Tag: the storyteller

Post ‘Vacation’ Crash

Laura Highcove

Several weeks ago (now) I went to the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City. The next weekend I went to a horse show, and after three weeks of no downtime I crashed hard when I got home on Monday. It has taken me until now to sit down and work on any writing at all. (I haven’t written anything since two weeks ago either.)

But here is what I (thankfully) thought to write about my Writer’s Digest Conference on the train home:

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After this weekend I have a few new possible tools to try that will hopefully help me flesh out what I need to in The Storyteller, and even trim down (!?) the first part.

One major thing I learned was that I should aim to start with 60 scenes, 15 in act 1, 30 act 2, 15 act 3 with the important bits where they should be. Well I currently have 48 scenes (including the ones I added to my post it note outline that aren’t actually written yet) so I’m a little short in the first place. I also got ideas of how to come up with worthwhile subplots (because apparently character growth and a romantic sub-plot just weren’t enough) that will mean something.

However, I am happy to say that I do know what the book’s theme is and that is super important. I even ‘pitched’ my book to some people and they all seemed rather interested in it. So I think I’m on the right track, I just have to figure out the rest. I still have a goal of finishing this version of my draft by the end of the year. I need to get back into my habit of my set schedule, even though it’s harder to figure out how much I’ve gotten done because I won’t have a word count to quantify my progress.

ALSO! I really loved New York. I don’t like cities, and I would never want to live in one, but being in New York was so surreal. I’ve seen it so often in movies that when I looked around I kinda felt like I must be in a movie. And when you look down the street and just see a line of buildings that just goes on, it’s very Inception looking. The touristy areas and the business areas around Times Square and Park Ave were just so clean and well maintained and well patrolled. It was really just great. Like I’d love to visit again (WD next year!) though I doubt I would want to live there, even if I had the income to support it.

I can understand how it’s like a world of it’s own, all within that tiny little space. There’s just so much culture that grows in even those individual sections. It’s cool. Plus I had a New York Bagel, which was amazing, and New York Pizza, which was good but not world-ending good.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I gave my cards out to a bunch of people, went out with new (and old) people each night for dinner. Got a bunch of cards, and got a ton on inspiration in general. I need to go through my notes and file away the important stuff in my Writing Scriv so I can find it when I need it. Learned about plotting, and outlining, and the two keynotes speakers I heard were great. World building, and apparently the other ones weren’t amazing because I don’t remember them off the top of my head. Also a panel on new authors, which was nice just for info.

And someone did say that blogs don’t sell as many books as people really think, so encouraged us to not go nutso with the onlineness. I am happy to hear that, though I really think I was basically in that mindset anyway, I’ll just be happier now since I won’t worry quite so much about getting hardly any page views.

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Now that things are caught up to there, I have to decide if I’m going to write a post about my horse show. I figure this blog does focus mostly on my life revolving around writing, but other things are important too. I want this blog to exist so that people can get to know me, so I guess that includes the horsey stuff as well.

Extra Writing Time

Laura Highcove

Otakon is done and over and was tons of fun. We actually put events in our guidebook and went to them! Spent money in the Dealer’s Room and Artist Alley. The weekend on a whole was great.

Then I hung out for three days at my mother-in-law’s with basically nothing to do except write. So I worked on my outline, which got done more quickly than I thought it would, I spent some time working through the ‘major’ issues (both straight up plot holes as well as concepts I just hadn’t fleshed out yet, and that needed to be fleshed out) and reading the 1300 page Words of Radiance by Branderson.

What did I discover during this process? First off, doing the physical post it note on posterboard is better than the program I had for index cards because I can see it all at a glance. So I could see where all the pink cards are (those are scenes that still need to be written) and where important character moments happen for Rose (pink) Tabitha (yellow) and Garrett (green). Through the middle, the blue are the plot holes, and everything else on that line are things that need to be explained that I don’t actually have a place for yet …

However it brings into super sharp contrast the fact that my second half of the book just doesn’t exist. I knew this was an issue before I started the outline. It has been a problem for a while, but this is the perfect time to have this problem because I’m going to the Writer’s Digest Conference this weekend. I will be surrounded by writers and writing teachers. I’m sure something in a panel will pop out at me and propel me forward again.

For now, getting ready for my trip to New York.

Vacation Time!

Laura Highcove

So Otakon is this weekend (I am writing this post on Friday morning in order to still have something to post on Sunday) and so this week was a little wonky. I got plenty of notes done over the past weekend but not nearly as much as I could have. I feel that in the future I should be able to pound out notes in a draft in only slightly longer than it takes to actually read the story.

I am in the final fight scene right now, which is actually not as much of a total mess as I thought it was. The choreography of the fight needs a lot of work, but the A, B, C of what happens is pretty together.

After Otakon I am hanging out in Maryland (at my mother-in-law’s) for an extra three days (otherwise I would be spending Tuesday driving home to Southwest Virginia and Thursday taking the train to New York City for the Writer’s Digest conference.) which is just unnecessary travel. It will also give me three days of a no plans vacation in which I will finish out my notes and start in on my outline. (And maybe read some of Words of Radiance, the next #Branderson book in my queue.)

Which means that Writer’s Digest is imminent! I am a little package of nervous excitement. I am glad that I am able to take the train up and stay in the hotel with Anel (a writing buddy) so I won’t be all alone in the city. Btw, if you’re going to Writer’s Digest, drop me an email or a facebook message so I know to look for you.

So next week I may post twice! Once with what writing stuff I get done on my ‘vacation’, and another with the details of my experience at Writer’s Digest. Stay tuned!

Notes and Procrastination

Laura Highcove

I was talking with my mother Wednesday (as I do every Wednesday) and was telling her about how this project often feels overwhelming. But at the same time, even though it feels like I’ll never accomplish anything, the alternative is to stop writing. That possibility does not exist in my world. So the only path is to continue forward.

As such, I am still in the process of adding notes to The Storyteller. I’m not quite halfway through, though I am making quicker headway than I was. As long as I can sit down and remind myself that all I’m doing is writing down notes, things go smoothly.

And what is the logical follow up for deciding you are going to continue on a project come hell or high water? Well it’s to procrastinate of course!

You may or may not be aware that I have some skills in Photoshop. That banner ^. Totally made that myself. I have, in the past, made (pseudo) book covers, banners, and wallpapers for my stories as inspiration points. This is the one I put together this past week for The Storyteller. I even made sure this time to get free-use pictures.

I find that having pictures that represent my stories helps me to feel like they’re more real somehow. This wallpaper is now my desktop background and I am able to look at it and it encourages me to keep going. I’m pretty happy with it.

Baby Steps

Laura Highcove

Getting back into the swing of writing has been rough. Mostly because the ‘writing’ has consisted of reading my story and then reading it again while making notes of things I need to change, fix, or add.

What About Bob? I was hoping that on reading The Storyteller over again, that I would be encouraged by how much I had done. Instead I find myself scared by how much I haven’t done. It’s much harder to make myself sit down and work on the story than it has been in the past.

I read some articles on revision in the past, and I remember a lot of them seeming to say: ‘Sure, I went though and jotted down notes on what needed to be fixed, then I made a plan and viola!’ Maybe for some people it is like that. I feel like I’m still light-years from a readable book, much less a publishable one.

As for my actual process. Right now I am making a new copy of each scene, and then going through and putting in notes. Right now I’m ignoring descriptions that need to be improved, dialogue that needs tweaking, all of the typos. The notes that I write are in reference to plot, world building, and character building issues. All the ‘huge’ points that need to be hammered into place so that someone could read the story and at least follow what’s going on.

I am not actually fixing any of these issues yet. Right now most of the notes are in reference to little things. Things that aren’t too lumpy, but I know that later I have major holes and whole scenes that will need to be added and rewritten. In order to keep the project from feeling overwhelming, I just have to keep taking baby steps.

Getting Back in the Saddle

Laura Highcove

It’s time to get back to The Storyteller! If you can remember back that far, I did indeed say I was going to take two months off, however, I neglected to take into account how long a month is. The story is sufficiently rested.

I am excited to continue working out my writing process through actual action. This story, come what may of it, is probably going to be the single most important novel in my discovery of said writing process.

Right now, the rough plan I have for The Storyteller is:

1) I’m going to read the story through once and just see what’s there and how it flows when I’m doing nothing but reading.

2) I’m going to then read it a second time and take notes on what is there and what isn’t there that I would like to be there.

3) I’m planning on making a post-it note outline with colors for different plot threads and things that need to be added so I can see everything at a glance and move things around at will.

4) Go in and write the bits that are missing and I know there are a lot of them. This will probably constitute a large chunk of the planned six months. Move around my post-it note outline (pino!) as I write to keep an eye on where I’m going and to see whether it is ‘complete’ as a story. The end of this step happens when all of the pieces are in the story, such that it makes sense in a read-through from beginning to end. (I’m going to put four months here, but this will likely change.)

5) Send story out to beta readers and get feedback.

6) Run through the whole story multiple times, tweaking and changing as I go, possibly focusing on certain aspects of the story such as plot, character, etc (Similar to my plan at the beginning of the year) to further hone stuff.

I’m not putting any time restraints on here and probably won’t until after step 2, at which point I can reevaluate where I think I am. I need to keep reminding myself that my process is my own. I need to stop getting bogged down with the process of others.

Writing Process

Laura Highcove

I have been writing for a long time. When I was young, I would pound out stories that only amounted to a couple hundred words each. I evolved and the stories got longer. Then I began to come up with more ideas and so I had dozens of stories floating around.

My process worked thus:

1) Work on a story from the beginning. If it was already partially written, I would edit and tighten and add new ideas. If it was brand new I would jump in and start writing without any more planning than maybe my main character’s name.

2) Get a new idea. This could either apply to the story I was currently working on, or any of the others. In either case the result would be going back to step one.

My process did not contain a lot of focus. I would jump among my projects all the time. The only way I would make any headway is when I stayed interested in a project long enough (and didn’t have any shiny new ideas) to get to the end. This did not happen very often.

However, over the years, due to sheer number of hours, the cream steadily rose. The stories for which I had ideas continued to get better and develop. The stories that weren’t as great fell by the wayside.

Then three years ago, I had an experience that started me down the path to serious self reflection. One of the many things that came out of that was a desire to gain mastery of writing.

I picked one of my stories, Shifting Winds, and I worked on it exclusively. I read articles, I read books, I struggled with my free time and my other obligations and I eventually found my DIYMFA mentor.

I struggled a lot with my process. October and November of last year I started over with a brand new story, The Storyteller, which I worked on ‘revising’ from January to June of this year. Through mostly pure grit, I kept with it through figuring out that I didn’t really have a rough draft, to realizing how underdeveloped the world and the characters were and trying to figure out how I was going to get this story from where it was to publishable.

I am still adapting my writing process. When I started The Storyteller, my plan was to force myself to focus on the story and just write through to the end. Well over the period of six months I came to realize that that process didn’t work for me. Since I develop my story as I write, writing straight through to the end just gives me a lot of scattered thoughts and rewritten scenes.

So I had to stop over this month of downtime as I let The Storyteller sit, and think about how I could improve my process. What worked for me in the past was writing and then going back and cleaning up, and then writing a bit more, then going back and cleaning it up, etc. What didn’t work about that back in the day was my jumping around among stories, but I don’t have that problem anymore now that I decided to be more focused.

I’m still working on accepting the fact that I am just going to be slower in turning out books than other writers. I am annoyed by this fact. That’s okay. I can be annoyed. I just have to keep writing, which thankfully has become a habit at this point.

Gender Bending

Laura Highcove

One of the things that I am playing around with in The Storyteller are gender roles, because it’s something I’m interested in. I’ve always been a tomboy and unlike many girls, I never really grew out of it.

Both of the main characters in The Storyteller do not conform to standard gender roles. Tabitha was raised as a Prince Charming. She is dashing, brave, and kind, the ideal prince. She just happens to be a girl.

Wildrose is In Touch with his Feminine Side. He is a man who does not play to typical masculine traits, and is just as comfortable playing the role of a woman as a man.

Wonderfully enough, TV Tropes (which I introduced you to last week) has a page for discussing gender roles. (It is a long read, just warning you.) The article exists to help people write characters of opposite genders, and as such is a neat compilation of the differences between genders, with the necessary disclaimer that it’s hard to make blanket statements about genders.

What gender roles do you like to bend or break, and which do you tend to conform to?

Getting Tropey

Laura Highcove

It occurs to me that since right now I don’t have any writing stuff to talk about, that this is a perfect time to talk a bit more about the story I’m working on itself, as opposed to the process.

If you’ve visited the “The Stories” link over on the right, you may have noticed the line under The Storyteller heading: “I have always wanted to do a story in a fairy tale world where the characters are genre savvy (ie, they know the fairy tales are stories and respond accordingly.)”. Being genre savvy involves a knowledge of expected outcomes based on stories similar to the current situation. These expected outcomes are also known as tropes. Click on that link. I’ll wait.

Back so soon? I’ve been known to get lost for hours on that site.

Basically, all of the things that you expect to happen in tv, movies, books, etc. because you’ve seen them before. You know it is a bad decision to go down into the basement when there’s a serial killer or scary monster somewhere in the vicinity, but the person in the situation has no idea that they’re in a scary movie.

Part of what I’m playing around with in The Storyteller is that the laws of magic in this world are tropes, and fairy tales happen over and over in different places to different people. These people have no idea they’re in a story. My main characters are Storytellers, and it’s their job to be Genre Savvy. They have to know the laws (tropes) in order to make sure the world stays stable through the successful completion of the tales.

Think for a moment about Cinderella. It doesn’t matter if you think of the Disney version, or any other version. There are certain things you associate with the story. Cinderella is treated as a servant. Her ball. She meets a prince, loses her slipper, and is identified by it.

There are many tropes associated with this story, and tons of re-tellings of the Cinderella story that use different tropes. Some tropes are less necessary than others. Would it still be a cinderella story if she started out rich? If her stepmother loved her? If there is no prince? What about if there were two princes?

In The Storyteller, the Storytellers have to make sure that certain tropes (laws of magic) happen properly within the tale or the magic can go completely wild. As such, I’ve had a lot of fun playing with what tropes I can put into stories, and which I can take out without losing the essence of the story. And that doesn’t mean that my Storytellers don’t have tropes of their own.

Tropes are not good or bad on their face, they’re just a tool. A way of creating and possibly subverting expectations in the reader quickly and easily. If you find any tropes on TV Tropes that you particularly like, feel free to share them in the comments section or post to my wall.

Retrospective

Laura Highcove

So here I am, after spending a week not working on The Storyteller. That doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to write about for this post, however. I figured this would be a great time to sit down and figure out what it is I’ve gotten out of the past five months. I just went back and read all of my posts, and I cannot even believe the ups and downs I managed to get through. It’s sort of mind boggling that I got anything done.

Major things I learned:

1) I am starting to hammer out what my process is.

I am not a writer who pounds out a rough draft and then edits it a few times. I’m not convinced I pound out a rough draft in the first place. I don’t do much planning at all before I sit down and write, so all of my planning is done as I write. That makes me believe that my first and second drafts are nothing more than active planning.

I always assumed that the way I used to write (writing until I had a new idea, then going back and editing and writing a little more, then repeat) was no good, mostly because I rarely had the discipline to stick with one story long enough to actually finish it. I have now accepted that that is likely part of my process. My first ‘draft’ is more ‘getting all the ideas on the page’ (whether I get to the end of the story or not), I let it rest, then sit down with everything I wrote and expand on the characters, the magic system, the world, etc. Then I write another draft, which is still not a completed rough draft, but at this point I should get through the entirety of the story. (So I have a legit ending.)

This is as far as I’ve gotten in the process thus far with The Storyteller. I know I am missing at least one subplot and many more details that need to be fleshed out. After this rest period, I will likely hammer out a few more details, and then turn the draft into an actual rough draft. As much as I want to compare myself to people who can just hammer out beautiful rough drafts ~cough~ #branderson ~cough~ I’m just going to have to keep working on what my own process is.

2) I am not as much a beginner writer as I thought

I am finding that I actually do have processes and good habits as a writer that I just didn’t recognize. SUBLIST!

a) I can hammer out words. I mean like seriously.
b) I can write most anywhere with most anything. Laptop, desktop, notebook, back of an envelope, whatever.
c) My ideas develop as I write them. I can only do so much sitting and thinking. (Not that it doesn’t help)
d) I am hella stubborn. As many times as I have thought about abandoning my story, I really am more stubborn than I thought. It basically comes down to the fact that I know I’m never going to stop writing, so abandoning a specific project is just losing a way to improve.

3) Other writers suck too

I have had a lot of problems with comparing what I write to other amazing stories out there. (This includes novels, movies, tv shows, webcomics, etc.) And I am actually starting to take a step back and look at the fact that everyone has stuff that is trash along with the stuff that is good. Or they started out and weren’t all that great and developed over time. Even well-written stuff can drop the ball in a serious way.

So as I work my way through my two months of not working on the Storyteller, it does allow me to take a step back and look at things objectively. I made a deadline and I met it. I succeeded at some things, failed at others. I even have comments on my last two blog posts! I want to thank everyone who has followed me this far. I’m not done yet. Stick around.