lovablestories | Entries tagged with adbat shares

Welp. I forgot to write an update yesterday. I might change it to every four days, as I seem to keep forgetting I'm supposed to do it every three days. Ah, me.

So.

Today (and this past weekend) involved:

a lot of handwriting of new material and new scenes
character sketches
a more rigorous delimitation of the different Arcs (+ the realization that one particular subplot still needs a tie-in into the larger plot of Arc One)
1 complete picture in a short story + work on two (slow-going) short stories*

Overall, typing has been more difficult. Writing by hand seems to be working better.

*except for one of these short stories, everything on the list has to do with Nights of Heroes
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part of the Every Single Day for my charity challenge to WWF | next update will be on 27 Jan 2017!

Current Mood: sore

If I am anything, I am consistent at being inconsistent. Especially when it comes to blogs and urls. I say this because I have wandered across the web, settling on blogger then onto wordpress -- and at each stop swapping my url at least twice -- then onto tumblr and now here. It's hard for me retain a location. To be fair, except for blogger, these are still all active. The challenge is finding the connection and the purpose: why have a wordpress blog if I don't want to post my writing online or write book reviews?

Sorry. This is off topic.

I'm thinking of all this because I returned to my original writing tumblr (adbat-writes.tumblr.com) but renamed it and reworked it to resemble my original fairy tale tumblr (cuntodelicunti.tumblr.com) -- which had turned into my second writing tumblr (writingbegas.tumblr.com) -- which is now my original writing tumblr (writingbegas.tumblr.com). Did that make sense?

Basically I had a tumblr (cuntodelicunti) for fairy tales. And later I created a tumblr for my stories and my writing and a place to have very specific tags (adbat-writes). Then I turned the fairy tale tumblr into my writing tumblr and renamed its url "writingbegas" which is where I've been posting my Every Single Day challenges. Then I decided I wanted to keep my writing tumblr only concerned with my writing, no fairy tales. So cuntodelicunti → writingbegas is deleted, and adbat-writes is now writingbegas.

Ugh. I'm not one for clarification, am I?

Ah well.

So. Nights of Heroes. I was re-reading my second revision and I realized what I like about it isn't the story (because a lot of it's wrong) but I like how the story seems connected. I have to do that again, but with the right order, the right characters, etc.

Also, I actually did rewriting today! Whoohoo! Whilst listening to Over the Garden Wall instrumental soundtrack.

What's fascinating about my original draft, which I was revising, is how...omniscient the pov is. Like in the original:

He was so enchanted with his memories that he did not see someone else coming out of another corridor. The figure paused momentarily as though to get a bearing and Nkosana, in his daydream, collided right into her.

Instead of being in the character's head and then being startled with the arrival of (and collision with) another, it describes what's happening around him, without any recourse of connecting to the character. It's weird to re-read.

Also, more importantly, that's not the pov I want for the story.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "You're Welcome"

Well, this is later than I intended. I got actually distracted yesterday. (And not with the new book my sister loaned me on the Romanov sisters.) And then I wanted to try to organize the arrangement of chapters and characters/events by chapter for Book 1, so I would know where to put which scene and where I had to revise or rewrite.

That did not lead to successful results. And by then it was getting late enough that I just decided to put this post off until tomorrow, even if it would be a day late.

So.

This morning I realized that what I realized earlier this month was applicable here. I had a lot of ideas but how much did I care about them? More importantly, were they all necessary to the story? Instead of looking at the events, I was recycling the events. But do they work? Do they make sense?

For example, in the original draft, one MC and another character meet at the early midpoint of the story. And I had taken that for granted that that was how it happened. Ruminating today on character wants and character flaws (which would interfere with said wants), I realized that having that MC meet a different character at that point in the story opened up a much more interesting dynamic, because of their personalities and attitudes.

That's not to say there wasn't anything compelling about the original set up. The problem stemmed from a lack of cohesion between events and character progression. (This was applicable not only to the development of that MC and the original character she met, but that character's character arc.) Additionally, by swapping the character that MC meets, it actually allows stronger focus on familial or friendly relationships. Which is more important in Nights of Heroes as a whole, more than romance.

A bit unrelated but I'd like to write more short stories. Especially about NoH characters; I think it'd give me a better grasp on them. Also want to write more about the awesome parents of characters unrelated to NoH.

I guess that's all.
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part of the Every Single Day for my charity challenge to WWF | next update will be on 19 Jan 2017!

Current Mood: contemplative

I've been thinking that I should try to focus more on Nights of Heroes and the actual rewriting of it. I've done lots of character building and writing little snippets (even finished a short story about this character) and even drawings. (Cos apparently NoH, and my Dreams, automatically link to drawings in my head.) I'd like to share more of that.

As for what I've done since my last post...

I realized waaay too many of my MC's have dead mothers. I blame Disney, being one of my major influences. I worked out the details of my central MC's history and thought that it would help him connect to another character, but then I realized that a lot of other MCs have dead mothers. Geez.

Also, I complete three short stories in the last three days. I didn't write them all in three days, but I completed them. So that's an accomplishment, I guess. I'll share the first sentence of each:

#1

Sunlight scampered over the curling wild grapevines that had devoured a stone wall.

#2
Long ago, a most unusual King inherited the ancient Padarya kingdom.
#3
She steps across the snow.
Anyway, I'm going to try to focus on Nights of Heroes: the novels a little more.

Current Mood: indescribable

Well.

I'm starting to suspect that I'll need to not only write new material (to add and expand different character plots) but also completely rewrite certain scenes. Not because the scenes are bad, per se, but because it doesn't work in the story anymore.

For example, I re-reading Chapter Three (of my, uh, third or fourth rewrite) and there's a very nice scene between this brother and sister character. The only trouble is that the way the story is arranged now, they wouldn't be together at the start of Book 1. I'll probably still use the scene after where the brother finds a ring belonged to his mother. But the other one doesn't really fit anywhere.

Which isn't really what I'm talking about.

Okay. So in this third/fourth rewrite, one of the MC's had a cousin. There was a subplot about someone getting into trouble and needing a place to hide. This leads said character to try to move into the cousin (and her mom's) home. But that cousin has dropped out of the story. And the character who gets into trouble has (far as I know) moved into a different subplot. So the scenes relating to all that has to no place in the story either.

Dang. That's not exactly what I mean. Basically there's a lot of scenes that have no function.

Ah!

A better example is a scene were two characters meet in an antique shop. The original scene is written from one character's POV, but I realized that using that POV doesn't make sense. That character is a tertiary character; I'd rather write the scene from the POV of the MC in the scene. So I'll rewrite it. Yeah.

The other thing I discovered while writing story snatches is that my main MC's biggest tension (in the first Book, anyway) comes from his friend. That probably doesn't convey much, but it was very important thing to realize, since it allows me to map his actions and choices (some of them a bit spiteful) better. And that's like really important to me.

Current Mood: complacent

What's fascinating about my writing is that the most prominent aspect people comment on is my description (or illustrations if there are any). Not the characters or story. Which fascinates me since 1. one the earliest lesson I got from another potential writer was: show don't tell so I spend an inordinate amount of time working on my description, and 2. some of my favorite stories have simple or straight-forward characters (e.g. fairy tales, mythology, heck even One Piece to an extent*). So it's interesting that my characters are less dynamic than my description or scene-setting.

I'm thinking I might want to spend some time crunching down on characterization-in-writing. (Not necessarily character-building, but conveying strong characters in words.)

*by that I mean, there's established traits that help define the main cast

Current Mood: hungry

So I'm back.

What to say? I've been writing and brainstorming and drawing more in the last few days than I have in awhile. It's...like being on a sugar rush but with ideas and stories and characters. I'll probably try to go a little low key this weekend, so as not to burn out.

But as to the actually Challenge #2 (Nights of Heroes)...

Well, spend a lot of time today setting up how I wanted to start it. The revisions I've done up to this point had suffered from a lack of focus in the first scenes: what the characters want, what's happening, that sort of thing. So I asked myself, well, here's what I worked out:

What’s supposed to happen in the scene?

What would I want readers to know or understand about him first? And so on?

1. He’s good, but not enterprising. He’s giving, but not attached. He’s an optimistic realist without ambitions (for reasons)

a. How do I show this?

i. Gives bread to children – he’s nice and selfless and giving

ii. Helps fix a roof – he’s hardworking and giving and helpful

iii. Finds shoes for someone – he’s nice and giving and mindful of others

iv. Retrieves a doll for a child – he’s nice and kind

v. Rescues an animal – he’s nice and protective and good

vi. Steals back money for a poor tailor (family/father flashback) – good but underhand, and empathic and selfless

1. Also sets up that he can steal

(I decided on the last option.)

So I now have a focus and something I aiming for. It helps.

Furthermore, I played out a major character backstory (+ another story quick synopsis that said character is part of) in my head this morning. And it gave me so many feelings. The character and the story and I just -- I finally got, I think, what Robin McKinley meant in her author notes in Rose Daughter when she talked about how a story -- a real one -- is like a puppy. You'd know when she came across one, rather than a stone.

See, I have other stories that I really like the ideas of them. And I have at least one story that I like the characters in. But I realized there are the stories that are interesting (they have idea I like and when I explain them to myself it's about the precision or what I'm showing in the story). And there are stories that I just have strong FEELINGS for. Nights of Heroes is one of them. My Moon-demon Lineage is another. This other story I outline this morning is. And the good ideas or themes in the others, I can still use them in other work. I don't need to tell that theme in that story. It just felt like a really important thing to realize.

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part of the Every Single Day for my charity challenge to WWF | next update will be on 9 Jan 2017!

Current Mood: jubilant

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Day 23: Every Single Day [Challenge #2]
Day 19: Every Single Day [Challenge #2] / Writing 009
Day 16: Every Single Day [Challenge #2] / Writing 008
Day 12: Every Single Day [Challenge #2] / Writing 007
Day 9: Every Single Day [Challenge #2]
Writing 006
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Stories are a way of life

Entries tagged with adbat shares

Day 23: Every Single Day [Challenge #2]

Day 19: Every Single Day [Challenge #2] / Writing 009

Day 16: Every Single Day [Challenge #2] / Writing 008

Day 12: Every Single Day [Challenge #2] / Writing 007

Day 9: Every Single Day [Challenge #2]

Writing 006

Day 4: Every Single Day [Challenge #2] / Writing 005