I never thought I'd see the day...
It's snowing outside. I never imagined that this would happen (considering I now live in the northeast, the land of perpetual snow and decent road crews), but all of my classes have been canceled tomorrow. That's right: six hours of class, all canceled! =D
This means I can sleep in for once! As an added bonus, the due date of my algorithms homework has been pushed back to Thursday since there is no class tomorrow. Now to go catch up on the sleep I missed...
I know some of the people on my f-list like to write. I've been toying with a story idea for a few months, and the more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to like it. I think it might be a good experience for me to start (and hopefully finish) a novel, even though nothing would come of it. However, I have a few problems:
1. It's been years since I've written anything over a few thousand words, and I've never taken a formal creative writing class. How should I go about planning for a larger story? I'm assuming I start with a basic outline that hits all the major plot points, but then what? Do I expand it to include the subplots, or do I just let those develop naturally as I start writing?
2. Any tips for creating interesting, non-cliche characters? Looking back on my past writing (fanfics and children's books), most of my characters are horrible Mary Sues. In my defense, I wrote most of those stories in elementary and jr. high... but still, with very few exceptions, reading my old works makes my eyes bleed. At one time I thought my characters were "awesome", but now I know otherwise. I'm worried that I'll make the same mistake again: that I'll create a cliche or uninteresting character and won't realize it until a few years later.
Edit: I remembered question #3!
3. So... character outlines. Is there a good way to go about outlining each character's personality, appearance, quirks, relationships with other characters, etc. without taking up too much space? But while still including a decent amount of detail? I'm guessing the answer is "do whatever works for you", but my attempts in the past have ended in failure. I've tried making a list with "name, age, appearance, strengths, etc, etc" for each character, but I've found it very restrictive. I've tried writing it all out in paragraph form, but it takes too long to locate and modify specific traits. Perhaps it's the engineer speaking, but it would be nice if I could find a "formula" that works for the majority of writers. If there are standards for writing essays (I'm looking at you, DBQ), surely there are standards for making character outlines.
This means I can sleep in for once! As an added bonus, the due date of my algorithms homework has been pushed back to Thursday since there is no class tomorrow. Now to go catch up on the sleep I missed...
I know some of the people on my f-list like to write. I've been toying with a story idea for a few months, and the more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to like it. I think it might be a good experience for me to start (and hopefully finish) a novel, even though nothing would come of it. However, I have a few problems:
1. It's been years since I've written anything over a few thousand words, and I've never taken a formal creative writing class. How should I go about planning for a larger story? I'm assuming I start with a basic outline that hits all the major plot points, but then what? Do I expand it to include the subplots, or do I just let those develop naturally as I start writing?
2. Any tips for creating interesting, non-cliche characters? Looking back on my past writing (fanfics and children's books), most of my characters are horrible Mary Sues. In my defense, I wrote most of those stories in elementary and jr. high... but still, with very few exceptions, reading my old works makes my eyes bleed. At one time I thought my characters were "awesome", but now I know otherwise. I'm worried that I'll make the same mistake again: that I'll create a cliche or uninteresting character and won't realize it until a few years later.
Edit: I remembered question #3!
3. So... character outlines. Is there a good way to go about outlining each character's personality, appearance, quirks, relationships with other characters, etc. without taking up too much space? But while still including a decent amount of detail? I'm guessing the answer is "do whatever works for you", but my attempts in the past have ended in failure. I've tried making a list with "name, age, appearance, strengths, etc, etc" for each character, but I've found it very restrictive. I've tried writing it all out in paragraph form, but it takes too long to locate and modify specific traits. Perhaps it's the engineer speaking, but it would be nice if I could find a "formula" that works for the majority of writers. If there are standards for writing essays (I'm looking at you, DBQ), surely there are standards for making character outlines.