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Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts
Finding the Next Novel-Worthy Story (Fiction)
8 comments Posted by Carolyn Kaufman | @CMKaufman at 9:00 AM
Like a big old brick wall.
I started to understand better why when I was reading Les Edgerton's Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go
. (Recommended, by the way. I don't often learn new things from writing books these days, but I did from this one.) Edgerton argues that "surface problems" aren't enough to carry a story, because they don't launch the character on a journey or force him to change (i.e. to have a character arc) the way a "story-worthy problem" does.Edgerton says you have to just keep asking yourself "why?" questions. To get from a surface problem to a story-worthy problem, he says, you have to delve into the psychology of the character. Why is this character doing this? What is the psychology behind his actions?
Out of the blue I had a still from a scene float up into my consciousness. I knew there was more story to be told in my NaNo novel world, but I had no idea what it was. And here at last was something, just a fragment of a scene. And that scene led to another scene. So now I have two context-less scenes that are intriguing me, but I'm not sure how to branch out from here. I think I am going to write brief descriptions of the two scenes on notecards (which is how I developed the NaNo novel) and then do my best to mind-map outward from there.
I'd love to hear your advice, dear Reader. What do you do? How do your ideas start and how do you help nurture them until they're worthy of an entire novel?
This Blog Chain's topic was chosen by Michelle:
Share a favorite poem, quote, joke, anecdote, or anything of the sort that deals with writing, writers, the publishing industry, or the other strange and unusual tidbits that belong to our little world.I'm the last one in this chain, so be sure to look at my fellow blog chainers to see lots of great writing tidbits!
I'm a Quotable Magnets fan, and here are the writing-related ones I keep above my desk:
I also keep this over my desk. It's a Cliffs' Notes version of Robert J. Sawyer's discussion of Heinlein's Rules for Writing. I can't recommend it highly enough (or, as my friends will probably attest, often enough).
I also have a great out-of-print book by Jon Winokur called W.O.W. Writers on Writing that is packed with quotes and worth the couple of bucks it would cost you online. (Amazon Marketplace is selling it for a penny + shipping.)
A lot of my friends decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. (That's National Novel Writing Month – you basically strive to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That comes out to about 1666 words a day.)
Last month, October, we challenged each other to write 1000 words to say, and I failed miserably. I probably wrote 5000 words the entire month. It was sad. No, it was pathetic. So there was no way I was going to get sucked in to doing NaNo, ya know?
Except I did. I recently started a new novel, but got stuck around 10,000 words. That seems to be a common number to get stuck at, we’ve decided. (Have other writers had the same experience? Comment button below, folks!) So I threw myself on the mercy of my buddies to help me brainstorm going forward. We got that done just in time for me to start writing on November 1st.
It’s Day 4 and I’ve written about 8000 words so far, so not only am I on track (so far, but it’s early), but in 4 days I’ve written more than I wrote the entire month last month! This is a really different way for me to write, but I think it might be a better impetus than I ever expected. Ask me at the end of the month.
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