When To Work on It; When to Scrap It

Okay, here's a tough quandary that has haunted me a lot during the absolutely tortured genesis of my latest chapters: WHEN IS IT JUST PLAIN TIME TO START OVER?

This is very, very difficult. At some point, you just have to dig down and pick getting something done over getting it perfect. Use your own judgment on this one; a good rule of thumb is to give as much thought to re-starting as possible. Chances are the idea will break down just as quickly as you built it up. It can seem to be the quick, sexy alternative to scrap what you've done and write it JUST HOW YOU WANT IT. Beware these thoughts. They crop up quickly and vanish into the night, leaving you with a bunch of scrapped half-drafts. Don't compromise your need to get your story just right but, similarly, don't sacrifice it on the altar of a cool new idea until you've given that new idea some HARD thought. New ideas are tricky, and they can leave you for dead.

SONG OF THE POST

Hushabye by The Beach Boys

Building a Convincing World

I asked myself why I was stalling in re-writing my first chapter. The answer is, amongst other things, I'm having a hard time deciding on the hard-and-fast rules of the world I want to create. This is critical, of course. Having a world that makes sense, that seems like it is lived in and has its own internal logic lets people concentrate on your heroes and their struggles and not get distracted by some outlandish elements of the world that don't seem to go together.

The simplest way to do this is by being SURE about a few key things in your world. Remember, you are the creator of everything in your story. "I don't know," about ANYTHING in this world, is not a good answer. There's no need to think of the name of every town, every street, or every member of your world's government, but knowing in broad terms how the systems of government, religion and so on work and interact is key to giving your world the lived-in quality so important to readers believing what you're telling them. Doing a little extra brain-work when you get started can pay of heftily down the road.

SONG OF THE POST
Your Hands (Together) by New Pornographers

Time Management And Writing - Spring Break Edition

Here's a challenge and some circumstances which are much more difficult than they seem. Someone, (me) has to do something (write two chapters) and has plenty of time (a whole week) to do it. How is it that such things never seem to go as planned? The idea of all the free time of Spring Break puts me in an absolute terror, to be honest. Writing suffers when it's all condensed into one night of furious catch-up. The loss in revision time is staggering and turns prose weak and confusing. Still, having enough time to do something properly and too much are different things. Spring Break is enough time to write twice what I have to AND revise it, which means that I can put it off until tomorrow and probably will until I am crunched for time and turn in shoddy work sure to send the other members of the class into a haze of annoyed indifference.

How is this relevant to YOU, the writer at home? Well, I suspect you, as a person, probably put things off, too. Learning how to conquer these tendencies is the difference between a writer and some guy with a cool idea. I'll try setting daily time or page goals, anything to tame this thing. I don't yet know what helpful methods are as I've been consistently catastrophic as a manager of time in the past. On Monday, I'll know and, thanks to the magic of the internet, so will you!

SONG OF THE POST

Turn Into by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Plot is a Necessary Evil

All right, time for part 3 in an ongoing series about my weaknesses as a writer. This week- PLOT! My heavy dependence on plot as the main force of a story is really a dead giveaway that I was only really prolific as a writer before high school, e.g. when I was a kid. When you are a kid, plot is everything. Who cares who the heroes are as people, what are they DOING this week? What new planet are they going to? Who are they killing? Yes, my body may be 21 going on 22 but my writing mindset is 12, and a shallow 12 at that.

Here's the thing. Plot is actually one of the more disposable aspects of writing, or at least that's the way I see it when i step back and think a bit. Flat, lifeless main characters can derail a plot full of wonderful and exciting developments. I tend to write in a very close 3rd person narrative, which means that the reader and one character are going to spend a lot of time together. Why, in the name of all that is holy, can I never seem to make that main character interesting, motivated, alive? I blame my strong ties to the pre-teen world of fantastical adventures and my lackadaisical attitude toward self-improvement. The take-away from this awful bout of self-deprecation is simple- THINK ABOUT YOUR CHARACTERS AS PEOPLE, LAVISH ATTENTION ON THEM. If they are gripping, plot will flow from them. If they are bland sacks of meat, plot will be sucked in.

SONG OF THE POST
Romance is Boring by Los Campesinos!

Where Ideas Strike

I just made a plot breakthrough on my story. Now, I've been sitting at my desk, computer on, most of the day. The breakthrough happened when I finally broke away to take a shower. This isn't aberrant at all. In fact, I find that most of my best thinking gets done when anywhere but sitting still in my room. Taking walks, taking showers, travelling on trains. The desk is bad for a few reasons.

1) IT'S STULTIFYING

Sitting at the desk is normal. In the Mp3 era, this is where all the music listening goes down. With my Plasystation in the shop, it's the place to play games and see movies. So, basically, I stay in that chair all day. Being in one place for a long time kills the creative processes like nothing else.

2) THE INTERNET

How easy is it to do something other than write? Fabulously easy, as the fact that I'm typing this rather than writing proves. The internet doesn't just hurt writing attention span, it nukes it from orbit.

3) LEARNING STYLE

This is different for everyone, but I specifically am a kinesthetic learner of the highest order. Movement and action stimulate the brain, so sitting still is a killer. Are you one? It depends. What does taking walks do for your brain? Try it out, you may just dig your way out of a plot hole!

SONG OF THE POST:

Ghost Town by First Aid Kit

How Old Do Characters Sound?

Okay, time for the first post about serious writerly matters- the perceived ages of characters based on dialogue and their internal motivations. This is something I am actually quite terrible at which is as good a reason as any to start with it. It's important to air all my story's dirty laundry right off, as I have no readers and don't really care to seek any out. Until some show up, these posts are merely to work out some things. Hopefully they will someday be discovered and found useful by someone else.

On to the topic at hand- setting the age of characters by how they speak. The heroes of my current story are all teenagers, between fifteen and sixteen and yet they read a lot younger. The writing class two weeks ago gave me some important insight into why this is. Hopefully, this will help anyone having the same problems. Here are the reasons why they sound young and some possible solutions I will be implementing in the new draft.

REASON 1) USE OF PROFANITY

I tried to give the characters a rough vocabulary to simulate the tossed-off conversations of mid-teens, but overdid it. Sentences punctuated with crude language sound more like 12 year olds trying to reach up and speak like an older teen. By the time real people are fifteen, the novelty wears off a bit, and word choice is clearer and less needlessly macho. I lost track of this in the struggle to give them a lived-in quality. Making that mistake was very easy, so I'm positive I'm not the only one doing it.

REASON 2) WHERE'S THE SEX?

Since the cast of chapter 1 is overwhelmingly male, I forgot one key element- even if there aren't girls in sight, that doesn't mean they won't be on these kids' minds. At 15, the body is a mass of conflicted feelings and desires, most of which have some sort of sexual underpinnings. "They would be thinking about girls constantly" was the consensus from the class. I was blind to miss it. As an aside, one classmate response to this was "Maybe they're just gay." The professor's response, of course, "Fine, then they'd be thinking about boys!" The take-away is that even though there's no sexual encounters in the chapter, these characters WILL have it on their minds.

The other problem with the dialogue was that I am writing in a parallel world and the characters spoke like Americans from the present day. But that is for another post.

SONG OF THE POST

Flash Delirium by MGMT

Site Created; Will Use Later

It's my intention to use this site as a place to air thoughts, primarily about writing. The purpose is twofold; first, for my own use in typing out thoughts and taking a clear look at them and, second, to share these thoughts with whoever cares to read them. I will also share a song at the end of every post, to make sure there's something worthwhile in them!

See you out there!

SONG OF THE DAY

Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying by Belle & Sebastian