Skipping Around the Snowflake Method (*first two posts in tumblr*)

As it snows outside my window! *queue rim shot*

So I came to the quick conclusion that there’s a reason I haven’t used the Snowflake Method of Writing before. It’s kind of tedious. Actually, not kind of. It’s pretty darn tedious. I wrote out the opening of this story at least three times. Maybe I need to just space it out, but I’m latching to every moment I have of my vacation to catch up with my MSWord futon.

I love how helpful steps one and two were. Step three, however, is characterization, and that’s something I have to develop on my own. I can’t have that kind of structure hampering my characters. They like what they like and they do what they do. If I overthink it, I’ll try to put somewhere in the narrative what item they would pull from their burning house when it’s entirely unnecessary.

Actually, there is a scene with…well, never mind. I moved on to what’s proving to be incredibly helpful as well.

Step Four: Expand each sentence of your summary paragraph from step two into a full paragraph. All but the last paragraph should end in a disaster. The final paragraph should tell how the book ends.

I read this again after doing step two and I laughed out loud. (Oh. Sorry, young people. I meant to say I lol’d.)

Turning each sentence into its own paragraph would give me my full draft right there! Okay, a slight exaggeration, but it’s proving to be quite lengthy. The LTWF blogger said it would be a one page synopsis. Yeah, no. This will be three pages minimum.

However, a concise and well structured plot is the hardest part, but the most obvious. You have to know where you and your characters are heading even if you don’t plot it out entirely before writing. Me? I need to know almost exactly where I’m going. Things will change throughout, of course, but I need a basic guideline. Usually this is in the form of bulleted typed notes under chapter heads. Now it’s a Word document with full sentences…and I’m kind of liking that better. Actually, not kind of. It looks so pretty with its punctuation marks and proper grammar.

Next is…

Step Five: Write a one-page synopsis of the story from the point of view of each major character.

Um…we’ll see.

Santa Brought Me An Amazing Gift. He Calls It "Time." Go Figure.

Holy cow and holy night! It's been much too long since I spewed my thoughts! I could go on for ages about how busy school made me and how much of a lazy bum I am and how stressed I've been, but I've long since decided to focus on the positives. It's just plain healthier.

So I hope the good hearted souls had wonderful whichever holiday makes them smile. I did. I went to my grandmother's new house (farther than her old place so we stayed in hotel suites Christmas Eve and night) and saw some family and talked to some friends. No tree, and that was fine. I'm not out to make life complicated for anyone, and it's true I wouldn't be able to help take it down with the new distance. And I heard the Celtic Women perform on TV. Absolutely stunning. O Holy Night is my new Christmas favorite. :-) It's fun to celebrate a holiday you don't believe in when all it means is more time with good company and good food.

It was simple and perfect. Oh night divine!

I've been getting some writing done too. Since school let out, I rediscovered what time was and used it to edit my novel U:RS in earnest and get that word count down. I'm very happy with the progress. I'm in the home stretch now (again), but the best part of this is that my really great friend read chapter three (after previously reading chapters one and two) and enjoyed it. She had her critiques, which I'm always thankful for, and really seemed to like the characters and where it was heading.

Also, through passing comments on Facebook, I may manage to form a mini critique partner circle with friends at school this semester. Two fellow writers thought the idea sounded good, so I'd really like to make time to make this happen. I love the idea of getting more feedback, and in return, practicing giving feedback. I've also thought about throwing caution to the wind and uploading U:RS on Fictionpress. I'm a little scared about the copyright laxity, but so far I haven't had any problems. I'm still deciding.

There's also the matter of my play for Playwriting class. It's made some great strides as well, and I can't wait to hear it read on January 28th! I'm so excited I can't stand it! I really want to finish writing Act II. Too bad my brain likes to jump all over the place before I get anything truly productive on the screen.

Alright, this is officially writer's babbling. Didn't even catch up on what exactly I did for two months. Work. End of story. No, but seriously. School involved:

1) many makeup  projects:

2) building two in-scale set models for plays:

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

3) writing the first act of a play and having it read by equity actors

4) performing I think two or three more scenes from select periods of history

5) and helping build actual sets for plays that went up on campus. Only one more theatre lab and then I'm DONE!

Oh, and auditioning for my favorite play ever, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and getting cast in it and auditioning for voice lessons and getting chosen! And being as social as my major allows, which was good enough for me considering what I used to be like. There were some downers to the end of the semester too, mostly the stress, the hormonal adolescent issues, and seeing some people's true colors, but like I said, I'm focusing on the positives. I've spent all the stress from the semester in one 16 hour overnight on campus working on my set models, which I'm very proud of. :-)

And that's what I've been inspired to say at about two in the morning. More productive posts to follow. *knocks on wood*

To the MSWord futon! Happy holidays!

*collapses on the way*

Progress Report a.k.a. The Editing Blues

And so, as of last night at about 11:37, my WIP dropped about 15K words. Only another 13K or so to go before I’m just inside the estimated proper word length for a YA fantasy novel. *fanfare and processions*

I skimmed through the combined draft, and immediately I saw paragraphs that could be cut/revised, so it’s definitely possible. After going through what she’s been through, don’t tell my protagonist that anything is impossible. It’s kind of exciting. I had been having such a craving to write this week, despite my homework suffering, so maybe this will be the calm that lets me let my WIP take a backseat again for a little bit so I can not flunk out of college, thanks very much. Haha!

I’m looking forward to some revision, but I understand very well now that revisions are HARD! Some places make the workload a bit lighter; others scream with stubborness. In those places I really like what’s there and somehow it needs to be told. I’m afraid that if I cut it, I won’t find a better place to put it, and I’ll possibly lose the idea if I don’t at least store the entire section in another MSWord document. So it’s hard to make the word count go down. The most I’ll do is edit or cut a sentence or words here and there. It makes me think I’m making progress, but I know it’s a cop out. Although, it did help me drop about 3K words from one chapter. I guess it helps in a “slowly but surely” kind of way until I’m brave enough to let someone see and tell me to nix the whole shebang. *cringes at the thought*

In other parts that were skyrocketing near the 15K zone for chapter length, I entirely rewrote scenes. That was painful! But no pain, no gain, right? It’s a learning process. I mentioned on my Facebook at one point about dropping the 3K words. My dad commented saying it was good that authors not get too attached to first drafts. Oh my was he off. I’m far too attached to the plot and characters as I’m sure many other authors are. The difficulty in the major editing, entirely reworking a scene, is finding something brief enough, but exciting enough. I have to still be happy with it, and it still has to be the story of these same characters. I don’t think  these guys mind quite how they end up locked up in a hostile world, just so long as I don’t actually put them to death…or do I ? o.O Then again, characters can be divas, even the shy ones, so what can ever really satisfy them?

Part of the problem may be that I’m trying to describe in words the images flying through my head. Now if I could just show my readers the images, it would knock off thousands of words. A picture tells a thousand words and all that jazz. Then again, I’d also end up a movie director rather than an author.

And in other writing news: my playwriting class is going really well! We’re reading scenes from our plays this week, and I’m about to flip out hardcore! I’m really happy with what I have so far, but it has its own dangers. A typical hour and a half play will probably have maybe upwards of 70 pages. Mine is in its completed rough draft and at 54 pages, which means to make it a full length play, it needs at least sixteen or so more pages of significant writing. Thing is, we’re at the point of learning to cut things out, so I’m anticipating a lot of red pen…which will only serve to make the play that much shorter! Yikes!

But I’ve got confidence in Charlie and her little world of players. God, I can’t wait for January and the equity readings! I’ve never had anything I’ve written read by many others and received feedback. Very nervous and very excited. Maybe I’ll feel less like puking by the end of the semester when I’ve had practice taking and giving critique. My professor sounds happy enough about where I am in terms of writing. After meeting with him, he mentioned specifically not to think about play length. Now that is out of my head. Back to the core information. Who knows? Maybe it’ll end up as a one act again. Or just a very short two act play. Whatever it is, I’m excited to finish it. My professor gave me a lot to think about for editing.

…Oh God. I’m gonna get torn apart on Friday. If not out loud, I’ll hear their minds churning.

It’s all a matter for the future. Now is a matter for now.

To the MSWord futon!! (Schoolwork is for suckers! ;P )

P.S – I was cast in next spring’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Hippolyta, and I’m going to be assistant costume designer! Booyah for my reprieve in an otherwise hellishly fun and informative semester! *pompoms*

Neurotic Genius

It's official. School has swallowed my life whole. I have lost all hope of properly sitting down with MSWord to work until December. I don't think I'll remember the things that come up that I want to share here either. I'm trying though.

There were a number of highlights last week, many of which are escaping me as one day blends into the next, but the biggest one is definitely as of 4:43am on Monday, September 6th, 2010.

*drumroll*

*louder drumroll*

I finished the first draft of U:RS!! *queue fireworks, pompoms, and victory dances*

There were tears, there were laughs, and now it's in edits. Those are coming along slowly. It's all very superficial things that are changing: rephrasing to make lines and paragraphs more concise, typos, etc. Like I said, I don't think I'll have time for serious edits until the holidays roll around. Thaaaaanks, school. I can forgive The Good Doctor rehearsals because that's my favorite kind of work. Theatre can have my life...unless a publishing company wants it, and I'm iffy about my abilities to write plays professionally. But I'm excited to delve into playwriting. My mythos may not be deep with psychologically complex and stimulating characters Aristotle and Steven Hawkins would admire, but it's mine, it's cute, and I'll be happy with just that when I see it read in January.

*insert transition line to plotting a story*

In my playwriting class Friday, we were doing a character examining exercise where we took on the personality of our characters, and we had a "speed dating" session. It was interesting, but I don't think I got across what I wanted about my character because I was so nervous to do this in front of the class. I was after more seeking for something bigger, and less neurotic. But the exercise was productive in another way. While talking to some of these "characters" I learned some things about mine that I had to spew out on the spot and they just worked. Next thing I know, I have more plot points that could make it a promising one act.

What I realized later on was that I had just publicly done what I swore I'd never tell anyone I do. The only difference was that this time, someone non fictional (although portraying someone fictional) was actually talking back!

...Are you backing away from the keyboard yet? Give me just a minute.

When I speak the situation out loud and go through the motions in my room (or whatever room I'm in and no one else is), as if I were running lines in a play or spouting off an improv scene, it forces me to answer the situation immediately, to keep the flow going. Quick! The love of your life is walking away! What do you say to bring him back? Quick! The hero is gathering strength from his hero's creed, "I'm the good guy. You're the bad guy. I'm gonna beat you with ultimate bonds of friendship!" How do you throw him off his game? And so I stare down the computer screen, or the wall beyond the imaginary love interest/goody two-shoes hero, and I say what the character in the story/play/whatever would say.

It works for calmer situations too. Just have the conversation, and there it is. Afterwards, I'll think it over and see if it's something the character would really say or if it falls into a plot hole. If it's good, I plop myself down and start recreating the conversation in MSWord, praying I remember the key parts to it. That's a big reason why my first drafts are very wordy. I ramble in my thoughts, so these "conversations" ramble a bit, which makes my scenes ramble. But having that instant answer gets me thinking. Sometimes I come up with stuff that just never occurred to me before I talked/acted it out.

Maybe my play character is too much like me, and I really am neurotic. Or maybe it's just my inner thespian having a fit from performance withdrawal. Well, as the saying goes, if it ain't broke...

I'd say back to the MSWord futon, but I'd be lying. Back to the books!