writerly ways

[cornerofmadness]

It's been a long three days of grading and writing exams but at nearly 11 pm I am done except for the final touches on Tuesday's exam plus three simple online assignments to grade and oh grading finals of course.

I wanted to talk a bit about what I learned in this year's nano because it is good at teaching things.

1. I suck at outlining. It took about 3 minutes to realize my outline was utterly non-viable so back to pantsing it was.

2. That if I go slowly I can keep up with accents or character flaws etc but when I go fast I lose everything. All I do is writing page after page of dialogue. I am left with nearly 50K of no description, spotting world building, no character development, weasel words and tons of decent dialogue. It leaves me with so much work to do.

3. That I'm beginning to fear I've lost my ability to write females for some reason. The last I liked was Reanna and Melantha nd before them Tazia and that's been a few years. Solan was supposed to be one of the three main leads and frankly I could pull her out of the story and lose very little.

4. As far as this nano's concerned, I can't figure out motivations for almost any of the characters and without that how can I have any tension? characters with depth? Cam was easy, he wants to stay free and not be made into a killing tool. But Solan and Tenaldi, what do they want? Where are their stakes? This is where I get sad that blogging is half dead and there isn't the group to talk these things out with because that truly helps me.

5. That I CAN write 50K in a month and since I barely wrote 50K all year that means I really do just piss away time and that makes me very angry at myself.

6. I do have two story ideas (nothing like concentrating on one story to give birth to bunnies). One : based a little on the idea in the Abney Park song I posted. Mages with the ability to sing things into creation and the story centers on a young mage who's had his throat cut Two- a contemporary/paranormal for Jana, a mourning bisexual author who lost a son to cancer (and his marriage with it) gets himself a cabin in the woods to research hauntings in the area for the next book and meets a nautralist? ecology Professor? Set it here.

I still haven't added up all my word count.


And I majorly need to catch up on all the great links Betty has sent but here, have this week's crop.

What Makes a good ending God knows I could use this.

I debated putting up this one. It would carry more weight if it a) came from an agent or b) wasn't the same thing I've seen before but some of it is good. What Agents want

Flawed characters

Writing from inside the characters

I thought this one was really interesting. Subversive heroes (and it reminds me I really DO want to write that prophecy comes true and she is called to action story where the prophecy doesn't come true until she's like 60 or 70)

And here's today's musical advent calendar. I love Damh the Bard's work and this cover of the Lady in Black was the seed for this year's nano. This is basically Cam's theme song and how he ended up being turned into an immortal warrior.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I wonder if your problem with female characters is that the audience you're writing for is pretty much against them?

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

What kind of outlining techniques do you use? I've recently noticed it's worth trying out many different techniques and seeing what really works for you. We went through some in my writing class recently, and I got some good ideas. My own creative process is pretty chaotic and non-linear, so I've noticed the most standard outlining is not the best way for me to get there. I could share some suggestions if you haven't already tried them.

I hear you on defaulting to lots and lots of dialogue. Still, that's better than the constant introspection and thought that is my other thing to default to. :-P But yeah, finding a balance is tricky.

With characters, I'm a bit bad at giving advice because my stories always start with characters and much of it comes kind of instinctively for me. Mind you, it didn't use to, but it's something I picked up over the years without knowing how I did it. But something that usually helps me is writing stuff from their point of view that doesn't need to be in the actual manuscript. Random thoughts, conversations, descriptions, scenes, past, stream-of-consciousness, anything at all. It helps me get to know them better and find out things about what makes them tick. When it doesn't have to be part of the manuscript, it's easier to free up my ideas and get to know them. I usually spend quite a lot of time getting to know the characters before I start the writing.

Good luck! And it's great you've learned so many things from NaNo. :-)

[tinhutlady.livejournal.com]

With the exception of number 3, I think we learned the same lessons this year. (laughs)
Thanks for the links!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Sad really. And seriously WTH is my problem with writing women? I AM one.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

That could be but this wasn't for that audience and I always put a strong female in those stories (just to piss them off) without a problem but as a secondary character. I think my problem here was I went into this knowing nothing about Solan and came out knowing nothing about Solan.

[tinhutlady.livejournal.com]

Write you! Start small.
Agree with eld that your audience is fickled and you might be responding to that.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

mostly I've been giving my audience the finger by writing women. though in retrospect I've always preferred writing men. Don't know why

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I don't turn away ideas so if you want to feel free to share. It's time for me to admit though I'm a pantser. I hate outlining. Stories always work 100 times better for me if I don't bother. Every time I do, I run into problems.

Right now I don't have time to get into the characters heads and I think that's part of the problem. Half of me is doing all the promo stuff for the things already published, half of me is working the day job and I have to invent another half that can find time to write. I did try to prep the characters and I did based on the original outline but once I realize the giant flaw in the outline and basically changed the entire plot to get rid of the flaw, my prep was worthless.

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

I wonder if our writing defaults have mostly to do with our defaults as people? You like to talk, so you default to characters who do a lot of talking. I prefer doing, so I tend to write NaNo drafts of people going places and doing things without a lot of thought given to emotions, reactions, and interpersonal relationships. Either way is one-sided and not good writing. That's what revisions are for.

Motivation: Imagine the worst thing that could possibly happen to each character, then either do it to them or threaten to do it. That's their stakes. How they avoid their worst-case scenario or cope with it when it happens is their motivation. Where their nightmares intersect is the driving conflict of your plot. That's the simple, direct, quick-and-dirty way to plot a story.

You saw my previous FB post about outline vs. pantsing. Some of us are just born to pants.

I have no answer to writing strong female characters. You might check that you aren't writing your female characters too much like male characters. If your characters are too gender-interchangeable, that might be hobbling your creative zest for female protagonists. And make sure you respect your female characters. You can genuinely dislike a character, especially a villain, and still write him or her powerfully, but it's really hard to breathe life into a character you don't respect.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

That's a good theory about our defaults. That is definitely possible. I am definitely a talker so it probably shows. It does make the revisions a pain in the ass though. Maybe that's why I dislike them so much.

I'm not sure what their worst case would be, Cam is easy. He gets recaptured. I suppose Solan's would be dying in action but that is so...common. Making a mistake and letting Tenaldi die is a possibility.

Swear to god, I have no idea what Tenaldi fears outside of his poisons being used against the wrong people but I don't see how to work that in with my current plot.

I'm SO definitely a pantser.

I have no idea what' up with the females. I have no words for it.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

That could definitely be an issue then.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Yes this is where I need a sounding board and first readers etc.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Nod nod