anything
> else, that's almost all I'm finding.
>
> Can we talk about writing instead? It's getting to the point where
> the group is no fun to read anymore.
Sounds familiar, and fair. I try to stay away from the polit threads,
which really makes reading UseNet much faster.
> (Practical implementation: those who tend to agree that the politics
> is getting out of hand, *don't post to those threads* no matter the
> provocation. I pledge that I won't.)
>
> I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
> and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
> energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
> But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
> an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
> The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
> and different from the first part.
>
> Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> work?
>
> Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
> the tone?
Hrm. I've been so busy on my current project (WAY behnd deadline, but no
advance so I don't feel all that guilty) that I haven't tried anything new
like that. But have you tried to reproduce the ambience of those days when
you write? Trying to trick yourself into 'writing faster than you think'
is probably possible. Maybe caffeine in large doses would help?
cd
Eric Jarvis
The best thing I've written so far was as a result of one of those "let's
pick a first line and all start a short story from it" exercises.
Sometimes simply taking away any expectation of results gives a bit of
freedom for some subconscious stuff to spontaneously appear. For those of
use whose subconscious is the better writer it can be a useful way of
starting something.
Of course it has landed me with a short story that is the very devil to
polish up. :)
--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"
Brooks Moses
> >mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> >Can we talk about writing instead? It's getting to the point where
> >the group is no fun to read anymore.
>
> As a newcomer here, I've been wondering if that was the norm. I have noticed
> that some discussions that started out more or less writing oriented became
> political, so I stopped reading those threads.
It may be relevant to point out that there are currently 7262 messages
in this newsgroup on my news servers' spool (which tends to be about
three weeks' worth); usually that number is around 3000 or so. Even
aside from nonquantitative impressions of content, it can be said that
the newsgroup isn't usually "like this".
> So I can see how political discussions could have relevancy for writing but it
> seems there's a point reached, inevitably, when the value of the discussion
> relevant to writing diminishes greatly and even vanishes.
So it is with lots of stuff.... :)
Brooks Moses
> Brooks Moses wrote:
> > Chris Johnson wrote:
> > > mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> > > > Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> > > > reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> > > > work?
> > >
> > > I didn't do NaNoWriMo. Was this some sort of 'just write every day'
> > > thing? I do that, at least.
> >
> > Sort of, but not quite -- it's a "write 50,000 words in November on a
> > novel you hadn't started writing on at all before then."
>
> That might be interesting. Am I allowed to think about it this month, or
> is it supposed to be from absolute zero?
You're allowed to put any thought, written outlining, and so forth into
it that you want; the limit applies only to text that will end up in the
actual story.
I think the website is www.nanowrimo.org; they have plenty of FAQs and
signup stuff there.
Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)
> I need a substantial boot up the back side as I have a novel I need to
> finish and I just can't get on with it. I don't mind posting a weekly
> word count if it will shame me into doing it, but I haven't time to
> start anything new. Can that count?
I post my word count most days I have one to my livejournal, just for
the public shaming aspect of not getting it done when I'm not getting it
done.
(Didn't post yesterday's. 98.)
--
Heather Anne Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
They are one person, they are two alone
They are three together, they are for each other.
- "Helplessly Hoping", Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Suzanne A Blom
Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote in message
news:dmd0ov05hbbu0k4c7...@4ax.com...
Patricia C. Wrede
"Wildepad" <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote in message
news:0mf0ovgbvadigqp2q...@4ax.com...
> I can't give you a direct answer because I have grave moral objections
> to the whole NaNo-whosit thing.
Really? Why?
> One of the reasons I don't do it is because it will create the type of
> problems you mention.
Perhaps it will for you, though if you have never tried working this way,
you can't actually be certain. But even if it does, that's a practical
issue, not a moral one...and it says nothing about whether there are
benefits to be gained by that sort of exercise. Which I think there are,
for many people. But it's like everything in writing -- works for some, not
for others.
> Imo (no, that isn't strong enough -- I'll write it out: "In My
> Opinion"), you're asking how to wash garbage. The fact that it was
> purposely-produced garbage doesn't alter that.
Um. This appears to me to have an underlying assumption along the lines of
"anything that gets written that fast is garbage." But "writing too fast"
is something that depends very, very much on the writer and the project. I
know one writer for whom "too fast" is a novel in a year; give her a year
and a half, and she's fine, but ask her to do it in twelve months, and it
just isn't quality stuff. I know another for whom "too fast" is a novel in
eleven days. The one she wrote that fast just isn't up to her usual work,
but the one she wrote in two weeks is just *fine*. And there is a third
writer who habitually writes novels in six weeks to two months; that write
is exceptionally proud of one that was labored over for an entire year...and
which is, IMO, nowhere near the quality of the stuff that gets produced in a
sixth of the time.
If you don't think the NaNoWriMo stuff is garbage because it's been produced
"too fast," why *do* you think it's garbage?
Patricia C. Wrede
Alma Hromic Deckert
<sulk> you arent't HELPING.
A.
R. L.
<capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote:
>On 5 Oct 2003 05:56:39 GMT, mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary
>K. Kuhner) wrote:
>
>>The newsgroup is filling up with passionately argued political
>>threads. Even after killfiling the people who aren't doing anything
>>else, that's almost all I'm finding.
I do agree that too many threads have gone into heavy dull off-topics,
mostly political or economic.
>Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've only seen one thread that has gone
>political. Of course, there are some posters who I don't read (I don't
>killfile them, but if I see their name I just skip over the post), so
>I don't see a lot of those who might have gone down that road.
Me too. If political is all that Mr. X does, then whenever I see his
name, I know I can skip the whole subthread. Works very well on tree
view. Kind of like looking down from a balcony at booths at a
convention. I see which people are gathered round which booth, then
swoop down to join the most promising groupings.
But on view by Date, all those posts do clog things up. And it makes
some trees awfully long to page through.
/snip/
>I have run across this problem. Usually it means setting it aside but
>thinking about it from time to time to keep it fresh. When (if) I'm
>ever in the same mood, have the same background noise, and have the
>same imaginary character sitting next to me, dictating, then I can
>come close enough to rewrite the last few paragraphs and slide into
>the new section with a minimum of seams.
That's usually worked ok for me in short stories. I have enough stories
going at once, that whatever mood I'm in, I can pull out a story that
needs that mood.
I have a few half-finished longer things it isn't working for. I think I
might need an outline for the unfinished parts. But I'm collecting more
tools before tacklling those.
R.L.
RL at houseboatonthestyx
Boudewijn Rempt
>
> Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
> the tone?
>
I couldn't, not unless I succeeded recreating the circumstances that caused
the tone. Perhaps you could pick it up next NaNoWriMo?
--
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.valdyas.org
Erol K. Bayburt
>I need a substantial boot up the back side as I have a novel I need to
>finish and I just can't get on with it. I don't mind posting a weekly
>word count if it will shame me into doing it, but I haven't time to
>start anything new. Can that count?
I need more of a steady push or pull rather than a boot up the back side. My
style seems to be "grinding microbursts" that work out to ~150-200 words per
day. The sequel seems to be coming a bit faster than the WIS, but not by as
much as I'd like - and what I produce seems more rough-draftish this time
around.
--
Erol K. Bayburt
Ero...@aol.com
steve miller
<ang...@vaxer.net> wrote:
><sulk> you arent't HELPING.
>
>A.
I've been limiting my time on Usenet...
that might help.
Steve
Low Port on sale at amazon.com
Balance of Trade out now from embiid.com
Prism Award- Scout's Progress -from Ace
steve miller
<ssss-see-s...@ssssspam.comsssssss> wrote:
>I have a few half-finished longer things it isn't working for. I think I
>might need an outline for the unfinished parts. But I'm collecting more
>tools before tacklling those.
I have one long bit -- a solo novel -- that's taking me forever to
write because it's fantasy and most of the joint Lee & Miller stuff we
do is SF or SF-toned fantasy. Somehow I live inside novels more than
in short stories, if that makes any sense.
Mary Gentle
(Alma Hromic Deckert) wrote:
<puzzled>
So... this would be some kind of a problem?
Mary
Charlie Stross
as <mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu> declared:
> I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
> and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
> energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
> But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
> an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
> The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
> and different from the first part.
>
> Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> work?
>
> Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
> the tone?
I didn't do NaNoWriMo last year -- too busy hitting a deadline
the hard way -- and I'm not doing it this year because I, er,
wrote a 91,000 word novel in under a month by accident.
However, some thoughts do occur to me.
Weird bouncy energy is *good*. This is one of the advantages
of writing fast -- you build up momentum. Stopping at 25,000
words sounds like something that happened to me once: I was
writing really fast but overran my vision of where the novel
was going, effectively blocking myself from working any
further on it.
Now, with no deadline, you've got time to think about what
that novel beginning is trying to say, what the theme of the
novel is, and so on. It's possible that what you've got is
half a novel but need another plot thread to weave into it;
the ending is what you get when theme #2 comes together with
theme #1. (Then again, I may be completely misreading what
you're saying.) I *do* know that endings take longer to drag
together than beginnings; when I write fast I tend to have to
go back afterwards, hack off the last 10% of the book, and
re-write (usually extending the original total book's length
by about 25% -- they grow on me).
Can you tell us more about your promising stub?
-- Charlie
Julian Flood
"Mary K. Kuhner"
>
> Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
> the tone?
A tentative suggestion: wait. Driving the car to a service on Friday I
suddenly thought of liquified protag being thawed in his orignal body --the
body they took a few cells from and regrew the body line he's been living in
up to now. He's got one day to live in this state of innocence, then he's
rebuilt and he'll get back all the memories stored up to meltdown., so he'll
need everything explained (not entirely an advantage as I'll have to work it
out) and the reader can at last, 32k words in, find out what's happened in
the deep past.
Shivers down the spine moment, literally. It's got the nastiness of the
original in spades with an unsuspecting protag being chopped down to sludge
by the resurrection machines. It gives flashback so I can find what that
bloody robot was talking about 5 kw back,
Hand it to the fabulator. Go and get rat-faced. Works for me.*
JF
*Up to a point. It means I'm _thinking_ about it anyway.
Suzanne A Blom
reach that number.--Oh, you are allowed to write in the middle & even the
beginning if you wish.
Better?
Alma Hromic Deckert
<sue...@execpc.com> wrote:
>
>Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote in message
>news:v6r0ovo8hq3apk077...@4ax.com...
>> On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 13:38:43 -0500, "Suzanne A Blom"
>> <sue...@execpc.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote in message
>> >news:dmd0ov05hbbu0k4c7...@4ax.com...
>> >> On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 08:51:16 +0000 (UTC), "Nicola Browne"
>> >> <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> >> i need a boot up MY backside because i am writing something new and i
>> >> KNOW i am telescoping whole chapters into mere pages but i am probably
>> >> afraid that if i let go and let rip i'm going to wind up with another
>> >> 200 000 word monster on my hands and aaaaargh...
>> >>
>> >"Two books for the work of one?" she says chirpily.
>> >
>> <sulk> you arent't HELPING.
>>
>Okay, then: Write the damn 200,000 words! Start writing & don't quit til you
>reach that number.--Oh, you are allowed to write in the middle & even the
>beginning if you wish.
>Better?
>
<small voice>
yes.
thanks.
now i really must get out of here and start DOING that.
A.
Chris Johnson
"Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> I know one writer for whom "too fast" is a novel in a year; give her a year
> and a half, and she's fine, but ask her to do it in twelve months, and it
> just isn't quality stuff. I know another for whom "too fast" is a novel in
> eleven days. The one she wrote that fast just isn't up to her usual work,
> but the one she wrote in two weeks is just *fine*.
If you'll just pardon me for a brief moment while I politely say DIE!
DIE! DIE! DIEEEE!
Thank you, I feel much better now :)
Chris Johnson
Wildepad
The origin doesn't matter. What matters is that it be done well.
Writing for the purposes of speed/volume alone, by definition
precludes the writer from fully applying their normal skills. As Mary
K. Kuhner pointed out, this isn't her normal way of writing. By
saying: "Was it different from editing an ordinary work?", she implies
that this is, in fact, significantly different.
So she has this bulk of material which she did not write with her
usual skill and craftsmanship, in a tone she is having difficulty
recapturing, and which is so intimidating that she is wondering
how/where to start. That, to me, indicates that it had little value.
It might, in fact, have to be reduced to its most basic elements and
refashioned in order to produce something worthwhile. That, to me, is
called recycling, and is often done with garbage.
This is emphasized by the fact that she is an accomplished and
talented writer. (Don't ask me where/how/why I got this notion, for I
don't remember ever reading anything by her, but that's the impression
I have.) I don't recall her ever presenting a problem to the group
that many of us newbie/wannabes have -- when she's in a dither, it's a
deeply complicated affair. So if she's looking at this 25K words and
doesn't have a clue as to where to start, there probably, by
implication, isn't very much good in it in its present form and it
will have to be ripped down to its basic elements and recast, just
like what is done to old pop cans.
Wildepad
<pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>"Wildepad" <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote in message
>news:0mf0ovgbvadigqp2q...@4ax.com...
>
>> I can't give you a direct answer because I have grave moral objections
>> to the whole NaNo-whosit thing.
>
>Really? Why?
Because it encourages bad habits.
Old example: if you go to a batting cage and concentrate on swinging
as hard as you can, you will build up your muscles and get all sorts
of other benefits, but you'll be worse overall as a batter than when
you began. One reason for this is that you, at least subconsciously,
learn early on that if you connect with the ball, there's a shock --
this is called by psychologists negative feedback and is inescapable
-- and it will cause you to back off a little, not swing as hard.
Since swinging hard is your stated goal, avoiding the ball becomes
important to your development.
It is obvious that after several months of this, you'll have great
arms, but you'll also be worthless during a game.
By parallel, if you're concentrating on writing a certain number of
words per day, you'll set aside certain skills that might slow down
your writing in order to acheive that amount.
>> One of the reasons I don't do it is because it will create the type of
>> problems you mention.
>
>Perhaps it will for you, though if you have never tried working this way,
>you can't actually be certain. But even if it does, that's a practical
>issue, not a moral one...and it says nothing about whether there are
>benefits to be gained by that sort of exercise. Which I think there are,
>for many people. But it's like everything in writing -- works for some, not
>for others.
There is a truism that if you do something daily for three weeks it
will become a habit. Writing for speed, without paying attention to
any of the other qualities you want your writing to have, is a bad
habit. Encouraging a bad habit is an immoral thing to do.
As an exercise, something to try once in a while, fine. But to do it
steadily for a month, when it can have significant impact on the
quality of a person's writing, or the quality of the material they
have to work with for rewriting, is inherently playing with fire,
liable to burn away the spark which personifies the writer's work.
>> Imo (no, that isn't strong enough -- I'll write it out: "In My
>> Opinion"), you're asking how to wash garbage. The fact that it was
>> purposely-produced garbage doesn't alter that.
>
>Um. This appears to me to have an underlying assumption along the lines of
>"anything that gets written that fast is garbage."
Not at all. I know people who write a novel as fast as they can type
and then go into rewrite mode.
But when they are writing fast, they're also concentrating on what
they need in that first draft and are not writing merely for the sake
of speed.
>If you don't think the NaNoWriMo stuff is garbage because it's been produced
>"too fast," why *do* you think it's garbage?
I think that every writer should always be experimenting a little here
and there with different techniques, styles, and methods. But NNWM
takes it too far.
If you try a 'write it fast and fix it later' method for a short story
or even a novella, something that takes a week or two to get down,
fine. It's an investment in your writing skills, and even if it
doesn't pay off in obvious terms, well, not all investments do.
The reason I believe the vast majority of NaNoWriMo stuff is garbage
is because of the volume of it. Using this technique for a month
leaves you with this horrendously big chunk that doesn't fit your
normal stlye, doesn't have your normal involvement, and which doesn't
lend itself to your normal rewriting/editing/revising methods.
So you've spent a month producing something that you can't use the way
it is, and you don't know exactly what to do with it. That fits my
rather loose definition of garbage. Yes, in many cases it can be
reworked into some form that is usable, but at what costs? And I
suspect that the vast majority of the manuscripts are simply set aside
because of the daunting task of reworking them, and they are never
touched again, which is another definition of garbage.
To try something different is good. To try it for so long that it can
become a habit and does not produce something useful is, to my
definitions, bad.
YMMV -- and usually does (-;
Zeborah
> I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
> and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
> energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
> But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
> an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
> The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
> and different from the first part.
Can you come up with an ending and *then* continue it in that tone?
> Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> work?
Not yet, though I hope to -- I suspect it'll end up a perfect length for
YA. I don't think it'll be much different from an ordinary work,
either; I just have to suspend my disbelief while
reading/writing/editing it. (I know where the kangaroo and the curses
came from, it was a weird dream. I still don't know where the Picklejar
of Convenient Omniscience came from, but it was fun.)
> Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
> the tone?
Submersion, I suppose...
Unhelpfully brought to you by...
Zeborah
Elizabeth Shack
> Nicola Browne <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> I need a substantial boot up the back side as I have a novel I need to
>> finish and I just can't get on with it. I don't mind posting a weekly
>> word count if it will shame me into doing it, but I haven't time to
>> start anything new. Can that count?
>
> I post my word count most days I have one to my livejournal, just for
> the public shaming aspect of not getting it done when I'm not getting it
> done.
>
> (Didn't post yesterday's. 98.)
I send weekly updates to the IWriSloMo mailing list, and sometimes remember
to update the fiction page on my website.
My "updates" nearly always say "I didn't write enough again this week!" so
I can't really say that they help. Or maybe I'd not write at all
otherwise.
--
Testing a new newsreader!
Elizabeth Shack eashack at earthlink dot ent
http://home.earthlink.net/~eashack
Elizabeth Shack
I'd rather know what drug she's on.
<cough> Maybe she doesn't read usenet...
Mary K. Kuhner
Wildepad <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote:
>Imo (no, that isn't strong enough -- I'll write it out: "In My
>Opinion"), you're asking how to wash garbage. The fact that it was
>purposely-produced garbage doesn't alter that.
I'm not objective, of course, but if my reaction on re-reading
it after a year is of any value, it's not garbage. Unpolished,
and reading eerily like it was written by someone else, but the
good parts are on the level of other things I've written.
Compared to my usual, I think there's less grace of description,
and there are a lot of small continuity errors, but the
action scenes have unusual energy and flow and there are
some vivid thumbnail character sketches.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
R. L.
>I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
>and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
>energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
You might try looking at some objective characteristics of the material
that give that impression. That could help in matching in cold blood,
if necessary.
Sentence length? Number of sentence fragments? Style choices?
Collouquialisms?
>But I'm not sure I can continue it in that tone *and* come up with
>an ending (the problem that caused me to stop last November).
>The bit I tried adding this week sounds like my regular writing
>and different from the first part.
/snip/
>Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
>the tone?
First I might check with some First Readers and see how much difference
they noticed between the nanowrimo parts and the parts you added since.
An unusual emotional state or pre-occuptation, such as nanowrimo
pressure, could affect my own perception of the tone.
R.L.
not that I've done nanowrimo
Mary K. Kuhner
Helen <he...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
>If you need more detailed suggestions, then you might need to post
>enough background to give us an idea *why* you're stuck. Is it the
>transition from Middle to End perhaps? Transitions can be sticky. Is it
>that you've written your characters into a corner with no way out that
>you can see? Is it that the solution you favour necessitates a character
>doing something that they just wouldn't do?
Jennifer's mistress Iris, the magical Warden of the district,
has disappeared. The police have been taken over and are hunting for
Jennifer and her vampire ally. The first 25,000 words establish
this, have a daring escape from the police and another from a magical
foe, and also hint strongly that Jennifer has some kind of murky
secret in her past.
Last year's draft ends with one of the vampire's playtoys going to
Jennifer and demanding protection--Jennifer's not the Warden but
she's the closest they've got.
I think, yes, this is a Middle to End transition (and never mind the
wordcount--if I worry about that too I'll get hopelessly tangled).
I wrote about 6,000 words where Jennifer faces down the vampire.
She has a flashback to her past that makes her realize Iris
kidnapped and mindwiped her. It lacks...conviction. I think when
I was writing very fast I was insulated from my usual choice
paralysis--there wasn't time for it. Now I have many plausible
continuations--Jennifer rescues Iris and confronts her,
Jennifer seeks an alliance with her current enemy, rescue becomes
permanently impossible and Jennifer must become Warden. But
I don't know what I like, and just bouncing forward may not end
at any of them.
I guess I prefer to have Jennifer confront Iris, so that there's
some resolution--why did Iris mistreat her so? Is it morally
right for Jennifer to fight Iris for the Wardenship, and if it
is, how on earth can she win?
(Not looking for answers so much as general "how to pin this
thing down to one plot" advice. If I have to know the ending
now in order to reach it--and I'm beginning to think I do--
I need to overcome my usual ending issues.)
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Mary K. Kuhner
Nicola Browne <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Can you chop it up and intersect it with parts in your normal
>voice maybe by adding another point of view or a subplot?
>Your ending could derive from the new story thread ?
>It strikes me as quite a fun thing to do - import a whole new story in
>order to finish the original one. Is it too bonkers an idea?
It's a cool idea, but I don't see an easy way to do it.
The heroine is the apprentice of the magical ruler of her
neighborhood. Her mistress vanishes, and she tries to find
out who's kidnapped her. A lot of the neighborhood's
inhabitants push her to become ruler herself, instead; she
isn't ready for that but is maybe becoming so.
That's a story pattern than needs to end with her either
rescuing her mistress or becoming ruler herself, or possibly
finding a new ruler. Or possibly a combination of two or
three of those.
Having stuck to her POV for 25,000 words I think I need to
keep it. I could imagine adding a new subplot to a finished
but too-short subplot--her vampire ally could make a POV
character--but I can't resolve in his POV the issues I've
raised in hers.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
R. L.
Kuhner) wrote:
/snip/
>I guess I prefer to have Jennifer confront Iris, so that there's
>some resolution--why did Iris mistreat her so? Is it morally
>right for Jennifer to fight Iris for the Wardenship, and if it
>is, how on earth can she win?
How about inserting a sub-plot from Iris's POV? While she's imprisoned,
she would have plenty of time to think, so a less bouncy tone for her
would be appropriate. This could give her side of the relationship, why
she did whatever she did.
If both women are heading toward the confrontation, from different
starting places, then the Iris subplot could fit with the resolution of
J's issues.
R.L.
Elizabeth Shack
> There is a truism that if you do something daily for three weeks it
> will become a habit. Writing for speed, without paying attention to
> any of the other qualities you want your writing to have, is a bad
> habit. Encouraging a bad habit is an immoral thing to do.
>
> As an exercise, something to try once in a while, fine. But to do it
> steadily for a month, when it can have significant impact on the
> quality of a person's writing, or the quality of the material they
> have to work with for rewriting, is inherently playing with fire,
> liable to burn away the spark which personifies the writer's work.
I also think there's value in trying new ways to do things. If it doesn't
work, you've only lost the time.
Though you seem to think that a month is a lot of time to lose. I don't.
If I try new things - whether it's a writing goal, getting up insanely
early twice a week to ice skate, or sticking to my bizarre time management
system - a week is not long enough. A month is enough time to average out
over all sorts of weeks and see if something is really going to work.
A week of writing at NaNoWriMo pace would not be enough to see if the
book's going to go anywhere.
> The reason I believe the vast majority of NaNoWriMo stuff is garbage
> is because of the volume of it. Using this technique for a month
> leaves you with this horrendously big chunk that doesn't fit your
> normal stlye, doesn't have your normal involvement, and which doesn't
> lend itself to your normal rewriting/editing/revising methods.
Heh. NaNoWriMo - except slower - *is* my normal style. (One I'm going to
try really hard to change, not for any of the reasons you've mentioned.)
> To try something different is good. To try it for so long that it can
> become a habit and does not produce something useful is, to my
> definitions, bad.
Yeah, but the writing lots of words every day habit is real easy to break.
> YMMV -- and usually does (-;
Yep.
Patricia C. Wrede
"Mary K. Kuhner" <mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:blobqn$pdq$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu...
> Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> work?
I've never done the NaNo thing, but I've written some things quite fast. In
fact, the first thing I did like that ended up being an *incredible*
education in How To Edit A Manuscript -- it was Talking To Dragons, which
just sort of spilled out rapidly with no planning or direction. What it
mainly needed in the edit/revision pass was tightening -- removing
redundancies and the occasional scene or plot thread that went nowhere,
tightening all the places that rambled around because I'd had no idea when
I wrote them what was relevant and what wasn't, etc. It took me three solid
weeks just to mark up the ms., going over and over and over it thinking
about whether I *really* wanted this line and whether that one was *really*
necessary and whether I could rephrase six words into two without wrecking
the voice.
> Any advice for adding to a distinctively-toned work without losing
> the tone?
I think the first thing I'd do is to come up with some sort of plan for
wrapping up the plot -- what one of my friends calls "the pseudo-code
version of the story." More than an outline or notes, less than even a
zeroth draft. That frees up my brain to concentrate on maintaining the
style and tone, rather than having to worry about plotting as I go. Also, I
find it really hard to revise this sort of writing until the whole thing is
finished, because I don't know which bits are going to turn out to be useful
and necessary until the whole thing is done.
The next thing I'd do would be to reread the whole thing, even if I'd
already just read it in order to do the plot-plan, this time looking for
what makes the tone distinctive, plus trying to get back into that writing
mode/mentality. Rereading it once with attention is usually enough for me
to do a deliberate, passable imitation of myself, because I was already
there once. If I want to imitate some other author's style, I have to read
their piece several times, and usually have to refresh (i.e., reread
especially distinctive bits) periodically during the writing -- this might
be a good thing to try if you are having trouble holding onto the feel you
want. If I can identify specific things I did that give it the particular
style/tone, so much the better.
And I don't work on *anything* else once I have the tone back, or even once
I'm satisfied that I'm doing a reasonably decent job of imitating the
original style. It's too easy to fall out of it again, if it was that
distinctive and that difficult to get back into the mindset of. The result
is usually a slightly lumpy first draft, but by the time the revisions are
done, it's usually smoothed out reasonably well.
Patricia C. Wrede
Patricia C. Wrede
"David Friedman" <dd...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:ddfr-5075DD.0...@sea-read.news.verio.net...
> On the subject of the header ... .
>
> My current problem is how to get seriously into the sequel to my WIS. I
> have a world. I have characters. I have a reasonably clear idea of what
> should get accomplished during the book. I even have a few written
> fragments that I like, and an outline of one chunk of it. But it doesn't
> seem to want to go anywhere from there.
It may just not be ready yet -- it may need more time to "cook." Or you may
be trying to apply the wrong process.
> At this
> point I'm trying to repeat the first step, but it doesn't seem to catch
> fire.
It's one of those peculiar things about writing that quite often the process
that worked perfectly well to get your first novel done, doesn't work at all
for the second one, and you have to come up with something completely
different. I don't know why.
> Two possible explanations:
>
> 1. The part I outlined, which probably has to be near the beginning, is
> the part that I told to my daughter after reaching the end of the WIS
> and mistakenly thinking that I could keep going. It makes a reasonable
> chunk of a story, but perhaps not the right chunk to start this novel on.
>
> 2. I feel more enthusiastic about the plot for the third book in the
> series, but would prefer to write them in order. At some point, if the
> second book doesn't jell, I'll just go on to the third--but I haven't
> reached that point yet.
Why did you feel it necessary to write this book in the first place? Just
because you overshot the ending on your WIS? And why do you feel that it
needs to be written *now*?
In addition to the above explanations, it is possible that the sequel to
your first book is going to be a tougher book to do -- more emotional depth,
more complexity, more personal importance, whatever. If you don't yet have
all the writing skills necessary, it may not be "catching fire" because you
unconsciously recognize that you just aren't up to doing it right now.
There's nothing wrong with writing books out of order along a time-line,
especially if you can make them stand alone. There's also nothing wrong
with setting a book aside for a couple of years while you work on other
stuff and get your skills up to a level that can handle it (whether you do
this on purpose or by accident doesn't matter at all).
It is also quite possible that it isn't catching fire because you've taken a
wrong turn in your plotting somewhere -- had the characters do something
that they *need* to do in order for the plot to work or for the third book
to be set up, but that they really *wouldn't* do, or wouldn't do that way,
or that isn't really workable because of something in the background you've
set up but mostly forgotten, or whatever. This kind of thing can be the
very devil to track down, but if you don't, it can eventually bring your
production to a dead stop.
Or it may be that the second book is the series equivalent of a big chunk of
narrative summary or transition -- the stuff that happens is all there
because you need it to set up the interesting third book, but it isn't
terribly interesting in and of itself; it just seems like stuff the readers
need to be told in order to get to "the good stuff" in the third book. In
this instance, forget about the putative Book II entirely, and figure out
how to get the necessary background into Book III without doing an entire
book's worth of "showing" stuff that you're not really interested in.
Because if you're not interested, odds are the readers won't be, either.
> Suggestions? Start at the end and write back?
If it's something that you really want to do now, and you really feel it's
necessary to do it, and you really feel doesn't just need to incubate a bit
longer, then I'd suggest starting by looking at possible reasons why you're
not interested. If it's all become *too* familiar, too predictable, then
you may need to junk your entire program for the next two books and have
someone make a startling discovery in Chapter 4 that sends the whole story
in a completely different direction from what you thought it would be.
What, exactly, is so interesting about Book III? Does it have more of a
particular type of scene, or more of a particular character you like, or
more twisty surprises that you like, or what? Or is it just more
interesting because you haven't been thinking about it for so long that it's
worn ruts in your brain? If it's that last, junking your whole plan and
going in some other direction may be just the ticket.
Or you may be leaving out the stuff that you find most fun -- if, for
instance, you had a high old time writing battle scenes in Book I, but Book
II is all about the court intrigue that results after the victory at the end
of Book I, then you may need to start a new war, or at least come up with
some good reasons to throw in a fight scene once in a while. Or you may be
able to find something else that occupies the same mental niche as "battle
sequence" in your head -- one of my friends who does a lot of military SF
did one book in which the main character was a performer, and he quite
deliberately put juggling scenes in all the places where he'd usually put
fight scenes. So what bits do you have the most fun writing? Snappy
dialog? Fight scenes? Tea parties? Can you get more of them into Book II
somehow?
You might also try a completely different working process. If you have
scenes that you are sure of, that you're looking forward to writing, skip
ahead and write them. Or, if the first bit you have is a nice chunk of
story and reasonably complete, end it off, make it a short story or novella,
and skip on to the next interesting bit -- possibly Book II should have a
more episodic structure or something. Or yes, start at the end and work
backwards. Try not talking to *anybody* about the WIP, if you are used to
talking about things; if you never talk about it, try talking to someone.
Ask your daughter what *she* thinks should happen next, and if it's totally
impossible/improbable and not what you'd intended, figure out how to make it
work anyway. Do some weird writing exercises on your characters or
background. Play "twenty questions" with somebody who knows nothing about
your characters or Book II asking you things about the book/characters/plot.
Patricia C. Wrede
Brian M. Scott
[...]
>By parallel, if you're concentrating on writing a certain number of
>words per day, you'll set aside certain skills that might slow down
>your writing in order to acheive that amount.
But you may also be forced to set aside ingrained habits or modes
of working that are more detrimental than helpful. I don't think
that a blanket condemnation makes any more sense than a blanket
endorsement. And one measly month is *not* seriously going to
undermine real strengths.
[...]
Brian
David Friedman
"Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> Why did you feel it necessary to write this book in the first place? Just
> because you overshot the ending on your WIS? And why do you feel that it
> needs to be written *now*?
Interesting questions:
1. Because when I finished telling the first one, my daughter was
expecting some more, and so is at least one of my beta readers?
2. Because I have a pattern of events in my head which seems to me
coherent and leads from the first book to the third through the second?
It's a history and I feel it should be written.
3. Because I really enjoyed writing the WIS--while I was doing it I
spent very nearly no time at all playing computer games, because writing
was more fun--and want to do it again. And there are pieces of the
second book that I can see would be fun to write and would probably work.
Number 3 is probably the most important.
> In addition to the above explanations, it is possible that the sequel to
> your first book is going to be a tougher book to do -- more emotional depth,
> more complexity, more personal importance, whatever. If you don't yet have
> all the writing skills necessary, it may not be "catching fire" because you
> unconsciously recognize that you just aren't up to doing it right now.
That's possible; if so the obvious reason is that this one needs a new
character who is closer to being a villain than any character I have
done, and I am not sure I can do a satisfactory villain.
...
> It is also quite possible that it isn't catching fire because you've taken a
> wrong turn in your plotting somewhere -- had the characters do something
> that they *need* to do in order for the plot to work or for the third book
> to be set up, but that they really *wouldn't* do, or wouldn't do that way,
> or that isn't really workable because of something in the background you've
> set up but mostly forgotten, or whatever. This kind of thing can be the
> very devil to track down, but if you don't, it can eventually bring your
> production to a dead stop.
I'm afraid I may have done that, in the sense of having several
different plot threads, thinking I know more or less how to fit them
together, but not being sure I can.
> Or it may be that the second book is the series equivalent of a big chunk of
> narrative summary or transition -- the stuff that happens is all there
> because you need it to set up the interesting third book, but it isn't
> terribly interesting in and of itself; it just seems like stuff the readers
> need to be told in order to get to "the good stuff" in the third book. In
> this instance, forget about the putative Book II entirely, and figure out
> how to get the necessary background into Book III without doing an entire
> book's worth of "showing" stuff that you're not really interested in.
> Because if you're not interested, odds are the readers won't be, either.
That's my last ditch solution. On the other hand, when I revised the WIS
I added some new material I really like and my suspicion is that, once I
can get the second book going, the same process will go to work. Which
makes me wonder if perhaps, instead of starting on book III, I should
start in the middle of Book II, write any chunks that seem as though
they are working, and then step back and figure out what goes before and
after.
...
> What, exactly, is so interesting about Book III?
It brings in a new and different sort of character (stolen from Mary
Renault, but she won't mind) who appears as an antagonist allied with
the defeated antagonist of book II, and it has my original protagonist
finally resolve the problem in a fashion that (if it works) will be
obvious after it happens but unexpected when it happens.
...
> Or you may be leaving out the stuff that you find most fun -- if, for
> instance, you had a high old time writing battle scenes in Book I, but Book
> II is all about the court intrigue that results after the victory at the end
> of Book I, then you may need to start a new war, or at least come up with
> some good reasons to throw in a fight scene once in a while.
I can always find reasons to throw in a fight scene--and one is already
written. I don't think full scale battles are going to play a very large
role in the book, however. But that isn't a problem, since the battle
scenes aren't what I most enjoyed. The scene where my stealth heroine
outwits her captors and escapes was much more fun.
> So what bits do you have the most fun writing? Snappy
> dialog? Fight scenes? Tea parties? Can you get more of them into Book II
> somehow?
That's a very good question.
> You might also try a completely different working process. If you have
> scenes that you are sure of, that you're looking forward to writing, skip
> ahead and write them. Or, if the first bit you have is a nice chunk of
> story and reasonably complete, end it off, make it a short story or novella,
> and skip on to the next interesting bit -- possibly Book II should have a
> more episodic structure or something. Or yes, start at the end and work
> backwards. Try not talking to *anybody* about the WIP, if you are used to
> talking about things; if you never talk about it, try talking to someone.
> Ask your daughter what *she* thinks should happen next, and if it's totally
> impossible/improbable and not what you'd intended, figure out how to make it
> work anyway. Do some weird writing exercises on your characters or
> background. Play "twenty questions" with somebody who knows nothing about
> your characters or Book II asking you things about the book/characters/plot.
Thanks for a lot of thought provoking suggestions.
--
Remove NOSPAM to email
Also remove .invalid
www.daviddfriedman.com
David Friedman
Helen <he...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
> >Suggestions? Start at the end and write back?
> >
> Do I take it that you have the opening for part 2, but then don't know
> where it goes, or that you have a skeleton plot and it's not coming
> alive and reaching the stage were you can actually write? I guess that
> the second is more likely if you know what happens in part 3.
Yes. I have an outline of the first section and several different
attempts at a prolog. I know, more or less, what is supposed to happen.
> What drives your stories? For me it's the characters and situation, so
> once the characters come to life, a lot of it arises fairly naturally.
Sounds close to my approach. I already have some of the
characters--about half a dozen of the secondary characters in the WIS,
all of whom I like. But I need one more major character, who is part of
the problem, since the plot partly centers on him. Also, one of the
characters I have probably has to grow up from an extraordinarily able
fifteen year old to similarly able adult. My guess is that that means
that one of his clever schemes has to crash with seriously tragic
results, but I haven't thought that through yet.
Thanks for the suggestions; I'll put them in the pot with others and
stir.
Patricia C. Wrede
"Wildepad" <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote in message
> Writing for the purposes of speed/volume alone, by definition
> precludes the writer from fully applying their normal skills.
Not necessarily. It depends on a lot of things, including just how much the
writer is pushing it compared to whatever their normal speed is.
>As Mary
> K. Kuhner pointed out, this isn't her normal way of writing. By
> saying: "Was it different from editing an ordinary work?", she implies
> that this is, in fact, significantly different.
How a writer *feels* about her writing doesn't have a lot to do with the
writing itself or the quality thereof. There are things I've written that I
think aren't good at all, but nobody else believes me when I tell them that.
On the rare occasions when I can be objective, I can see that I'm *feeling*
that X isn't any good merely because I didn't apply my usual revisions
procedures before sending it off. Objectively, this indicates to me that my
"usual procedures" are in the same class as rejectomancy and applying
how-to-write rules absolutely -- in other words, based on empirical
evidence, their *only* function is to make me *feel* better about what I've
written; they don't actually have any impact on quality. Most of the time,
I still do them, though, because I *like* feeling better.
> So she has this bulk of material which she did not write with her
> usual skill and craftsmanship,
You assume. Without seeing it, you cannot *know* this. In fact, one of the
big reasons I can think of for doing something like NaNoWriMo is in order to
get the empirical demonstration that one *can* write decent or even
high-quality stuff at a much more rapid pace than one had believed possible.
You apparently believe that writing fast precludes skill and craftsmanship.
In "BOOK OF ENCHANTMENTS" there are stories that got written very, very
fast, and ones that were labored over. Without reading the afterward, which
provides considerable evidence as to which are which, can you tell which
ones I wrote in two days and which ones took months or years? Nobody else
has ever been able to. I don't think your assumption holds up.
>in a tone she is having difficulty
> recapturing,
Which can happen for a *lot* more reasons than just having written something
rapidly.
>and which is so intimidating that she is wondering
> how/where to start. That, to me, indicates that it had little value.
To me, it indicates that she's done something different. Not necessarily
better or worse, but definitely different from whatever she is accustomed
to. When one finds oneself having been swept far out of one's usual comfort
zone, in need of skills and techniques that one has not previously
developed, it is quite normal to feel intimidated and/or to wonder where to
start. It just means the material is a challenge, not that the material is
valueless.
If *she* thinks it's worth doing something with, I don't think it is anybody
else's business to challenge that decision. She's the writer. She knows
what rings her chimes.
> It might, in fact, have to be reduced to its most basic elements and
> refashioned in order to produce something worthwhile. That, to me, is
> called recycling, and is often done with garbage.
It's something that IME happens quite a lot to professional writers. And
quite a few of them use this as a normal working method (i.e., they write a
first draft, often taking many months or years, and then take it completely
to pieces -- stripping it down to component parts and basic elements -- and
refashion it into a second draft).
The times when I've had to take something to pieces, it a) wasn't garbage,
it just wasn't *right*, and b) didn't need taking to pieces because it had
been written too fast. On the contrary, most of the stuff I've written at
high speed has been the stuff that has needed the *least* amount of
revision. One of the main reasons, I suspect, is that writing at high speed
*forces* the writer to turn off the Internal Editor. There isn't time to do
anything except get the next words down.
> deeply complicated affair. So if she's looking at this 25K words and
> doesn't have a clue as to where to start, there probably, by
> implication, isn't very much good in it in its present form and it
> will have to be ripped down to its basic elements and recast, just
> like what is done to old pop cans.
I think your take is unnecessarily pessimistic in the extreme. *I* think,
based on what Mary said, that in writing those 25K words she stretched in a
new and interesting direction for her, and that she is now faced with the
challenge of figuring out how to do this deliberately and more consciously.
I consider this a *good* thing; once she *does* figure it out, she'll have a
whole bunch of new writing tools for the toolbox, as well as a potentially
saleable piece of prose. Full writing toolboxes are good. Potentially
saleable pieces of prose are good. Stretching and writing challenges are
good. I'm not seeing any real downside here.
Patricia C. Wrede
Patricia C. Wrede
"Wildepad" <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote in message
> On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 13:58:00 -0500, "Patricia C. Wrede"
> <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> >"Wildepad" <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote in message
> >news:0mf0ovgbvadigqp2q...@4ax.com...
> >
> >> I can't give you a direct answer because I have grave moral objections
> >> to the whole NaNo-whosit thing.
> >
> >Really? Why?
>
> Because it encourages bad habits.
I haven't seen any evidence that it does, as a general rule. I *have* seen
a fair amount of evidence that laboring slowly over a story, struggling to
get every word and phrase right, *does* encourage bad habits. In both
cases -- writing fast and writing slow -- there are some writers for whom it
is *just* the wrong thing to do, and others for whom it is *exactly* the
right thing. And I don't know any way other than empirical testing to
separate one sort from the other. In other words, you have to try it in
order to see whether it works for you.
> By parallel, if you're concentrating on writing a certain number of
> words per day, you'll set aside certain skills that might slow down
> your writing in order to acheive that amount.
You are assuming, I think, that the only writing skills worth having, or the
only ones that contribute to the quality of the prose, are those associated
with writing slowly. It is, however, equally possible (and IME quite often
the case) that what the writer sets aside are a whole lot of *bad* habits.
You also seem to be assuming that writing fast is something that can and
will become a habit. But it doesn't work like that. Burst writing, or
speed-writing, takes a lot of effort, rather like running a marathon.
Writers who work this way naturally need recovery time, with very rare
exceptions. Writers who *don't* normally work this way, but who can do so
if necessary, usually prefer to return to their regular working speed as
soon as they possibly can.
> There is a truism that if you do something daily for three weeks it
> will become a habit. Writing for speed, without paying attention to
> any of the other qualities you want your writing to have, is a bad
> habit.
I haven't seen any evidence that this is true. That you believe it, I have
no doubt whatever.
To be specific: In both my writing classes and among the professional
writers I've known over the past twenty-some years, I've met a lot of people
who have written things very fast, and a lot of people who write very
slowly. I have observed no correlation whatever between speed and quality
of output. No, I take that back; I may have observed a very slight
correlation between fast writing and better prose, in some writers. Not
enough for me to recommend speed-writing to everybody -- I had a rather
interesting discussion a while back on one of the AOL boards with another
pro who *did* recommend, even insist, that every writer without exception
would be better off trying for a novel every six weeks, no revisions -- but
plenty enough for me to disagree wholeheartedly with your position.
> As an exercise, something to try once in a while, fine. But to do it
> steadily for a month, when it can have significant impact on the
> quality of a person's writing, or the quality of the material they
> have to work with for rewriting, is inherently playing with fire,
> liable to burn away the spark which personifies the writer's work.
I don't think I've ever seen anything remotely like this happen. I'm
willing to grant that if someone who *needs* to be a slow writer, someone
for whom fast writing is exactly the wrong process, *forces* him or herself
to zoom along at 50,000 words a month, it might do some damage. But IME 1)
writers like this are much more likely to give up in dispair because they
really *can't* write that fast, so the damage if any isn't to their skills,
it's to their confidence, and 2) the slow-and-steady writers are not as
likely to try something like this in the first place, or to accept the "all
writers *must* write slowly."
And it is *equally* damaging to the writers at the other end of the
spectrum -- the ones who work fast -- to insist that they have to write
slowly.
> >Um. This appears to me to have an underlying assumption along the lines
of
> >"anything that gets written that fast is garbage."
>
> Not at all. I know people who write a novel as fast as they can type
> and then go into rewrite mode.
> But when they are writing fast, they're also concentrating on what
> they need in that first draft and are not writing merely for the sake
> of speed.
But you don't think that Mary concentrated on what else she needed besides
words, even though you think she's a talented writer? Why on earth do you
make this assumption?
The point of NaNoWriMo isn't just to improve typing speed. It's to write a
story at speed. Writing a story means concentrating on a whole lot of
things besides mere speed; if you don't, you get asea breadkl;s wawplkd im
suapsoeksd sin gfilsy was. Or disconnected sentences that don't make up
paragraphs, let alone a story.
> >If you don't think the NaNoWriMo stuff is garbage because it's been
produced
> >"too fast," why *do* you think it's garbage?
>
> I think that every writer should always be experimenting a little here
> and there with different techniques, styles, and methods. But NNWM
> takes it too far.
How do you decide what is "too far" for everybody else, writing being what
it is? "Too far" for you -- okay, you can make that choice; presumably you
know yourself and your own work habits well enough to know what works and
what doesn't for you.
> The reason I believe the vast majority of NaNoWriMo stuff is garbage
> is because of the volume of it. Using this technique for a month
> leaves you with this horrendously big chunk that doesn't fit your
> normal stlye, doesn't have your normal involvement, and which doesn't
> lend itself to your normal rewriting/editing/revising methods.
Again: maybe it would leave *you* with something like that, and maybe this
would be a bad thing *for you*.
But from where I sit, a month's worth of work-at-speed a) usually has *more*
than my normal involvement, because it takes a lot of concentration to
produce that fast, for that long; b) results in a chunk of stuff that may or
may not be different from my normal style, but isn't *necessarily*
different. And if it *is* different, it's because I've stretched in ways
that I'd never have attempted otherwise, and this is a *good* thing; and c)
results in a chunk of stuff that *either* needs considerably more editing
(which has taught me enormously useful lessons about how to edit stuff) *or*
needs next to no editing at all. I don't see any of those things as
negative.
> So you've spent a month producing something that you can't use the way
> it is, and you don't know exactly what to do with it. That fits my
> rather loose definition of garbage.
It doesn't fit mine *at all.* I have rather a lot of snippets of things in
my idea-folders that fit those critera (can't use as-is, don't know what to
do with), and what I define them as is *potential*. Several of them have
eventually germinated into stories or novels.
Granted, mine are shorter than the 50,000 words they ask you to do for
NaNoWriMo, but some of them are quite near Mary's 25K mark. And *I* think
they're *good*. I can also cite you several cases of other writers who had
50,000 word chunks of stuff that they didn't know what to do with and
couldn't use the way they were; they sat around for years, in some cases,
before the writers figured it out. One chunk became a Hugo-winning novel.
> To try something different is good. To try it for so long that it can
> become a habit and does not produce something useful is, to my
> definitions, bad.
But you're defining "produce something useful" solely in terms of the prose
output. Setting aside the fact that I disagree rather strongly with your
assumptions that all or even most of the prose produced during speed-writing
events like NaNoWriMo is useless, I would argue that you are ignoring the
possibility that there are other benefits. Or rather, you are assuming that
writing fast encourages all sorts of bad habits, which are very likely to
become ingrained, with absolutely no potential offsetting benefits. I think
that there *are* benefits, that it *isn't* likely to encourage bad habits,
and that it takes a lot more than a month's work to ingrain a writing habit
(good or bad) in most people.
Patricia C. Wrede
David Friedman
Eric Jarvis <w...@ericjarvis.co.uk> wrote:
> > Suggestions? Start at the end and write back?
> >
>
> I'd attempt first to write sideways. By that I mean that if the stuff I
> need to happen won't become a story then the next thing is to use it as
> independent background to an entirely different story.
>
> Can you see any possibility of a story that would work as a counterpoint
> to what you have mapped out?
I actually have two of those, and I suppose I could skip to one of them:
A. The WIS plus volumes II and III, told from the side of the "villain"
of the WIS, showing what he thought he was doing and why. That lets me
start five or ten years before the WIS and fill in parts of the
background that I have only hinted at. I was planning either to fold
enough of that into volume III or to write the whole thing after Volume
III.
B. A novel set in the same world about two hundred years earlier,
showing the origin of institutions that are taken for granted in the
WIS. I have one great, if somewhat melodramatic, scene for that. But of
course, it would mean abandoning all my beloved characters and starting
over.
Patricia C. Wrede
"David Friedman" <dd...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid> wrote in message
> In article <3f80d2ca$0$41293$a186...@newsreader.visi.com>,
> "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > Why did you feel it necessary to write this book in the first place?
Just
> > because you overshot the ending on your WIS? And why do you feel that
it
> > needs to be written *now*?
>
> Interesting questions:
>
> 1. Because when I finished telling the first one, my daughter was
> expecting some more, and so is at least one of my beta readers?
So, outside reader/fan expectations. :) Not the worst reason in the world,
as long as it's not the only one.
> 2. Because I have a pattern of events in my head which seems to me
> coherent and leads from the first book to the third through the second?
> It's a history and I feel it should be written.
*This* one is probably not so good a reason, mainly because "it just
*should* be written" is usually not strong enough motivation for the
writer -- it's duty, not interest or fun or even necessity. In the absence
of other reasons, you can just about always get the middle pattern of events
worked into the "third" book as backstory, without actually writing Book II.
However, you've still got:
> 3. Because I really enjoyed writing the WIS--while I was doing it I
> spent very nearly no time at all playing computer games, because writing
> was more fun--and want to do it again. And there are pieces of the
> second book that I can see would be fun to write and would probably work.
>
> Number 3 is probably the most important.
Now *this* is a really good reason. Good thing it's most important. :)
So OK, you really are going to write this next. So now you figure out how
to go about doing it.
> > In addition to the above explanations, it is possible that the sequel to
> > your first book is going to be a tougher book to do -- more emotional
depth,
> > more complexity, more personal importance, whatever. If you don't yet
have
> > all the writing skills necessary, it may not be "catching fire" because
you
> > unconsciously recognize that you just aren't up to doing it right now.
>
> That's possible; if so the obvious reason is that this one needs a new
> character who is closer to being a villain than any character I have
> done, and I am not sure I can do a satisfactory villain.
That sounds like a reasonable stretch -- i.e., it doesn't sound like the
sort of thing that ought to stall you dead in the water for years before you
get your skills up to it; it sounds like the sort of thing you should be
able to learn how to do at this point. So if the villain is what's stopping
you, it's probably a confidence thing, not your backbrain rearing up and
digging its little feet in and refusing to go any further.
What you do about this one, I think, is to do some serious work on the
villain, probably in advance. Depending on how you work, this may involve
constructing the guy consciously and deliberately, or it may mean writing a
couple of scenes from his POV that you don't intend to go into the book (as
a way of getting to know him).
> > It is also quite possible that it isn't catching fire because you've
taken a
> > wrong turn in your plotting somewhere -- had the characters do something
> > that they *need* to do in order for the plot to work or for the third
book
> > to be set up, but that they really *wouldn't* do, or wouldn't do that
way,
> > or that isn't really workable because of something in the background
you've
> > set up but mostly forgotten, or whatever. This kind of thing can be the
> > very devil to track down, but if you don't, it can eventually bring your
> > production to a dead stop.
>
> I'm afraid I may have done that, in the sense of having several
> different plot threads, thinking I know more or less how to fit them
> together, but not being sure I can.
Plot threads established in Book I, or plot threads you have planned for
Book II but haven't really written up yet?
If they're leftover from Book I, and Book I hasn't sold yet, you always have
the option of going back and fiddling with them to eliminate them or make
them easier to consolidate. I'd use this as a last resort, though. My
preferred method for this sort of thing is to look at where Book II starts
(in terms of where all the plot threads are at that point), and then
mentally *junk* the *entire plot* from there on, so as to start "fresh."
Then I'd come up with at least five or six different ways each plot thread
could develop -- the kidnapped princess could escape; she could join the
rebels; she could be killed in a rescue attempt; she could be rescued in the
nick of time; she could be enchanted/transformed; she could be forcibly
married to a commoner. I'd think a little about where each of those things
might lead, and how it might fit in with all the other plot-thread
variations I'd come up with, and decide which lines of development were most
interesting. And then finally, I'd go back to the original plan and see
whether I still liked it in light of all this other new stuff, and which of
my clever new combinations will fit it best if I'm still going to use it
(note: this is not always the best technique for people who habitually
suffer from choice-paralysis...)
If they're plot threads you have planned for Book II, same basic technique
except starting from the question of what sorts of plot threads you actually
want -- kidnapped princess, dragon attack, invading army, plague, sudden
appearance of Evil Overlord, magic-caused disaster, missing offspring (runs
away to sea), etc. -- and *then* go through the development part.
> That's my last ditch solution. On the other hand, when I revised the WIS
> I added some new material I really like and my suspicion is that, once I
> can get the second book going, the same process will go to work. Which
> makes me wonder if perhaps, instead of starting on book III, I should
> start in the middle of Book II, write any chunks that seem as though
> they are working, and then step back and figure out what goes before and
> after.
Worth a try. The one Golden Rule of writing seems to be: If what you're
doing isn't working, try doing something else. So if writing things in
order isn't working, try doing it some other way.
> > What, exactly, is so interesting about Book III?
>
> It brings in a new and different sort of character (stolen from Mary
> Renault, but she won't mind) who appears as an antagonist allied with
> the defeated antagonist of book II, and it has my original protagonist
> finally resolve the problem in a fashion that (if it works) will be
> obvious after it happens but unexpected when it happens.
Can you introduce this person sooner? Why not? What would happen to your
plot if this character showed up *before* the antagonist of Book II suffered
his defeat?
And if it's the presence of this character that's fascinating you about Book
III, and it's the character of the antagonist that's worrying you about Book
II, what can you do to the antagonist of Book II to make him/her as
interesting (presumably in a different way, since you don't want to
completely overlap the one you have planned for Book III) as this cool
character from Book III?
> > Or you may be leaving out the stuff that you find most fun -- if, for
> > instance, you had a high old time writing battle scenes in Book I, but
Book
> > II is all about the court intrigue that results after the victory at the
end
> > of Book I, then you may need to start a new war, or at least come up
with
> > some good reasons to throw in a fight scene once in a while.
>
> I can always find reasons to throw in a fight scene--and one is already
> written.
I *knew* I should have picked a different example. The fight scene thing
isn't to be taken literally; the point is, what did you have the most fun
writing, and how can you get some/more of it into Book II so that it will be
more fun?
> > So what bits do you have the most fun writing? Snappy
> > dialog? Fight scenes? Tea parties? Can you get more of them into Book
II
> > somehow?
>
> That's a very good question.
So what's the answer? :)
> Thanks for a lot of thought provoking suggestions.
You're welcome. Questions R Us...
Patricia C. Wrede
Mary K. Kuhner
R. L. <ssss-see-s...@ssssspam.comsssssss> wrote:
>On 5 Oct 2003 05:56:39 GMT, mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K.
>Kuhner) wrote:
>>I'm currently looking at 25,000 words from last year's NaNoWriMo,
>>and wondering if it's any use for anything. It has a weird bouncy
>>energy, apparently caused by writing faster than I could think.
>You might try looking at some objective characteristics of the material
>that give that impression. That could help in matching in cold blood,
>if necessary.
>Sentence length? Number of sentence fragments? Style choices?
>Collouquialisms?
Hm, interesting question!
The most obvious thing is that usually I write in scenes, and
then assemble them--both of my completed novels, and the WIP,
are like that. The NaNo is instead a single continuous piece,
so it has full scenes but also scenelets and moving transitions
and parts in narrative summary. It gives the impression of
constant movement--all of the descriptions tend to be description-
in-motion, as the POV character enters the place, or something
happens there. No stage-setting shots. Nothing trails off--
lots of quick jumps, cuts, etc.
I couldn't possibly write at NaNo speed in out-of-order scenes.
It takes too long to invent a new scene. Conversely, usually if
I try continuous narrative I stall; the speed requirement was
actually a lot of help in not stalling (until, well, I stalled
anyway, but that was plot).
The sentence structure is a little simpler; not much. There's
a slight breathlessness to it. Everyone said, oh, you'll have
to pad to make wordcount, but the story is *leaner* than my
usual. It was easier to steam ahead and invent another episode
than to get more words into the one I had. That's probably
the single most important quality--the quickness and lightness.
My bit written this month is richer, but not nearly as light on
its feet.
I don't yet know if I can cut down my normal prose to that level
in revision; I guess I'll find out. It would be a good thing
to know how to do.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
David Friedman
Yes.
It sounds to me as though you have discovered a new authorial voice, and
should play with it.
Mary K. Kuhner
Patricia C. Wrede <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>"Wildepad" <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote in message
>news:2b41ov8q0g5svvhdl...@4ax.com...
>> Writing for the purposes of speed/volume alone, by definition
>> precludes the writer from fully applying their normal skills.
>Not necessarily. It depends on a lot of things, including just how much the
>writer is pushing it compared to whatever their normal speed is.
I think it's worth noting that I can't put words on paper any
faster in November than any other time. When I know where I'm
going, I write at maximum speed anyway. The difference was
continuing to write at maximum speed when I didn't know where I
was going, and postponing almost all revision.
>> So she has this bulk of material which she did not write with her
>> usual skill and craftsmanship,
>You assume. Without seeing it, you cannot *know* this. In fact, one of the
>big reasons I can think of for doing something like NaNoWriMo is in order to
>get the empirical demonstration that one *can* write decent or even
>high-quality stuff at a much more rapid pace than one had believed possible.
I was certainly surprised.
My first drafts would probably not meet Wildepad's "skill and
craftsmanship" standards anyway; I'm a multi-draft writer. I
do try to make nice sentences, because otherwise I lose sight of
the story, but I often let the occasional failures slide as long
as the general flow is okay. The NaNo draft is not significantly
rougher than usual, except for the repeated-words issue.
>>and which is so intimidating that she is wondering
>> how/where to start. That, to me, indicates that it had little value.
I don't think I'm intimidated, otherwise I wouldn't have written
6,000 words on it the other day. I *am* puzzled. But I was horribly
puzzled by _Harry's Landing_ and asked for lots and lots of help on
it--Patricia finally explained to me that I could solve the worst
structural problem by re-ordering it. And I'm struggling nastily
with the ending of _Convocation of the Ancients_, which is a large part
of the reason I was looking at the NaNo again anyway (cat-vacuuming,
but at least I'm writing....) So if "causes trouble" is a condemnation,
everything I've written after _Jayhawk_ stands condemned. (I won't
even talk about the miserable short stories.)
_Jayhawk_, my first novel, just wrote itself. I'm not holding
my breath regarding this ever happening again. The roleplaying
game on which it's based *had an ending* that still works when
translated to prose, which is rarer than hen's teeth. All of
the others, roleplaying-based or not, have been a big struggle
at the middle/end transition, or sometimes the beginning/middle
one.
>> So if she's looking at this 25K words and
>> doesn't have a clue as to where to start, there probably, by
>> implication, isn't very much good in it in its present form and it
>> will have to be ripped down to its basic elements and recast, just
>> like what is done to old pop cans.
I think I do have a clue where to start. Actually, it starts fine.
It has ending problems, like all but one of the books I've ever
started. But I suspect if I lick the how-to-continue-like-that
problem, the first 20,000 words will stand with just continuity
editing and a little trimming.
>Full writing toolboxes are good. Potentially
>saleable pieces of prose are good. Stretching and writing challenges are
>good. I'm not seeing any real downside here.
It was certainly helpful, last summer during my "summer travel
season" when it's easiest for me to write a lot, to know how far
I could crank up speed while maintaining quality and energy.
And I think the NaNo has some useful stuff to say about inventing
small plot elements.
I wouldn't normally have let myself write about conventional
vampires, and the "vampire as worshipper of Tezcatlipoca" is
stolen; I might worry about that if I submitted it for publication.
But while vampires are a cliche, they're certainly not an
unsellable one....
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
David Friedman
"Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> What you do about this one, I think, is to do some serious work on the
> villain, probably in advance. Depending on how you work, this may involve
> constructing the guy consciously and deliberately, or it may mean writing a
> couple of scenes from his POV that you don't intend to go into the book (as
> a way of getting to know him).
Yes. I have in fact written part of a possible prolog which consists of
the villain giving a speech to other people on his side summarizing the
events at the end of the WIS--from his rather biased perspective.
Hopefully I can finish that, although not necessarily use it.
I am trying to portray a young aristocrat, absolutely certain that his
side (Empire vs barbarians, his faction in the Empire vs the opposing
faction, him within the faction vs other people, in particular his
father, who is the leader of his faction and a possible heir to the
Empire) is correct. He's somewhat scared and uncertain at the
beginning--not that he is right but that he can get other people to do
what he wants. He isn't evil in the sense of wanting bad things to
happen--but since he knows he is in the right, whatever he does to
achieve his objectives is justified.
Perhaps I should take advantage of Usenet--posters who are absolutely
sure they are right are not in short supply.
...
> > I'm afraid I may have done that, in the sense of having several
> > different plot threads, thinking I know more or less how to fit them
> > together, but not being sure I can.
>
> Plot threads established in Book I, or plot threads you have planned for
> Book II but haven't really written up yet?
Both. The existing Imperial political situation (Aging but still
competent Emperor reluctant to name either of his two sons as heir
because they are his tools for maintaining support from two different
parts of his power base) and the attempt to rekindle a revolt in a
recently pacified Imperial province.
> If they're leftover from Book I, and Book I hasn't sold yet, you always have
> the option of going back and fiddling with them to eliminate them or make
> them easier to consolidate.
Not an option for the first, since it plays an important role in the
plot. I could easily enough cut he scene that signals the second if I
wanted to.
> I'd use this as a last resort, though. My
> preferred method for this sort of thing is to look at where Book II starts
> (in terms of where all the plot threads are at that point), and then
> mentally *junk* the *entire plot* from there on, so as to start "fresh."
> Then I'd come up with at least five or six different ways each plot thread
> could develop
Interesting idea.
...
> And then finally, I'd go back to the original plan and see
> whether I still liked it in light of all this other new stuff, and which of
> my clever new combinations will fit it best if I'm still going to use it
> (note: this is not always the best technique for people who habitually
> suffer from choice-paralysis...)
And it provides lots and lots of things to think about while falling
asleep, and ideas that don't go into this book might go into another one.
But I think I want to constrain it to end up in the right
place--although I might change my mind during the exercise.
...
> > > What, exactly, is so interesting about Book III?
> > It brings in a new and different sort of character (stolen from Mary
> > Renault, but she won't mind) who appears as an antagonist allied with
> > the defeated antagonist of book II, and it has my original protagonist
> > finally resolve the problem in a fashion that (if it works) will be
> > obvious after it happens but unexpected when it happens.
> Can you introduce this person sooner? Why not? What would happen to your
> plot if this character showed up *before* the antagonist of Book II suffered
> his defeat?
Actually, he does, as presently planned. But he shows up as a boy of
about fifteen, making friends with one of my characters of similar age
under rather odd circumstances, and comes back fifteen years or so later
at the beginning of Volume III--at which point he has conquered a fair
chunk of the Empire and shows no signs of stopping. From which you can
guess who I am stealing.
But he can't show up as a conqueror before the antagonist suffers his
defeat, because he would either support the antagonist, in which case
the antagonist would end up as a (possibly puppet) emperor, or oppose
him, in which case the antagonist is out of the story.
As presently imagined ... .
Book II ends with Aristos (antagonist, "villain," son of the First
Prince) defeated in his attempt to take the throne (his father is dead
at this point) and going into exile, and the Second Prince either
Emperor or clearly designated heir, depending on whether or not I have
killed off the Emperor at that point. Among other things, this resolves
the conflict in the WIS, because the Second Prince realizes that the war
his father has been fighting with my protagonist is weakening the Empire
and permanently ends it--which is foreshadowed in the WIS, where both my
protagonist and the Second Prince's people are deliberately feeling out
links.
Book III starts, after a peaceful fifteen year break, with Aristos
returning with the support of a very able barbarian conqueror from the
opposite end of the Empire from where the WIS happened. It isn't
entirely clear which of them is using the other--but the eastern
capital, with the Emperor (ex Second Prince) in it, is taken at the
beginning of the book. The Emperor's son and heir (Kiron) escapes.
> And if it's the presence of this character that's fascinating you about Book
> III, and it's the character of the antagonist that's worrying you about Book
> II, what can you do to the antagonist of Book II to make him/her as
> interesting (presumably in a different way, since you don't want to
> completely overlap the one you have planned for Book III) as this cool
> character from Book III?
I don't think I can. What's interesting about the antagonist in Book III
is that he isn't a villain--indeed, is a very impressive and admirable
hero. That fact looks like a problem, since he is as good as the best
general in the WIS, popular with his people, and on the wrong side, but
ends up as central to the resolution.
> I *knew* I should have picked a different example. The fight scene thing
> isn't to be taken literally; the point is, what did you have the most fun
> writing, and how can you get some/more of it into Book II so that it will be
> more fun?
>
> > > So what bits do you have the most fun writing? Snappy
> > > dialog? Fight scenes? Tea parties? Can you get more of them into Book
> II
> > > somehow?
> >
> > That's a very good question.
>
> So what's the answer? :)
Not tea parties. Despite my interest in medieval cooking, I think a
detailed description of a feast would drive me batty.
People being clever, ideally in ways that aren't obvious at the time.
Noble helps too. One of my favorite parts in the WIS, from early in
writing it, is the scene where the King's girlfriend (in the original
version his mistress, in the final version the noblewoman he is
courting) asks my protagonist to tell her a story (the King is trying to
use her to get the protagonist on his side in an internal conflict that
is central to the first half of the book). The (true) story has a
punchline that makes it vividly clear how wicked the King's current
policy is, by converting the woman who the King has treacherously seized
for political purposes from an elderly woman of political importance
into the heroic young woman who saved the protagonist's life at risk of
her own when they were both young. Many chapters later, when the King
has finally recognized that he is in the wrong and reversed his policy,
it becomes clear that the woman he is in love with has been refusing to
marry him until he does.
---
"Rock on her left, bush on her right, picked them off, starting at the
back, till she ran out. If anyone had seen her--you don't fight sword
and shield with a longbow, not at close quarters. Order aren't trained
to shoot from the saddle. Longbows not much use on horseback anyway.
"She called her horse; it came. Carried both of us till we got to camp,
my remount."
He fell silent.
"And afterwards? What happened to the brave Lady? Did you see her again?"
"As to the fate of the Lady Leonora, you must put that question to His
Majesty. He has seen the Lady Commander more recently than I."
Anne's face went white. Harald stood up, stumbled a little on stiff
legs, and in the silence walked out of the orchard.
Nicola Browne
>>
> It's a cool idea, but I don't see an easy way to do it.
>
> The heroine is the apprentice of the magical ruler of her
> neighborhood. Her mistress vanishes, and she tries to find
> out who's kidnapped her. A lot of the neighborhood's
> inhabitants push her to become ruler herself, instead; she
> isn't ready for that but is maybe becoming so.
>
> That's a story pattern than needs to end with her either
> rescuing her mistress or becoming ruler herself, or possibly
> finding a new ruler. Or possibly a combination of two or
> three of those.
>
> Having stuck to her POV for 25,000 words I think I need to
> keep it. I could imagine adding a new subplot to a finished
> but too-short subplot--her vampire ally could make a POV
> character--but I can't resolve in his POV the issues I've
> raised in hers.
>
> Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Well - if it won't work it won't work, but what about the story of her
mistress? Where has she gone? would what happen to her affect the
denouement? I could think of several plotlines using her as a POV
character
particularly if she had a secret life/ambition/lover/ally /enemy etc
She could be manipulating events from somewhere else.
How far off the end are you? It seems that you know what the end must be
If the story won't stretch could you add in a few additional
complicating factors - a republican revolutionary movement, the
perversion of all magic or something.
You could always write it as fast as poss and clear up the style
discontinuities later.I struggle to retain the freshness I think is
often
inherent in quick writing when I do edits.In my expereince
it is very easy to get rid of the distinctive qualities of rapid prose
: )
Nicky
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Nicola Browne
news:3f80e591$0$34179$a186...@newsreader.visi.com
>
> > How a writer *feels* about her writing doesn't have a lot to do with the
> writing itself or the quality thereof. There are things I've written that I
> think aren't good at all, but nobody else believes me when I tell them that.
> On the rare occasions when I can be objective, I can see that I'm *feeling*
> that X isn't any good merely because I didn't apply my usual revisions
> procedures before sending it off. Objectively, this indicates to me that my
> "usual procedures" are in the same class as rejectomancy and applying
> how-to-write rules absolutely -- in other words, based on empirical
> evidence, their *only* function is to make me *feel* better about what I've
> written; they don't actually have any impact on quality. Most of the time,
> I still do them, though, because I *like* feeling better.
This reflects my own much more limited experience too. I believe
I write better when I write quickly but for a variety of reasons my
current WIP has been written in fits and starts. I really don't think
it reads any differently - in fact I had the bizarre experience of
reading it after some months break and being ridiculously irritated
that the writer stopped in mid story! The biggest problem is not how
the story reads but how to remember what I was thinking of if the
process takes longer than a few weeks.
Note to self- must take more of the supplement that enhances memory
now what was it called?
Zeborah
> Not doing NaNoWriMo, even though I have time this year. I need to get
> *out* of that straight-to-the-end no-revising style of first draft.
<thinks> Goodness me, I will have time this year. I have no dayjob.
I'm planning to continue to have no dayjob for the rest of the year. If
I managed 28K words last year while teaching, surely I can manage 50K
without a dayjob. <wibble>
Only, I have no new novels to start; on the contrary I've got too many
started, and none finished. I wonder if... maybe I can go back and
finish the Kangaroo Story by the end of October, then I can spend
November writing 50K words on the WIP (which is currently at 22K, so
that could take me a good way towards the end).
Zeborah
Zeborah
> I can't give you a direct answer because I have grave moral objections
> to the whole NaNo-whosit thing.
>
> One of the reasons I don't do it is because it will create the type of
> problems you mention.
Different strokes for different folks. NaNoWriMo didn't force me to
write garbage. It forced me to write. It gave me the impetus to scream
"SHUT *UP*!!!" at my Infernal Editor.
There's a certain optimal speed for me to write at: it's the speed I
write at when 'inspired'. If I'm not 'inspired' then I trudge along
gnashing my teeth over a word choice. Whether I'm 'inspired' or not
has, however, little impact on how good the stuff is; it'll all need
multiple editing passes. NaNoWriMo forced me to write at my 'inspired'
speed fairly consistently thoughout the month, and bizarre as the result
was, and much as it'll need editing, that's a big bonus.
Zeborah
Helen
Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid> writes
>In article <3f80d2ca$0$41293$a186...@newsreader.visi.com>,
> "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Why did you feel it necessary to write this book in the first place? Just
>> because you overshot the ending on your WIS? And why do you feel that it
>> needs to be written *now*?
>
>Interesting questions:
>
>1. Because when I finished telling the first one, my daughter was
>expecting some more, and so is at least one of my beta readers?
>
>2. Because I have a pattern of events in my head which seems to me
>coherent and leads from the first book to the third through the second?
>It's a history and I feel it should be written.
>
>3. Because I really enjoyed writing the WIS--while I was doing it I
>spent very nearly no time at all playing computer games, because writing
>was more fun--and want to do it again. And there are pieces of the
>second book that I can see would be fun to write and would probably work.
>
>Number 3 is probably the most important.
>
first novel *is* a WIS. Does book 2 stand alone? If it relies on book 1
being published, then perhaps there's the sneaking feeling that there's
no point in writing a sequel while the fate of book 1 is undecided? It
certainly inhibited me when I wrote book 2 of a trilogy first. I solved
the problem by starting book 1 rather than book 3. In your case, it
might be that book 3 is a better standalone, should the worst come to
the worst and nothing come of book 1. In which case, write book 3 now
and then see whether book 2 really needs to be a book or whether the
necessary background can be filtered into book 3.
>
>That's possible; if so the obvious reason is that this one needs a new
>character who is closer to being a villain than any character I have
>done, and I am not sure I can do a satisfactory villain.
>
you feel you might encounter in writing a villain? Motivation? Making
him/her sufficiently ruthless?
>
>I'm afraid I may have done that, in the sense of having several
>different plot threads, thinking I know more or less how to fit them
>together, but not being sure I can.
>
zeroth draft method and then do lots of cut and paste at the second pass
to get the plot strands to flow satisfactorily before doing the final
revision.
>
>That's my last ditch solution. On the other hand, when I revised the WIS
>I added some new material I really like and my suspicion is that, once I
>can get the second book going, the same process will go to work. Which
>makes me wonder if perhaps, instead of starting on book III, I should
>start in the middle of Book II, write any chunks that seem as though
>they are working, and then step back and figure out what goes before and
>after.
>...
>
out of order.
Helen
--
Helen, Gwynedd, Wales *** http://www.baradel.demon.co.uk
Helen
Elizabeth Shack <eashac...@earthlink.ENT> writes
>
>I send weekly updates to the IWriSloMo mailing list, and sometimes remember
>to update the fiction page on my website.
>
>My "updates" nearly always say "I didn't write enough again this week!" so
>I can't really say that they help. Or maybe I'd not write at all
>otherwise.
>
Yes, I too almost always post whinges saying that I haven't met my
targets, but I suspect that I'd do even less writing if I wasn't on the
IWriSloMo mailing list.
Helen
<mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu> writes
>
>I think, yes, this is a Middle to End transition (and never mind the
>wordcount--if I worry about that too I'll get hopelessly tangled).
>
>I wrote about 6,000 words where Jennifer faces down the vampire.
>She has a flashback to her past that makes her realize Iris
>kidnapped and mindwiped her. It lacks...conviction. I think when
>I was writing very fast I was insulated from my usual choice
>paralysis--there wasn't time for it. Now I have many plausible
>continuations--Jennifer rescues Iris and confronts her,
>Jennifer seeks an alliance with her current enemy, rescue becomes
>permanently impossible and Jennifer must become Warden. But
>I don't know what I like, and just bouncing forward may not end
>at any of them.
>
because you don't know which ending you're heading towards and you've
reached the point where -- after a beginning which could lead to lots of
possible plot outcomes -- you need to start closing down options and
pick one ending. So it does look like a transition problem and one you
won't solve until you choose an ending.
Possible ways out of the impasse:
1. Have a brainstorming session and write down (perhaps using a spider
diagram or something similar rather than writing linearly) the possible
endings that seem reasonably plausible, and perhaps a couple of
outlandish ones, just for fun. :-)
Now brainstorm each of these endings: how would you get from where you
are now to that ending? what cool scenes would be required en route?
Which route has most cool scenes? Alternatively, which route seems most
likely, given the character of your protag? Which route is going to give
the story more oomph? Which route would be the most unexpected? Choose
one and start writing. If necessary, try writing a couple of different
ones and see which one takes off.
2. Leave the thing to your unconscious. Write something completely
different, just keep peeping at the NaNoWri thing every so often to
nudge your backbrain. Eventually you'll know which ending it will need
and therefore how to proceed.
3. Examine your feelings about the story. Is there one ending that
appeals more than another? Do you feel that's the way the story wants to
go but perhaps you feel it's lame for some reason? All story lines sound
lame when explained in outline, it's the execution that matters.
I wouldn't worry about the whole thing being too short for the moment.
Once you have a complete first draft, it's usually easy enough to add
length by adding in one or more subplots that you didn't have time to
develop when writing at speed, or adding more description at the points
where it's a bit skeletal. Or perhaps it's a novella, not a full length
novel. There are markets for novellas.
>I guess I prefer to have Jennifer confront Iris, so that there's
>some resolution--why did Iris mistreat her so? Is it morally
>right for Jennifer to fight Iris for the Wardenship, and if it
>is, how on earth can she win?
>
In this case, the next thing you need to address is how Jennifer can
become strong enough to confront and beat Iris. Does she do it alone? Do
you need to add a plot strand where she finds someone who can help? Can
you just write the ending assuming that she has the strength, and then
add in the justification on the revision pass?
Helen
<capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> writes
>
>Writing for the purposes of speed/volume alone, by definition
>K. Kuhner pointed out, this isn't her normal way of writing. By
>saying: "Was it different from editing an ordinary work?", she implies
>that this is, in fact, significantly different.
>
>recapturing, and which is so intimidating that she is wondering
>how/where to start. That, to me, indicates that it had little value.
>refashioned in order to produce something worthwhile. That, to me, is
>called recycling, and is often done with garbage.
>
your mind and get it out of the careful rut in which it normally
trundles. Until you try the experiment, you don't know whether you'll
produce something worthless or something strikingly different.
>This is emphasized by the fact that she is an accomplished and
>talented writer. (Don't ask me where/how/why I got this notion, for I
>don't remember ever reading anything by her, but that's the impression
>I have.) I don't recall her ever presenting a problem to the group
>that many of us newbie/wannabes have -- when she's in a dither, it's a
>deeply complicated affair. So if she's looking at this 25K words and
>doesn't have a clue as to where to start, there probably, by
>implication, isn't very much good in it in its present form and it
>will have to be ripped down to its basic elements and recast, just
>like what is done to old pop cans.
>
It looks (from another post of Mary's) as though it's decision paralysis
over which route to take next. Only Mary knows whether this choice has
been made worse by arriving at the decision point quickly rather than
slowly.
Helen
imbers.freeserve.co.uk> writes
>
>A tentative suggestion: wait. Driving the car to a service on Friday I
>suddenly thought of liquified protag being thawed in his orignal body --the
>body they took a few cells from and regrew the body line he's been living in
>up to now. He's got one day to live in this state of innocence, then he's
>rebuilt and he'll get back all the memories stored up to meltdown., so he'll
>need everything explained (not entirely an advantage as I'll have to work it
>out) and the reader can at last, 32k words in, find out what's happened in
>the deep past.
>
>Shivers down the spine moment, literally. It's got the nastiness of the
>original in spades with an unsuspecting protag being chopped down to sludge
>by the resurrection machines. It gives flashback so I can find what that
>bloody robot was talking about 5 kw back,
>
>Hand it to the fabulator. Go and get rat-faced. Works for me.*
>
Is this the protag you mentioned having dissolved at Easter? I'm so glad
you've found a way to resurrect him.
Elizabeth Shack
> (Not looking for answers so much as general "how to pin this
> thing down to one plot" advice. If I have to know the ending
> now in order to reach it--and I'm beginning to think I do--
> I need to overcome my usual ending issues.)
Just pick one and write toward it? Or is that what you've tried already?
Wildepad
wrote:
>On Sun, 05 Oct 2003 18:00:10 -0500, Wildepad
><capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>By parallel, if you're concentrating on writing a certain number of
>>words per day, you'll set aside certain skills that might slow down
>>your writing in order to acheive that amount.
>
>But you may also be forced to set aside ingrained habits or modes
>of working that are more detrimental than helpful.
True, which is why it's good to experiment with things like that every
once in a while.
> I don't think
>that a blanket condemnation makes any more sense than a blanket
>endorsement.
I agree.
For the record, I never made a blanket condemnation of trying to write
for speed alone.
> And one measly month is *not* seriously going to
>undermine real strengths.
AH! But it is! This is the crux of the matter -- a month is too long.
It fixes habits which are hard to break.
Switching to a 'damn the commas -- full speed ahead' attitude can
break a person out of bad habits or, more likely, make them see their
'product' in a different light (which is always a good thing).
But doing it for more than three weeks sets up a behaviour pattern.
IF the faster mode is a good thing for that particular writer, then
great!
BUT, as is much more likely, it is not exactly what that writer needs,
then doing it for so long has obviously created a problem.
Forming good habits is a good thing.
Forming new habits without knowing in advance whether they might be
good or bad is, imo, a bad thing.
Julian Flood
"Helen" < > >
> >Hand it to the fabulator. Go and get rat-faced. Works for me.*
> >
> Is this the protag you mentioned having dissolved at Easter? I'm so glad
> you've found a way to resurrect him.
The very same bucket of goop. I'm beginning to suspect that until I've
sorted him out, closed the universe and produced the new big bang (a
parochial sort of novel, this) I'm not going to be able to start the
descendents of King Charles I living in a fen one.
JF
Patricia C. Wrede
"David Friedman" <dd...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid> wrote in message
> In article <3f80ed97$0$41294$a186...@newsreader.visi.com>,
> "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> I am trying to portray a young aristocrat, absolutely certain that his
> side (Empire vs barbarians, his faction in the Empire vs the opposing
> faction, him within the faction vs other people, in particular his
> father, who is the leader of his faction and a possible heir to the
> Empire) is correct. He's somewhat scared and uncertain at the
> beginning--not that he is right but that he can get other people to do
> what he wants. He isn't evil in the sense of wanting bad things to
> happen--but since he knows he is in the right, whatever he does to
> achieve his objectives is justified.
So why do you think you are having trouble portraying him? Is the problem
with his character/personality, or with his beliefs, or what? Is it that
you disagree with his position, and are having trouble doing a believable
job of portraying a side of the argument that you don't agree with, or is it
that his mindset is so alien that you'd have trouble with him even if you
agreed with every word he said? Is he unfamiliar to you, or unlikeable, or
what?
One possible way to get around some of this is to endow this character with
some characteristic that you find appealing. If his views are wrongheaded,
give him the personality and brains of your favorite student; if he has an
awful personality, give him views that you agree with and/or that hold up
logically, given the information that he's working from. One of my (IMO)
best villains was a guy who wanted all the right things for all the right
reasons, but who was firmly convinced (incorrectly) that he was the *only*
person who could avert disaster, and that therefore anything he wanted to do
was justified, including attempted genocide.
> > > I'm afraid I may have done that, in the sense of having several
> > > different plot threads, thinking I know more or less how to fit them
> > > together, but not being sure I can.
> >
> > Plot threads established in Book I, or plot threads you have planned for
> > Book II but haven't really written up yet?
>
> Both. The existing Imperial political situation (Aging but still
> competent Emperor reluctant to name either of his two sons as heir
> because they are his tools for maintaining support from two different
> parts of his power base) and the attempt to rekindle a revolt in a
> recently pacified Imperial province.
Those *sound* general enough to have a lot of wiggle-room in terms of
development and where you're going with them; are they really, or did you
leave them at the end of Book I at a point where the next couple of
developments are obvious and inevitable?
> > I'd use this as a last resort, though. My
> > preferred method for this sort of thing is to look at where Book II
starts
> > (in terms of where all the plot threads are at that point), and then
> > mentally *junk* the *entire plot* from there on, so as to start "fresh."
> > Then I'd come up with at least five or six different ways each plot
thread
> > could develop
>
> Interesting idea.
It's a fairly standard plotting technique; the underlying assumption is that
the first two or three ideas are usually the ones that are most obvious
and/or cliched. By coming up with five or six (or ten, which is the minimum
some folks recommend), you get past all the easy, obvious stuff that
*anybody* could come up with, and into the really creative and original
alternatives. And it actually works this way, for most people. (I do know
two or three folks whose brains seem to just work differently -- what's
obvious to them is the stuff that other people come up with around the tenth
try, and the stuff that's "normal, easy, and obvious" to everybody else is
the stuff that doesn't occur to them until about the fifteenth go-around.
But it's pretty obvious, even to themselves, who they are.)
> > And then finally, I'd go back to the original plan and see
> > whether I still liked it in light of all this other new stuff, and which
of
> > my clever new combinations will fit it best if I'm still going to use it
> > (note: this is not always the best technique for people who habitually
> > suffer from choice-paralysis...)
>
> And it provides lots and lots of things to think about while falling
> asleep, and ideas that don't go into this book might go into another one.
>
> But I think I want to constrain it to end up in the right
> place--although I might change my mind during the exercise.
It's perfectly reasonable to constrain the exercise in any number of ways;
it's just that, like any brainstorming session, you get the best results
when you aren't trying to invent and sort at the same time. If you come up
with whatever crazy ideas you can, *regardless* of whether they fit your
initial concept of the book, and go back *later* to sort them out into
"works to get to the end I want" and "doesn't work to get to the ending I
want," you can find some interesting surprises.
For instance, a plot development such as "hero of Book I dies in combat in
the first battle and everybody has to deal with it" may not, at first
glance, fit the ending you wanted where the hero of Book I gets crowned
Emperor at the end of Book II. If you're generating ideas and judging them
simultaneously, you'd toss it as soon as it showed up. But if you generate
the ideas, and then go back over them with the stated purpose of *making* as
many of the "unworkable" ones work as possible, you may come up with twists
that you really like -- maybe it'll be interesting if everybody *thinks* the
hero of Book I has been killed in battle, only he hasn't; maybe the
villain/antagonist convinces everyone that the hero is dead and the guy
who's going around claiming to be him is an imposter; maybe the hero fakes
his death for some interesting reason.
> > II, what can you do to the antagonist of Book II to make him/her as
> > interesting (presumably in a different way, since you don't want to
> > completely overlap the one you have planned for Book III) as this cool
> > character from Book III?
>
> I don't think I can. What's interesting about the antagonist in Book III
> is that he isn't a villain--indeed, is a very impressive and admirable
> hero. That fact looks like a problem, since he is as good as the best
> general in the WIS, popular with his people, and on the wrong side, but
> ends up as central to the resolution.
So why can't Aristos be a very impressive and admirable hero? Or even just
an impressive-and-admirable-hero wannabe? You've already said that he's not
evil; he thinks he's right and his cause is just and therefore anything he
does to further that cause is fine. So what are his good qualities? Which
ones can you emphasize without wrecking your plot?
> > > > So what bits do you have the most fun writing? Snappy
> > > > dialog? Fight scenes? Tea parties? Can you get more of them into
Book
> > > > II somehow?
<snip>
> Not tea parties. Despite my interest in medieval cooking, I think a
> detailed description of a feast would drive me batty.
>
> People being clever, ideally in ways that aren't obvious at the time.
> Noble helps too.
OK -- What existing characters can you get stuck in situations where they
can be clever or noble or both at once? Can you introduce any new secondary
characters who are clever and noble in interesting new ways? Given your
situation, which people (already onstage, or not-yet-onstage) are in
situations where they are acting on principle in some difficult way?
Anybody who is being unexpectedly noble? Why, and why didn't you/the other
characters expect it? Are there places in the existing plot where you can
complicate matters just a little, so that people have to be extra-clever in
order to deal with the situation effectively?
Where can you have more fun in this story?
Patricia C. Wrede
R. L.
<he...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
>In article <blqeue$jgo$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu>, Mary K. Kuhner
><mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu> writes
/snip/
>>But
>>I don't know what I like, and just bouncing forward may not end
>>at any of them.
>>
>I think you've probably hit the nail on the head here. You are stuck
>because you don't know which ending you're heading towards and you've
>reached the point where -- after a beginning which could lead to lots of
>possible plot outcomes -- you need to start closing down options and
>pick one ending. So it does look like a transition problem and one you
>won't solve until you choose an ending.
>
>Possible ways out of the impasse:
/snip/
>2. Leave the thing to your unconscious. Write something completely
>different, just keep peeping at the NaNoWri thing every so often to
>nudge your backbrain. Eventually you'll know which ending it will need
>and therefore how to proceed.
That has worked for me with short stories, some of which had the tone
matching problem too. I look at the story often enough to keep it warm,
but don't do much to it (except maybe some light polishing passes).
Eventually my unconscious or muse or whatever, shows me that certain
bits add up to a design, and how that design could be completed.
Alternatively, you could give the story to some test readers and ask
them what they think will happen. Or what they would do if they were
your heroine.
/snip/
>>I guess I prefer to have Jennifer confront Iris, so that there's
>>some resolution--why did Iris mistreat her so? Is it morally
>>right for Jennifer to fight Iris for the Wardenship, and if it
>>is, how on earth can she win?
/snip/
>>Can
>you just write the ending assuming that she has the strength, and then
>add in the justification on the revision pass?
Or simply write it out of order. Many people do this sort of thing. When
they know what's needed in the final scene, filling in what leads up to
it becomes easier.
Mary K. mentioned not writing at Nano speed out of order. But that scene
might not need to be written at Nano speed. Even a change of tone might
be appropriate in a final, climatic fight scene. Or the tone could be
adjusted on revision.
R.L.
Helen
<capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> writes
>>undermine real strengths.
>
>AH! But it is! This is the crux of the matter -- a month is too long.
>It fixes habits which are hard to break.
>
bad) take far longer in my experience and it's much easier to slip back
into old ways than maintain new.
>
>Forming good habits is a good thing.
>Forming new habits without knowing in advance whether they might be
>good or bad is, imo, a bad thing.
>
fast is really alien will most likely just fail totally after about 4
days. Those who can cope with writing fast already are the ones who
will stick out the whole NaNoWriMo thing.
Brian M. Scott
in news:o0v2ovktn3478v1tp...@4ax.com in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> On Mon, 06 Oct 2003 02:25:02 GMT, b.s...@csuohio.edu
> (Brian M. Scott) wrote:
[...]
>> And one measly month is *not* seriously going to
>>undermine real strengths.
> AH! But it is! This is the crux of the matter -- a month is
> too long. It fixes habits which are hard to break.
I can imagine that it might do so for some; I know that it
doesn't necessarily do so, however.
[...]
Brian
BrainsAkimbo
> Can we talk about writing instead? It's getting to the point where
> the group is no fun to read anymore.
Well, I just wrote a couple thousand words last night
thanks to the unreadability of rasfc, so for me it's
a mixed blessing.
(I must add that I find the usual Glib and Condescending
Rasfc Tone [TM], which works great when talking about the
joys of rejectomancy or the prose of Robert Jordan,
less than suited for discussing matters of world-historical
importance.)
> (Practical implementation: those who tend to agree that the politics
> is getting out of hand, *don't post to those threads* no matter the
> provocation. I pledge that I won't.)
I just stop reading the whole thread usually. By the
way, what newsreader for Unix do people recommend?
Something that can handle those 1000-plus-post
threads. Most of the time I use Google to read the
newsgroup, and give up when thread length gets
out of hand, and you have half a dozen sub-threads
and sub-sub-threads.
> Has anyone else edited their NaNo into something with closure and
> reasonable polish? Was it different from editing an ordinary
> work?
Sorry, IWriSloMo, so I can't help you on that.
BTW, the other day I read somewhere an article about "Don't
wait for the muse to strike! Make writing just another
part of a productive day!" Which was kind of depressing,
since I don't have a productive day since '87 or so.
Best,
-- BA
my opinions and nobody else's
Eric Jarvis
>
> "Wildepad" <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote in message
> news:2b41ov8q0g5svvhdl...@4ax.com...
>
> > usual skill and craftsmanship,
>
> You assume. Without seeing it, you cannot *know* this. In fact, one of the
> big reasons I can think of for doing something like NaNoWriMo is in order to
> get the empirical demonstration that one *can* write decent or even
> high-quality stuff at a much more rapid pace than one had believed possible.
>
> You apparently believe that writing fast precludes skill and craftsmanship.
> In "BOOK OF ENCHANTMENTS" there are stories that got written very, very
> fast, and ones that were labored over. Without reading the afterward, which
> provides considerable evidence as to which are which, can you tell which
> ones I wrote in two days and which ones took months or years? Nobody else
> has ever been able to. I don't think your assumption holds up.
>
The way I'm intending to approach this is not so much a matter of writing
faster as of writing more. For a month I shall be making writing a major
priority, my preferred option for using any time that isn't required by
something absolutely essential.
I write fast anyway. I plot slowly, I edit slowly, but at some point in
the process it becomes a matter of typing most of the words, and I do that
best if I do it fast and tidy it later. I can't find a "rhythm" if I
agonise about every difficult choice of words.
What I need to do is switch from writing enough for short stories to
writing enough that I might reasonably expect to complete a novel or ten
before senility sets in.
We are all using different processes and at different stages of developing
them. I'm sure it's potentially a useful exercise for quite a few people,
and an essential tool for any artist is the ability to know when an
experiment is not helping, if it's counter productive one can always stop.
--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin
Eric Jarvis
>
> Note to self- must take more of the supplement that enhances memory
> now what was it called?
>
Beer.
If I remember right.
--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"
Eric Jarvis
Not what I mean.
I'm thinking of an entirely different plot that uses the same settings,
many of the same characters, and which runs with the original plot
happening simultaneously. It means that you have two totally different
ways to drive the narrative, either of which can be left to simply happen
in the background whilst the other takes centre stage.
The fact that you have a set of things that need to happen between vol 1
and vol 3 doesn't mean that vol 2 should ONLY be about those things. As
long as they happen and are at least reported then it can be about
anything else that might be happening at the same time. Ideally a plot
that affects the central characters and which gives a different
perspective on the same themes.
Remus Shepherd
> > And one measly month is *not* seriously going to
> >undermine real strengths.
> AH! But it is! This is the crux of the matter -- a month is too long.
> It fixes habits which are hard to break.
> Switching to a 'damn the commas -- full speed ahead' attitude can
> break a person out of bad habits or, more likely, make them see their
> 'product' in a different light (which is always a good thing).
> But doing it for more than three weeks sets up a behaviour pattern.
After last year's NaNoWriMo, I have to say that writing 2,000 words a
day has unfortunately not become a habit. :)
However, I have since had a few terrific days where I sat down and
cranked out a few thousand words without looking up from the monitor.
Every person is different, but for me I'd say that one month is not
long enough to acquire a habit. But it is long enough to learn a skill.
... ...
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
Mary Gentle
nicky.m...@btinternet.com (Nicola Browne) wrote:
Add me to this side of the equation. Sometimes I get convinced that
minute and detailed attention to planning and words does the biz -- then
I'll get one of those scenes where you can barely throw down words fast
enough to keep up with it. And then, when I wait to trigger that 'core
dump' experience again, I find I need to rewrite and rewrite by layers.
And it doesn't seem to matter in terms of people pointing to particular
bits and saying 'that doesn't work'. The don't-work bits can be by
either method.
On Patricia's more general point, above -- yes, it seems really weird to
me that sometimes I can hate one part, and love another, and yet that
fails to correlate with what I actually /have/ got right or screwed up.
I can only conclude that the shit-detector and the author's "I feel
comfortable/uncomfortable with this" are two different things.
>- in fact I had the bizarre experience of
> reading it after some months break and being ridiculously irritated
> that the writer stopped in mid story! The biggest problem is not how
> the story reads but how to remember what I was thinking of if the
> process takes longer than a few weeks.
Heh. I've got a short story like that -- or rather, I have half a short
story. It reads rather nicely, there are obviously lots of things going
on that the writer will spring on us as surprises, and then... it...
stops.
Do I have the slightest idea now of how I meant to solve the set-up when I
wrote the first few thousand words c.1991? Not a hint; not a clue! Did I
actually know then how I planned to end it... actually, I suspect that's
why there's only half a story. :)
One of these days, I'm going to sit down and reverse engineer the
solution. A and B happened, therefore C /must/ be explained by this.
Treating it like a story by a different writer. Ideally, not to cheat, I
won't allow myself to change anything in the existent half. (Unless, of
course, I get a really better idea.)
> Note to self- must take more of the supplement that enhances memory
> now what was it called?
<looks at bottles near desk>
Er, I got some of that.
I've forgotten to take it. :-/
Mary
Mary Gentle
jinx...@sover.net (Chris Johnson) wrote:
> In article <3f8069a5$0$41290$a186...@newsreader.visi.com>,
> "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> > I know one writer for whom "too fast" is a novel in a year; give her
> > a year
> > and a half, and she's fine, but ask her to do it in twelve months,
> > and it
> > just isn't quality stuff. I know another for whom "too fast" is a
> > novel in
> > eleven days. The one she wrote that fast just isn't up to her usual
> > work,
> > but the one she wrote in two weeks is just *fine*.
>
> If you'll just pardon me for a brief moment while I politely say
> DIE! DIE! DIE! DIEEEE!
>
> Thank you, I feel much better now :)
I should like to be be associated with the DIE! DIE! DIE! DIEEEE! of the
last speaker.
Mary
Mary Gentle
capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net (Wildepad) wrote:
[...]
> By parallel, if you're concentrating on writing a certain number of
> words per day, you'll set aside certain skills that might slow down
> your writing in order to acheive that amount.
That assumes that you already know what speed you 'need' to write at, and
that it remains constant for the different things you write.
/And/ that there are some skills you can't use when writing faster than
you usually do -- which also may not be true. Sometimes you just start
using them on an unconscious rather than a conscious level. Which is
often much faster.
Mary
Mary K. Kuhner
Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>I didn't do NaNoWriMo last year -- too busy hitting a deadline
>the hard way -- and I'm not doing it this year because I, er,
>wrote a 91,000 word novel in under a month by accident.
Now *that* is an accident.
Why can't the rest of us have accidents like that, instead of just
putting a whole roll of brand-new stamps through the wash, or
skinning our knees on the stairs?
Seriously, do you revise things like that at the same break-neck
pace you wrote them, or do you need to add cool consideration after
it's done?
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Mary K. Kuhner
Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>On 06 Oct 2003 Wildepad <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote
>in news:o0v2ovktn3478v1tp...@4ax.com in
>rec.arts.sf.composition:
>> AH! But it is! This is the crux of the matter -- a month is
>> too long. It fixes habits which are hard to break.
>I can imagine that it might do so for some; I know that it
>doesn't necessarily do so, however.
I didn't find it to be so, neither last November nor the one
before. It was dead easy to stop writing 2000-3000 words a
night. I was quite sad how easy it was....
There weren't apparent bad effects, other than exhaustion during
December, as far as I could tell.
But I don't think I'd necessarily reject a technique even if it
*did* have immediately apparent bad after-effects. When I was a
tournament chessplayer, I would sometimes get to "plateaus"
where I couldn't improve my game. My usual response was to
find some area where I was weak, and study it hard.
Every single time, this made me play worse for quite a while.
My head would be full of new concepts I didn't quite know how
to use, new ideas that weren't fully digested, and a certain
amount of stuff that might have been useful to a player of a
different style, but not to me.
But it always paid off eventually and got me off the plateau.
After a few iterations, I stopped sweating over the initial
bad results and just accepted them as part of the process. I
doubt very much that there was any method of improvement that
wouldn't have had the same effect. At some point, I had to
go from a "capable user of techniques A and B" to a "capable
user of techniques A, B, C and D" and the intermediate step
was *always* "confused about C and D, and possibly even A and
B as well."
I think the individual writer has to figure out if a new
technique falls under "initially confounding, but will help in
the end" or under "this is really the wrong technique for me."
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Charlie Stross
as <mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu> declared:
> Why can't the rest of us have accidents like that, instead of just
> putting a whole roll of brand-new stamps through the wash, or
> skinning our knees on the stairs?
Are you *nuts*? I was supposed to be writing a different
novel! (Not to mention the complete gibbering exhaustion the
experience induces, and the near-homicidal mania in ones'
partner.)
> Seriously, do you revise things like that at the same break-neck
> pace you wrote them, or do you need to add cool consideration after
> it's done?
I think I mentioned the last chapter being broken: as/when I
get a publication date I've got to go back, saw that last 5000
words off, and replace them with 10-15,000 words that work. (I
already have a better ending designed, so this isn't an
entirely random statement.) And no, it won't be revised at the
same breakneck pace -- if you revise fast you revise sloppily,
in my experience. So all I gain is about two months on a
one-year-plus time line, in return for a month of exhaustion
and a reputation for working so fast I can *obviously* hit
stupid deadlines (not).
If you frame the question properly, the answer is a lot less
attractive ...
-- Charlie
Mary K. Kuhner
Helen <he...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
>Now brainstorm each of these endings: how would you get from where you
>are now to that ending? what cool scenes would be required en route?
>Which route has most cool scenes? Alternatively, which route seems most
>likely, given the character of your protag? Which route is going to give
>the story more oomph? Which route would be the most unexpected? Choose
>one and start writing. If necessary, try writing a couple of different
>ones and see which one takes off.
Thank you!
"Will it lead to a cool scene?" got me through a lot of the first
part, since it's easier to write 2000 words of a cool scene than
2000 words of anything else. So going on with that criterion might
help with my style-matching problem.
I'll try this. Um, as soon as I'm not interviewing 2 job candidates
a day. It's sucking all the energy right out of me. I was never
meant to be an HR person.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Charlie Allery
"Suzanne A Blom" <sue...@execpc.com> wrote in message
news:vo13rai...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote in message
> news:v6r0ovo8hq3apk077...@4ax.com...
> > On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 13:38:43 -0500, "Suzanne A Blom"
> > <sue...@execpc.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote in message
> > >news:dmd0ov05hbbu0k4c7...@4ax.com...
> > >> On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 08:51:16 +0000 (UTC), "Nicola Browne"
> > >> <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > >> i need a boot up MY backside because i am writing something new and i
> > >> KNOW i am telescoping whole chapters into mere pages but i am
probably
> > >> afraid that if i let go and let rip i'm going to wind up with another
> > >> 200 000 word monster on my hands and aaaaargh...
> > >>
> > >"Two books for the work of one?" she says chirpily.
> > >
> > <sulk> you arent't HELPING.
> >
> Okay, then: Write the damn 200,000 words! Start writing & don't quit til
you
> reach that number.--Oh, you are allowed to write in the middle & even the
> beginning if you wish.
> Better?
>
Ditto this, and Mary's comment. If it's going to be 200k, it's going to be,
and you're just wasting energy by fighting it. Alternatively, consider a
judo strategy. Let the words out, uncompressed and, when they're out there
and feeling cocky, just knock the legs out from under them i.e edit it down.
If it's really 200k, it's going to end up there eventually.
<grin>
Charlie (also not helping)
Charlie Allery
"Julian Flood" <j...@floodsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bls1pr$3o6$1...@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
Congratulations on coming up with a way of ungooping him! I suspect you
might be right about working on one novel at a time. That's my plan. If only
those annoying little short stories would stop buzzing around in my head, I
might be able to <grin>.
Charlie
David Friedman
Eric Jarvis <w...@ericjarvis.co.uk> wrote:
Got it. Interesting idea. I do have a few other things I thought might
reasonably be happening, including one character discovering who her
father is.
--
Remove NOSPAM to email
Also remove .invalid
www.daviddfriedman.com
Catja Pafort
> It's one of those peculiar things about writing that quite often the process
> that worked perfectly well to get your first novel done, doesn't work at all
> for the second one, and you have to come up with something completely
> different. I don't know why.
A few guesses.
You start, you mess around a bit, you search until you find a place
where everything comes together - the right characters, the right sort
of plot, everything, and you drive it on until it's a novel. Quite often
some or all of them are met by total coincidence, or by value of being
what the author feels most comfortable with.
After all, writing a novel is a Big Thing. But once you've finished one,
the idea is no longer scary, you know you can do it, so you look more
consciously for something to write that will work and that is different
from the first. Or you find you've told the story you wanted desperately
to tell and that's it.
So people stretch a little in various directions. Use viewpoints that
don't come totally natural, step into the shoes of characters who are
not quite like them, play with structure or setting or...
And also, they can now separate the bits that didn't work _for them as
individuals_ from the bits that didn't work because they just didn't
have a clue about PoV etc., and they might decide that 'next time,
they'll skip to something that works from the beginning.'
I'm beginning to think that maybe there is no 'one best way to write'
for me. Maybe every novel has a best way to write it, and I've got to
experiment whether it's continuous, or with an outline, or writing
scenes out of order, very rough draft with lots of narrative summary
that gets filled in later or ...
I have a sneaky feeling that sticking too inflexibly to 'this is how I
always do it' will get you into deep trouble. Sometimes you _need_ to
write on paper; sometimes you cannot write every day; sometimes you need
to work out a scene in some detail before you write it, sometimes you
just need to hand a character a pen and step out of the way.
With a sample size of two - one book, one trilogy almost finished -
making statements about 'how I always write' seems a little hasty. There
are many things I haven't tried yet; and I've come to the conclusion
that I rejected them so far _because they were wrong for these two
works_, not because 'they don't work for me.'
When I get around to the Nemesis, I'll have the plot mapped out, and
outlines of every scene before I flesh them out. It's too epic to do
otherwise. My next project will be the Foreign legion one that I can
write in much the same manner as I'm writing the current attack novel.
After that, who knows.
Catja
Catja Pafort
> There is a truism that if you do something daily for three weeks it
> will become a habit. Writing for speed, without paying attention to
> any of the other qualities you want your writing to have, is a bad
> habit. Encouraging a bad habit is an immoral thing to do.
I write without reading what I write. And yes, now that I am nearing the
end of the trilogy, I am pushing on very deliberately without stopping
to think any further. My mantra of 'I can fix it in second' has just
been extended to typos.
And yet it has produced some of the best stuff I've recently written.
This is not called an 'attack novel' for nothing. If I let the ideas
flow from the subconscious to the fingers without the detour via the
brain (where the infernal editor is sitting and rubbing her hands) I
remain productive. When I stop to think about formulations and the right
words and stylistic nuances and how this scene fits into the overall
plot I get bogged down; and my writing suffers. Never mind that when I
get really stuck, I start picking at the text like you'd pick at a
hangnail. It's not good, it hurts, but you do it anyway.
The *main* quality I want my writing to have right now is to be
finished. Maybe for you, who finds it hard to rewrite and change things,
that is not an important, nor a good goal - but for me, it's perfectly
reasonable. The thing is, my subconscious is pretty good. It worked in a
theme all on it's own account and it can write on two levels - the
rousing story and the subtle exploration of said theme - which I,
consciously, cannot, and if I tried, I'd crash and burn.
The way some people write the NanoWriMo stuff is the way I write all the
time, or rather have done for most of the past three years, and it
hasn't ruined me yet. So, maybe it works for someone else, too, and if
they need the competitive edge of joining, then why not? After all, even
just the knowledge of being _able_ to complete a novel in a month is a
valuable tool, regardless of what it's like. If you don't stretch, you
don't know what you are able of. And sometimes you need to do something
once so you can say 'never again' - but you won't spend all your life
wondering.
Catja
Catja Pafort
> The most obvious thing is that usually I write in scenes, and
> then assemble them--both of my completed novels, and the WIP,
> are like that. The NaNo is instead a single continuous piece,
> so it has full scenes but also scenelets and moving transitions
> and parts in narrative summary. It gives the impression of
> constant movement--all of the descriptions tend to be description-
> in-motion, as the POV character enters the place, or something
> happens there. No stage-setting shots. Nothing trails off--
> lots of quick jumps, cuts, etc.
I think you've got your answer here, and the solution seems to be to
continue writing in the same manner - just pressing ahead, giving the
characters full rein, and pressing on with the story rather than sitting
down and working out 'the next scene.'
I know you said 'quic jumps, cuts etc' but can you try to just write
'what happens next, and next, and next, and next' where the characters
are *so* fascinating that you don't want to leave them alone and return
for another visit a month later? That might lead to some 'and then, and
then, and then' scenes that will need cutting in the end, but it might
just work.
Catja (sounds like the way I've written the current attack novel. 4500
words on Sunday. Very, very bad indeed. Got fifteen minutes housework
done. That was *not* the master plan.)
Lori Selke
Wildepad <capu...@REMOVEhesenergy.net> wrote:
>I think that every writer should always be experimenting a little here
>and there with different techniques, styles, and methods. But NNWM
>takes it too far.
I think it should be pointed out at this juncture that NaNoWriMo was
originally intended for non-writers to produce junky novel-length
stuff for fun. Writers adopted it quickly thereafter as a kick-in-the-
pants technique -- something which I have mixed feelings about, too,
but I figure if it's done in the same spirit of play as the original
intent, it cannot be all bad. I do begin to flinch when I see people
saying "I'm going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year -- I'm thinking
of doing a serious mainsteam novel about contemporary Israel"
(paraphrased from someone I know).
Even so, if it does turn out to work for some people, who am I to
begrudge that? And unlike Wildepad (apparently), I don't think it's
likely to cause irrevocable damage to one's writerly habits.
Lori
--
se...@io.com, se...@mindspring.com, http://www.io.com/~selk
"It must be art for sure if somebody wants to destroy it."
-- Carol Emshwiller
Eric Jarvis
Now that's the sort of thing that can drive a narrative through all but
the heaviest duty writer's bloc. Especially if you have large scale socio-
political stuff happening in the background, an intensely emotional
personal journey could be made to fit very well along side it.
David Friedman
"Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> "David Friedman" <dd...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid> wrote in message
> news:ddfr-2741B3.2...@sea-read.news.verio.net...
> > In article <3f80ed97$0$41294$a186...@newsreader.visi.com>,
> > "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > I am trying to portray a young aristocrat, absolutely certain that his
> > side (Empire vs barbarians, his faction in the Empire vs the opposing
> > faction, him within the faction vs other people, in particular his
> > father, who is the leader of his faction and a possible heir to the
> > Empire) is correct. He's somewhat scared and uncertain at the
> > beginning--not that he is right but that he can get other people to do
> > what he wants. He isn't evil in the sense of wanting bad things to
> > happen--but since he knows he is in the right, whatever he does to
> > achieve his objectives is justified.
>
> So why do you think you are having trouble portraying him? Is the problem
> with his character/personality, or with his beliefs, or what? Is it that
> you disagree with his position, and are having trouble doing a believable
> job of portraying a side of the argument that you don't agree with, or is it
> that his mindset is so alien that you'd have trouble with him even if you
> agreed with every word he said? Is he unfamiliar to you, or unlikeable, or
> what?
Unfamiliar, and possibly unlikeable, but I'm still trying to feel my way
into his head. I don't yet feel as though his beliefs are
undefendable--although I'm not sure I have developed the Imperial
culture deeply enough to fully understand them, which may be part of the
problem. At this point his view is more or less straight cultural
chauvinism, and it would be nice to get it beyond that.
Perhaps part of it is that I know what he believes--but he believes it
because I built him that way, not for clearly understandable internal
reasons. Perhaps what I need is to go further back (not necessarily in
what actually gets written) and figure out why he turned out to be this
sort of person--something I did do for several of the characters in the
WIS.
...
> One possible way to get around some of this is to endow this character with
> some characteristic that you find appealing. If his views are wrongheaded,
> give him the personality and brains of your favorite student;
Perhaps the best solution, if I can figure out how to do it, is to have
him pull off the sort of clever maneuver that the characters I like in
the WIS pull off and thus to establish him as someone who, however
misguided, really does have brains. That would also help explain what is
wrong with him--he could be one of those people who grows up convinced,
on the whole correctly, that he is smarter than the people around
him--and hence that if they disagree with him it is because they don't
understand the situation. That's my basic view of Ayn Rand.
One possibility that just occured to me is to show Aristos, early on, as
running his own intelligence operation, trying to find out what's really
happening in the western end of the Empire and the barbarian regions
south of it. Ideally most of the people involved don't know who he is.
And if he is spending his own money on that, instead of on slave girls
and fancy clothes and fine horses, that makes him both admirable and, in
some sense, principled. Interesting thought. And it feeds into a bit of
the plot I have partly worked out, where Aristos is pulling a clever and
vicious trick and Asbjorn makes it miscarry in a way that leaves Aristos
thinking it has worked--and, much later, relying on its having worked.
And it also feeds into my perception of the First Prince--insufficiently
ambitious and aggressive for his situation, hence likely to back down
and settle for wealth and status without power instead of pushing his
claim to the throne to the limit.
...
> One of my (IMO)
> best villains was a guy who wanted all the right things for all the right
> reasons, but who was firmly convinced (incorrectly) that he was the *only*
> person who could avert disaster, and that therefore anything he wanted to do
> was justified, including attempted genocide.
Did you have a reason for why he was convinced of that?
...
> > > Plot threads established in Book I, or plot threads you have planned for
> > > Book II but haven't really written up yet?
> >
> > Both. The existing Imperial political situation (Aging but still
> > competent Emperor reluctant to name either of his two sons as heir
> > because they are his tools for maintaining support from two different
> > parts of his power base) and the attempt to rekindle a revolt in a
> > recently pacified Imperial province.
>
> Those *sound* general enough to have a lot of wiggle-room in terms of
> development and where you're going with them; are they really, or did you
> leave them at the end of Book I at a point where the next couple of
> developments are obvious and inevitable?
I don't think so. I know what the next development is in the Balkhani
revolt, but that's because I've plotted that part of Book II, not
because it is required by Book I.
And I think I know the essential facts driving the conflict between the
Emperor and the Second Prince. The Emperor wants the Second Prince to be
his heir, because he is obviously the more competent of the two
candidates. But he also wants a commitment that the Second Prince will
continue the Emperor's policy--i.e. keep trying to win the war that the
Emperor has been failing to win for the past twenty some years. The
Second Prince correctly recognizes that the solution to the war is to
abandon it--to convert the current enemies into neutrals or perhaps, in
the very long run, allies. He has the choice of either persuading his
father to accept that policy in order to get his preferred heir or
trying to seize the throne by force--possibly with the help of the
people his father has been fighting, although that obviously risks
antagonizing other elements in the Empire. I know what the end is, but
not how the Emperor, the two Princes, and the two Princes' sons work
through the situation to get there.
...
> > But I think I want to constrain it to end up in the right
> > place--although I might change my mind during the exercise.
>
> It's perfectly reasonable to constrain the exercise in any number of ways;
> it's just that, like any brainstorming session, you get the best results
> when you aren't trying to invent and sort at the same time. If you come up
> with whatever crazy ideas you can, *regardless* of whether they fit your
> initial concept of the book, and go back *later* to sort them out into
> "works to get to the end I want" and "doesn't work to get to the ending I
> want," you can find some interesting surprises.
Yes.
> > > II, what can you do to the antagonist of Book II to make him/her as
> > > interesting (presumably in a different way, since you don't want to
> > > completely overlap the one you have planned for Book III) as this cool
> > > character from Book III?
> > I don't think I can. What's interesting about the antagonist in Book III
> > is that he isn't a villain--indeed, is a very impressive and admirable
> > hero. That fact looks like a problem, since he is as good as the best
> > general in the WIS, popular with his people, and on the wrong side, but
> > ends up as central to the resolution.
>
> So why can't Aristos be a very impressive and admirable hero? Or even just
> an impressive-and-admirable-hero wannabe? You've already said that he's not
> evil; he thinks he's right and his cause is just and therefore anything he
> does to further that cause is fine. So what are his good qualities? Which
> ones can you emphasize without wrecking your plot?
Strong minded. Intelligent. Probably perceptive of things that don't
contradict his beliefs. He may be the only person in the story at this
point to have conidered the possibility that his uncle might ally with
the barbarians against his father and grandfather (the Emperor).
...
> OK -- What existing characters can you get stuck in situations where they
> can be clever or noble or both at once?
Asbjorn, although he is better at clever than noble. And Elaina is
better at noble than clever. I'm not sure if there is a way of combining
those.
> Can you introduce any new secondary
> characters who are clever and noble in interesting new ways?
I have one planned, but he is still pretty vague.
> Given your
> situation, which people (already onstage, or not-yet-onstage) are in
> situations where they are acting on principle in some difficult way?
I don't think anyone is, at the moment. The initial conception of Book
II was a small group of able young people, ages about fifteen through
twenty two, who played a significant secondary role in Book I and are
now taking center stage by helping make the Balkhani revolt happen. But
three of the four are doing it for the fun of it and Kara, as always, is
mostly concerned with keeping Elaina from getting herself killed.
My villain is one possible candidate, but I would have to figure out
something he would rather be doing than intriguing to get his father on
the throne. And my new character might possibly be a candidate.
> Anybody who is being unexpectedly noble? Why, and why didn't you/the other
> characters expect it? Are there places in the existing plot where you can
> complicate matters just a little, so that people have to be extra-clever in
> order to deal with the situation effectively?
>
> Where can you have more fun in this story?
You ask good questions.
David Friedman
Helen <he...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
> I'm just wondering whether you're feeling at all inhibited because the
> first novel *is* a WIS. Does book 2 stand alone? If it relies on book 1
> being published, then perhaps there's the sneaking feeling that there's
> no point in writing a sequel while the fate of book 1 is undecided?
I might be more enthusiastic if I had a publisher for book 1. On the
other hand, Book 1 was originally created in my head without the
intention of writing it down and publishing it, and knowing that Book 1
wasn't going to be published would not, I think, eliminate the incentive
to write Book 2, although it would make it much less likely that Book 2
would ever be published (other than on my web page).
> In your case, it
> might be that book 3 is a better standalone, should the worst come to
> the worst and nothing come of book 1. In which case, write book 3 now
> and then see whether book 2 really needs to be a book or whether the
> necessary background can be filtered into book 3.
Book 3, as currently conceived, is a better standalone.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Nicola Browne
news:memo.2003100...@roxanne.morgan.ntlworld.com
>> Heh. I've got a short story like that -- or rather, I have half a short
> story. It reads rather nicely, there are obviously lots of things going
> on that the writer will spring on us as surprises, and then... it...
> stops.
>
Do you know I'm so relieved to hear that- I was beginning to think it
was just me.
Friends think it strange that I really genuinely forget what I've
written, though one did come back to me the other day ( she's an
aspiring writer) and admit that she'd found something in the back of
the cupboard that she can't remember writing. That cheered me up
as she had previously given me the ' that Nicky has premature senility'
look. It ranks along with the 'Well she's just a mum.'looks as one of
the more annoying in the canon of irritating and patronising expressions
> Do I have the slightest idea now of how I meant to solve the set-up when I
> wrote the first few thousand words c.1991? Not a hint; not a clue! Did I
> actually know then how I planned to end it... actually, I suspect that's
> why there's only half a story.
> One of these days, I'm going to sit down and reverse engineer the
> solution. A and B happened, therefore C /must/ be explained by this.
> Treating it like a story by a different writer. Ideally, not to cheat, I
> won't allow myself to change anything in the existent half. (Unless, of
> course, I get a really better idea.)
> No, one day you'll dream the end and find it disapperaring down the
plug hole of consciousness as you wake and you will NEVER come up
with a denouement as fantastic as that lost dream - believe me I know
:)
Nicky
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG