Writing (but not my Nano novel)
valis2 has just posted about how she writes and sigune has been letting us in on how she brings to life her characters and comics. I don't have pretty pictures like Sigune and I'm much more verbose than Valis, but if you're interested... Includes spoilers for Forget Me Not.
1. Daydream, daydream, daydream. I perfect certain scenes in my head until I have them just the way I want. I may not know where they will go in a story or even if I can make anything out of them but I think about them a lot. I'm always a little sad and somewhat frustrated if I don't have something to think about creatively.
2. Write down the scenes. Sometimes I just write out the dialogue and later go back and add in the rest of the scene. It just depends. This part is easy because of #1. They don't have to go together and usually are pretty random. With Forget Me Not I wrote the scene that became Chapter Eight first, then the opening and then what will be the ending. They sat around awhile before I decided I liked them enough to try and piece them together into a story.
3. Plan an outline. This is usually pretty sparse and consists of ideas for the plot and how to tie the scenes I already have together. For example an early outline of Forget Me Not looked like this...
--PW tries to seduce H. S reevaluates whether he wants H to remember. Spikes morning coffee with Veritaserum.
--M? thinks it is MacNair and follows that lead
--M? thinks it might be Prof. Moody after a comment he says after S's trial
--Xmas party at the Weasley's
--S sick and H takes care of him? (maybe, maybe not)
--DM potions accident to steal S wand casts spell to incriminate him "and then just to be sure you didn't run back to Dumbledore for protection I made sure that it looked like you betrayed him too."
So for all of you who guessed Draco you would have been right except I changed my mind as things progressed. I actually started posting before I had a concrete idea of where the story was going. In most cases this would be a bad idea, but for me it worked well, because after people read the note about the mysterious M they all guessed Malfoy right away. I knew I had to change something, (remember this is my first attempt at a mystery.) My mom, who has read every Agatha Christie book six times or more let me in on a secret, "it's never the obvious person." Taking an idea from the original outline, I wrote a new one which tries to establish where and why Moody is the culprit.
How do we arrive at Moody?
--Malfoy suggested at beg. <---end of Ch 3
*interview Harry <---start of Ch 4
*alert press
--Moody motives in flashbacks
--Mulciber interview/eliminated as <---Ch 5/6?
*problem with Percy* suspect Ch 5
Order Reunion
*where is Moody?
*more discussion about Malfoy?
So as you can see it's definitely a process. Once I start writing I change my mind on things too. In this case it serves more as a brainstorming excercise than anything else. Also any ideas I have when I don't have time to write I jot down. I have notes everywhere with scraps of information about different stories. For example:
To add: Daily Prophet convo in ch 2
And later on in another of my notebooks,
orphanage-->trial scene flashback, H always fighting for a cause.
4. Write the "filler." Usually once I get to this point I have moved back to step one for more scenes. Other times I sit down to fill in the rest and just write what comes out. Even at this stage with an outline and a firm idea where the story is going, I still write scenes I'm not sure will fit and I'm always pleased when I find that I can put them somewhere.
5. Edit. I don't do too much editing actually. I'll read over things and make sure everything sounds okay, but once it's typed in not much changes. If I've written it in a notebook, however, there usually are a lot of additions and changing around when I type it into the computer.
6. Send to larilee. She gives me her opinion and corrects my grammar mistakes. Sometimes I'll ask about flow or if I'm moving too fast. I make minor changes, adding anything I might have come up with while Larilee had it, (the Daily Prophet conversation is one example,) and then...
7. Post. Await reviews. And make any changes that readers might suggest. I cleaned up and clarified some things after posting Chapter One and I said that Hagrid was dead in Chapter Thirteen when he had been alive and well in Chapter One.
So this is basically it. I do something very much like this with all my stories, although Forget Me Not has been a little more involved because it is a mystery and also the way I set it up with the flashbacks. I think after I have finished and posted it, I will let it sit for awhile and then come back to it. I think this is an idea, with a little work, that I could turn into an original fiction novel.
1. Daydream, daydream, daydream. I perfect certain scenes in my head until I have them just the way I want. I may not know where they will go in a story or even if I can make anything out of them but I think about them a lot. I'm always a little sad and somewhat frustrated if I don't have something to think about creatively.
2. Write down the scenes. Sometimes I just write out the dialogue and later go back and add in the rest of the scene. It just depends. This part is easy because of #1. They don't have to go together and usually are pretty random. With Forget Me Not I wrote the scene that became Chapter Eight first, then the opening and then what will be the ending. They sat around awhile before I decided I liked them enough to try and piece them together into a story.
3. Plan an outline. This is usually pretty sparse and consists of ideas for the plot and how to tie the scenes I already have together. For example an early outline of Forget Me Not looked like this...
--PW tries to seduce H. S reevaluates whether he wants H to remember. Spikes morning coffee with Veritaserum.
--M? thinks it is MacNair and follows that lead
--M? thinks it might be Prof. Moody after a comment he says after S's trial
--Xmas party at the Weasley's
--S sick and H takes care of him? (maybe, maybe not)
--DM potions accident to steal S wand casts spell to incriminate him "and then just to be sure you didn't run back to Dumbledore for protection I made sure that it looked like you betrayed him too."
So for all of you who guessed Draco you would have been right except I changed my mind as things progressed. I actually started posting before I had a concrete idea of where the story was going. In most cases this would be a bad idea, but for me it worked well, because after people read the note about the mysterious M they all guessed Malfoy right away. I knew I had to change something, (remember this is my first attempt at a mystery.) My mom, who has read every Agatha Christie book six times or more let me in on a secret, "it's never the obvious person." Taking an idea from the original outline, I wrote a new one which tries to establish where and why Moody is the culprit.
How do we arrive at Moody?
--Malfoy suggested at beg. <---end of Ch 3
*interview Harry <---start of Ch 4
*alert press
--Moody motives in flashbacks
--Mulciber interview/eliminated as <---Ch 5/6?
*problem with Percy* suspect Ch 5
Order Reunion
*where is Moody?
*more discussion about Malfoy?
So as you can see it's definitely a process. Once I start writing I change my mind on things too. In this case it serves more as a brainstorming excercise than anything else. Also any ideas I have when I don't have time to write I jot down. I have notes everywhere with scraps of information about different stories. For example:
To add: Daily Prophet convo in ch 2
And later on in another of my notebooks,
orphanage-->trial scene flashback, H always fighting for a cause.
4. Write the "filler." Usually once I get to this point I have moved back to step one for more scenes. Other times I sit down to fill in the rest and just write what comes out. Even at this stage with an outline and a firm idea where the story is going, I still write scenes I'm not sure will fit and I'm always pleased when I find that I can put them somewhere.
5. Edit. I don't do too much editing actually. I'll read over things and make sure everything sounds okay, but once it's typed in not much changes. If I've written it in a notebook, however, there usually are a lot of additions and changing around when I type it into the computer.
6. Send to larilee. She gives me her opinion and corrects my grammar mistakes. Sometimes I'll ask about flow or if I'm moving too fast. I make minor changes, adding anything I might have come up with while Larilee had it, (the Daily Prophet conversation is one example,) and then...
7. Post. Await reviews. And make any changes that readers might suggest. I cleaned up and clarified some things after posting Chapter One and I said that Hagrid was dead in Chapter Thirteen when he had been alive and well in Chapter One.
So this is basically it. I do something very much like this with all my stories, although Forget Me Not has been a little more involved because it is a mystery and also the way I set it up with the flashbacks. I think after I have finished and posted it, I will let it sit for awhile and then come back to it. I think this is an idea, with a little work, that I could turn into an original fiction novel.