Friday Blogging of Life: Chapter 2

Mar 09, 2013 20:53

Uhhh...Friday?

Considering both this and the first post were both done on Saturdays, I may think about changing the title to "Saturday Blogging of Life" instead.

Now, for a Saturday, I have actually been pretty busy. Usually, I am of the sort that likes to take the first day away of the weekend easy and slow, never even getting dressed all day, and just all around relaxing. Today, however, was not destined to be as such. Near the end of the quarter, others can imagine that the projects and studying starts piling up rapidly to the point that you are metaphorically drowning in your school work.

I really think I'm being cheated with the one week spring break before going into another intensive quarter of classes. They could have given us two, at least!

Well, onto likely more interesting matters. Anyone heard of Critique Circle? It's a website where you can post stories and chapters and other members will give a critique when it is up for review, and you do the same for others. Mine is currently up from March 6-12, and I was one of the last on the list in the batch to get a critique.

The person, thankfully I would say, tore into my chapter (this is the third or fourth draft of the first chapter) on my run-on sentences and grammar and word choice and this and that. He also made a note a couple of times that the plot was going too slow.

This is not the first time that I have heard this opinion. Honestly, I wanted to take a more steady pace in the first chapter, start out peaceful, since there is no law in book-writing that says you absolutely have to start out action-packed or doing something dreadfully important. It is sad to say that people no longer seem able to hold their attention spans past the first page if something interesting is not happening. But, well, if I want readers to read, then I have to concede on some things.

My only problem was was that I did not know how to change my gradual chapter to have a significant hook that would appeal to the audience. So, when waiting for the bus today to school for my group project work, I pulled out my notebook that holds my story details like characters and places and wrote at the top "Changes to the Story".

Now, you might call me crazy for the next part, but I actually did do this. Instead of just trying to write ideas down, I decided to use a writing technique that I was told about (by Piers Anthony, many years ago when I would e-mail him for advice and talk to him about how much I loved his work) where if you struggle with dialogue, take a piece of paper and have the characters just talk as you would imagine people talking, and even asking each other what the other would say next. However, I slightly altered it so that instead of it being the characters talking for the sake of dialogue, I decided to have a conversation with myself to find ideas.

A conversation with myself...No, I did not create a split-personality for myself this morning.

I suppose one would call it personifying the two sides of a person's self that noticeably comes out when you have to make a hard decision.

Example: You want to buy a game console, maybe an XBox, but have not only heard it is not as good as Wii and you are nigh-on broke; what do you do to make a choice?

If you really think about it, your more emotional, instinctive side is going to disregard all of these reasons and go with the gut-feeling--you really want that XBox. That side is telling you to get it no matter what. Now, your more logical, thought-through side is going to keep saying you cannot afford it and that it may not even be worth it anyway in order to dissuade the emotional side of you from doing something stupid and unfavorable.

In my case, my emotional side was stubborn in wanting to keep my original chapter set-up, whereas the logical side said that that just does not work these days, and would then provide me with alternative ideas, to which I would reject or consider.

I identified my real "self" as the emotional one, seeing as one can probably relates more to their desires and feelings than logical detachment. It did become amusing, though, when at one point I said to my other self that the last idea they offered totally ruined one of the major scenes in the chapter; "she" (and I use this hesitantly as it still feels odd and gives too much credence to my other self as an individual being) replied, "Apparently it's too slow. What do you want me to do about it?", the "it" being the plot.

I had not anticipated there would be that much sass involved, but it turns out that this method worked. I found a way to change the chapter while retaining important elements while captivating the audience...I hope.

To finish this longer-than-usual post, I have managed to get my dad to watch "One Piece" in exchange for watching "Exosquad". A fairly good trade, as both are amusing shows. Though I am still a bigger fan of "One Piece".

Note: I just watched "Wreck-It Ralph" and it was awesome! Highly recommended.
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