As soon as the iPad inspired a slurry of Android clones I’m sure more than a few writers thought, “Now I can write that novel or screenplay in bed, waiting at the doctor office, or yes, even while sitting on the toilet!” But wait! Not so fast. How does the state of the art stack
Why shower crayons work: Routine. It forces us to focus and make decisions, even if it’s only for a few minutes a day. You don’t need hours, days, or weeks to make a decision. Most decisions can take place within a few seconds. Even the most creative thorny problems. You may not find the best
Novelists usually work by a process of drafting. They write straight through to a 1st draft. Then they change the things they don’t like in the 2nd draft, and iterate into a 3rd, etc. Drafting is a linear process. Plotting, also sometimes called ‘blocking,’ is used by script writers to establish economical scene flow.
Oct
31
Posted by : | On : October 31, 2007
I’ll be cheering from the sidelines this year, as last year I learned that word count (somewhat counter-intuitively) doesn’t necessarily equate with story progress. That and I’m knee deep in trying to finish previous years NaNo endeavors.
Good luck to those of you taking the plunge with National Novel Writing Month tomorrow. Perhaps in a year or two’s time, we’ll all need a National Novel Finishing Month.
Jul
03
Posted by : | On : July 3, 2007
I’ve rendered out nine scenes so far in full prose. Easier than ever. Easier than NaNo. Everything is going smoothly. The only thing that slows me down is that I occasionally have to look up a detail for accuracy — a little last minute research. I should be done with Act One and into Act Two by the middle of the month.
Writing is supposed to be hard. I’m supposed to stare at the blank page for hours, and summon the will to write. I’m supposed to start at the beginning, and finish at the end of a long glorious stream of consciousness. I’m supposed to suffer, and rewrite. Something must be wrong because none of that is happening!
I wonder if it’s because the writing journey is easy with a road map?
Maybe. Just maybe.
Jun
26
Posted by : | On : June 26, 2007
In graphics, rendering means putting the image on screen, or in processing terms it means taking all the elements of a scene and translating them into visual output which ends up on your screen.
With my full-fledged process for storytelling in mid-stride, I’ve begun to see prose writing as similar to rendering. What does that mean?
It means I work out all my story elements, decide what happens in a scene, and how that affects other scenes. I set the pieces up, and I write a short treatment for that scene, which in rendering terms would be something like a ‘preview’ — not the finished render, but a rough snapshot of what the final scene might look like.
Imagine for a moment, someone trying to film a scene in a movie and suddenly someone decides the location has changed, or instead of Sally slapping Bob, she kisses him. You might have to completely redo the scene. Each time an element of the story changes, the filmmakers have to go back and re-shoot the scene.
Any time you change fundamental elements of your story, you end up having to rewrite that part of your story. The idea here is, get it right the first time. Do a first pass treatment style, as a present-tense basic narration of events.
“Sally goes to the barn and milks the cow, and then she comes back to the cottage and churns butter.”
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