It's time for Friday links.
Ever wonder how the sun ages your skin? This article will show you.
Be careful where you sit. You never know where some prankster will leave superglue. Read for yourself.
This next video has been around for a while, but I go back and watch it so often I thought I'd share it with those of you who haven't seen it yet. A Rube Goldberg machine designed around and synced to the music of OK Go's song "This Too Shall Pass." The video is here and a link to an article describing how everything was put together can be found here . If you haven't seen the video already, check it out. You will not be disappointed.
Have a great weekend.
Website of Ken Rahmoeller -- fantasy author, chemist, and lover of all things Hogwarts (Photo Courtesy of Scarluuk)
Friday, July 20, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
I Know What My Scene Is About -- Do You?
First off, let me apologize for not posting Fridays Links last week. I was sick (along with my daughter) and didn’t feel like it. Sorry. Now on to the post.
Yesterday I came across a post entitled “What is the scene ABOUT?” over at Edittorrent, (a site I heartily recommend, BTW) and was reminded of the dramatic change I made in the way I approached my story. A change that helped tighten up my chapters.
When I first started writing my story about further events at Hogwarts, I had little concept of how chapters or scenes should be constructed. My strategy was to just let things happen in chronological order until a natural break occurred and then start a new chapter. After doing it this way for a while, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea for organizing the book. Since lots of wild and crazy things happen at the school throughout the course of the story (most of them only tangentially related to the plot), I decided that each of these events would become the basis for a chapter. Then I would shoehorn the necessary plot points or dialogue (or whatever) into whichever chapter seemed most appropriate.
Surprisingly enough, this actually worked a few times (mostly by accident), but most of the time it failed miserably. The plot moved in fits and starts. And the book lacked cohesiveness. After an embarrassingly long period of time, I realized a book should be organized around the plot and so I rearranged everything appropriately. The book improved significantly, but many of the chapters still seemed bloated, with no sense of focus. It took me another year and a half, but I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I had no clue what the scene (or chapter) was about. I was packing so many different events and unrelated plotlines into my chapters they were falling apart under their own weight.
So, similar to Theresa’s post above, I went through my manuscript and determined what the purpose of every scene and chapter should be. I would write a one sentence description for each scene and perhaps two or three sentences for each chapter. For example, “The MC learns about a clue and proceeds to investigate.” And then I ruthlessly went through each scene and tossed out everything that didn’t further that goal. I’ll admit it was a painful exercise. I have no assurance that the many paragraphs I removed will ever find a home somewhere else in the story, and I will shed a tear for them if they don’t, but the chapters are much tighter now. And that has made all the difference.
Do any of you have trouble keeping your chapters focused?
Yesterday I came across a post entitled “What is the scene ABOUT?” over at Edittorrent, (a site I heartily recommend, BTW) and was reminded of the dramatic change I made in the way I approached my story. A change that helped tighten up my chapters.
When I first started writing my story about further events at Hogwarts, I had little concept of how chapters or scenes should be constructed. My strategy was to just let things happen in chronological order until a natural break occurred and then start a new chapter. After doing it this way for a while, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea for organizing the book. Since lots of wild and crazy things happen at the school throughout the course of the story (most of them only tangentially related to the plot), I decided that each of these events would become the basis for a chapter. Then I would shoehorn the necessary plot points or dialogue (or whatever) into whichever chapter seemed most appropriate.
Surprisingly enough, this actually worked a few times (mostly by accident), but most of the time it failed miserably. The plot moved in fits and starts. And the book lacked cohesiveness. After an embarrassingly long period of time, I realized a book should be organized around the plot and so I rearranged everything appropriately. The book improved significantly, but many of the chapters still seemed bloated, with no sense of focus. It took me another year and a half, but I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I had no clue what the scene (or chapter) was about. I was packing so many different events and unrelated plotlines into my chapters they were falling apart under their own weight.
So, similar to Theresa’s post above, I went through my manuscript and determined what the purpose of every scene and chapter should be. I would write a one sentence description for each scene and perhaps two or three sentences for each chapter. For example, “The MC learns about a clue and proceeds to investigate.” And then I ruthlessly went through each scene and tossed out everything that didn’t further that goal. I’ll admit it was a painful exercise. I have no assurance that the many paragraphs I removed will ever find a home somewhere else in the story, and I will shed a tear for them if they don’t, but the chapters are much tighter now. And that has made all the difference.
Do any of you have trouble keeping your chapters focused?
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
What Kind of Reader Are You?
It was relatively quiet on the writing front this week. My family and I took a trip down to southwest Missouri to attend my niece’s wedding. The wedding was fine, but the heat was brutal. Mind you, this is coming from someone who think Michigan is too hot, but a few records were set during our stay.
With little reason to leave our air conditioned rooms during the daylight hours, you’d think it would have been a perfect time ti stay inside and write, but we managed to keep ourselves busy enough that my writing time was limited. What little time I had was spent doing a complete rewrite of my third chapter (thanks to my critique partner), so no new forward progress.
----------------------------------------------------------
I came across a post over at Patricia Wrede’s blog a few weeks ago that I found very interesting. Apparently, not everyone reads the same way. According to Patricia:
“Nevertheless, there seem to be at least two common types of readers: those who “see” the story as a movie in their heads, and those who “hear” the story in their heads as if someone were reading it. There are also the rare types who “feel” the story as they read it – who lean forward and tense up when the protagonist is running or jumping, and sometimes even fall off the chair if they’ve become too involved in the action.”
I’m not sure which type of reader I am. I usually enjoy stories the most when I feel as if someone is reading/telling it to me, which is probably why I enjoy omniscient POV, but which is also probably one of the reasons why I have such trouble with telling versus showing. At the same time, I know I read like I’m watching a movie too, which is why I enjoy third person POV much more than first person.
Check out the post and let me know what kind of reader (and writer) you think you are.
With little reason to leave our air conditioned rooms during the daylight hours, you’d think it would have been a perfect time ti stay inside and write, but we managed to keep ourselves busy enough that my writing time was limited. What little time I had was spent doing a complete rewrite of my third chapter (thanks to my critique partner), so no new forward progress.
----------------------------------------------------------
I came across a post over at Patricia Wrede’s blog a few weeks ago that I found very interesting. Apparently, not everyone reads the same way. According to Patricia:
“Nevertheless, there seem to be at least two common types of readers: those who “see” the story as a movie in their heads, and those who “hear” the story in their heads as if someone were reading it. There are also the rare types who “feel” the story as they read it – who lean forward and tense up when the protagonist is running or jumping, and sometimes even fall off the chair if they’ve become too involved in the action.”
I’m not sure which type of reader I am. I usually enjoy stories the most when I feel as if someone is reading/telling it to me, which is probably why I enjoy omniscient POV, but which is also probably one of the reasons why I have such trouble with telling versus showing. At the same time, I know I read like I’m watching a movie too, which is why I enjoy third person POV much more than first person.
Check out the post and let me know what kind of reader (and writer) you think you are.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Friday Links
I'm on vacation this week, so I only have two links for you.
First is a link to a video of "Starry Night" done in dominoes. Looks nice, but I can't imagine spending that much time setting something like this up.
Next, for those of you who watched episode after episode of Dora the Explorer with your kids, then this is for you. A trailer for a Dora the Explorer movie. It's a spoof, but it's funny if you remember the show at all. If you're not familiar with the show, don't bother.
I've saved the best for last. My daughter clued me in to a Akinator, The Web Genius. You choose a famous person or fictional character (singer, actor, whatever), then answer twenty yes-or-no questions, and the website will attempt to guess the name of your character. Scarily accurate. It managed to figure out such unlikely characters as Steve Austin, Space Ghost, Annie Lennox, Gilligan (from Gilligan's island), Wimpy (from Popeye cartoon), Robby the Robot and many others. The database must be huge!
What's really freaky, though, is the way it works. Most of the questions are pretty general and when it tells you it thinks it knows who the name of your character, you often laugh and think the program can't possibly know yet -- that there must be at least a thousand people who fit the answers you gave. So when a picture of the correct character appears on your screen, your first thought is that someone must have planted microphones next to the computer to spy on you. Seriously freaky. Just try it and let me know what you think.
Have a great weekend!
First is a link to a video of "Starry Night" done in dominoes. Looks nice, but I can't imagine spending that much time setting something like this up.
Next, for those of you who watched episode after episode of Dora the Explorer with your kids, then this is for you. A trailer for a Dora the Explorer movie. It's a spoof, but it's funny if you remember the show at all. If you're not familiar with the show, don't bother.
I've saved the best for last. My daughter clued me in to a Akinator, The Web Genius. You choose a famous person or fictional character (singer, actor, whatever), then answer twenty yes-or-no questions, and the website will attempt to guess the name of your character. Scarily accurate. It managed to figure out such unlikely characters as Steve Austin, Space Ghost, Annie Lennox, Gilligan (from Gilligan's island), Wimpy (from Popeye cartoon), Robby the Robot and many others. The database must be huge!
What's really freaky, though, is the way it works. Most of the questions are pretty general and when it tells you it thinks it knows who the name of your character, you often laugh and think the program can't possibly know yet -- that there must be at least a thousand people who fit the answers you gave. So when a picture of the correct character appears on your screen, your first thought is that someone must have planted microphones next to the computer to spy on you. Seriously freaky. Just try it and let me know what you think.
Have a great weekend!
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The Insecure Writer and Being Slow at Writing
Today is July's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.
In my ISWG post back in January , I fretted over my painstakingly slow progress and worried aloud that my book would never get finished. I set Christmas 2012 as my target completion date and promised to give you an update of my progress in June. Well, it’s July and it’s time for that update.
Since this an Insecure Writer’s post, you’ve probably guessed by now that the news is not good. Unless some sort of miracle occurs – an accident in the lab where I ingest a chemical mixture that turns my brain into a writing machine, I lose my job and spend my time sitting at home with nothing else to do but write, someone writes a piece of software that can take a rudimentary rough draft and convert it into publishable prose at the click of the mouse – I’m not going to reach my goal. Not by a long shot.
Out of a thirty chapter first draft, I’ve only managed to give my critique partner the first four chapters. That’s less than a chapter a month. You don’t need to be a math major to know that isn’t going to cut it. To be honest, the lion’s share of this time was spent rewriting the first two chapters repeatedly to fix a structural problem my CP was kind enough to point out, so I expect things to move along more quickly now.
But I’m still in trouble.
And this brings me to this month’s insecurity. Every time I load up a chapter to send to my CP – a chapter I thought was in good shape back when I wrote it last year - I’m shocked to discover just how much more work it needs before I can send it out. I’m not talking cosmetic changes here. I'm referring to missing paragraphs replaced with the words “mention XXX here” or “describe the character” marked in red. Entire pages that need to be rewritten to align with changes I’ve since made to the plot. Scenes that need reordering. It’s gotten to the point where I’m more comfortable spending hours tweaking a chapter I’ve already sent off to my CP than with moving on to the next chapter and having to discover just how much more work it needs.
To help give myself the illusion of accomplishing something, I’ve added a progress bar to the blog to track my manuscript. It’s rudimentary and I may jazz it up a bit later, but it’ll do for now. Its purpose is to
Have a happy 4th of July (for those of you in the states)!
Friday, June 29, 2012
Friday Links
I have a few links for your amusmenent this Friday.
First off, HISHE (How It Should Have Ended) has two new videos. One for Tangled and one for Titanic. The one for Titanic hasn't made it to Youtube yet, so I'm giving you the link to HISHE's site where you can find both videos.
Here's a link I found over at Angela Quarles' Blog. It's The Harry Potter theme on wine glasses. Captures the eeriness of the music quite well, in my opinion.
I have a Pinterest account now. I'd heard about Pinterest before, but never thought I'd use it much. But after reading how other authors use it generate ideas for their books, it sounded intriguing. So I plan on creating boards dedicated to all the things that made me want to write this book in the first place - castles, Britain, alchemy, to name just a few. Once I get a bit more settled I'll put together some general thoughts on my experience.
Have a great weekend!
First off, HISHE (How It Should Have Ended) has two new videos. One for Tangled and one for Titanic. The one for Titanic hasn't made it to Youtube yet, so I'm giving you the link to HISHE's site where you can find both videos.
Here's a link I found over at Angela Quarles' Blog. It's The Harry Potter theme on wine glasses. Captures the eeriness of the music quite well, in my opinion.
I have a Pinterest account now. I'd heard about Pinterest before, but never thought I'd use it much. But after reading how other authors use it generate ideas for their books, it sounded intriguing. So I plan on creating boards dedicated to all the things that made me want to write this book in the first place - castles, Britain, alchemy, to name just a few. Once I get a bit more settled I'll put together some general thoughts on my experience.
Have a great weekend!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Your Characters and Their Names
This will be the third Wednesday in a row in which I harp on characters and how to deal with them. Why? Because I have yet another problem with my characters. And this time I have no one to blame but myself.
After working on my story for nearly three years, I have yet to decide on the names of the characters. Yep. You heard me right. Of the 20 or so named characters in the story, I’ve only chosen names for five of them. And of those five, one has since been dropped from the story and another has a name I’m already itching to change. I don’t know if this is a matter of me being lazy or just overly anal-retentive.
The truth is, I’m being very particular about these names because Rowling was very particular about her character’s names. And since I’m patterning my story after her books, this kind of detail is important to me. Rowling often chose names that had some sort of special significance to the story or hinted at a character’s traits, usually deriving them from the Greek or Latin forms. And while I’ve had fun working up lists of possible names based on their alchemical significance (another little quirk of Rowling’s), I have yet to assign any of these names to my characters. I really need to sit down some night with a glass of wine (or something stronger) and make some decisions, but I just keep putting it off.
All this means I’m having to get by with placeholder names, which does have its advantages. For instance, I often use my friends’ names for the characters I like and the names of people I don’t like for the villains. I’ve found it’s much easier to write scenes loaded with conflict when I have a more personal connection. Since my story takes place at Hogwarts, I also need names for all the instructors, so I either name them using their field of study (Professor Herbologist) or their main trait (Professor Worrier). In a few cases I use the same names Rowling used, so my Potions instructor has gone by the name of Snape for a couple of years now.
But I’ve discovered a hidden danger with this method. You can’t let the placeholder name influence the character’s actions. You don’t want your character to behave like the friend whose name you’ve temporarily bestowed upon them. For example, I’ve called my potions master Snape for so long that it’s hard not to think of Alan Rickman (the actor who played Snape in the movies) whenever I play out a scene in my head. My potions master and Snape are similar in some ways, but very different in others, and I’ve had to periodically yell at my character for acting too much like Snape. (Heh. It’s fun to get mad at your characters, isn’t it? That is, as long as your family doesn’t overhear the arguments. L)
So how do you decide on your characters’ names? Do you ever use the name of someone you know?
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