first of all breathe, it's not the be all and end all that you know how to do this off the bat, everyone learns along the way I used to do it, and have forty page scenes because i just didn't know how to break them
I have a very cinematic imagination, so i start the scene where i imagine the film would start it, with X flouncing into the room, and if i need to I cut it back, and then there is the eastenders ending where it goes Luke, I am your father, du du duh back next week
you mentioned you were writing fantasy, have you read terry goodkind, his rules of wizardry are actually much better as rules of writing including number 4- cut (ignore anything after that as it appears to say democracy is bad, but communism is worse - vote dictator which goes nowhere when you're trying to write)
don't worry about deadlines and wordcounts yet, just tell the story you can cut hell out of it later if you need to very few writers are priveleged enough to be "alla prima", lucky buggers who can sit down and write a novel and it's perfect, and I know if I ever met one I'd kick them in the shins - hard editting is where the magic happens, there's nothing to stop you having your girl chased and then meeting up with a friend and feeling safe, then going back and axing the friend from the draft, it happens I can think of a book in which an entire third went missing and it's sitting on bookshelves all over the world, and the missing chunk was published as a short story don't worry about brevity or punch, just tell the story, you can fix it all later.
Yeah, I kinda do the whole 'movie scenes' in my head too. Only happened recently though. And nope, I've read snippets of his work, but I wasn't really interested. Mostly because they were kinda on the whole 'medieval side'.
I used to do it, and have forty page scenes because i just didn't know how to break them
I have a very cinematic imagination, so i start the scene where i imagine the film would start it, with X flouncing into the room, and if i need to I cut it back, and then there is the eastenders ending where it goes Luke, I am your father, du du duh back next week
you mentioned you were writing fantasy, have you read terry goodkind, his rules of wizardry are actually much better as rules of writing
including number 4- cut (ignore anything after that as it appears to say democracy is bad, but communism is worse - vote dictator which goes nowhere when you're trying to write)
don't worry about deadlines and wordcounts yet, just tell the story you can cut hell out of it later if you need to
very few writers are priveleged enough to be "alla prima", lucky buggers who can sit down and write a novel and it's perfect, and I know if I ever met one I'd kick them in the shins - hard
editting is where the magic happens, there's nothing to stop you having your girl chased and then meeting up with a friend and feeling safe, then going back and axing the friend from the draft, it happens
I can think of a book in which an entire third went missing and it's sitting on bookshelves all over the world, and the missing chunk was published as a short story
don't worry about brevity or punch, just tell the story, you can fix it all later.
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Yeah, I kinda do the whole 'movie scenes' in my head too. Only happened recently though. And nope, I've read snippets of his work, but I wasn't really interested. Mostly because they were kinda on the whole 'medieval side'.
I'll try doing as you said. Thanks. :)
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