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Good luck with your revision! And thanks for sharing the link. The site seems really interesting! :)
The Trouble with Casting Characters
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You pass under a huge sign that screams “AUDITIONS TODAY.” Clutching the instructions and room layout to your chest, you decide to start with the obvious: the leading role.
A quick glance and it’s clear it’s not for you. Who wants to deal with that much crap?
But everyone remembers a good villain. You move to the next table. Oh ick. This one’s not even half-way decent. Clearly the author prefers black-and-white conflicts. And every word out of your mouth would be a pun.
Okay, comic relief. The best friend character who everyone loves. You check out the massive crowd around the third table. People are juggling bicycles and testing new jokes. Too much competition for that one. You can’t possibly be funny enough for the role.
With frightening rapidity, you cross off love interest, important family, unimportant family, cryptic mentor, and even crazy old fatalist. There just doesn’t seem to be a good fit for you in this story.
You turn. There. A lonely table in the corner. You rush over and snatch up the description. It’s only a minor character, but it has potential. It could easily be a key character in the next book. Or the main character in an off-shoot or completely new world.
This is your role. You take it.
Experimental Planning Method: Results
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Well that was a bust.
Don’t get me wrong, I came up with lots of lantern scenes, but my novel’s plot is so complex, putting those scenes in order didn’t really point out how to use other scenes to tie it together. After shuffling index cards around for hours, I was no closer toward a decent outline.
I think this method would work for a short story, or a simple-plotted novel. But for me? No.
Do you guys have any planning secrets to share?
Write Only Lantern Scenes
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These types of scenes go by different names. Holly Lisle calls them candy bar scenes, Alexandra Sokoloff calls them setpieces – and I’ve decided to call them Lantern Scenes, thanks to Tangled. Don’t freak out, you already know what they are: those scenes that make up the meat of your story, the ones that are delicious to write or read.
When I saw Tangled, I had just learned about candy bar scenes. And as soon as the first lantern floated into the air, I knew that this was one of those scenes.
Now I bet that you or one of your writer friends has said, at some point in their writing career, “I can’t wait to finish this boring stuff and get to the interesting part!”
Stop. Think about what that means. If you find your story boring, how on earth is your reader going to feel?
The solution: write only lantern scenes.
Obviously this isn’t practical. Not every scene will be a joy to write. (Heck, J. K. Rowling was crying at the end of Deathly Hallows.) But you can plan out a number of lantern scenes, and find ways to string them together with scenes that are more than transitions, that build up to the next lantern scene.
I’ve already made a huge long list of lantern scenes I want to do for Fragment of the Moon. I don’t yet know what order to put them in, or how to connect them. There’s certainly a lot of conflict to account for. I think index cards will help.
Come back Friday to see the results of my experimental method!
The Problem with Pantsing
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Welcome to A Single Bell’s Planning Week! Inspired by Holly Lisle’s Professional Plot Outline Mini Course, I’ve decided to attempt a new method of plotting for Fragment of the Moon, which is simply too complicated to write by my pants.
Now I’m sure there are some authors out there who excel at pantsing. A novel comes out almost fully formed, from start to finish. But as I’m learning through my Narrator revisions, that is not the case for me.
I usually get great ideas from actually writing, but it’s all too easy to get caught up in one train of plot and forget to see all of the options I have. It’s racing along head-first, without an eye on the bigger picture.
Planning, however, allows you to map out different aspects before you waste time on unneeded scenes. With a step back, you can see different ways to maximize conflict. During my short break from my latest Narrator revision, my mind has been brimming with ways to tweak scenes or character arcs, to squeeze as much out of my premise as I possibly can. If only I had gotten those ideas before.
In order to streamline the writing of Fragment of the Moon, I’ve decided to try a new method. Come back Wednesday to read about my new plan for planning!
Ellas Enchanted
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Similar to the Howl’s Moving Castle duo, the similarities between the Ella Enchanted novel and movie are few and far between. Although they only share the names and Ella’s curse to be obedient, I enjoy both versions.
In the book, the relationship between Ella and Char is adorable to watch, from their first meeting, to their written correspondence, to the three classic balls. Ella has a lot of spunk, and it shows in the narrative as well as in her actions. I enjoy Ella’s subterfuge during the balls, and her mastery of other languages, both of which don’t exist in the movie.
I love the movie for its own brand of humor. It’s very tongue-in-cheek, with the Prince Char fanclub and medieval versions of modern technology (man-powered escalators, bat-ox, etc.). It has a more political tone than the book (stop ogrecide!), but I actually prefer the political subplot, where the king uses Ella’s powers to try to kill Char. Ella dreads this happening in the book, but the movie actually puts it into play. This makes Ella’s need to break the curse more poignant – and more exciting.
I’m sure many people think the movie ruined the book, as they do with many other movie/book combos. How do you treat movie adaptations of books you love?
Tangled Music
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I love the music from Tangled. (If you still haven’t seen it, go now!) This is an amazing song set during a festival. It’s actually already inspired a scene or two in my own Narrator. What will it inspire for you?
Do Characters Have Secret Lives?
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“Sylvia: Wait, Austen meant Charlotte to be gay, or Charlotte is gay and Austen is not aware of it.
Bernadette: I just love the idea of a character having a secret life that the author doesn’t even know about.”
Thinking about Jane Austen Book Club the other day, I remembered this scene. One of the characters thinks Charlotte Lucas, from the ever popular Pride and Prejudice, is gay because she tells Lizzy that she’s not as “romantic” as she is. Obviously, this raises some questions.
Can characters have secret lives separate from their authors’ wishes and intents? I know many fanfiction writers believe so. Just look at the number of Harry/Draco fics that exist.
But I’m not talking about Alternate Universe scenarios, or wishful thinking. If a character’s secret life fits within the context of the original novel, does that mean it could exist? That it does exist? Or is the text itself the final word?
And even if it is possible, is it right to usurp the author (especially when they can no longer defend their work, like Austen) by deciding for them if a character has a secret life?
I think it’s an interesting idea to have characters hiding things from their authors, though I’m not sure how I would feel if I were to find out ten years from now that Pennington is Saydie’s father or whatever. That would definitely put a new light on their relationship.
I put these questions to you. Do you think characters have secret lives?
My second semester of grad school has officially begun! Huzzah for even less time to write than usual!
I’ve set up a plan for the next revision of Narrator. You may have noticed the progress meter is back to 0. I’m going to be going chapter by chapter: first big stuff like adding or rearranging scenes, then smaller stuff like style and grammar. I’m super excited to get back to Narrator, I have lots of ideas to fix the problems my writing group found in the 2nd draft.
Speaking of Narrator, my query was critiqued by copyeditor Lynnette Labelle! My query isn’t promising, but it is a start! I need to figure out how to get all of the complexities of the novel to fit into an enticing 250 word blurb.
You may have noticed that my progress meters haven’t been moving much lately. Luckily, they do not reflect reality. I have been writing, but in a notebook where wordcounts are much harder to obtain. I have decided to try a new planning technique I learned for Fragment of the Moon. I’ll share that with you once I’ve figured out if it works for me.
Hope you all are getting to work on those New Year Resolutions!
Hide [subtext in] Your Dialogue
Filed Under Tools of the Trade | 1 Comment
One sure sign of an amateur writer is dialogue that is stale and clear-cut. In the same way that you should keep your readers in suspense in terms of plot and character, you should keep your readers guessing with your dialogue.
After all, people rarely say what they really mean. If they did, your bad guy wouldn’t last long at the head of his secret evil plan, and the divorce rate would be a heck of a lot higher.
I’m not saying every character should be cryptic, or a guru who speaks in riddles. But don’t be afraid to let your characters hide their real meaning in uncomfortable situations. Which conversation is more interesting?
““It’s hot, isn’t it? said Hermione, fanning herself with her hand. “Viktor’s just gone to get some drinks.”
Ron gave her a withering look. “Viktor?” he said. “Hasn’t he asked you to call him Vicky yet?”
Hermione looked at him in surprise. “What’s up with you?” she said.
“If you don’t know,” said Ron scathingly, “I’m not going to tell you.”
Hermione stared at him, then at Harry, who shrugged.
“Ron, what–?”
“He’s from Durmstrang!” spat Ron. “He’s competing against Harry! Against Hogwarts! You–you’re–” Ron was obviously casting around for words strong enough to describe Hermione’s crime, “fraternizing with the enemy, that’s what you’re doing!”
”“
“It’s hot, isn’t it? said Hermione, fanning herself with her hand. “Viktor’s just gone to get some drinks.”Ron gave her a withering look. “Viktor?” he said. “Hasn’t he asked you to call him Vicky yet?”
Hermione looked at him in surprise. “What’s up with you?” she said.
“If you don’t know,” said Ron scathingly, “I’m not going to tell you.”
Hermione stared at him, then at Harry, who shrugged.
“Ron, what–?”
“Why did you come to the ball with him,” Ron yelled, “when I’m the one in love with you!”
Hermione gaped. “Ron, I – I love you too!”
”*ignores screaming of Hermione/Ron fangirls*
If you said the first one, yes, you’d be correct. There are many ways to play with the situation when people won’t say what they really want to. (Ron’s a special case though. If he knew at this point he loved Hermione, I’ll eat this blog. He might not know why he’s acting this way, but he’s definitely not being honest with himself or Hermione here.)
Don’t cave and stick with face value dialogue just because it’s easier. Easy is boring. If you want it easy, you picked the wrong hobby/career.
Writer’s Workshop: Beginnings
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One of the most frequent questions I see from other writers is “where do I start my story?” Obviously there is no magic formula, no winning solution. Each beginning depends on the needs of the individual story.
There are, however, general guidelines to let you know if you’re starting in the right place:
- If you start too early your readers will fall asleep. You want to start just before the inciting incident (Harry receiving the letter from Hogwarts, Katniss’ sister being chosen for the Hunger Games). Everything that comes before it is backstory, and readers won’t have much stomach for it.
- If you start too late your readers will be confused. In medias res is a classic way to begin a story, but if it requires too much explanation for your reader to understand, you might be better off backing up a few events.
- Finding the right inciting incident may be difficult. Imagine if Harry Potter started on his first day of classes. Everything that came before would have to be explained in the narrative, and we wouldn’t get much of a sense of his life growing up with the Dursleys, or the way he befriended Hagrid and Ron and made enemies with Draco. All of these are important to his character, and are better shown than told.
How would you set up the beginning to your novel?
Welcome
Official Progress
4/21 segments
A narrator hijacks a cliche fantasy story, much to the chagrin of its characters.Status: Second revision
A young noblewoman with strange powers must choose: her king or her soul.1,639/70,000 wordsStatus: First draft
When a girl's heart is stolen, she's plunged into a world of magic and shadows - but can she get her heart back before she loses it completely?1,087/70,000 wordsStatus: First draft
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