Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

technically evil_little_dog beat me to these but since her lj post is locked and I link to moschus often here are her two blogs (off lj) about writing like a bad girl. As the infamous quote goes, 'well behaved women rarely make history.'


writing like a bad girl 1


writing like a bad girl 2


and while there were three remaining nano posts to share, one was from Baty that didn't amount to much and another was by some guy I dont' know but i didn't like his message. He was trying to encourage writers to read. You SHOULD read if you want to write but telling me to kill my TV because a real serious writer doesn't watch it...yeah, you lost me there. Sorry but that's crap.

Actually the last one wasn't that good either but people like Robin McKinley so here you go
Dear writer,

As I write this less than twenty-four hours before NaNoWriMo’s deadline for this pep talk, I also have a book due in eight days. Not just due. Absolute, final, already overdue, my-editor-is-a-patient-woman-but-publishing-schedules-are-publishing-schedules, due.

When NaNoWriMo contacted me last April about writing a pep talk for this year's masochi—er—enthusiastic writers, I had just decided to whack PEGASUS in half and make two books out of it. I have always been a write-each-draft-straight-through-and-don’t-look-back storyteller; it’s the way I develop a feel for the pacing, for where the high and low, careening and meditative, places of each story are—and how I discover where and how it's going to end. Consistency and clarity (and spelling) begin to emerge in the second draft; there are a lot of complete re-rewrites and outtakes during the second draft, and probably the most-per-page screams of frustration: the first draft has told me that the story is there but now I have to make it work on the page. The third draft should mainly be giving the story a really good brushing and plaiting its mane and tail—but there are hazards even here (ask anyone who has ever plaited a mane or a tail), nor is it likely to stand quietly for this operation.

Some time last winter, still on the first draft and beginning to panic, I... stopped. I did not write straight through to the end. I went back to the beginning and started on the second draft as if I knew what I was doing—as if I knew how it ended. I seriously don't know how PEGASUS ends. I won't know till I get there. And I didn't finish the first draft, so I didn't get there. I've never started a second draft without having finished a first draft—without knowing how it's going to end. I've never split a book into two books...
Writing is like this.

Oh, not exactly like this; every writer is different as every human being is different, one from another. (Some writers make their deadlines. Some writers know where they're going. Some writers don't mind not knowing where they're going.) But the chief thing I would like to get over to you, as you look to me to say something inspiring about this maniac—I mean, this energizing and felicitious project to write a first draft of a novel in a month, is the liveness of Story, and therefore the unpredictability inherent in writing any story down.

You need that live, tensile, surprising strength between you and the story you're trying to write, or it'll die on the page. But this doesn't make it easier. It makes it harder. It's more exciting—more thrilling, more appalling: on good days you'll fly higher than a peregrine cruising for dinner, on bad days someone will have to scrape you off the floor with a spatula. This is what writing is like. You have to write on through the highs and lows, the careens and the meditations of your stories. And that's what you're here for now: to write. Go for it. Good luck.

So last April, when NaNoWriMo contacted me, I had decided that PEGASUS was two books, and had cheered up a lot. My due date was the end of August—and for once in my life I was going to meet a deadline with no problem. NaNoWriMo suggested I send my encouraging words to them by the beginning of August. Fine. Happy to. Thanks for asking.

I got to the end of the third draft of the first volume of PEGASUS on 13 September. But PEGASUS has not been one of the easy brush-and-plait ones. I’m still combing the burrs out. I am going to make it. I am going to turn PEGASUS in on the 8th of October. I’m even going to get my pep talk in to NaNoWriMo by tomorrow.

If I can do these impossible things, you can do the impossible thing of writing the first draft of your novel in a month. It’s a first draft! It does not have to be a thing of beauty! Don’t worry about the spelling (or the consistency)! Just write it. I bet you can even get to the end, and find out what it is.

And may you have an absolutely brilliant time doing it. Writing can be the worst, and often is—but it can also be the best. May you come out of that month knowing what you want to do next, and eager to keep going. Try to remember the peregrine days on the days that your husband/wife/roommate/dog needs steel wool to get you off the floor. And keep writing: the only way you can learn how your stories work is by letting them tell you. By putting live words together.

Good luck.

Robin McKinley



as for me, i've had two weeks of serious burn out. I've only writen 139 words of original fiction this week but i am working on fanfic projects so...and i've been keeping you appraised of those.

But during nano i was aware of one issue with my mystery, the setting the hook at the end of each chapter to keep them reading. I feel it's probably lacking in Beneath the Torn Sky. I just read a mystery where it was done well with prehaps an overreliance of breaking a conversation in the middle.

example. I know you're carrying my child. dun dun DUUUUUN. and the next chapter starts with her going oh no i'm not.

does this feel like a cheat to anyone else? Yes, it will certainly make you keep reading. I don't mind when an action is broken and carried onto the next chapter. LIke the dectective gets shot at and we have to flip the page to see if he's hurt.

So how do YOU break a chapter for those of us writing longer works? What feels like a cheat to you? What do you really like as a cliffhanger?

One thing i really don't like too much is the cliffhanger line of 'if only i knew then what i know now' line. Kathy Reichs (Bones) does this way too often for my tastes in her books.

for those of you on the Original Fiction filter, honestly do you think the chapter breaks work or are they weak?