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Posts Tagged ‘first drafts’

On Being a Discovery Writer

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on February 20, 2011| 5 Comments »

Hello, my name is Meredith Mansfield and I’m a discovery writer.

And, no, I’m not looking for a twelve-step program. I like it just the way it is, thank you.

Some writers–many very successful writers–fully outline a story before they start. I know writers who have every scene mapped before they put “Chapter One” at the top of a page.  More power to them. If I outlined in that detail, I would never write the story. What would be the point? I’d already have told it.

For some of us, the more often we tell the story (and outlining is telling the story, just in a boring way), the less enthusiasm we have for it. We have to be free to find things out as we go along. We’re discovery writers or sometimes pantsers (because we write by the seat of our pants).

I set up a basic structure for my novel, so I know where I’m going. It helps to keep me from veering off into the weeds (too much). And then I start. I generally sort of outline about a chapter ahead as I go.

The fun part is, I’m learning parts of the story at the same time I’m writing the first draft. Yes, that means that I’ll have things I need to go back and add, change, or delete in the second draft. That’s okay. I make a note and move on.

But as I get really into a story, as I’m into SEVEN STARS right now, new things come into my head and I get to explore them, turn them around and look at them from the other side, and decide whether or not to put them in the story. It grows. It gets better. Things that were hazy when I wrote that proto synopsis come into focus. How to get the characters from A to B or how to accomplish that important plot point becomes clear. They’re still new and exciting and I get to write them while that excitement is fresh.

And I’m willing to bet discovery writers have more fun.

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Bringing Characters Together

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on February 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I have to say, I’m having a lot of fun with this new version of SEVEN STARS so far. Switching the gender roles just opens up a world of possibilities for these characters and a lot of fun things to explore.

I’m up to chapter eleven, more or less alternating viewpoints between the two main characters. Right now, I’m in that interesting stage of bringing the characters together.

These two characters are very different, have different backgrounds, different ways of looking at things, even different goals. But, of course, because this is a story, they’re going to end up working together, learning to like and respect each other, and, eventually, falling in love.  That’s even more fun now with the female character being the dominant member of the pair in the beginning.

While their paths have crossed a couple of times, I’ve just really brought them together where they have to interact when she rescued him from certain death. Now they’re going to be stuck alone together for a couple of days so they have a chance to learn a little about each other.

This is much better than that awful trope I had in the first version. (We just won’t talk about that, alright?)

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Re-Imagining a Story

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on February 9, 2011| 2 Comments »

This topic arises as I finally begin to make headway on the new version of SEVEN STARS.  I wouldn’t say I’m on a first-draft-in-six-weeks pace (which can be quite a wild ride anyway), but I am definitely making strong and consistent progress.

I’ve been somewhat resistant to writing this story. Not because I don’t like it, but because the first version of it fought me to a standstill at 50,000 words and refused to go any farther.

I set it aside and began tinkering with the plot to try to get my interest back up. But even though I liked the new plot line much better, I couldn’t flog myself into getting back into the story. Until I completely reimagined it.

In this case, I played with the gender of the main characters. Actually, I flipped them. The formerly male character is now female and the formerly female character is now male, which basically forced me to look at the entire story with completely new eyes. It’s too soon (chapter four) to tell whether this is going to work all the way through to the end, but either way it’s going to have been an interesting exercise and a useful way of getting back into a story I had some resistance to.

You can’t just change the genders of the characters and then go ahead and write the same story. Some other things will have to change. Even if your characters still have the same personalities and the same goals as before. The way other characters respond to them and their expectations of them will probably change. Even if they have the same goals, the way they go about trying to achieve them, at least for the first try/fail cycle, will probably change. The way they respond to challenges may change–and the skill set they bring to the problem.

Of course, since I write fantasy, I have the advantage of being able to adjust the world I set these characters in, too. But, in some ways, it’s more interesting to play with them in the original world, created for a character of the opposite gender, and see how it changes their responses.

Look at s couple of examples in the genre:

In THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Eowyn had essentially the same desires as her brother Eomer, and every bit as much courage, but she was constrained by her gender role.

In GRACELING, Katsa is faced with contradictory expectations. On the one hand, her uncle the king tries to treat her like any other lady of the court and marry her off to his advantage. All the while, he’s using her Graced talents to make her his strong arm and assassin.

Both characters who at some point have to break out of their assigned roles. I think that makes them more interesting. And I think it will make SEVEN STARS much more fun to play with, now.

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Writing Process, Part One

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on February 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Every writer has their own process, their own way of approaching a story. The tough part is, we all have to figure out what it is for ourselves by just diving in and trying things.  At first, it’s just fumbling in the dark, but I think I’m starting to get a handle on what works best for me.

Some stories–notably DREAMER’S ROSE and the first attempt at SEVEN STARS–don’t seem to want to fit into this pattern, but the ones I’ve been happiest with, do.

Now, first off, I’m something of a discovery writer. Not hard core, but nearer that end of the continuum. I really find I need to identify at least three things before I can start a novel:

  1. The inciting incident.
  2. The central conflict.
  3. The climax and its resolution.

Most frequently, now, I write what I call a proto-synopsis before I start. It’s not in outline format and it doesn’t get into too much detail, which leaves me free to discover the story as I go. Besides, I’m going to need to write a synopsis sooner or later anyway. This gives me a starting point.

Next is the first draft. If it’s really flowing, I may complete the first draft in little over a month. These are usually the stories I end up liking best. 

The first draft is unidirectional–forward only.  No going back for revisions.  However, I will make notes of things that need to be done in the second draft.

  1. In order to maintain the momentum, I may have short changed a difficult scene. I may need to go back and flesh it out. This may get some sage note such as “Show don’t tell.” 
  2. I may realize that something needs to be further developed. In MAGE STORM, for example, I realized I needed to spend a little more time developing the friendships.
  3. I may insert something late in the story and realize I need to go back to foreshadow it a bit, so it doesn’t appear to fall out of the sky. In the last quarter or so of MAGE STORM, I changed what was going to be a large fish into a small water dragon. That made it necessary to go back to a couple of places earlier in the story and give some indication that such creatures might exist in this world. 

Then I try to let the story rest for a month. This is the time to work on something else. I also find that I like to follow Kevin J. Anderson’s advice to have more than one project at a time (in different phases) in order to maximize your writing time. Ideally, I’d like to have one story in development, one in first or second draft, one in revision, and one on submission. In reality, I usually don’t quite manage all of that, yet.

Next post, I’ll continue this topic.  Starting with the second draft.

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No Antagonist

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on January 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Since I last posted about antagonists and villains, I’ll continue on with the theme.  What about stories that have no antagonist?

Yes, it’s possible. It’s even possible to do well. Look at Maggie Stiefvater’s SHIVER. Of course, in a way, there is an antagonist. It’s just not a person.

This comes up as I prepare to start working on SEVEN STARS again because I think it’s one of the problems (not the only one) I had with the earlier version.  This story doesn’t have a personified antagonist.  There will be characters who variously help or impede the main character for their own ends. There will be characters or groups she vilifies as evil and fights against. But there really isn’t a single antagonist.

Instead, her battle is much more against a part her own nature. Very similar, in a way to SHIVER, although SEVEN STARS is not a werewolf story. 

I think there are additional challenges to writing a story without an identifiable antagonist. Keeping the tension up, for one. There’s nobody to point to and say, “Hurry, he’s going to catch you.” SHIVER still had that, to a degree, because the weather was a huge part of the problem–and you know things are only going to get colder as winter comes in. SEVEN STARS won’t have anything that clear to point to.

I’ve written one other book (THE IGNORED PROPHECY) without an antagonist on the main story line. The central story on that one was very internal. But I had a really unlikable antagonist for a strong sub plot. I’m not sure I’ll even have that for SEVEN STARS. 

It’s going to be a challenge, I think.  Well, it’s one of two stories (DREAMER’S ROSE is the other) that have made me work harder to get the story out and get it right.

The current challenge on DREAMER’S ROSE is going to be to cut about a quarter of it. The pacing stinks in places.  That’s going to require more than one pass, I’m afraid.

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Long

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on November 21, 2010| 4 Comments »

Back when I was finishing the first draft of MAGE STORM, I posted that it was a little short.  I wasn’t worried about that at the time because I knew I’d end up expanding it in the revisions.

Now that I’m about two-thirds of the way through the third draft, the tables are turned. 

Since I’ve decided that MAGE STORM is really Middle Grade, not Young Adult, I’m now concerned that it’s creeping up towards being too long.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

I know there’s some stuff at the end that I’ll probably cut or at least cut back.  Probably it will still end up about the right length.

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Inspiration

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on November 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I’ve posted before about how inspiration can come from literally anything.  The other thing about inspiration, especially that first spark of an idea that you build on to make a story, is that it can’t be forced.  At least, I can’t force it.

There are things you can work on, of course.  I have a set of questions that I ask myself about a culture or a place when I’m doing world building.  The thing there is that they all have to integrate, to feel like a cohesive and rational whole.

But the idea itself, that comes from deeper in my brain, from my subconscious.  And it has to bubble up from the depths in its own good time.

This happened recently with SEVEN STARS.  I have the world building pretty well done.  I wrote the first chapter, plus a little.  And then I stopped.  The main character felt too confident, competent, and especially too old for what I wanted this story to be.  He sounded like an old campaigner when he’s supposed to be a kid forced into the role of leader in a stressful situation he’s not really quite ready for.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it.  So, I put it aside for a while, worked on revisions on other projects, and let my subconscious work behind the scenes. 

It paid off a couple of days ago.  I know exactly how to change that first chapter or so to fix my main character and the story.

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Chapter One

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on October 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Since I’d made good progress on my world building, I let myself take a little dive into Chapter One of SEVEN STARS (I really have to think of a new title).

The first chapter of anything is always challenging.  It’s not so much the blank page.  There’s just a certain amount of settling into the new character’s head and getting comfortable there.  Kind of a period of getting acquainted.

Often, there’s a certain amount of info-dumping, setting up the world.  Stuff I’ll have to go back and delete later, but have to get out of my head before I can really get started.  Plus, I always try to turn my infernal, I mean internal, editor off when writing a first draft. 

I’m having more than the usual trouble getting into this character.  He keeps wanting to sound too experienced and generally too old, at least if this is going to be a young adult story.  I’ve got to make him a little–no, a lot–more uncertain about a couple of things.  That means getting deeper POV, which is always hard for me for the first chapter or so, but I’m making progress.

I still have world building to do, but getting a better feel for  the main character is important, too.

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Epilogues

Posted in writing, tagged , , , on August 8, 2010| 2 Comments »

I think I’ve posted before about my distaste for (and inability to write) prologues.  I usually don’t like epilogues much better.  However, I just finished writing the epilogue for MAGE STORM.  It’s an epilogue because it takes place almost a year after the end of the story, with really nothing filled in in between.

In this story, I just felt that the characters, all of whom had left some kind of trouble behind them at home, deserved a chance to go back and show everyone that they were okay, that they’d found, if not what they were looking for in all cases, what they needed.  And to discover that home wasn’t back there any more, but in the new place they were carving out for themselves.  So, I wrote an epilogue.

I tried not to rush it, which is usually one of my biggest complaints about epilogues.  They feel like the author is in such a hurry to finish up and tie up those last loose ends, a lot of important things get told instead of shown.  Hopefully, I didn’t do that.

Now, of course, I worry that I’ve gone on too long after the resolution of the main conflict.  Well, in a week or so I’ll start the second draft.  There’s always the chance the whole epilogue will end up on the cutting room floor, but I don’t think so in this case.

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Number of Characters

Posted in writing, tagged , , , on August 4, 2010| 1 Comment »

Another thing I’ve noticed as I’ve written more novels, (finishing up the first draft of my fifth, now), is that I have fewer important characters.

My first novel, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE didn’t quite have a cast of thousands.  Not quite.  But there are a lot of characters and a fair few of them get at least a scene in their very own point of view.  Now part of this is probably inevitable.  There are six separate cultures in this world that interact to a greater or lesser extent.  And the main character ends up having something to do with all but one of them.  Now, if there are only three important characters from each culture (and some have more), that’s already eighteen important characters.  It’s bad enough that I had to draw up a genealogical chart for the main character’s family relationships when I started finding readers for the sequel, THE IGNORED PROPHECY. 

Not all of those characters have a significant part in THE IGNORED PROPHECY.  Some of the ones that were very important in the SHAMAN’S CURSE are barely supporting characters in THE IGNORED PROPHECY.  It makes me start to wonder if I need to try to reduce and combine characters in the eventual revision/rewrite of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.

THE IGNORED PROPHECY has fewer important characters, but still quite a few because, well, because they were already there from THE SHAMAN’S CURSE

BLOOD WILL TELL really only has five important characters and about as many more supporting characters.  It also takes place over a much shorter period of time.  (THE SHAMAN’S CURSE covers eight years and even THE IGNORED PROPHECY covers almost three years.  BLOOD WILL TELL takes place in a little over six months.)

DREAMER’S ROSE also has only five important characters.  Come to think of it, they’re almost the only named characters in the story.  Not quite, but close.

MAGE STORM again has five important characters.  (I’m starting to see a pattern, here.)

Fewer important characters certainly makes for a tighter story.  And it’s a lot easier to write the synopsis.

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