Madge's Weblog

Writing: Go with your Gut

For my "too action packed story" I've come to realize that there was a decision I made about halfway through the story that derailed the characterization and created the action packed mess I discussed in an earlier blog.  I should have gone with my original instinct for more talking and less fighting.

While working on the scene today I wondered what a lot of writers probably wonder -- if I trusted my gut the first time around, would it have saved me a lot of time?  The ironic thing is that it most likely wouldn't have.  If I had gone with my gut, I know that I wouldn't have trusted it and would have eventually gone back and written the drowning/fighting sequence as well. 

Sometimes writing is more like putting together an evil jigsaw puzzle -- the kind where, just for fun, some sadist has added pieces that don't actually fit and were never meant for your puzzle.  Trust your gut to help you figure out which pieces don't fit and then use them in another puzzle, just to spite the evil puzzle-master.

How to Turn off the Inner Editor

As a writer you have to be both an editor, who has an extremely critical eye, and an artist, with creativity that is uninhibited by criticism.  The two necessary skills are often at odds with one another.  I've found that if I perform certain rituals I can trigger the appropriate part of my brain.  For creativity I use a short writing exercise -- I write about the color blue.  I typically set the timer for a minute or less and then just babble about the color until the timer rings. I don't worry about spelling, punctuation or anything that might make the inner editor come out.  Here's an example, I was writing about the color of the sky above San Francisco today.

Faded blue, sunlight blue, blue like well washed denim hanging in the sunshine.  Denim blue on the laundry line in the country the smell of fresh hay and the pleasant stink of horse sweat in the air.  Blue covered with wispy white like a sun-dress covered in gauze, like blue paint through a fogged glass shower door. 

I've found that simply focusing my mind on description tells the inner editor to go home and shut up.  I'm more creative and more able to think through ideas when the inner editor is off snoozing.

Cloverfield -- Review from a Sci-fi Writer

For fiction writers the choice of point of view (POV) is always a sticky one.  The POV you choose affects the way the story is told.  You can't tell the same story in first person that you could tell in third or omniscient.  It has been interesting to watch the evolution of POV in film.  It is as if screenwriters have suddenly awakened and discovered that yes there are other POVs besides third person.  Its like a lightbulb slowly turned on after the release of the Blair Witch Project.   

One of the things that really worked for me in Cloverfield was the immediacy and personalization lent by the first person viewpoint of the filming.  Perhaps it is because I lived through 9/11 in NY and I know how confusing it is to be in the middle of an epic disaster.  There are certainly scenes in the movie that borrowed directly from real-life, at least from my perspective.  When you are stuck in the middle of a disaster you have only rumor, speculation and your own eyes to rely on.

With a first person narrator the viewer has to do more work.  Their mind and emotions are engaged in the process, which can make for much more extreme reactions to a movie.  First person also requires an additional level of suspension of disbelief.  The viewer has to work on in their own heads the reasons for certain things -- such as the extremely rapid response of the military.  Perhaps the monster was expected?  Maybe the US government knew it was coming, but didn't know where and when it would show up.  These are things that a typical monster movie or disaster movie such as Independence Day would show you.  The drama is less personal and focused because the POV is wider. 

There is only one part of the movie that didn't work for me.  They gave away the monster too soon.  When you are working with first person, an unreliable narrator if ever there was one, the tension build up is immense and it takes a good feel for audience and plotting to find the exact moment to release the tension.  Since this is one of the first few movies to deal in this POV I can see why the director and/or screenwriter released the tension too soon -- I'm sure it was fear that the audience wouldn't react well if there wasn't a big pay-off right away.  In my mind I would have cut some of the beginning sequence before the monster in order to build the tension more after it shows up.

Overall it was a faboo movie and, with the way it ended, I can certainly see the possibility of a sequel.  Hopefully when they do make it, the filmmakers will take the lessons learned from the first movie and use first person POV to its best advantage.

Can something be too action-packed?

I'm editing one of my 'babies' right now.  I call it my baby, a term I don't normally use for my stories, because this one contains two re-accuring characters.  I have in my head a whole series of novellettes with these two characters, even though I have yet to sell a single story featuring the two of them.  I've gotten close.. so close.. twice.  I thought if I went back to the world and wrote the second story that's been stuck in my head I'd have more ammo to get the two of them out into the world.  Except, I can't seem to finish the edits and get it out the door.  I've come to the conclusion that the problem that needs to be fixed is that there is too much action and not enough character development.  In my head all of my characters are nicely developed, because I've written them before, but the reader (who might read this as a stand-alone piece) won't know the backstory.  How do I insert the character development without slowing down the action?  Even worse, how do I do that and keep the wordcount down?

Ack!  Well, there will be no answers until I actually take out the editor's scalpel and the sutures and do some work on this beast.   

Writing Spaces

Bright and sunny, that's what I need to write.  In San Francisco, where fog is the rule rather than the exception, bright and sunny can be hard to find.  I improvise for my muse by surrounding myself with lamps.

My little writing nook is tucked into the dormer windows in my apartment living room.  Unfortunately, from my desk I can see the TV out of the corner of my eye so the temptation is there to turn on the TV.  If I had more space in my apartment I would rearrange so I wasn't tempted.  Since I don't have more space I just have to learn to overcome temptation -- its been good for development of my willpower.

My advice to beginning writers is to figure out what kind of environment works best to get you in the mood for writing.  You aren't always going to be able to find it or improvise it, but its good to know what it is for those times (like during NaNoWriMo) when that extra oomph can mean writing that day or not writing at all.

In a previous post I also talked about how writing in different environments can directly influence your writing.  Sometimes that influence is good and sometimes its bad, but you'll never know unless you get out of your writing space comfort zone from time to time.

Okay, no more blog-o-crastination for me.  I have to get back to some short story editing.

NaNoWriMo Blues

After NaNoWriMo I literally had no more words.  I finished early, but that basically took all the oomph out of me.

In December I finished revisions on one short stories and started revisions on a second.  I attempted to finish a Novellette I'd been working on since before November, but that hit a dead-end.  I decided that I'd spend the month of December revising and submitting rather than trying to create 'new' work.  I also updated this blog with a history of my submissions.  Many people think that getting published is easy, but it isn't -- its a really long process of submission and rejection.  I decided to pull my rejection battlescars out of the closet for the world to see.  Someone once told me that you aren't a 'real' writer until you hit rejection #100 :-)  I don't necessarily know that is true, but it often feels like it.

I've decided to spend this January pulling myself out of my NaNoWriMo Blues and going back to my very first NaNoNovel -- Lia and the Solider.  I only got about 25,000 words that year, my first, but since then I've added about 10,000 to the count.  I'm hoping that I'll have the first draft finished before March, but we'll see how it goes.

NaNoWriMo -- Week Four

I said that I was going to post every day about my writing progess and, as you can see, that didn't happen.  This is mainly because I've been procrastinating during the week and making up time on the weekends.  My current word count is 35,000 so I'm about 2,500 words behind pace for today.  I was much further behind last year and I was much better about writing last year.  In fact, I wrote every day last year.  This time around I've written a little during the week and used the weekends for catch-up time.  I've stopped doing 30 minute word wars and started the 10 minute.  I think later this week I might even sink so low as to do the 5 minute word wars.  Word wars are really the only thing that is getting me through, that idea that I only have to write for a set time and I get the 'reward' of posting how many words I've done.  I average about 500 -- 700 words per round, which isn't bad at all. 

My goal today is to reach 40,000 words.  Then tomorrow I plan to reach 45,000 words.  I know that during the last week all sorts of things crop up at work or in my personal life that interfere with reaching my 50,000 word goal.  I want to rack up some spare word count so I can take care of those little problems and not be so stressed.

NaNoWriMo -- Week Two

Okay, so week one didn't go so great.  I've been using this weekend to try to catch up and stay on pace.  I'm happy to say that I caught up quite a bit this weekend.  I'm close to 15,000 words right now and I'm take a break to write this post.  Too bad the words for this post don't count toward my novel :-)  I thought that sharing some tips will help me stay motivated and on pace for the next week.  Week three is always the worst week for NaNoWriMo and I'm sure it will be extra hard because I've been slacking.  My goal is to write every night on my novel and post here to let everyone know how I'm doing.  I'll let you know my tips and how I keep myself motivated every day.

This weekend I used 30 minute word wars to stay motivated.  I also broke up the word wars with cleaning.  I would write 2,000 words then move around the house doing chores before sitting my butt back in the chair and starting again.   The activity seems to keep things fresh and moving.  I find that I'm a little jittery like I've had too much coffee right after I've done a word war so it helps to move around a bit.  If I'm really concentrating I can usually do about 2,000 words in 30 minutes.  Its sounds like a lot, but it really isn't.  You have to write non-stop whatever comes into your mind at that moment.  Kinda like this blog entry right now.

Wish me luck!

NaNoWriMo -- Day late and a dollar short

I've had a really hard time getting going with NaNoWriMo this year.  Right now I'm almost caught up.  I'm about a day behind on my word count goal.  Below are a few tips that have helped me try to keep pace.  Normally I'd refer to the forums, but the website is so ridiculously slow that those aren't much help this year.  Not sure what happened, last year the format of the site was much more involved and it was fairly fast.  The page load times make me think that their server is in a basement somewhere with smoke pouring out of every crevice.

My word count right is now is a little over 6,000 words.  I need to be at 8,334 words tonight to be on pace for 50,000 words.

Tips:

Word wars on the forums - see how many words you can write in 30 minutes.  Just let it flow and don't think.

Rewards - bribe yourself with your favorite food or drink.

Get up and move around - after a half hour of word wars make yourself get up and do something active.

Time yourself -- start writing on the hour and tell yourself that after you write a thousand words you can take the rest of the hour off.  I once wrote 10,000 words in a day using this technique.

NaNoWriMo 2007

I am gearing up for the 2007 edition of NaNoWriMo.  Last year I didn't do any prep for my novel.  Things didn't flow as well as the year before so for this year's novel I'm going to do a plot outline.  I am also going to make my novel a fantasy story so that I don't need to do any specific research.  We will see how that goes this year.  Things have been incredibly busy with work so I only have a few days left to plot before the chaos begins. 

Wishing everyone a successful round of noveling!