What's On Your Mind About Your Writing?

Currently writing letters from all my characters (of my new WIP) to me. They tell me about their lives, and I get to pick up on their personalities, along with favorite words and phrases.

Gotta get my wife to check the letters from female characters - I want to get the speech cadence and phrasing right... she's also good at telling me when I have the female POV completely wrong, then telling me how to fix it.

I outlined a story I found in an old notebook. I have the major components bullet pointed from beginning to end. I'm debating if I should engage in more planning (fleshing out characters and events more) or just dive right in. Part of me wants to keep planning. But that's also the part of me that's a little afraid to fail.

It's taken me years to finally get going. My original idea from late 2013 has evolved a lot since then, but I have finally sat down during NaNoWriMo and written my first draft. It's super exciting, but... I've gone back to the beginning and tried revising a little, and I'm having a hard time with the amounts of description.

I guess it should be called world building. There's special circumstances and I feel like every few paragraphs I'm stopping to explain something. I'm trying to jump right into the action, but I feel like the action (which involves a sort of magic) itself needs explaining. And my MC has met up with a family with their own problems (years ago, one of their infant children went missing) so I feel like I'm explaining their backstory as well. Ugh.

I've been thinking about story structure a lot lately, since it's a weakness that's sent more than a few of my projects careening off road into the dustbin of unfinished stories (sorry for the mixed metaphor). I recently listened to the audiobook version of The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, and while it includes a million little tools for understanding and crafting stories it's a book that does not reveal all its secrets on a first read through (or listen through, in my case).

For now, Dan Harmon's story circle (You-Need-Go-Search-Find-Take-Return-Change) is proving a useful and simplified version, and I've been exploring whether my current WIP can be negotiated into this structure if I look at it from the right angle. What I've found: it's an excellent way to ensure my themes are present throughout and that my protagonist's goals and character development don't yo-yo all over the place.

There. That's my thought of the day.

just finished writing the first draft of my annual self-evaluation... it may not be a best-seller, but at least it's still fiction

edutton said:

just finished writing the first draft of my annual self-evaluation... it may not be a best-seller, but at least it's still fiction

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I feel that my inability to move past chapter 22 lies strictly with the chapter in question. I know how its suppose to be written, but I hit a wall when I go to write in the details; the same occurs when I go to edit the chapter. If not for this chapter being so pivotal to the story, and it needing to be done before the following one gets worked on, I'd move on to chapter 23 then come back to this one at a later date.

I'm in a misty field without a flashlight and need some help to get out of it!

When will I be motivated to start writing again.

Lily, a private duty nurse in 1938, will be assigned to carry out some charlatan doctor's cure for habitual inebriation. It involves injecting the patient with "solubilized gold," but Lily was good at chemistry, and knows that can't be.

And yet, her success as a nurse depends on the status of her patient.

What, oh what will Lily do?

I'm on the last edit of my historical. I've said that before, but this time it's a reality--unless I can find a beta reader. But, apparently, no one wants to critique a historical romance. I don't blame them. I won't touch erotica or stories about demons of The Exorcist variety. Anyway, I've got to let this book go sometime or other and it may as well be by January.

It's been a long time since I've written anything. Between my depression and work and school, it's been tough to make time.

I can't get my head around this structural re-edit and the clock is ticking, as they say.

I finally found a beta reader! YaY!

Cindyt said:

I finally found a beta reader! YaY!

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Well done, Cindy! I was crossing my fingers that you would, when I saw your thread!

Writing songs to help strengthen world-building is really hard, especially when you're a lousy poet.

When people say that you need to read more to write better, does that apply only to reading things of the genre you wish to write?

Reservoir Angel said:

When people say that you need to read more to write better, does that apply only to reading things of the genre you wish to write?

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The Beatles became powerhouses of popular music by studying wildly different styles from around the world

I don't even think about genre. If it's a good story I read it.

Starting something new, and
OH
MY
GAHHHHHHHHHH
such garbage.

I *know* I'll get to the point where I know my characters well and the words will flow freely like a drunken piss in a darkened alley, but for now, I feel like everything is forced and my writing is garbage. I hate hate HATE beginnings. *hulksmashes everything*

Cindyt said:

I don't even think about genre. If it's a good story I read it.

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Funny story about that

David Fincher made a movie in 1995 starring Morgan Freeman. In setting up a test audience, the advertising agency emphasized Driving Ms. Daisy as a movie that Morgan Freeman had worked in previously, ending up with a test audience of people who enjoyed Driving Ms. Daisy.

After a test showing, Fincher over-heard a middle-aged woman – who clearly did not recognize him – walking out of the theater telling her friends that whoever made the movie should've been shot.

Can you guess where the advertising agency made their mistake

Reservoir Angel said:

When people say that you need to read more to write better, does that apply only to reading things of the genre you wish to write?

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For me I would say reading literary fiction has helped find my voice even though it's not what I plan to write at all really.

Reservoir Angel said:

When people say that you need to read more to write better, does that apply only to reading things of the genre you wish to write?

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While I'm one for branching out into other genres, and seeing if they help in what your doing, I'd say remaining in your comfort or interest zone also works. I'll be writing a Sci-Fi with elements of romance thrown in for flavor soon but you won't find me going anywhere near anything romance-related (it's odd, but I can write romance but not read it).

Not sure, but think I found a way past my Block. When I went back to read through what I edited of chapter 22, I found it so uninteresting that it bored me, so I returned to how the chapter was originally written then started over. So far, looks like what I've done is good and I've hit no roadblocks or anything to stop me from progressing further. Fingers crossed on being able to finish this chapter, because I do need to get back to this story and get it finished.

Reservoir Angel said:

When people say that you need to read more to write better, does that apply only to reading things of the genre you wish to write?

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No. Read everything you can if possible. And poetry, too; you can usually tell writers who read poetry from ones who don't. It gives an edge of gloss to the prose.

this is totally stupid, but I now have 31 chapters instead of 30 and the lack of symmetry is driving me nuts.

Cannelle said:

Starting something new, and
OH
MY
GAHHHHHHHHHH
such garbage.

I *know* I'll get to the point where I know my characters well and the words will flow freely like a drunken piss in a darkened alley, but for now, I feel like everything is forced and my writing is garbage. I hate hate HATE beginnings. *hulksmashes everything*

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When I was very young my father had me start training in Savate - which is a French fighting method (a martial art). By pure luck, my instructor was also an artist - a painter of landscapes, portraits, and things like that (not houses). He was actually fairly well known back then (50's into the 60's).

One day while I was practicing Savate - and was getting frustrated with my technique, he told me this (I'm paraphrasing of course):

Art involves two primary aspects, the hand and the eye. The more you paint, the more these aspects develop in you - BUT they don't grow at the same rate. When you first start painting your eye is ahead of your hand, and everything you do looks like crap... but then your hand improves and finally you are pleased with your work and happy. Then after a while your art starts looking like crap again, you think your abilities are falling short and you're tempted to give up trying. What's happened though is that your hand has NOT suddenly become clumsy and awful, instead what's happened is that your eye has improved. This is why most people who start painting give it up after a short time - they become discouraged and everything seems impossible. Don't believe that - just know that your abilities are not decreasing, but your perception of them is improving. Keep working, and know that this won't be the only time you feel this way about your art.