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Young Writers Society


From "ugh" to passable



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Fri Dec 30, 2016 8:58 pm
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Rosendorn says...



I am currently writing a second draft of a side project, which is resulting in a general feeling of pulling teeth especially since there are a whole bunch of new PoVs I've never written in. Also, going through that period of "this is so much worse than it was why is it not working" for a climactic fight.

So I thought I'd write down the basic process I've been following to make these segments somewhat passable, at least passable enough to build a story off of (I'm sure we've all had moments where, upon fleshing out bare bones stuff we'd left, we realize the whole rest of the plot should've gone differently. Or is that just me?)

First things first is to get the barebones action of the scene down. You can go in as large or as small a segment as you want— I try to make it blocks between choices. Ie- if a scene is composed of three forks in the road for how the remainder of the scene could go, I'd write from fork 1 to the start of fork 2 before pausing.

Second, I look at the actions in place and the previous setup, then characterize the individual whose scene I'm writing. I start to think about how they feel about the directly previous events, if they were part of it, and how their life was impacted. I figure out how they generally react to things, and their feelings about this one choice.

I then proceed to flesh out the bare bones actions based upon the insights I've gleaned from the characterization. I add in more description, internal monologue, ways the character is feeling about this one particular choice.

Once I've done that, I move onto the next fork. Sometimes I have to repeat the process until I've written the whole scene, other times I can do one giant bulk of characterization and generally have an idea of how they react in

Sometimes I have to take really large amounts of time to figure out their characterization, but by starting to write the scene and having the general direction of actions helps me get into their head instead of just staring at a blank page. By putting the character in a context first, it really narrows down what you need to work on.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Fri Dec 30, 2016 11:01 pm
CarryOnMrCaulfield says...



Thanks, Rosie. This is actually some insightful advice.
  








Oh, I'm sorry. My friends are in the popcorn and I have to save them.
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