Teens Writing for Teens, the 5th

Watching Camelot and writing.

I havent written in like 2 weeks, although for today i think i'm going to be editing again, and by editing i'll actually be adding stuff...

Jamie looks rather nice with his hair wet.

ETA: Dammit, I'm not as confident about Chapter Five as I'd like to be.

awwwww sorry, yeah i'm rewriting a chapter too right now... well not rewriting it just adding in more stuff to make it scary

I WILL finish reading the first five chapters of The F.R.E.A.K.S soon. Just keep nagging me.

hahahahah! actually i jazzed it up a bit since then. Probably should send the newer stuff... not much different other then less grammer mistakes.

Oh, I didn't realise I was being so slow. I'm only on Chapter Three.

Arghhh I was finally going to start working on BB's revisions...and then I realized that in order to sidestep potential plot problems that I thought were minor, I managed to cause a gigantic plot hole that completely ruins Skylar's story.

*sighs*

I know the feeling.

Chapter Five seems to made up of short scenes that mean I'm worried I'm not going to hit my ideal word count for this chapter, and it's going to annoy people (most of the scenes in the previous chapters are fairly long compared to the ones in this).

Lisa, if the story grabs the reader like it's supposed to, no one is going to care how long the scenes/chapters are.

It annoys me. Or am I just weird/too fussy?

You're obsessing over things that don't matter. Somewhat normal, but it's distracting you from things that do matter. Like just letting your story proceed naturally.

I'm still trying to think of a first line. *headdesk*

Horserider said:

You're obsessing over things that don't matter. Somewhat normal, but it's distracting you from things that do matter. Like just letting your story proceed naturally.

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And worry about it when I'm editing.

And word counts for chapters is a normal thing, and good for me, imo. It's not too distracting or anything, not like the length/number of scenes. Don't ask me why, it just isn't. Maybe because I know quite a few writers have ideal lengths for chapters?

If it's distracting you from writing a good story, it's too distracting. But do whatever works, of course. Of all the books I've read, I can only remember the chapter lengths for two: one because I found it interesting (Tamora Pierce's Immortals books are ten chapters each), and one because the chapter length (a page and a half) annoyed me so much I almost stopped reading. Though that wasn't the only thing wrong with that book...

Did a little research on dude ranches for BB. And...I think I might have to scrap this one completely and start over.

WAIT. I have an idea. I think I've finally got it...

James Patterson has chapters that are like one page, and the first thing I wrote had chapters shorter than that. What annoyed about chapters of that length?

And for things like length, that's where editing comes in, right?

ETA: Dinner time.

lisalulu09 said:

James Patterson has chapters that are like one page, and the first thing I wrote had chapters shorter than that. What annoyed about chapters of that length?

And for things like length, that's where editing comes in, right?

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They were too SHORT. Each chapter was a like a scene and sometimes you'd skip ahead to the next scene and have no idea what was going on. It just made the reading extremely choppy. But I think I read another book recently where the page chapters worked. It's not really the method that counts, but the execution.

And yes. That's usually when I play with my chapter length, at least.

Well, I like to have an ideal chapter length at the first draft stage, but I guess every writer's different, right?

If I ever get to do an interview for my blog, I'm going to ask lots of questions about the writing process.

I'm having a really bad fat day, and I feel really gross. I don't think I'm in danger of purging, but I'm obsessing over my body and I can't stop comparing myself to celebrities.

And I need to get over this and study for science. Which isn't very uplifting.

Thalia said:

I'm having a really bad fat day, and I feel really gross. I don't think I'm in danger of purging, but I'm obsessing over my body and I can't stop comparing myself to celebrities.

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I'm sure you're gorgeous! And comparing yourself to celebs is not good!

Thalia said:

I'm having a really bad fat day, and I feel really gross. I don't think I'm in danger of purging, but I'm obsessing over my body and I can't stop comparing myself to celebrities.

And I need to get over this and study for science. Which isn't very uplifting.

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Tally, you're gorgeous. Those celebrities don't even look like that! They've all been airbrushed and enhanced and animated so they look like what the industry wants you to think is "hot" or "gorgeous" when in reality they just look like freaking skeletons.

Thanks, guys.

Horserider said:

Tally, you're gorgeous. Those celebrities don't even look like that! They've all been airbrushed and enhanced and animated so they look like what the industry wants you to think is "hot" or "gorgeous" when in reality they just look like freaking skeletons.

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I second this.

I'm pretty sure Pete Doherty is about the only one who has never been airbrushed
So there you go for comparison...

Hey, Laura! How's it going?