Young Writers Society

NB. Please bear in mind that there is no story to critique yet, but this will appear soon...

I figure the reason none of my stories seem to be working is because my outlining isn't quite up to scratch, so.. that's why I recently tried the snowflake technique.

However, the last time I tried this, I failed again. Now I'm pretty sure this snowflake technique works, so I don't want to give up on it. I'm guessing I made the one-sentence summary too vague last time, so this time I'm going to post mine here, and ask advice, such as whether it should be more specific etc. before moving on to the next part of the process, and posting it here. I know a lot of other people use this technique and others, so I hope I can get some help with this.

Okay, here was my one-sentence summary for my last story..

"A young man’s curiosity leads him and others into trouble when he decides to follow up wild rumours."

I mean, seriously, how vague is that! That could be anything...


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Here is my NEW one-sentence summary::

"A group of alchemists use their new skills to slowly 'replace' the old monarchy."

The idea I've got in my head is this::

There's a world where alchemy is common. Pure magic itself doesn't exist however. Alchemy is used in conjunction with science - though science seems to be a new thing, sort of medieval - and is popular among the rich as well as the middle class, though not the poor or working class as the materials are too expensive.

The story starts when a group of alchemists accidently find a potion that will make you look like someone else - think polyjuice potion - but requires a few drops of that person's blood, aside from the other secret ingredients. At first the group aren't sure what to use this for, and hide the discovery.

Later, a young nobleman/woman (the main character or one of them), is knocked unconscious and dragged to a room, where they are locked in. They awaken alone and frightened.. and with bandages wrapped around a cut from a knife between the hand and the wrist...



Please tell me how it sounds so far, and what I can do to improve. I especially need comments on my one-sentence summary, so any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

~Kay


PS. Mods, if this is in the wrong place, feel free to move it..

Hi.
I've found that it is harder to write after you plot and outline and all that stuff. You do all that stuff and it takes a while to get motivated again. Try just freeflowing. Then, after you finish, go back over it and change stuff. All my stuff seems to turn out better after I freeflow.

good Luck

Freeflowing is great for practice, but for a serious story, I would use an outline.

This is the first time I've seen an author work on an outline before starting the story. I'm impressed. I hope it catches on. This way, the reviewers can tell you if you actually accomplished your goals for a said piece of work.

KJ wrote:"A group of alchemists use their new skills to slowly 'replace' the old monarchy."

What with the summary, following, I like the sound - seems to have a good source of suspense and mystery, and innumerable ways to tell it (POV, tense, etc.).

As for myself...I don't actually outline; at all. It's always nettled me to no end - and I can't write anything outlined before I hear the character's voice and follow it... But aside from all that -- this does look an interesting experiment. I'll second Reas - free write might better get you into the story. If the outline works though - good luck. I'll be back to see how it works. ^_^

I like freewriting to find out what the story's going to be about, but I've always had trouble finishing a story, and lots of people have recommended this technique so.. yeah, that's why I'm using it.

So.. um, any more thoughts on the one sentence summary? I'll post the next stage once I'm done, but it'll be interesting to see if anyone has anything to say before then.

Haven't thought much about characters yet.. might try freewriting and think of some that way.

Well it sounds amazing, you could do some sort saying thing you know like in some movies eg. like in the matrix theres a saying thing.

~if you don't understand a word i said then just pm me and i'll try to remember what i acctually meant.

I thought that sounded pretty good.

Curious, though, and please forgive my ignorance - what exactly is the snowflake technique?

Anyway, I like the whole alchemy bit. It's very good, sort of like the eumedicos in Gayle Greeno's Finders-Seekers.

I REALLY look forward to reading the posted piece, KayJuran!

You don't know the snowflake technique?! Well, we can't have that now, can we?

Snowflake Technique

There you go!

Kay has the Snowflake Technique on her blog. It's really kind of neat.

The Snowflake Technique

Anyway, this sounds like an AMAZING story. Combining science and medieval lands and... it just sounds superly cool and is something I would so totally read.

I like the one sentence that you came up with.

"A group of alchemists use their new skills to slowly 'replace' the old monarchy."

This tells us a couple of things. There's a specific group of people who have discovered new skills, presumedly in alchemy (I can't spell worth squat, but forgive me) and they're replacing the old monarchy. So out with the old, in with the new!

So exactly how are they going to do this? Perhaps the monarchy is stuck using the old methods and will not step up to the new ones, no matter how good they are. Maybe the alchemists have hidden this secret so they can purposely throw down the government... but something goes wrong. I would go with the latter and have a bunch of betrayals and all that neat stuff.

But OMG!

You better write it, or otherwise I'm going to hunt you down and FORCE you to...

Hehe, I'll make sure I keep you updated then.

I'm not going to start actually writing the story until I've got further with the outline, but I might post some freewriting bits as well, so I can get to 'know' the characters.

I've decided I like the idea of combining magic and science, so this could be really fun to write..

*cheers*

Remember, try to write a couple of writing practices. They can be short stories or poems or whatever, but they let you experiment before you write. So, when you finally start writing, you're a little bit more sure about the style, your message, etc. And it also feels like you'er doing something a little more productive than just editing continuously.

Thanks, Snoink! That sounds like really good advice.

Hey, Kay: Your snowflake technique is very cool.

It also looks suspiciously a lot like fractals in mathematical chaos theory. ^_~

I'm using the snowflake technique, but I kind of feel like step three and four should be reversed...but that's just me.

like the idea of your Story Kay, it seems like an interesting concept and slightly dark. Id like to read it.