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I suppose I should try and get as much done on my in-progress fantasy adventure story as I can. I have some scenes drafted already, and an outline sketched out, and more-or-less decided on all the characters. I'm shooting for 1500 words a day, which won't get to 50,000, but would at least be much more productive than I've usually been. I actually surpassed that daily goal last night despite being a useless lump for most of the day.
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Oct 28, 2023 13:52
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 13:22 |
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Waffle! posted:How do I stop world building and start writing? So many ideas at once! Technical discussions like this are probably more relevant in the Fiction Writing Advice thread, but... World-building is to service the story, not the other way around. You can make a bunch of notes if you have ideas you want to keep for later, but world-building is not writing the story. Consider building the world as it becomes relevant to the story. You think about what parts of the world-building is most relevant to the story and the characters you want to tell. Tell those bits as it becomes immediately relevant to the reader understanding the story. For my project, I'm doing very little world-building ahead of time. I don't even have names for anything I'm not immediately using. I didn't come up with a name which I liked for the country the story takes place in until a couple weeks ago. I have a vague sense of geography, a fractional piece of a continent centered around the country where the action takes place (ocean to the south, mountains and then desert to the east, swamps and then deep woods to the north, woods and mountains to the west), and a few very tiny scraps of history, most of which are immediately relevant to the main plot. The rest I'm building as I go. That's actually proven quite useful. For example: [Example omitted because a writer talking about their backstory is like a parent showing baby pictures: only interesting to those who cannot avoid contact.] I'm building the world around the story I want to tell, because the story and characters is more likely to be what's going to hook the reader. It's fine to have an encyclopedic knowledge of you world, but even ideally, the reader is only really going to ever see a fraction of it.
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Nov 1, 2023 13:12
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Day 1: Crappy. Only 314 words. I did have a lot of other stuff I needed to do today, but it's no excuse. Much of my time spent trying to write was incredibly frustrating as I got stuck trying one unsatisfying (or stupid) approach after another over and over. Not even trying for perfection, just to find something which at least halfway works. I don't consider a bunch of unusable false starts to be real word count. I also adjusted a previous scene slightly, which accounts for most of my actual additional word count. And no, I cannot just plow forward blindly at pace and ignore what I've written until December. I don't care if that's literally the entire point of Nano, my brain will not let me do that.
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Nov 2, 2023 06:17
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Day 2: A good day today, I got 1521 words down [Two day total: 1835]. The scenes flowed fairly smoothly. I could try and write a little more, but I'm a bit tired, and since I need to plan a mini-heist, I think I need to take at least a little time to figure out what the heck the plan is, and how it goes wrong. I finished two scenes in my Chapter 2, and left space for a brief flashback one which I didn't have enough of a grasp on to put down into words yet. Based on a story structure outline, I added something: quote:2 - Something Peculiar To that end, I added an additional attempted murder of my protagonist, one which they don't even realize was an attempted murder - but the reader probably will, which should help add some tension every time the assassin shows up in the story. Writing can stress me out if it isn't going well, but I doing things like Sudoku can help me sleep if I have insomnia, so playing a bit of that could help destress me and get me back to writing quicker. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Nov 3, 2023 |
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Nov 3, 2023 04:40
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Waffle! posted:How do y'all feel about AI? You could ask in the Fiction Advice thread. But in my opinion, if you want to be a writer, you should not be using AI assistance. That won't help your creativity in any way, it'll get you the processed and regurgitated slush of other people's creativity. Figure it out for yourself. Exercise your own brain, that's how you find creativity, not plugging words into an algorithm. The closest I come to using AI is name generators for some minor towns or characters, and even then some of the time I take something I liked and change it a bit.
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Nov 3, 2023 20:12
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Day 3: Went out, was too tired when I came back. I did spent as much time as I could working on the scene, but I didn't end up getting much done. 297 words added, but 148 were removed for conflicting the tone, so the result is just 137 words added. And even after spending a lot of time working on it, I cannot shake the feeling like the main plot of the scene is far too slight and uninteresting. It's a stupid "caper" plot about trying to rig a game of drawing lots about who has to give a speech. It's weak and less intense than the previous scene. I'm likely going to just put a pin in the scene I'm working on, move on to a different scene and see if I can get something usable. The weekend isn't looking good for free time either. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 04:53
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Day 3: Went out, was too tired when I came back. I did spent as much time as I could working on the scene, but I didn't end up getting much done. 297 words added, but 148 were removed for conflicting the tone, so the result is just 137 words added. And even after spending a lot of time working on it, I cannot shake the feeling like the main plot of the scene is far too slight and uninteresting. It's a stupid "caper" plot about trying to rig a game of drawing lots about who has to give a speech. It's weak and less intense than the previous scene. The scene didn't work at all; it's a big red flag if even the one who wrote it thinks it's a big waste of time (I would have spent most of the chapter setting up this rigged game so my heroine could give a speech only for it to not work anyway). I stuffed it into my deprecated folder, so my word count for yesterday is now zero. I suppose knowing the wrong direction to go is technically progress. I'll do something else which will feel more significant and introduce a few important characters.
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Nov 4, 2023 15:54
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Quote posted:A scene is a transaction, in which two or more people enter with one kind of deal between them, and negotiate or battle until a new deal has been cut, at which point the scene should end. - Migs Levy, Story Editor My preferred advice to keep scenes on track is to always keep in mind: "Goal, Conflict, Setback (or rarely, Victory)." That helps spot problems, and also provides what the shape of the solution could be. EDIT: That is to say: Goal: Give the character a clear, concrete goal they wish to achieve by the end of the scene. Try to make this clear as soon as possible when starting a new scene. Conflict: Something interferes with the characters attempts to achieve this goal. Often, the character has to back off and try again with a different approach, and again there's interference. Repeat until you're ready to end the scene. Setback: At the end, there's a setback of some kind. Either your character fails to accomplish that goal in a conclusive way, or else a new, different problem appears. Even if they succeed in their goal, if a new problem appears, it still counts as a setback. Setbacks raise tension and they keep the reader wanting to see more. Most of your scenes should end with setbacks... Victory: ...unless a setback would mean the book ends, such as the death of the main character. Victories are a brief respite from the crisis. They release tension and the reader can feel okay about stopping at that point (you usually don't want that). Try to avoid constant life or death stakes so that the only choice is to give your protagonist constant victories. That can result in your villains seeming ineffective and hapless, which reduces tension. You want the reader to be worried that the protagonist can fail. *** I've changed my heroine's goal for the scene to instead try to convince key political power players to support her. That at least feels more plausible than "make speech to a single crowd of the public and hope that provides the needed pressure." Some of those characters are plot critical so I would have needed to introduce them at some point anyway. (I also got some ideas for a completely different story which I only had a vague notion on (fantasy/noir starring an elf-in-exile as a hardboiled, broke P.I.). I don't have time to work on it, but I wrote those ideas down to have them later.) *** EDIT: Day 3 done, or rather I should get some sleep. Only a pitiful 317 words down, I should have focused more. Yet I feel better about these ones than the ones I had at the end of yesterday. I know roughly what the scene will be at least. I'm not sure I should introduce four new characters in the scene, even if I'm doing it in four one-on-one mini-scenes. (I still consider all four to be part of one scene, as the overall objective is the same for all four scenes.) Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Nov 5, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 22:48
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Day 5: 956 words done today [3108 total], most of which were after midnight. It's after 2 AM now. I'll pay for it tomorrow, but I just wanted to get something done after spending most of the day being worthless and wasting time pointlessly. The day actually started well, I woke up with the phrase "House of Lords" in my mind. Of course, my story's Kingdom is a monarchy in a period of reform. Of course it's a constitutional monarchy. My heroine giving a speech to one crowd isn't what I need, she needs to meet with key influencers who can get laws passed. With that I had a solid idea what the scene needed to be, I just hosed around all day. It's probably going to be a long scene - I'm 1273 words into it after only 1 of 4 meetings, so it's likely going to be the entirety of the chapter. But I've got a sensible goal, points of conflict, a clear setback, and I also get to show off my heroine's cunning and political chops, as well as set out some hooks for later.
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Nov 6, 2023 08:15
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Just 746 words today. I need to use my time better. I've been absolutely awful at it.
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Nov 7, 2023 06:47
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975 words today, I completed a scene. I could try to do more, but I don't have the time, I need to get up early tomorrow. I also don't really have a solid conflict for the next scene. Ironically, now that I've put this one in, the best conflict I can think of is the kinda lame one I just tore out a little while ago. This one might work better because my heroine has tried a better alternative first, so it's okay that it's a less good option. I'll sleep on it.
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Nov 8, 2023 05:34
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Bobby Deluxe posted:For some reason this ended up in the Destiny 2 thread (where weirdly it still kind of worked), but: Deciding in advance what a story is going to be and who the characters are is the number one way to give me writers block. Different people have different processes, and what makes it even more complicated is that people may not even know what process is best suited for them. It seems like Tarnop's attempt to decide the protagonist's motivation "later" is not working out for them. Readers can be enticed by mysteries to want to read more. But it may not be the best idea to make it a mystery what the main character wants, because understanding the main character's motivations is important to making the reader connect with them. Flashback chapters of a different character on their own probably won't solve the issue if it's unclear what the motivations driving the main character are. In fact, the motivations of the viewpoint character should be clear in each and every scene. The reader is being shown this scene for a reason, it's because the viewpoint character wants something from this scene to further their ultimate goal, and something is keeping them from getting it. Without knowing what the viewpoint character wants, the reader will ask "why purpose does this scene serve?"
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Nov 9, 2023 21:57
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My progress is so consistently mediocre that further updates are only a waste of space.
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Nov 10, 2023 06:53
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Someone earlier said about making sure your scenes all have a point they are getting across to the reader, and if you write like that then I am going to admire you from afar because I am writing mine with the intent that nobody is reading it until it's been through at least 2 or 3 redrafts. I think that's addressed to me, and that is a significant misinterpretation of what I was saying. Making sure your scenes have a point does not mean "make the scenes complete and ready for a test reader," nor is it about making it “clever or marketable”. It’s a simple self-check for problems. It is to reduce how much of the story you later discover doesn’t work properly. Scenes which don’t have a point in the first draft aren’t likely to remain in the story after your third draft. Now, obviously it doesn’t stop you from wandering down the wrong path, it just gives you clues when you do. Example: I’ve just wasted the last four days struggling with a scene. What I had in mind was that my heroine would see the troubles of the city as she’s on her way to an event where the something important actually happens. I kept trying to give her something proactive to be doing and even after setting a scene goal, I spotted that in the first half of the scene, she wasn’t being proactive at all, just standing there while other characters have conversations with each other. Important conversations which convey key information to the reader, certainly, but it had nothing to do with the protagonist. She wasn’t even participating in the conversations (which would have been fine if even just listening had been advancing her scene goal, but it wasn't). It was only late last night that I decided to just take that scene out, and skip to the action. The exposition can go someplace else. That effectively kills the last 4 days of work, but considering that it was only 800-ish words anyway, it's not a big loss. (And the fact that it took so long to write so little was in itself a clue to problems with the scene.)
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Nov 12, 2023 15:52
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856 words yesterday. A lot of them were ones I rescued from abandoned scenes. It's always good to hang onto old drafts. Skipping the ride to the location and just cutting to there helps add some momentum. The protagonist also gets to be more proactive, get stymied, or at least show that she's waiting for the right moment. Even if she’s ultimately still listening in on conversations for the middle of the scene, it feels a bit better if I can show her working towards her goals up front, and she’s listening because she can’t do any more work until the time is right. Ultimately, it was such a small change - a shift in location and time. I've now also realize I need to alter a previous scene's location to give more insight into my heroine, and more specifically, show that she's skilled at archery before she demonstrates her understanding of the flight an arrow takes. Bobby Deluxe posted:It was more admiration than snark, honestly. I absolutely cannot mix production and editing mindsets; in fact I suspect that was what absolutely destroyed my progress the other day. Everyone works in different ways. I cannot separate production and editing mindsets, and that hampers my speed tremendously, if only because I make notes[1] about things to fix later. Some people might plan the overarching story and how each scene is going to play out ahead of time. That's not exactly my method. It's just filling in a little bit at a time, in various places as it comes to mind. Of course surprises happen in the course of writing, even when planning ahead. When writing a scene near the end, it came as a complete surprise to me that that a character had come back from apparent death to save the day. The surprise was that until that moment, they had never "died" in the first place and had been with the group the entire time. [1] Scrivener has a "Notes" text file attached to each and every main text file, which is great for holding a reminder of Goal, Conflict Setback, as well as the detail of the little notes. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 20:41
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Bleh. 878 words. I could have and should have done more. I was able to salvage a lot of the scene I had previously tossed. Most of what I wrote was just description of the scene to try and paint an accurate picture of the location in the reader's mind, because the action will need to make sense. At least the scene is almost done. I did want it done about a week ago, though. My level of commitment is abysmal and unacceptable.
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Nov 15, 2023 07:20
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 13:22 |
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Actually, if words written well before Nov 1 don't count, I wrote more like 841 yesterday. Actually I've written up to the point where my first attempts - starting in media res - began. The next several scenes will be essentially confirming or tweaking scenes I wrote before. So stuff pasted in probably won't count, only fresh stuff. If words written in the week before Nano started count that would be an additional 3115. But they probably don't either.
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Nov 15, 2023 14:35
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