1.2 Progress

[augustphoenix]

And what about today?

On a side note, after some discussions with cypher and others on the comm, I wanted to recommend a few of articles by Holly Lisle that address a lot of the things I've heard you folks talk about. I don't agree with everything she ever says and have modified some of these methods over time, but I found many of her articles practical and helpful (and most importantly: successful) when I was working on my early novels.

Now that I'm coming back to writing, I also find myself gravitating toward them again.

Notecard Plotting (cypher is going to get sick of me mentioning this.)
Setting (Writing) Goals
Creating Conflict
Middles
And, finally: How to Finish a Novel

(And mind you, she's very geared toward writing for publication. Try not to get hung up on that right now.)

Comments

[kitana]

Holly reminds a lot of Randy Ingermason, who heads up AdvancedFictionWriting.com. I think she has good things to say so far (specifically the 'how to finish a novel' in my case), but the rutting she's doing on publication makes me a little uncomfortable. =/ I will try to ignore that part! :D

On the progress front, I've starting doing plot outlines and branching off to where each plot bit can lead. It's forcing me to add characters to the story, but I'm finding that to be pretty fun. I feel encouraged.

[augustphoenix]

The articles were originally intended for the writing group she founded, which is aimed at writer's seeking publication and careers, so within the context, her pushing makes sense. *was part of that group for 4 years*

Oooh... so are you following plot threads like "what if?" and seeing which one takes you where you want to go?

[kitana]

That definitely does put it in perspective for me -- I kind of wanted to be like "but... what if I just like writing...? :("

Yes! :D It's a nifty way of weeding out what definitely doesn't work in terms of reaching the end of my tale, at least. It also helps with the building of more conflict, since I'll need a mess to clean up.

[cypher]

Sweet, thank you for posting these!

I feel like...well. I feel like today has been a progress day in the sense that ripping up a patch of weeds is progress on tending a garden. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the ways that the assumptions I'd already made weren't working to give me a functional novel plot, and realizing how much I'm going to have to just scrap and start over.

It's pretty intimidating! But I think ultimately it'll be for the best.

[augustphoenix]

Hey, the ability to realize something's not going to work is a sign of increasing skill, too!

[ilyat]

I totally wrote 2200 words, but none of it was related to my subject and all of it instead was in the form of a memo for an employee regarding how she (improperly) handled a PR leak. Oops. I did get some progress done on conceptualizing what I plan to work with for Aarde this week, both visually and in terms of fixing some chronological points so that they make more sense.

[augustphoenix]

Yay on the story progress! Boo on the wordcount being for something not fun :(

[augustphoenix]

At the moment, I have a set of characters, world-scaffolding, some motivations... I know that there are specific stories of the novel variety within them (at least 4 so far), rather than story, and I'm trying to figure out which parts of these people fit into which story.

So what I've been doing each day is asking a question, and trying away on it. While I don't always find the answer, I always seem to find something interesting...

[kitana]

I like the idea of asking questions of the characters/plot and seeing what kind of responses come up. I think I'll try that if I hit some snags on the road of development.

[augustphoenix]

Yeah, it's not stuff like "what's your favorite breakfast" or "what's your favorite color" (which are also valid, but not what I'm looking for), but "Why did you do that if you knew it had potential to destroy your world?" "So how are you going to find your wife?"

Sometimes their answers surprise me and open whole new doors.

[penny]

Thanks for posting those links! Lots of good info there...

As for progress, I made it through a couple of days of worldbuilding. I had hoped to give myself more of a buffer, but at least I'm not behind.

[augustphoenix]

I kind of want to try this 30 Day Worldbuilding thing, since I tend to be so light on my world-building and more couldn't hurt.

Having used it for a little while, do you think it can be altered for urban fantasy as well as whole new worlds?

[cypher]

I've been poking at the site a bit, and I think...probably you could? You'd wind up skipping the very first few steps, or altering them, since those are where she has you starting to build the physical world itself (especially true if you're doing urban fantasy in an altered Earth). But the later steps start asking things like "how does your magic work? what can't it do? what kind of races live there? how much education do most people get?" And stuff like that would be useful anywhere. :3

[penny]

Echoing Cypher. The geography days would have to be altered but could still be very helpful for both finding your setting (if you're torn between a couple of locations) and getting you familiar enough with it so you know what kind of liberties you want to take with street geography and such. And, I think the later days, when the focus is more on society and the mood of your story don't require too much tweaking.

[freezingrayne]

I kind of want to do it too, though the world I'm creating is more a universe, in the way that it is a bunch of different worlds. I kind of want to do it just for this one city, though, since the main characters spend the majority of their time there.

[royalarchivist]

Lots of mental brainstorming and managed to do Day 1 of the 30 Days of Worldbuilding before all-day fuzzy-brain forced me to stop being productive. :\