Linkety links
There are quite a few posts around the blog-o-sphere that I loved this week, so I didn’t feel like narrowing it down.
First, WorldPlay suggests Why You Should Kick Your Story Aside and Write a Different One.
Teralyn Rose Pilgrim discussed Keeping A Work Diary.
The Aspiring Subcreator asked: What does your writing look like? in this hilarious post.
Over at Chasing the Dream, Melissa is Learning to Love Notecards when revising. I just discovered Melissa’s blog this week--I met her at Ladies Who Critique, which is click worthy as well.
YA HIghway gave 5 Tips for Writing Outside Your Gender, something really relevant for me at the moment.
And KidLit did a very helpful First Line Analysis.
The Co-writing Adventure
Writing a novel with someone else is enlightening. Marie and I are brainstorming/ignoring the project until her kids start school in a few weeks. But we’ve got some basic plot ideas for a fantasy story. What I love about working with her is learning how differently we approach writing a novel. For example, one of a recent phone conversations:
Me: Okay, so we have a basic idea of what’s going to happen (in my lawyer-like tone, suggesting we now restate said ideas for clarity).
Marie: Oohhh...who do you want to be? The girl or the guy?
Me: I don’t know. I don’t care.
Marie: I want to write the girl. I thought I’d want to write the guy, but I like her.
Me: Okay, sounds good. So what should we do next?
Marie: Of course, if you want to write the girl, that’s okay too. Or we could just wait and see.
Me: No, I’ll write the dude. I can get a feel for him. So what should we do next? We should figure out the end.
Marie: How will we know what happens in the end if we don’t know the plot?
Me: That’s how I usually come up with a plot--I figure out what happens in the end. And then I work backwards.
Marie: We’re getting ahead of ourselves. First we have to build the world.
Me: But we build the world according to what happens in the story, so we need to know what happens first--we need to know the end. And then we can start world building.
Marie: No, we build the word and then figure out the story. The last thing we figure out is the ending.
A moment of silence.
Me: Okay. Let’s do some world building and then we can come back to the plot.
Marie: You’re saying that because you’ve already decided what happens in the end.
Me: Yep, I know what happens in the end.
Marie: Are you going to tell me?
Me: Nope. I want to see what you come up with.
The Tutors
I’ve been watching The Tutors over the last few weeks. I love historical TV dramas, so this one is prefect for me. I always watch and research at the same time, so while the series is playing, I look up facts and what not on my laptop.
What I enjoy most about the show is staring at Henry and wondering: what the hell is he thinking? Movies/TV are great that way--where you aren’t always quite sure what the MC is thinking. It doesn’t work that way for me in novels, where I like to know the MC’s motivations and reasoning.
It intrigues me how our expectations for characters/plotting differ between film and text--and it makes me want to write a screenplay. Have you ever written a screenplay?
Blog Changes
I haven’t been posting as regularly as I like. I need more structure, but I don’t really like having set days per week. Therefore, I thought I would try something new starting in September. My plan is to have each month dedicated to a writing topic and to make four posts that month regarding it (hopefully one per week, but possibly four on the last four days). For September, I am going to tackle plotting a novel since I am taking a class from the fabulous Todd Mitchell, author of The Secret to Lying, on that topic next weekend. I am sure I’ll have some awesome learning to share!
Have a fantablous Friday!
7 comments:
*waves* Thanks for linking my post this week:)
Wow, I couldn't imagine co-writing a book. It sounds like a lot of fun, though:D
Sarah's post was great!
LOL - I love the back and forth on your co-writer project. I think I have to come up with the ending first too. But not right away - in my plotting phase, I thought about the world and the dramas that could happen and THEN the ending came. Good luck with everything :).
So you plot deductively whereas your partner plots inductively, as Sherlock Holmes termed it. This should be interesting.
Sounds like you and your co-writer can learn a lot from each other ... if ya don't kill each other first. Gonna be interesting learning how to blend your styles.
LOL, love the co-writing dialog!
Sarah--you always give such great comment!
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