Location, location, location…
There are two other computer programs apart from yWriter that I adore, and I am about to make them all converge with the former, for the sole purpose of making this book pweetty.
I used to spend Too Much Time on The Sims, because it was essentially an electronic dollhouse, and I’m a bit girly like that. (Admit it, boy gamers secretly marrying off your Sims after they have multiple Woo-Hoos in the outdoor jacuzzi. You like playing with electronic dollhouses. It’s not just about drowning them for fun by removing the ladder in the pool. I’m on to you.)
I also spend a lot of time in my day job with Microsoft Visio. Which includes many lovely stencils for the planning of office spaces and the like. Also a kind of electronic dollhouse fetish coming into play here, you follow me?
Enter yWriter’s ability to include profiles of locations you refer to in your book. Suddenly, I can get real micro-managery and start putting together line drawings of sets for my characters. And when I’m through with that, I can load Sims and choose wall paper and furniture.
I’m only half kidding, by the way. If I’m going to describe how characters are sitting relative to each other in the office, I’m going to have to draw the office. I’m visual. I work that way. It sounds like a cheap excuse to bash away at playing House again virtually, but because I’m not going to get past this block until I get this out of my system – and because it’s so much fun (for me), guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow night.
All this, thought up while in the shower this morning. Told you inspiration strikes there.
Goal setting for aspiring writers
While googling for articles about developing goals for my novel’s characters, I chanced upon a how-to for personal goal setting.
I’ve blown my deadlines a couple of times, but it’s nice that she added that bit about being kind to ourselves. Because aren’t we all our own worst critics?
Another one from Disher:
It is pointless to wait for inspiration. The brilliant idea that you write down at 2 a.m. on the notebook by your bed (ed: or in the shower!) may be no more than a sentence that has lost its force by the next morning, whereas sitting down every day and writing a page whether you feel like it or not will produce 365 pages by the end of the year.
Bash through! Just bash through!
How to: form your plot and character
So here’s what I tried last night.
I asked 2 things of each of my characters yesterday:
- What is it about the nature and personality of [insert character here] that makes him/her choose one action over another?
- How has the character changed by the end of the book?
So far, so good. I’ve written short answers for about 5 characters, but it’s already spurred me to consider other details about them. Like how they express what they’re feeling non-verbally. How they dress and stand. And because I’m refining quite a few of my best-loved characters from Failed Draft#2, I already have pictures of what some of them might look like.
By the way, istockphoto and Getty Images can be treasure troves. But pictures of George Clooney can also be quite the inspiration. *sigh*
As for plot, I’m trying something else out. Because characters obviously interact and each have their own development arc, I’m now trying to cobble together a loose outline of each sub-conflict. So for instance, I started putting together a rough outline of a love triangle last night (gotta love those), limiting it only to the actions of the three main characters in this plot line.
The idea is to come up with a few more of these outlines for combinations of characters, before finally trying to weave all plots together in sequential order.
That’s the idea, anyway. I’ll tell you later if it sucks.
Introducing structure to my writing
I’ve entitled this draft “By the book”, only because that’s precisely what I’m trying to do with this version. With the last 2 magnum opi (heh) and the countless other small ones before those, I had grabbed the bull by its proverbial horns and simply started writing.
Only to find that it’s one thing to write an essay. It’s quite the other to write a book.
Structure. My draft lacked structure. My characters lacked structure. And in my arrogance and naivete, I had marched on and started writing without answering some pretty fundamental questions about who my characters are and where they wanted to go.
Which meant that on some days, my characters were manic or mellow, depending on how much caffeine I’d inhaled. Which meant, after a while, that they all started to meld together somehow at about the 60,000 mark and become a giant chorus of Ho Hum.
I’ve met writers who say that they write without an outline. They just sit in front of the computer and let their imaginations (and the voices in their heads) take over. I’ve found that I cannot do that. As much as I would love to be that talented, it’s beginning to dawn on me that I first need to understand a few more fundamentals about plot and character, before I let the words drip from my fingertips.
Enter Garry Disher.
I don’t know who he is, and I have no real idea of his writing credentials apart from what they printed inside the book cover. But I picked up his book, “Writing Fiction: An introduction to the craft” at the Lifeline bookfair this March for $2, and even though it was first published in 1983, I figured the principles aren’t too different.
Also,
- It’s thin, which is good because I’m impatient.
- It’s to the point, which is even better (see point one).
- It’s a start.
Because you know what they say about insanity… it’s doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different outcome.
Here’s to trying something new.
My rough timeline and schedule
And this is how I do it:
Each week – work twice a week
Therefore 10 days to work out all characters and rough plot outline
Thereafter,
Assuming 2 days of 2,000 words each
That means 4,000 words a week
That means 25 weeks, assuming I start 1 September
That takes me up to the last week of February
That means only 2 weeks of reprieve and no Christmas. 
To be safe, I need to write about 5,000 words a week
That means 20 weeks, with 7 weeks’ reprieve…
To allow for
- holidays and travelling
- illness
- family visits and other delights
- mental health days solvable only by watching rom-coms “for research”.
