Entries in Writing Process (10)

Friday
Mar302012

Editing With Only Dialogue

Earlier today (okay, sort of yesterday) I posted a revised version of The Price of Demand draft 3, this time with everything except dialogue stripped from it. There’s no context, no description, not even any proper dialogue tags. I simply identify each character before each line.

This is part of an experiment to see if I can make editing a bit easier. I’m hoping that:

  • It’ll make consistency of voice easier.
  • It’ll make weaknesses in the story easier to spot. (I already know the ending is dreadful and I’ll be rewriting that whole section.)
  • It’ll improve dialogue flow.
  • It’ll reduce redundancy in the text.
  • It’ll help me cut down on exposition.
  • It’ll help me show rather than tell.

There’ll be some challenges in doing the editing this way, starting with the fact that I’m forcing myself to work from two documents instead of one. Possibly three documents; I’ve been toying with the idea of a similar exposition-only version as well, though I think that’ll break a lot more than dialogue-only did.

Once I’ve gone over the story as spoken only by the characters, I’ll have an easy way to block out the structure of the story, identify areas where exposition is really critical and where it’s difficult or impossible to convey it through dialogue. At that point I can go back and begin working the exposition back into the story again. I expect this’ll be the most difficult, or at least the most time-consuming part of the process.

Wish me luck!

Saturday
Mar172012

Oncoming Displacement

I think the reason I’ve had so much with Corwin’s latest story is that while I have a good idea of what exactly it is that he wants, that he’s invested in, I’m not nearly as sure about how it comes into play within the story itself. I might need to break from this one for a bit and work it out.

I’m not going to go on another big break from fiction though. I have another story in mind that I think is pretty strong right from the outset.

The cost of living these days sucks, and it’s only getting worse. Imagine how expensive it’s going to be by 2030. Wouldn’t it be great if you could go back in time when rent and food were crazily cheap, but not sacrifice your connection to the present in the process? Sure sounds great. But would it really be great?

Displaced, starting soon…

Thursday
Feb232012

My Favorite Kind of Writing Research

This is only tangentially related to writing, since I’m doing it in preparation for my next story, but it is SO good to play these games again.

A huge part of my early gaming life was taken up by Sierra adventure games. King’s Quest, Space Quest, Willy Beamish, and similar series from other publishers took up more hours of my life than I care to think about these days.

There was always something especially quirky and fun about the humor in Space Quest and the many send-ups of the sci-fi I grew up on that drew me in to those games. The sad part is I never played any of the series after the third. I tried, but many of the games from that era were buggy, and I never got IV, V or VI to run until now.

I’m working through both Space Quest I and IV as research, or “research” if you prefer. Thanks to the magic of ScummVM, I’ve been able to get past the first bit of Space Quest IV for the first time ever. It’s a real delight to have new Sierra games (new to me, at least) to play. There’s still one or two King’s Quest titles I never got through …

I’m not sure exactly at this point what direction I want the Space Quest inspiration to take me in. I’ll probably have to let it decide that. It certainly won’t be a carbon copy, or an attempt to write a story in the Space Quest universe. In my mind’s eye, it’s more a matter of colorings and shadings of humor and weird situations.

Thanks to ScummVM I’m able to finally(!) play the game after all these years, but there are still some issues because it’s such an old game. Wish me luck getting through the whole thing!

Friday
Feb102012

The Price of Demand Edit & The Fast and the Dead

The Price of Demand edit is ongoing; I’ve got outside help assisting so it’ll be a bit longer yet. I have LOTS to fix. I love the story, but there’s a serious price to be paid for writing it as quickly as nanowrimo demands!

The Fast and the Dead is causing me some concern. I could almost literally keep that story going on forever. It’s at over 14,000 words now, which is huge for a short story. I may have to break from it for a bit and figure out a faster way to get them to the ending I have in mind.

 

Monday
Dec122011

The Blessing & Curse of Self-Imposed Limits

This year has been a year of experimentation for me. I’ve undertaken two huge projects, both exercises in self-imposed deadlines, and both have been profoundly beneficial, but with costs.

The first enormous task I undertook was the Goodreads 2011 Reading Challenge.  I’d felt that for the longest time I hadn’t been reading enough, and it seemed like a good way to get back in the habit. The other, of course, was NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

The gist of the Goodreads challenge is that you set a goal for yourself. You’re going to read X number of books over the course of the year. Every time you indicate to Goodreads that you’ve finished a book while the challenge is active on your account, it counts toward your goal.

I set my goal this year to 100 books. I’m a pretty quick reader, so I thought this would be ambitious but doable. I still believe that to be true, even though as of 5 minutes ago I’m sitting at 80 out of 100 books read, 20 left to go, and only 14 days left to read them in.

Having a limit, or a goal, or a deadline, can be incredibly useful. In NaNoWriMo, it was a fantastic driver that enabled me to complete 50,000 words in a month. But with the Goodreads reading challenge, I find there are trade-offs. Even though I’ve read far more this year than I have in many many years previous, I often don’t enjoy it as much. And that’s not because I’m not enjoying the reading; I’ve liked each book I’ve chosen so far. But I feel constrained in my choices.

I’m a fan of long books. Hundreds and hundreds of pages is fantastic. I’ve read very few of those this year; the only ones I can think of offhand are A Game of Thrones, and Elantris. I’ve steered clear of most long books because they take longer to read.

80 books in one year is a LOT, and if I don’t make it to 100, I won’t be too upset. I would at least like to make 90. But for 2012, I will absolutely NOT be setting the limit to 100 again. Maybe 30 would be a better target. Lesson learned; limits are good, as long as you don’t limit yourself too much.

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