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Still haven't written a single word (I liked). I hate it and I hate myself.
I just can't seem to introduce this new character...
I should really stop playing Syberia and get back to work, but it seems my muse has gone on vacation and didn't say when she'll be coming back...
Maybe all I need is the right music. Not even watching the show itself helped ( Read more... )
Since there are so many characters in my story the POV shifts depending on who is in the scene...right now Sikozu and D'Argo can't make up their minds. I'm about to flip a coin and just go with it. I have my plot almost to the letter, the characters are willing, they just won't frelling follow through! There's a lot that happens in this chapter, it should be easy, but they won't GET ON WITH IT.
Came across this (again) this morning, Kurt Vonnegut's writing rules. Must use this as encouragement, not discouragement:
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things-reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
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I was thinking today and suddenly it hit me, like all good references do. D'you know what I feel like?
Do you remember that scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? In the movie?
It's a scene which changed the character of Dumbledore completely in my mind, not completely, but it showed me a new angle of him I hadn't seen before.
Harry goes to Dumbledore's Headmaster's Room and I think it's after he's been pulled out of the memory, Dumbledore sits down and cries out how frustrating it is what he's been trying to work out (Voldemort's intentions and plan). He says:
"Every time I think I'm close it slips away. It's maddening."
My thoughts exactly.
But the thing is, I've felt this every time it got tough. And it's not like I can just retrace my steps and see what I did last time which got me through it. Every chapter is unique. Every chapter is a new maze to solve and the exits keep changing.
Sometimes they're easy. Sometimes you get lost and you wonder if you'll ever get out of this...
I have lines and bits and pieces of things I want to remember written down, but not actual pieces of the story. I write with the flow of the story and go where it takes me. I plan ahead, but I don't write ahead. I either fix it on the spot or I don't.
There are a few stories that I've given up on like this, but I refuse to give up on this story! It's better! It's so close to ending I can taste it!
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My thoughts exactly.
*nods* It is like that...just there, and then not. In my head even, and when I go to type or write, it's gone. Intangible.
When I get stuck like this I often have to go back and look at other stories I've written and remind myself that yes, I can finish and post something. And this will be no different. It will be done. Eventually. But I want it done yesterday! There are other things I want to write and I feel like I can't until I finish this.
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http://kayedacus.com/2009/03/19/writing-descriptions-make-setting-a-character/
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