Zoë Sumra Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 Three cheers for Ebenstone! Yay!!!And congratulations to Arthmail on learning to enjoy how to edit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebenstone Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 Hello Boarders.The SO has encouraged me to write a murder mystery. Except for short stories in my lit courses before, I have not written/ dabbled in anything literary. But as some of you know, I write for a living. I have wanted to try this for a long time, but fatigue from work and lack of time has prevented me from doing so. I also find the experience of crafting a story thrilling, scary, and intimidating all at the same time and to be frank, this is the main roadblock.Right now, I have the bones of the plot and the characters. I need to do an outline. I know what an outline is, but I'm stuck in the middle of it. I still don't know what the details are - should I force it or just go ahead? Write X number of words every night and tinker with that as I go along? I'm hoping for tips, basically. :) This is hard for me because at work, I know exactly what goes on with what I write. I got all the facts, there are no unknowns. But this, this is a different animal from daily news reporting altogether.And outline is a basic map of what you want to do. I outline but reserve the right to deviate from the outline whenever the story tells me it needs to. You have to listen to what the story wants to do and do it. I blogged about my process last month. It has pictures of what my outline looks like! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prince Alexander Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 This is great news Eben!!! Grats, can't wait to hear more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebuchadnezzar Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Just saw this, grats Eben! Nice to see so much hard work had a payoff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebenstone Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 Slugging through on book two. It's a fight. On break from school and the brain is fighting me the whole time to actually work. Actually wrote 1200 words on my phone during leftovers the day after Christmas. Attacking it the next two days to finish the first "Part" of the book to send off to the agent.What's everyone got planned for the new year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Marquis de Leech Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 Having hit the 45,000 word mark, I've had the horrible realisation that my POV character is too damn passive. Have had to go back and do some heavy rewriting to make him more active. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datepalm Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 Congrats Ebenstone! (just saw this)I tentatively prodded the nano fallout for the first time in a while. I generally still like it, and still want to write it, which is nice, I suppose. Came up with a much better opening scene, for one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmail Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Having hit the 45,000 word mark, I've had the horrible realisation that my POV character is too damn passive. Have had to go back and do some heavy rewriting to make him more active.Do it on the second draft, do not go back and do it now or you will never finish. I had a POV character that crystalized completely differently half way through the book than what i had initially thought. I just started writing him from the point that he changed as that character from then on, and retconned everything on the next draft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZombieWife Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Having hit the 45,000 word mark, I've had the horrible realisation that my POV character is too damn passive. Have had to go back and do some heavy rewriting to make him more active.Hey! Grats on the 45k mark. That's awesome.I agree with the illustrious Arthmail, keep going. Besides, he could become more dynamic in the second half of the book. Is it a series or standalone?As for everyone else, grats to the accomplishments out there. :)I'm still revising. Will be for a few months, but taking the opportunity between semesters to buckle down and crank on some chapters I rewrite (after gutting them). I will say this, excel is my friend. I tracked my narrative timelines to keep on track with that. I tracked my characters individual arcs and found some huge holes (that I'm plugging now), and also saw a few spots where I could amp up motive and conflict.Up to 119k now with rewrites/revision (trying to keep this bad boy under 125k but this might not be possible).Got the new Chuck Wendig book (500 Things)....Reading Abercrombie (and loving it).Writing group is tomorrow. Cannot wait. See you next year. Off to bed. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmail Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Illustrious? Come on now, you're the rock star around here.I hate to gush, but Zombiewife became my person of the year that i have never met 2011. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Marquis de Leech Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Hey! Grats on the 45k mark. That's awesome.I agree with the illustrious Arthmail, keep going. Besides, he could become more dynamic in the second half of the book. Is it a series or standalone?Have taken the advice on board, and am pressing on. I envisage this as the start of a series, but I'd like this one to be sufficiently self-contained to stand by itself if necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZombieWife Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Illustrious? Come on now, you're the rock star around here.I hate to gush, but Zombiewife became my person of the year that i have never met 2011.(sighs at you)Maybe over the hill rockstar, you know the kind I mean. (I'm looking at you, Keith Richards):D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZombieWife Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Have taken the advice on board, and am pressing on. I envisage this as the start of a series, but I'd like this one to be sufficiently self-contained to stand by itself if necessary.Hey Roose! yay that you are pushing forward. Since you want to create a series, you may have more time with this character to amp up the conflict. One of my POV characters is a slow burner. Not much going on in the first half of the book, but about 3/4 of the way through? Holy heck! Look at him go. What balances that is other POV characters being more dynamic.Good luck. 45-50k is a magical number. That was around the time I thought, "wow, can it be? Am I really gonna do this?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derfel Cadarn Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I managed about 5,000 words in November, meaning I'm almost about halfway through my first draft. December was full of fail, in part due to work, Christmas stuff and Star Wars the Old Republic. But with the exception of this Friday and Saturday, I'm off until work until the 10th January. And my goal is to finish the first draft. I've got 42,000 words written and I'm aiming for about 90,000 in total. *queue inspirational 80's montage* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henderson Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Just finishing up the first draft of sixth story, and it will be about 90,000 words. Nearly wrote 600,000 words in the last two years. First drafts of six stories. Started next week, I will begin to read each story and initiate the revising and editing process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Marquis de Leech Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Hey Roose! yay that you are pushing forward. Since you want to create a series, you may have more time with this character to amp up the conflict. One of my POV characters is a slow burner. Not much going on in the first half of the book, but about 3/4 of the way through? Holy heck! Look at him go. What balances that is other POV characters being more dynamic.Good luck. 45-50k is a magical number. That was around the time I thought, "wow, can it be? Am I really gonna do this?"Thanks for the encouragement. :)This character is the only POV in the book, so his passive nature was an issue. Fortunately, as the story's progressed, he has developed a highly distinctive personality of his own, rather simply being a spectator to the doings of the more interesting supporting cast. He's now much more entertaining to write about (one of the odder developments: the character's turned out to be bisexual, which was interesting as I never deliberately sat down to write him that way, and is fairly unusual for the main character in a fantasy novel). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A R Stukenberg Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Hello everyone!This is my second post!First off, congrats to Ebenstone!I wanted to ask everyone out there how this particular thread works; don't want to go off doing everything wrong and being pain to all.I've had my fair share of workshops, but it never failed that I got tossed in with everyone who DISLIKED fantasy literature. Sometimes I'd get lucky and there would be maybe 2 or 3 others in the class, the group of us huddled in the corner keeping the rest at bay while they raised their arms in the air and said, "I don't get it," in response to our work.Since it's a new year I decided I would come straight over to here this forum and see if there was a thread for writers :)So if someone could inform little ol me of any guidelines for posting here I would appreciate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoë Sumra Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Hi, AR Stukenberg - welcome. No real guidelines here other than basic internet writer-safety: don't criticise agents or publishers in a public forum, don't post work intended for publication in a public forum, don't take anything anyone says as gospel unless it's specific verifiable advice about a particular agent's submission preferences. We write different things and have different approaches to what we do: you may find that some of us give writing advice that absolutely works for you, whereas some people's advice might just not work for you. Try things, see if they fit.This is generally our place for talking about our progress, sharing our successes (like Ebenstone's recent one), whining about writing stuff (did I mention I wrote nothing in a two week Christmas break? NOTHING? I am a horrid procrastinator sometimes... though I'm doing little bits tonight: a few tiny line-level updates to Rough Diamond, though not to its first three chapters, which I did shop to a couple of agents the week before last, and I'm finally finishing a part-done chapter of a different standalone project) and asking for advice.......Speaking of advice, does anyone have any handy online resource links for book outlining (not the kind of outlining you do before you write a book - the kind you do after you finish, as part of a submission)? This appears to be a basic skill taught in American primary schools that I managed to miss, possibly by being British, possibly by not going to a good British primary school, and it's looking daunting so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jojen Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Werthead, Ebenstone, anyone else with a blog--do you make any money from them? I'm thinking about starting on myself and was considering either offering a subscription service or going with advertising, but I don't know.Anyone have any suggestions or advice, please let me know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZombieWife Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Thanks for the encouragement. :)This character is the only POV in the book, so his passive nature was an issue. Fortunately, as the story's progressed, he has developed a highly distinctive personality of his own, rather simply being a spectator to the doings of the more interesting supporting cast. He's now much more entertaining to write about (one of the odder developments: the character's turned out to be bisexual, which was interesting as I never deliberately sat down to write him that way, and is fairly unusual for the main character in a fantasy novel).Awesome! I love it when I discover things about my characters. Glad he's "talking" to you. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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