Writing Wednesdays - Rewriting

Hello everyone, I’m on a course this week, so it’s another short entry – but that’s alright, because what I’m talking about here is something that really, you need to do in practice. 

First off, hope at least some of you have considered signing up for Nanowrimo.  It really does help to be writing in a community.  If you are doing that, then leave this particular blog entry until later – the point of writing is to get words down, you can edit them later.  If you’re writing, then go and write! This will still be here when you get back.

Okay, so you have some finished text now right?

Last time, we were focused on editing – the final polishing to make your writing beautiful.  We went back over what we had written, replacing crutch words, adding punctuation, correcting spellings, and altering a few sentences.  This time, it’s a bit trickier – we’re going to be rewriting.

Rewriting is going over your story, and then writing large chunks, or even the entire thing, from scratch.  Sounds horrifying right? 

Well, for a start, work out which bits need rewriting – if the order of scenes needs rearranging, and where certain things have to be.  If you have something important you haven’t mentioned, then that’s somewhere rewriting can help – or you can just add in the occasional sentence.  You’re the one who can see what you have got, and what changes it needs.

So, now let’s say you’ve got something written.  To keep my examples short, I’m just going to do a little paragraph, but this can be applied to a much longer scene, or even an entire book.

So, here is the initial scene: (Yes, reused from the starting to write entry, writers are lazy)

Argen stared at the bowl in front of him, poking the unapetizing grey goo inside it with the bottom of his spoon, then lifted his head to glance over at Vairel, who was devouring his breakfast as though he hadn't eaten in weeks.

"I'm not letting you cook again." He told him coldly, shoving the bowl in the direction of the half-elf.  Vairel simply hummed in amusement, emptying his own bowl, and shoving it back to Argen to clean.

Here is it edited:

Argen stared at the bowl on the table before him, poking the unappetizing grey goo inside it with the bottom of his spoon.  He lifted his head to glance over at Vairel, who was devouring his breakfast as though he hadn't eaten in weeks.

"I'm not letting you cook again." Argen said coldly, shoving his food in the direction of the half-elf.  Vairel simply hummed in amusement, emptying his own bowl and shoving it back to Argen for him to clean.

So punctuation and spelling have been corrected, sentences have been rephrased – changes have been underlined to make it clearer.  Small changes, that I think make it read better, but no huge differences.

When I’m rewriting, I need to consider what change I want to make – do I need to change point of view?  What mood is conveyed in the scene?  What needs to happen?  What is the point of this piece?  Make a few notes of what you need.

For me in this example, the scene is to show the relationship and friendship between the two of them.  If I want to keep the basic structure of the scene, I am doing it in this way:

·         Vairel made breakfast and it’s disgusting

·         Argen is in a poor mood

·         Vairel is used to this, and not sympathetic

When I’ve made my notes, I write it out again – either looking at the previous attempt, or just at the notes:

Argen screwed up his face as he walked into the kitchen and was met with a bowl of indistinguishable goo, held out by Vairel.  He poked at it with a fork, glaring at the half-elf who simply smiled sweetly in return.
“I shouldn’t let you cook.” Argen muttered under his breath, picking some of the goo up with his fork and letting it drip between the prongs.  Vairel shrugged, devouring his own food as though he hadn’t eaten for weeks. 

“So you keep saying.  But I never see you change anything.”  Vairel answered with a laugh, mouth full of food.  Argen groaned, shoving his bowl at Vairel, who flashed him a bright grin, and handed over his own empty bowl for Argen to clean.

Of course, this piece still needs a bit of editing, but I’ve brought out the relationship more here – I’ve made it clear that this is a part of their normal routine, and shown how comfortable and relaxed they are around each other.   Personally, I like this one more as it makes Argen seem less severe.

Another way of rewriting is to take the same purpose – such as showing the relationship, but doing it in another situation – maybe start the previous night, or show them in a crowd.  As you write more, you will work out what works for you.

If you think a lot of it needs rewriting, then go through, and make basic structure overall – that way you don’t rewrite one thing to then find that it needs rewriting again to include something that wasn’t relevant at that time.

Rewriting takes time, but the end result will hopefully be much better than what you began with.

Writing Wednesdays - Starting to write

Hello everyone, let's see if I can manage to get this week's blog post up before midnight.  Just two weeks until the They Do anthology comes out, and really rather excited about that!

This is going to be quite a short post, as this time I'm looking at the process of starting to write.  I tend to find this quite difficult - I have everything plotted out, my characters down, my world plotted down to the smallest of details, and then it comes to time to write, and I get stuck.

The story exists in my head, but it's not on paper yet.  A lot of people just get stuck at this point, but it is important to get past it - so you have a permanent record of all your hard work, a story that you can actually read, and lend to others.

For a start, I'd recommend having a plan, knowing what you are going to do before you start to write.  Knowing where you are going is helpful, because it means you know what's coming next.  Not everyone feels that way, but I like having a brief idea at least.

Then, start writing.  It doesn't matter if the first few paragraphs don't flow, if the sentences are jumbled or you miss something you meant to include - this is the very start of your first draft.  You need to get words down, then you can edit it later - think of it like making a sculpture.  You need to get the clay in a big block - that's the plan, the idea, the spark, call it what you will.  Now, you need to get the rough shape carved out.  First drafts are, at least in my experience, often complete and utter rubbish.  That doesn't matter.  What matters is that by the time it's finished, you have a block of words set up, that you can use.  Later drafts and reworking, that's your chance to carve in the detail, to add the refinement, to turn your blob into a beautiful piece of artwork.

It doesn't matter if it isn't good, as long as it is there.  You can make it good later.  As long as it exists, then you can work on it.  If it doesn't exist, or if it's just perfect in your head, then you can't improve it.  Don't expect too much of a first draft.  First drafts are always going to be bad.  But it's a starting point.

Now, other than simply getting the words down, you want to start somewhere interesting - you can always revise what you're working on later, but when it does come to reading it, you want people to be gripped from the first page.  If they aren't, they will just pick up something else.

So where do you start?

Have something happening.  People don't want to wade through page after page of meaningless description before they get the key information - which characters matter, what to do they do, what is going on.

This doesn't necessarily mean you have to start in the middle of a fight scene.  Just start with something interesting, that shows how your character interacts with the world around him - it could even be them eating breakfast, if you do it in a way that pulls the reader in.

Here's an attempt at exactly that, pulling in my poor regular to these blog posts, Argen.

Argen stared at the bowl in front of him, poking the unappetizing grey goo inside it with the bottom of his spoon, then lifted his head to glance over at Vairel, who was devouring his breakfast as though he hadn't eaten in weeks.

"I'm not letting you cook again." He told him coldly, shoving the bowl in the direction of the half-elf.  Vairel simply hummed in amusement, emptying his own bowl and shoving it back to Argen to clean.

Argen stood, flinching slightly as the yellowing bruise on his shoulder sent a spike of pain the length of his spine.  His breath caught, and Vairel looked up, dark blue eyes wide with concern.

"How is it?"

"I'm healing." Argen spat, walking over to the sink and immersing the bowl in the icy water there, hissing at the chill to his skin.  "Forget about it."

Vairel opened his mouth to say something else, then thought better of it and turned his attention back to the food before him.

So... not perfect by a long way, and if I was including this in something, I would revise it a lot, but it shows you the characters, and how they interact.  It's a start.   If you can't think of how to start, try a variety of options, or just write short scenes with the characters to get a feel for them, and then maybe use one of them as a starting point.  Good luck.

Argen Description

On Wednesday, we went through an explanation of the character creation process, and now I'm going through it in more detail, with an example.

I used a character generator to get a basic idea, and that is the character I'll be designing.  The suggestion I got was "he's an Albino whore on the wrong side of the law".  As he's going to be an albino, he will have white hair, red eyes and translucent skin.  The fact he's broken the law suggests that he's had a harsh life, meaning he will be short, and underweight - his cheeks are hollow, and he has long eyelashes and pouty lips. 

I decided to call him Argen, from the heraldic word for white, Argent.  This far, I'd decided last time.  The only additional idea I've had about his appearance was that he was going to be wiry - he is quite small, and at risk of violence, so he's learned to be strong and to fight dirty.

What he wears would be dependent upon the world they are in - his profession implies that he might not be wearing much, or at least less than standard, but the climate that he is in will have an impact, as is what would be expected in the society.

 Now, I need to develop him more, making him into a person with his own thoughts, needs and desires.  You need to think about the reasoning behind a character’s actions and decisions, without making them a stereotype.  Think about the people that you know, how different and interesting they are - your characters can be just as varied.  There's no rules limiting what you can create, just as long as they're people that you are interested in, people that you want to write.

Looking at the description, three obvious questions stand out:

1. What is the impact of albinism on his life?

2. Why is he a whore?

3. Why is he on the wrong side of the law - because he's an albino, because he's a whore, because of the poverty he lives in, or something else?

Question number 1 ties back to the statement about the world - how an albino would be treated by the society that he is in.  If he faces discrimination and hatred that could mean he has no work other than prostitution (2) push him into lawbreaking (3), and would further make his life difficult.  If there isn't that prejudice, his job is likely to be more a case of either poverty, or choice - possibly a mixture of the two.

Having considered these, I need to make some actual decisions, and I've decided that Argen may face prejudice, but certainly no legal ramifications for his albinism.  Having been raised in poverty and poorly educated (parents cold towards him), he turned to prostitution as a reliable source of income when there was little else available. 

I have also decided that this is going to be a slightly fantasy-based world - with Argen being a human within a human settlement, but elves and other beings further from the settlements.  He may be part-elf.  This gives me some idea of Argen's clothes - probably fairly pale fabrics, that drape around his waist, with him having tight shirts.  His hair is to his mid-back, tied into a plait with a black piece of string around the end. 

Now onto Argen's personality: things like likes and dislikes, free time, intelligence, habits, family, friends, beliefs, hopes, dreams, fears, memories and secrets.  This is a lot to keep in mind, but I can build on what I already have - his relationship with his family is difficult as they were poor and he was felt to be a burden.  With a rough past and criminal life, he is afraid of being caught and punished - imprisoned, or worse, depending on the legal system of their world.  He may have a goal of luxury and certain clothes or jewelry that he longs to own, along with wanting his life to be far better than it currently is.  His lack of education means that he knows very little, but the fact he has managed to survive on the wrong side of the law implies that he has a lot of street smarts and common sense - probably also a good sense for people, regardless of whether or not he likes them.

I can build up information for him like that, developing a full person.  When I have one developed character, I need to make those to be around him.  As I tend to write romance, Argen is going to need a boyfriend.  I could use either a generator, or build someone who fits them, and I tend to go for the latter so that I can make a good match for them.  I decided to go for another heraldic term, and went past azure (blue) and vert (green) before settling on vair - a word used for a pattern based on squirrel fur, in bell shapes of blue/grey and white.  I changed the name a little to Vairel.   Then I had to decide on his personality, and his relationship with Argen - is he a client, a friend, or something else?  I continue to develop him in the same way I did Argen.

Writing Wednesdays - Character Design

Alright, technically this is a Writing Thursday, but we're going to pretend it's a Wednesday because that makes me look much more organised.  I got a little caught up in nerf warfare earlier in the day, but now I am blogging like I am meant to.

So, we've looked so far at getting ideas, planning a story, and programs we can use to help with the writing, but today we're going to look in detail at what is to me the most important part - characters. 

Characters are what populate your story, and bring it to life.  If your characters are terrible, then it doesn't matter how wonderful your plot is, people are going to turn away.  People care about people, and how they are affected by events, rather than the events themselves - and when you're designing characters, this has to be kept in mind.

So what is it for a character to be terrible? I'm sure you can think of characters you haven't liked.  For me, its always characters that have been one dimensional, or boring, or simply unrepeatable.  I'm drawing a distinction here between characters you don't like, and characters you dislike - you can hate a character, with them still being an interesting and well rounded character.  A character you dislike may be a villain, or an antagonist, but they're still interesting people - you want to read  more about them, just to find out what they do and see them get their comeuppance.

Now that you have some idea of what makes a bad character, you can start to think about how to make a character that isn't bad.  We don't need to list every single detail about their backstory and life, if they have allergies, their school report grades - but it's a good idea if they're alive enough to you that you have some idea of the answers to these questions for them.  If you don't know more details about a character than you're putting on the page, I'd say you probably need to develop them more.

One of the best pieces of advice I've seen is someone saying that rather than describing the color of a character's eyes, you should instead describe what they are like - are they sunken, haunted, bright, sparkling? Are they surrounded by makeup? Do they wear glasses, or is it contacts for them because their glasses got broken by a bully when they were younger and they can't face wearing them any more... See what I mean? Any of this information tells you a lot more about the person you are creating to write with than the color of their eyes.

When I start with my character, I tend to have a sentence or so in mind.  If you can't think of a sentence, how about looking at http://theyfightcrime.net/ and then seeing if something there inspires you.  Just as a random selection, I got "he's an Albino whore on the wrong side of the law".

I love drawing, and I will often sketch out a quick idea of what I think a character looks like - probably including notes around it for things that the drawing isn't to capture.  I also try and think of a name early on, because it helps to get it out of the way - even if it's just a placeholder.  For my whore, I'll call him Argen, from Argent, the heraldic word for white.

Now, we have Argen - and as he's an albino I know he has white hair, red eyes, and translucent skin - and he's probably in a fantasy-based world.  The fact he's on the wrong side of the law implies that he might have been having a harsh life, and therefore I see him being short and underweight - his cheeks hollow, with long eyelashes and pouty lips. 

Next, I need to consider what Argen is like as a person - what he likes and dislikes, what he does in his free time, how intelligent he is, habits, nervous tics, relationship with family, beliefs, education - what was his childhood like? Is he in a relationship? What are his dreams, his hopes, his fears? What is his most precious memory, and his deepest secret? What would he wear?  How does he talk - and how does this vary when he's talking to different people?  What are his flaws, and his greatest points, and who inspires him?

Once I've answered all of these questions, I have a character who is ready to take his place in the world. 

To show the process in practice, I'm going to write a description of Argen, which I will post in the next few days.