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Snoink
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 Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:57 am Post subject: How to write chapters... |
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Okay, I was getting really hung up on this at first. I mean, I had this fabulous idea for a novel, yet it took me months to write a chapter. Why? Mostly because I love editing, perhaps to a scary extent. When I write my story, I edit as I go, and the computer only encourages this. Sad? Yes. But still: What to do???
Well, this week I went on vacation where I thought (wrongly) that I wouldn't have any access to a computer. To continue writing on my story, I took a notebook along and plenty of pencils and erasers. Then, as soon as I had spare time (like an hour block) I wrote.
PRE-NOTES
First thing I did was to write a prenotes thing on every chapter. This includes three things:
SUMMARY
Do a short three sentence summary of your chapter. What happens? What characters are in it?
PURPOSE
At first I didn't do this, but then I realized, if I was just writing nothing, then it would be really bad. What were my intentions in the chapter? This also meant I got to delve into any symbolism I was writing. That way, I could be sure that my writing was somewhat orderly.
WHAT'S HAPPENING?
This is essentially the outline of the summary. Put what happens in chronological order.
The pre-notes was very short... less than a page, typically.
WRITING
Then I wrote. I tried to write without stopping, and I didn't edit. If I felt the incredible urge to edit, I would write in the margins about what I could do. I didn't erase. Instead, if I hated something, I put a line through it and continued as if nothing happened.
Once when I was writing chapter 14, I messed up really bad. I mean, hideously bad. So as soon I realized what I was doing, I put a large "STOP!" where the story left off, briefly told myself what sucked, and then restarted.
On the whole, I wrote without stopping though. A typical chapter took about two hours to write (by hand).
POST-NOTES
Once I finished the chapter, I reread it and looked for obvious errors, marking it either by a line underneath the guilty word or a note in the margin. Then I wrote a post notes thing for the story.
A post notes is basically what a critique is for YWS. I wrote what I liked about it, what I hated, and then I tried to brainstorm ideas about how I could fix the criminal errors. Some of my ideas were horrible, but since I wrote it down, it crystalized the problems in my brain and I was able to think of better ideas on the 14-hour car ride home.
So...
What I found out from this experiment is that if I don't edit constantly, I can come up with some pretty sweet stuff. I can focus on one chapter at a time without missing out on the entire story, which is very important to me. Furthermore, I wrote THREE chapters in four days, which is more chapters than I usually churn out in a month! I will not lie... one of the chapters was absolutely terrible, but by doing the notes before and after like I did, I was able to diagnose it.
All in all, the experiment worked and I am definitely pleased with the results. Will I do this again? Definitely.
Happy writing! |
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Duskglimmer
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:07 am Post subject: |
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Whoa. That seems like a good plan and three chapters in four days is certainly impressive.
I think I'll try this with my next chapter since it seems to be giving my so many issues. *glares at characters and blank pieces of paper* We'll see how it works. |
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Black Ghost
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:14 am Post subject: |
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| Snoink, those are some good tips. TIME TO WRITE MORE CHAPTERS! |
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Snoink
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| Duskglimmer wrote: |
Whoa. That seems like a good plan and three chapters in four days is certainly impressive.
I think I'll try this with my next chapter since it seems to be giving my so many issues. *glares at characters and blank pieces of paper* We'll see how it works. |
Hahaha... that happened to me with chapter 14, which is one of the chapters I wrote like this. That was the one where I had to stop and start over.
When a chapter gives you issues like that, and you think it's because of the characters, then usually you're being too much of a puppeteer. For instance, in chapter 14, I was trying to make my manly character a small little wimp, which did not work AT ALL. And then... *shudders*
The best thing to do is step back, especially if the characters aren't giving you input or they're giving you too much input.
But really, good luck!  |
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 6:24 am Post subject: |
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Snoinky m'dear, I love you. I've been saying that to a lot of people lately, haven't I?
Anyway, because I'm still in the process of rewriting my story (GEEZ, I'm not even past the first chapter! I hate feeling like I'm so behind on my novel compared to everyone else, especially because I started the idea 9 years ago), you've given me a lot of really good ideas. I think I get stuck with writer's block every once in a while because my inner editor is trying to fix every miniscule thing. I also really like the idea of prenotes. I tried doing that once, but I planned out several chapters in advance and never wrote a purpose for any of them. Since I desperately need to work on my prologue and I still have time to implement the new system, I think I'll steal your little idea, lol. It sounds great!  |
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 7:36 am Post subject: |
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| Wow, that is a great idea Snoink! I'll definatly try it out! |
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:06 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks Snoink! I'll try this will one of my novels which at the moment is going nowhere. |
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Snoink! Good advice for sure.
I've tried this a couple of times but... It never really works out to my specifications, lol. Why? My characters in Bound seem to have a mind of their own but still... this is a great idea!! |
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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| I'll definitely use this for future chapters. I have trouble sticking to the main idea without adding useless detail. Hopefully that problem will cease with these tips. |
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| Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 6:19 am Post subject: |
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| Yeah, thanks a lot Snoink, I so plan to use these when I write the next chapters of my novel, I think they will help me get the issues clearly in mind. Great Tips \/ |
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Duskglimmer
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| Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Oh. I meant to come back here a few days ago to say thank you, Snoink. This has helped a lot in getting the last few chapters written. |
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| Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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| I've tried this, too, and it really does work wonders. The problem is getting myself disciplined enough to shut up, sit down, and write the stupid thing out. |
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| Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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| This is really good advice and I definitely need to try this. I've been...avoiding...my novel for th last couple of weeks, and I really need to get going. I figure I'll try this out. Thanks! |
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Awesome. I'm gonna use this to kickstart my novel again ... |
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