Showing posts with label dreaded middles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreaded middles. Show all posts
Thursday, January 24, 2008
“What Am I Talking About?” or Writing Through Your Black Moments
So, you’re shuffling along in your story, plowing through scene upon scene like Captain Jack Sparrow cutting the crowd at a party on his way to the rum punch. When I say you, I am, of course, referencing the ubiquitous you, the you that would be all of us if we were sitting at our keyboard writing this instance. Hey, it’s easier on me psychologically if it’s you and not me. Stay with me here. So, you’re plugging along in your story and suddenly, blam, you start questioning yourself. How am I doing? You worry. Will anyone want to read this? You fret. Who cares what I have to say anyway?! You panic. These conversations can occur late at night while you’re wired up on caffeine or feeling a little loopy from an extra glass of wine. But, they can definitely occur when you’re in the middle of your WIP and you’re starting to question what in the name of Peter, Paul, and Mary got you moving along this particular writing path in the first place.
Not pointing any fingers here, but that’s definitely happened to someone on this boat. Ok, I give up. It’s me. In fact, my moments of vulnerability have been aired out on my own blog and my critique group here on the boat are certainly privy to them.
Now, what keeps you, er... me, ok us, going through this? What stops us from closing up that file and burying it under our beds (or at least in the back of the Word.doc files)? What gives us the strength to keep writing through the black moments in our work?
Our point, that’s what. That bit of truth at the core of the story.
And don’t tell me that you don’t have a point because I’m sure you do.
I’ve been reading romance a long time and the books that stay with me stay because they said something. Their message or core idea didn’t have to end poverty, promote world peace, or cure cancer but it had to resonate inside of me. At the end, I would put the book down and feel uplifted, like I understood the world just little better.
This past week, I realized that I had something to say. Who knew, huh?
In my WIP, my heroine, Cory, watched her father’s unrequited love of her mother and vows to avoid love’s complications in her own marriage. My hero, Will, has been burned by love in the past and isn’t sure that it’s worth trying again. Through the course of their story, they realize that love is worth any risk.
Sounds like an ok story, right? My characters learn something, the end. But, in fact, this story means more to me than that. This story gets at what I personally have to say to the world; that really, there isn’t anything as important as love.
This message is what keeps me pushing. I know that others have tackled this theme. I have no delusions that I am the first, or last, writer to express this thought. But, like those great stories I’ve read, I’m hoping that I tell the story in such a way that my reader, after turning that last page, feels like they understand the world a little bit better too.
So, dearest wenches, what is it that you are trying to say (ie, what’s your Core Idea)? What keeps you writing your story through your black moments? How do you shore up that sagging middle? And when do you feel the weakest in your writing, morning, night, beginning of story vs the end, sex scenes vs black moments? Do tell.
Not pointing any fingers here, but that’s definitely happened to someone on this boat. Ok, I give up. It’s me. In fact, my moments of vulnerability have been aired out on my own blog and my critique group here on the boat are certainly privy to them.
Now, what keeps you, er... me, ok us, going through this? What stops us from closing up that file and burying it under our beds (or at least in the back of the Word.doc files)? What gives us the strength to keep writing through the black moments in our work?
Our point, that’s what. That bit of truth at the core of the story.
And don’t tell me that you don’t have a point because I’m sure you do.
I’ve been reading romance a long time and the books that stay with me stay because they said something. Their message or core idea didn’t have to end poverty, promote world peace, or cure cancer but it had to resonate inside of me. At the end, I would put the book down and feel uplifted, like I understood the world just little better.
This past week, I realized that I had something to say. Who knew, huh?
In my WIP, my heroine, Cory, watched her father’s unrequited love of her mother and vows to avoid love’s complications in her own marriage. My hero, Will, has been burned by love in the past and isn’t sure that it’s worth trying again. Through the course of their story, they realize that love is worth any risk.
Sounds like an ok story, right? My characters learn something, the end. But, in fact, this story means more to me than that. This story gets at what I personally have to say to the world; that really, there isn’t anything as important as love.
This message is what keeps me pushing. I know that others have tackled this theme. I have no delusions that I am the first, or last, writer to express this thought. But, like those great stories I’ve read, I’m hoping that I tell the story in such a way that my reader, after turning that last page, feels like they understand the world a little bit better too.
So, dearest wenches, what is it that you are trying to say (ie, what’s your Core Idea)? What keeps you writing your story through your black moments? How do you shore up that sagging middle? And when do you feel the weakest in your writing, morning, night, beginning of story vs the end, sex scenes vs black moments? Do tell.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
My Love Affair with Plotting Methods
In the writing realm, you generally run into three groups of writers: plotters, pantsers, and plantsers. If you’re a plotting newbie, let me give you my take on plotting methods.
Plotters meticulously map out the details and nuances of their novels in order to make sure their characters stay on the straight and narrow thereby alleviating the possibility that their story will derail and of their characters run amok. Pantsers laugh in the face of planning as they sit at their computers and allow their story to spring from their fingers, thrilling in the unknown. And, plantsers are somewhere in the middle. This hybrid group recognizes they need some sort of planning as to avoid wandering willy-nilly about their novel with no real goal in mind.
My first attempts at writing were straight up pantsing. I sat gleefully churning out page after page of creativity, allowing myself the liberty to run wild and free through the story, like Julie Andrews running across the mountaintops in Sound of Music. Ah, the elation! Ah, the wild, blissful abandon! Until I bothered to read what I wrote and realized I had no clue where I was going, how I got where I was, or if I even cared what happened next. Inevitably, I would stare at my computer screen like a child in Walmart who’d lost her mother.
After a few attempts at writing in this fashion, I decided I was sick of my gypsy-like writing tactics and swung completely full-circle. Before I started my next book, I vowed, I would plot the entire thing out, leaving nothing to chance. I would know where I was going, by god, before I started. So, I sat at my computer. I made spreadsheets and outlines. I did character analyses and I did a storyboard. I plotted and plotted until I strangled the very breath out of it. By the time I sat down to write that book, I hated everything about it. The characters felt stiff, the plot felt stiff, and I felt stiff from all that time slaving over it.
My most recent efforts fall in the plantsing category. I began with a tentative outline and some scenes sketched out, but now that I’m in the fearsome middle, I’m afraid my characters aren’t motivated enough and that I haven’t set up enough conflicts along their way. So, again I’m questioning my recent strategy, wondering if there is some other plotting technique that would help me.
I have read a couple of books I’ve found helpful with moving along plot. One is You Can Write a Romance Novel by Rita Clay Estrada. (Yes, that Rita. The Rita that THE Rita for RWA is named after). This book mentions setting up each scene with a goal so that it’s driven by an action and has a reaction to that action. Many writing sites online speak of the multiple plot twist/black moment theory I mentioned on another post. Basically, you set up your book into a few “acts” with each culminating in a mini-black moment before the final BIG black moment.
So, help a fellow wench out. What plotting techniques (if any) do you use/find most effective? Help Help Help, I'm in the dreaded middle! Also, are you a plotter, pantser, or plantser? And what aspects of each method do you like/hate?
Plotters meticulously map out the details and nuances of their novels in order to make sure their characters stay on the straight and narrow thereby alleviating the possibility that their story will derail and of their characters run amok. Pantsers laugh in the face of planning as they sit at their computers and allow their story to spring from their fingers, thrilling in the unknown. And, plantsers are somewhere in the middle. This hybrid group recognizes they need some sort of planning as to avoid wandering willy-nilly about their novel with no real goal in mind.
My first attempts at writing were straight up pantsing. I sat gleefully churning out page after page of creativity, allowing myself the liberty to run wild and free through the story, like Julie Andrews running across the mountaintops in Sound of Music. Ah, the elation! Ah, the wild, blissful abandon! Until I bothered to read what I wrote and realized I had no clue where I was going, how I got where I was, or if I even cared what happened next. Inevitably, I would stare at my computer screen like a child in Walmart who’d lost her mother.
After a few attempts at writing in this fashion, I decided I was sick of my gypsy-like writing tactics and swung completely full-circle. Before I started my next book, I vowed, I would plot the entire thing out, leaving nothing to chance. I would know where I was going, by god, before I started. So, I sat at my computer. I made spreadsheets and outlines. I did character analyses and I did a storyboard. I plotted and plotted until I strangled the very breath out of it. By the time I sat down to write that book, I hated everything about it. The characters felt stiff, the plot felt stiff, and I felt stiff from all that time slaving over it.
My most recent efforts fall in the plantsing category. I began with a tentative outline and some scenes sketched out, but now that I’m in the fearsome middle, I’m afraid my characters aren’t motivated enough and that I haven’t set up enough conflicts along their way. So, again I’m questioning my recent strategy, wondering if there is some other plotting technique that would help me.
I have read a couple of books I’ve found helpful with moving along plot. One is You Can Write a Romance Novel by Rita Clay Estrada. (Yes, that Rita. The Rita that THE Rita for RWA is named after). This book mentions setting up each scene with a goal so that it’s driven by an action and has a reaction to that action. Many writing sites online speak of the multiple plot twist/black moment theory I mentioned on another post. Basically, you set up your book into a few “acts” with each culminating in a mini-black moment before the final BIG black moment.
So, help a fellow wench out. What plotting techniques (if any) do you use/find most effective? Help Help Help, I'm in the dreaded middle! Also, are you a plotter, pantser, or plantser? And what aspects of each method do you like/hate?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Books by the Crew
