NaNoWriMo Tips: stage directions and other lessons from script writing

02 Nov 2012 12 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

(Why are you reading blogs? Go write! )

If anyone knows where this came from, let me know.

When I was younger, I spent a lot of my time (13 years) involved with all things theater. Acting in, writing, and directing plays all taught me a lot about storytelling, and about writing.

Playwriting and screenwriting is writing distilled down to an impressive science; instead of a whole block of text to connect with our audience, all there is is dialogue and action. Everything about a script is meant to give as much information possible in as little space needed, and while that seems like the opposite of NaNoWriMo, the last thing we want to waste is time fumbling with what we have already written, searching for what we already said.

I've noticed this year that a lot of the habits I developed as a playwright (yes the wright is where I got my NaNo username) have helped me immensely in my noveling, helping me to pad my word count, keep characters straight, and probably to smooth out the editing process in the future.

Here are some of them:

  • Leave yourself stage notes. You know that scene where we achingly work so hard at crafting the signs of subtle frustration in our main character? Chances are that on re-reading, we will have been too subtle and we won't remember what was going on. Take a cue from scripts, and leave yourself notes like (Mark is angry) and (she's holding the dagger), so as directors we can keep track of the action and not let it get muddled in our word-spewing haze.
  • Tell, don't show. I know, this is like breaking the first commandment, but there are times when we just don't want to deal with a scene, or we suddenly have lost track of what we are writing. When a play is a little confusing, one character usually sits and explains it all to help the audience out. To get past something we don't want to spend time on, nothing works like a quick bit of telling. Let a character have a flashback, dream sequence, monologue, or step out as a narrator and just blurt out a big bunch of story.; anything just to get the plot moving again.
  • Name extra characters simply. Not all characters need real names. While naming main characters can be one of the more enjoyable parts of noveling, naming an entire cast is exhausting and impossible to keep track of. Unless a name is required, most plays and movies will have extra players named their function, like “party guy” or “suitor seven.” This saves precious time trying to remember what we named someone, and also adds to our word count a little. And as a bonus, when we go back to edit, we know exactly who everyone is instead of running into something like the banquet scenes in Game of Thrones (I actually used action figures with post-its to get through reading those).
  • Cast of characters. At the top of each script is a section describing each main character: age, description, disposition. A lot of up keep a character bible of some kind, but I prefer this quick sketch just to keep referring to in case I can't remember if my main character is a ginger or brunette, or what accent someone speaks with. We can add small details as we go, but it isn't as rigid or as cumbersome as a full biography (though if you're really stuck for words, biographies are fair game for extra word count).
  • Create a morgue. My script writing teacher always told us to never throw out dialogue. Instead, he gave us a notebook with a headstone on the cover, and instead of throwing out stuff, we glued it in there for later resurrection. Every time you write something you don't like, just cut and paste it onto another document, or just move it to the bottom of the screen under a MORGUE heading. And count them. Keep all of the words you write, even if you change stories or write something you do not use. This isn't writing 50,000 words of coherent plot, this about writing 50,000 words. Put the cut ones in the morgue, and maybe they will get to live again one day.

I hope some or all of these help. Please do not hesitate to message me with any problems, sticky situations, or panic attacks. I want everyone to finish NaNoWriMo, and I'll do whatever I can to get us all there.

 

That's it for today. We have novels to get to!

 

 

 

NaNoWriMo Prep: Write Something You Want to Read, with pep talk

14 Oct 2012 7 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo, October, unsticking Tags: , , , , , ,

Choosing what to write for NaNoWriMo is a challenge. It has been a challenge every month this year for me, and sometimes I lose a few days at the beginning of the month to just trying to find that thread of plot I feel has the energy to carry me through.

There are a lot of options to try. This NaNo novel is supposed to suck and be all over the place and need tons of fixing. We are supposed to stumble and trip and wonder where the fuck we are and why munchkins are singing to us. It's all part of the fun.

Oh , Calvin. How wrong you are.

This is a great time to try out a new genre. Write fantasy if we are historic fiction writers, try our hand at erotica (and henceforth discover a new world of paranoia about leaving the word processor open when we got to bed), tackle some slip of an idea that wanders though our minds from time to time, or see if we really do have a talent for writing hard core science fiction. Anything can happen in November.

Magical robots that can only perform spells while wearing blue lipstick made in the gama quadrant! Why not? This is NaNo!

It's suppose to be a romp, a fun time of exploring our deeper selves and writing tons of words in delirious, caffeine-induced hazes at three in the morning. It's a time to watch ourselves write despite anxiety and perfectionism clawing at our ratty minds and finally, for just a month, not caring what they say.

The universe isn't even the limit. We can throw every writing rule we ever learned out the door for the sake of word count, word count, word count. No one ever needs to see what we did. (And most of mine, no one ever will. Never.)

But even with all this freedom, let me tell you: a month is short, but 50,000 words is a long ass time. Especially if we are stuck with a story we don't like, or a character we wouldn't be paid to spend time with, let alone try and live in their heads.

When choosing what to write next month, make it wild, amazing, free of restrictions or tight and controlled by some silly outline you'll probably throw out later (I know you did one). Make it wild, change directions and narrators and point of view just because its NaNo and we can for once.

No matter what you make it though, choose a story you would want to read. No one will judge, no one will care. This is for you and you alone; you're becoming a writing superhero, who cares if all you feel like spending time with is a story about five breasted whores? Or that same old star crossed lovers stuff everyone keeps writing about? Or snakes attacking people with swords made by elves? Or anything at all.

Write something you would want to read, and no matter what happens, it will be all the more fun along the way.

Now go throw out that damn outline and have some fun already.

 

Unstuck: What to Write When You Don’t Know What to Write – Retell a Story

11 Oct 2012 6 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo, October, unsticking Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Retell a fairy tale.

When I was a little girl, we had an in-wall space heater in the basement rec room, the kind I've only seen in cheap hotels, but I am sure that the original decorators thought it was the height of interior design.

Anyway, in the winter, my dad and I would pile blankets next to that space heater and turn it on, and pretend it was a fire, and we were camping. We'd open up bags of marshmallows and cinnamon bears, and my dad would tell me stories.

I always requested some fairy tale or another.

My dad is a patient man, and he always complied. Of course, it gets old just telling the same stories over and over, (or maybe because they had me a little late and is memory was slipping… love you, Dad!) he never told me the same version of any story twice. Robin Hood had many impromptu adventures, Little Red Riding Hood was a mugger out to rob the wolf blind, and the Seven Dwarves once ran a speakeasy.

The stories were never the same. As far as I'm concerned, my father is a master story teller.

So, when our creativity is on the fritz and the stories aren't flowing, when ideas for NaNoWriMo are thin, when we just need to feel fiction happening.

Tell a fairy tale.

Tell it straight, with castles and fairy godmothers. Tell it crooked, with black magic and twisted endings. Tell it modern with no magic, where Jack climbs the corporate beanstalk, or sleeping beauty is a woman in witness protection until her boyfriend finds her.

Don't be afraid of not being original. Fairy tales are important, they are myths that bind us all together as a culture, the stories we cannot get enough of. Ask any hundred people to tell you the story of Cinderella, you will hear one hundred ways of telling it.

We are none of us original, and all of us unique.

Hell, Robin McKinley retold Beauty and the Beast twice. Twice. And the two novels might as well be written by two very different authors.

Let's be inspired by this.

When we're stuck for ideas, when we feel like frauds, when we simply can't pass through the static – no matter how many times we describe our laundry pile, when we just need a good idea to roll with through NaNo, and we simply want to write without worrying about plot, we can turn to the stories we have lived telling since childhood.

Try it; rewrite a fairy tale, or a folk tale, or a myth. Create a greater intimacy with the stories we only thought we knew.

You'll be amazed at just how original the same old songs can be.

Reasons I Hate Outlines With A Firey Passion

07 Oct 2012 18 Comments

by PartlyPixie in NaNoWriMo, October, The Dreaded Rant Tags: , , , , , , , ,

*I appologize for not getting this up last night. It was late, and some technical glitches were more than I wanted to deal with.

As some of you may have noticed from my previous post, I am not a fan of outlining. In fact, it takes everything I have not to go on a rant about how much I hate them every time I hear writers talking about outlines. After several attempts at outlining before I wrote this year, I have only increased my aversion. Here's why:

  • Outlining is not writing. It feels like writing, and it fools writers into thinking they have done something productive toward their story. But it is not writing. Go write.
  • It takes time away from writing. I keep hearing about how outlining saves time, but time writing is never wasted. Spending three months writing the wrong things on your novel and having to start again is three extra months of practicing writing. Malcom Gladwell discovered in his research for his book Outliers that the difference between an amateur and a prodigy is 10,000 hours of doing whatever we want to be good at! Do you really still want to save time?
  • It locks the brain into rigid thinking. We're no longer holding on to the edge of our seats, excited to see what happens next: writing becomes less of a process of discovery and more of just connecting a series of events together with words.
  • Outlines are boring. Seriously. There is no better way to make me hate doing something than to make me write an outline about it. Unless I have to eat tomatoes while I do it —that might be worse than outlining. Unless it is outlining about tomatoes. Oh gods.
  • Outlines are perfect and polished. Writing is not. The contrast can make all your little perfectionism gremlins come out to play and this can keep you from writing another word.
  • Outlines can make your story sound stupid. Condense any story into its parts, and it sounds like the dumbest thing on earth. And the dumbest idea on earth can be mind blowing in the right hands. (Don't believe me? Outline Romeo and Juliet and then try and tell me why it's such a great love story. But in the hands of the Bard, it has transfixed generations.)
  • Outlines create needless anxiety. It beaks my heart to read so many writers saying things like “I can't get started writing yet, I haven't done my outline.” We need ways to make starting to write easier, not harder. I don't care what successful writer says we should outline first, if it makes us stop writing, then they are not helping
  • Outlines. Are. Not. Writing. FOR THE LAST TIME, GO WRITE.

 

All of this being said, I know some people work in some backwards fashion and enjoy and utilize outlines. If you are one of these curiosities, stick to what works.

But if you are like me and most people I know, just write. Write, and if you get halfway through and realize you left out something or you need to re-route your story, do it. Rewrite scenes if need be, make notes in the text, and move on through the story.

You know, writing.

When you are done with the first draft, put it away, have a celebratory drink of something fizzy, then go write something else. In a few months, come back to that old messy story and outline it if you really want to.

Or just rewrite it. Whatever works for you.

 

 

Bitching About Outlines

16 Jun 2012 5 Comments

by PartlyPixie in June, Slightly off Kilter, The Dreaded Rant Tags: , , , , , , , ,

If you’re here expecting a little rant about the necessary evil of outlines, but how I’ll persevere to get better at them because that’s what Real Writers do, you’re in the wrong room. Go look at some lolcats or something. Or feel free to stick around, but remember that I already told you this won’t end how you want.

Outlines are evil..

Something has gone wrong this month. And last month. The words just aren’t happening. I have a good premise, great characters, and even some good plot twists. My shitty first drafts are not nearly as shitty as they were in January.

Everything should be going well.

But they aren’t.

I decided to try sketching out a loose outline instead of my usual style of “readysetgo!” I found the idea in some book or other and thought it would be great material to blog about.

I wrote a loose outline for last month. Then, proceeded to write anything but that story and research myself to death, only to end up writing thirty five thousand words in that last week.

This month, again, I wrote an outline, thinking it might help me avoid fatigue. Now, when I sit to write, I end up staring at the outline and trying to figure out what to write next. I try to understand the ending before I’ve even gotten there. Then, I put the outline aside and stare at my screen… And the perfectionist voice starts to chime in.

“Oh you think you want to write that ending, do you?”

“Gee, this story looks a lot like those books you read over and over last year. Can’t you find something else to do?”

“If your story is going to be this predictable, then why don’t you go research some of those college degrees you could have? I hear there’s a shortage of economics professors.”

“Is writing making you fat? Your butt looks kind squishy,”

“I mean really, how many more times can you write a story with a love triangle, anyway?”

I’ll spare you the rest – you get the idea. I’ve been stifled, fighting myself as much as I fight for time to fit words in. Hell, I’ve barely even blogged; it takes too much energy to fight the perfectionism monster just to get fiction in, and for the first time in a while, I can’t find the off button.

It didn’t even occur to me until today that the outline could be the problem. I write to find out what story I’m telling. I like plunge in, letting my hands type on, under the complete influence of my writing mind and my intuition. The story is alive and breathing, it worms into my skull and I am excited to get back and find out what is going to happen next.

The outline already tells the story. It’s dead, it’s theoretical, it holds no mystery at all. I know it all needs to be written, but the joy of it has been bled out by even a rough little list of events leading to an ending. It’s all there, no point in me doing a damn thing. I skip straight to second-draft mode where I obsess over details and flesh out the story and write much tighter prose. I freeze up. And I hate it.

The outline must die.

I suppose it could be argued, especially since I rallied against ignoring the perfectionism monster previously, that I ought to employ the same tactics and keep the outline.

But why? Because outlines are so damn great? Because that’s what Real Writers do?

Some people have likened outlines to the storyboards film directors use to have a rough idea of how to shoot the movie. They say that writers need that kind of thing too. Yes, great, but the last time I checked the film was already written. The two processes cannot be compared.

Another argument for outlines is that is saves time in the writing of the story. This, at least for this writer, is demonstrably untrue. I wrote 50,000 words in a week in march, outline free. It even had a beginning, middle, end, central conflict et al.

And as for what Real Writers do, I’ve done a helluva lot of research on this, on blogs and books and interviews and other things, and the only thing Real Writers do consistently is write. A lot.

Therefore, anything that prevents me from writing a lot makes me less of a writer.

And I made a new rule as I watched my pretty little outline catch fire and curl into black and orange soot.

Burn away everything that makes you less of what you want to be.

I feel better now.

A Meeting of Two Birds and a Stone

10 Feb 2012 2 Comments

by PartlyPixie in February, Slightly off Kilter Tags: , , , , , , ,

Day 9: 11,355 of 50,000 words

I suppose I should update about what I’ve decided to do about my little dilemma this month.

It started out with a story that seemed to take a defined shape early. Good character, decent back story, lots of room for mystery and things to go wrong. But it just wasn’t flowing and I decided to start over. It’s a short month, after all.

But the story clung to me like cat hair to a black wool sweater. I started writing from the viewpoint of a girl who just broke up with her boyfriend, sitting alone in a coffee shop and looking for an opportunity to change her life. Then she started to check out a cute guy across the room, and I realized:

DING!

Oh, crap. It’s that guy from the story I just discarded.

Let’s see if I can get out before he notices me. Sneak out the back – past the bathroom.

Too late! He’s walking this way. And smiling. And producing roses from beneath his jacket.

I’m a sucker for that move.

So I back up to the beginning again, cut and paste in the original 3,000 words. Keep writing. If I can’t get rid of him, I might as well try and use him for something. I have a general rule of not fighting myself on things overmuch; if my subconscious is determined to write this dude and his hard-to-squeeze-the-words-out story, fine. Game on.

Then….

Then I wrote that last post about not being able to do bad things to my characters.

Fast forward to me trying to wring some plot out of this piece of driftwood I’m calling a novel, and

DING!

I can practice doing no good, terrible, very bad things to this main character.

I mean, we don’t even like each other.

He’ll probably just give me roses again or something and thank me for the lovely time.

And if not, he’ll finally go away.

So this month I am practicing two things I’m not good at yet: chasing my characters into trees and throwing rocks at them, and working through a plot that isn’t singing along and playing nice from the beginning.

I’m going to write into the dark places. Make him a killer, maybe – thinking he’s doing the right thing. Lead him down rabbit holes while following bunnies stained black from the blood of their enemies. Let every single thing he cares about betray him and see how long he lasts.

Yes, this could be a good time after all. At least, once the screaming stops.

Speaking of dark things. Sometimes, there are beautiful dark things.

In Which the Writer is Too Tired to Make Sense

18 Jan 2012 3 Comments

by PartlyPixie in January Tags: , , , ,

Day Eighteen: 33,024 of 50,000

I’ve fallen behind on my word count; I would prefer at least a solid 36,0o0, but life is life and it gets underfoot like a hungry cat.

Sometimes, a girl just needs her space. From the people who live in her head.

I needed to get away from the words for a minute and deal with some life pressure, get laundry done, pet my cat, return a few emails, and somehow fall incredibly behind on sleep.

I also needed to step far away from the story and let it mature, let it speak and whisper to me and to itself as I took a rest from creating it. It’s been a cranky teenager, and I’ve been the over-controlling parent.

Funny thing is, when my story finally sorted itself into a clear (well, clearish) line for me to follow, it looked a lot like the story I was getting ready to tell from the beginning. Only better. Much. Better.

Ok, confession time: I threatened my novel. I looked it in the eye and said “Look you little punk, there are eleven more stories coming after you, and I can just throw you in the fireplace if you don’t work out. Shape up or get ready for the incinerator.”

Maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking. I don’t know.

All I do know is that the novel has decided to play nice again, and there are some changes to make. This means I had some backtracking and re-writing of a few key scenes to do. I generally avoid scene re-writes in the first draft, but it had to be done for me to move forward.

Now, it’s grown so rich and detailed I’m worried that this story can’t be completed within 50,000 words this month. If there is a worry to have, this is the best of them.

I have also found a favorite line:

“I don’t know why I hit him. It made sense to my fist, and when I’m in certain moods I don’t argue with my fist.” 

Yeah, I like it.

That is all for now. We’ll be back to a more slept kind of blogging within a few days.

And until then, here is a beautifully lucid thought.

Goodnight.

Unoriginal ranting and mid-month blues

15 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by PartlyPixie in January, Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

Day Fifteen: 28,227 of 50,000

We’re at that middle bit.

If you’re the kind of person who only gets halfway through writing books before stopping, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s the dreaded half-way point. The part where the beginning and all the groundwork is done, the real essence of the story is trying to reveal itself, and the story has what I can only describe as a midlife crises. My characters do a dutiful job of working within the confines of their archetype for the first while (sometimes they decide they’re vampire hunters, but we still learn to get along), the real story I’m writing starts to become more apparent and the old plot line gets left behind, the scaffolding staying in the rough draft like remnants of some old mining town where the mine never produced ore. For a few days I get this feeling that the story is really hitting it’s stride, that there is a story here after all and I haven’t been kidding myself that I can come up with material enough to get through the month.

Then, we get to that middle bit.

Suddenly, my characters become overly emotional. They question whether or not their lives have been what we’ve agreed they are, they want to run off and date hot young blondes and drive them around in red convertibles even though it’s winter and I live in Utah where convertibles are practical maybe two months out of the year anyhow.

They still want to drive a convertible. With a new friend – anyone but the people I’ve stuck them in this story with. They all hate each other, or they get along too well and I as the dutiful author must chase them up trees and throw rocks at them. The calm cool, writer in me who has Perspective and thinks that this is a sign there is a good amount of conflict and realistic characters, so I’m doing a good job and to keep the pressure on. Who, when life is difficult, hasn’t wanted to throw it all away and be someone else?

The me who knows I still have half a book (at least) to write throws a bit of a mid-novel crisis herself. I get pissy with anyone near me, I throw little tantrums in my head, and I tell myself I have no good ideas. I want to just make the conflict happen. I want to know where this story is going. I want my characters to BEHAVE, dammit.

Oh good. Another angst-riddled writer raging against the machine. How original – just what this world needs.

It reminds me of this brilliant bit of inspiration – something I read often to keep me going. I mean, if Neil Gaiman feels like this sometimes, I must be doing it right. In fact, you might as well go read what he has to say, because it’s exactly what I’ve just been complaining about, and he’s a much more accomplished writer than I.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 377 other followers

%d bloggers like this: