Tag: Work

Order! Order!

thestuartsadler

Good evening! I’m back again after having briefly forgotten I have a blog!

Anyway my latest writing woe is all down to the order of my chapters.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking surely they just go in order, one after the other? And indeed I would agree with you. Except the way I am writing this particular novel (this is not to be read in any tone that would imply that I am at all familiar with writing novels, nor that I have written or am currently writing more than one!) it’s not quite that simple.

You see I am an ordered soul. I like things to be ordered. I like things to line up, to fit snugly, to create a pattern. This was the plan for my chapters. I have three protagonists, so it only made sense to me that I would dedicate a chapter to each of them in turn. First would come character A, then B, then C, then back to A and so on and so forth.

It worked well enough for a long time. Then I started noticing that a bit more was happening with one character than another, and I had less to write for character A than for character C at certain points. It wasn’t a huge problem at first, as I simply combined the next two chapters for character A into one (and at first draft I didn’t have to worry about fleshing anything out, it all seemed fine).

But then the timelines began to creep apart, but I figured I could deal with that fairly easily at second draft so I didn’t let it slow me down. But then I wrote myself into a corner. I finished character C on a cliffhanger that not only meant the start of the next chapter would continue immediately from that moment (I’d already had that occur but it was fine to leave them and come back after we’d spent time with the other characters), but really it needed to happen in the next chapter otherwise the marrying up of timelines would seriously begin to suffer.

So, I made the decision to scrap the ABCABC system and just write it as it needs to be written. This is both daunting because it means there’s no more ‘pattern’ for me to follow, which makes me uncomfortable, but also it feels quite liberating and I’m excited to get writing the next chapter (which I had planned to do this evening but it’s quite late and I’m tired so I realised it would be a good opportunity to fire off a quick blog post! Oh if only I could write my novel as quickly as I can write this!).

Fingers crossed when I get some people reading through it they don’t complain about the order of the chapters! If they do I might have to pull some hair out! Early feedback (merely of asking the question) indicates that it won’t bother people, so fingers crossed!

Hope your writing is going well!

The Here and Now

thestuartsadler

Hello again and welcome back.

How is your creative endeavour going? Mine is going pretty well thank you. Slowly, probably, compared to a lot of writers, but then I am not a full-time writer so I don’t have a fraction of the time I would like to dedicate to writing available to me, and of course being human, I only use a fraction of the time I do have available to actually write!

But it is going well! I have written eight chapters of my first draft and am in a good enough flow that the last two chapters have been written in just a couple of sittings each, so I am particularly pleased with that! And though I do claim not to write as much as I could, I am also prioritising it over a lot of other things! I’ve not played any PS4 games for months now and have probably halved the amount of TV I watch (which I don’t think was a lot anyway). My goal is to complete the first draft this year and I am really going to push myself to do it sooner than that.

But I thought it was also high time I wrote a blog post!

I originally started this blog to highlight the issues I came across whilst writing and recently I have identified something new that I am having difficulty with, which is what the title alludes to.

I’ve realised that the vast majority of what I write is what I suppose you would call ‘real-time’. I start a scene and write what happens to my character there and then until the scene is done. Then I will begin another scene and do the same. This might sound perfectly fine, but I realised that there are going to be times when I just want to describe general things going on, over a longer period of time, so writing in this style is not something that will work.

I’ve just finished reading A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book of the Earthsea series and I think Ursula K. Le Guin does what I am aiming to do perfectly. As I was reading it I realised that my interest was being held while the protagonist’s actions and life were, a lot of the time, being skimmed over. That is not to say that detail is missed, but that over perhaps two pages, the same number of days will have passed, and I will know everything I need to know about those two days.

This is something I think I struggle with. My worry is that without describing the immediate surroundings and actions of the characters, my writing will just read like a boring list of things that happened (‘John got up and had breakfast then went to the shops. When he got home he cooked dinner and sat down to watch some television, staying up late into the night.’ As an extremely bad example). I struggle to find the salient and interesting points in the overall story of the day or week that my character has lived, or at least I struggle to visualise how to write it in an interesting way.

It may be that I am focussing too much on two things: First is the narrative perspective of my story, and the worry that by stepping back in order to describe events that happen not in an immediate sense but an overarching one, the voice I use must be that of the narrator and less so the character, which may distance the reader and thus they will lose interest. The second is the idea that everything must serve a purpose for the story, that the writer should cut out everything that is unnecessary. In this sense a part of my mind says ‘well if you’re not going to go into detail about what John did on Tuesday, why write about it at all? Surely it will not add enough to the study to be worth mentioning?’ This is difficult to overcome, and as I’ve mentioned I therefore find it very difficult to write from such a perspective.

I am trying though and I know that the more I try, the more I will do it, and the more I do it the more I will improve. At least I hope so! I would be interested in hearing any tips of this that any of you might have!

Until next time! (Which I will try to make sooner!)

An update

thestuartsadler

Whoops! It’s been quite a while since I last wrote anything on this blog so my apologies if you have been kept waiting. Work has been busy, life has been fairly busy and I have at least been writing a thing or two, which is why I’m back here tonight. I wanted to do some writing but am too tired to focus on my story so I thought I’d write a blog post instead!

So I’ve done a quick check and the last time I was here I was talking about short stories and my novel somewhat getting away from me to the point where I needed to take a step back. That was a while ago, so here’s the latest!

That first short story was successfully entered and the result (or more accurately a shortlist) is due to be revealed this evening! I have been waiting and refreshing the page several times an hour all evening but alas at the time of writing there is no news yet! I’m not overly confident I’ll make the cut, but you never know! I wouldn’t have entered if I didn’t like my story so we shall see! It’ll be a nice surprise, but I’m not holding my breath!

The second short story (on the theme ‘Dark Matters’) was also finished and sent off, and I was pleased with that too! Unfortunately results aren’t due until January so you may have to remind me to check that one in the new year!

I drafted a third short story just the other night (an open themed competition for a story of ‘exactly 100 words’) which came out of nowhere and isn’t the kind of thing I would normally write so I’m quite pleased with that! After a couple more times staring at it making sure there’s no way I can make it any better (an extremely difficult task when knowing any changes must retain the exact word count!) I’ll be sending that off too! This competition is open till the end of January though so it’ll be a while for that one!

As for the novel, well I went back to basics for sure! I decided I needed more structure and a better idea where I was going, if only to keep myself in check as I write! So I have been chapter outlining. I’m up to about 35 chapters planned so far which I’m pleased with and it’s helped me cement my ideas and the story I want to tell. Of course when it comes time to actually write it (which I’m hoping will be relatively soon as I’m already starting to feel like a part of my brain is just sat in the back saying ‘Yeah, this is progress! Just keep outlining! Keep telling yourself you’re writing a novel, that’s it! Outline 100 chapters if you have to, it’s all progress!’ Which of course it is, and it isn’t. I am fully aware that I am still not writinga novel so yeah, needs work!) I will be happy for the characters to take me in unexpected directions etc. but the main thing is that I have a thread to follow and keep me grounded at least a little.

I’m hoping to write some more blog posts too though. In fact I’m hoping to just do more writing in general!

It’s all progress! 😉

Battling The Tide of Change

thestuartsadler

Hello again and my apologies for being somewhat on the quiet side recently! Unfortunately I am not in a position to write as and when I please, having committed myself to working one of those pesky things we call a job, in order to earn money to pay off the inordinate amount of debt I have accumulated since deciding that we did in fact want to live in a house we could call our own. That job has been somewhat hectic as of late, and a lot of the rest of my free time has been taken up with other things.

Still, here is what I have done in the world of writing since last we met.

  • I entered my first short story competition! A 250 word ‘Supernatural’ flash fiction under the prompt ‘otherworldliness’. 
  • I’ve also a near final draft for another short story competition which I will be sending off in the next few days, under the prompt ‘Dark Matters’ (can you sense a theme to the way my mind works??)
  • Finally I have been up and down and round and about with my bloody novel… which is what this blog post is really about.

I really hope I’m not the only one who fixates on details of their story to the point of self sabotage?! Please say I’m not.

Here’s how I seem to work:

  1. Have idea
  2. Start writing
  3. Feel pleased
  4. Write more
  5. Hit a plot point that needs examination/explanation
  6. Come up with an amazing back story to explain the plot point
  7. Realise the back story negates some of what I’ve written, but decide it’s worth pursuing
  8. Go back to 2.

After a few iterations of this I realised the following: that I was now miles away from my original idea (but kept telling myself this is what being creative is like and everyone probably does it), that I was basically writing myself in an outward spiral, creating ever more complex threads, and that every time I came up with a new idea it conflicted with someone else I’d set up which either required changing or scrapping.

Yesterday I decided enough was enough. Coming up with an amazing back story I’m NOT going to write, does not help me with a  novel I AM going to write! I’ve realised that I need to stop having ‘ideas’ and focus on the story I first wanted to write. Yes, I’ll still make a few changes, but I think I let myself get carried away and was making things far too complicated for myself.

So, I’m going to do two things. The first is that I’m going to go back to basics and make sure I know where I’m going this time. The second is that I’m going to scrap the pen and paper and write on my iPad. I’ve realised that the paper option for me is feeling too much like ‘notes’ as it’s harder to keep track of what I’ve actually written. I think the urge to edit while typing will be less of an issue that constantly changing my mind which is what I have been doing!

I’ve still got a few things to iron out in my ‘back to the original idea’ plan, but I already feel like it’s a more coherent story idea than the wild and wonderful things my brain was coming up with, without bothering to check how they would fit in with what I already had!

If you’re a writer and you’ve experienced this (particularly in Fantasy where you really can go off the deep end!) I would love to hear how you’ve dealt with it!

Until next time… wish me luck!

Losing the Plot

thestuartsadler

Something I have struggled with recently is the feeling that I am constantly second guessing myself. That no matter what idea I can come up with, there is a better one lurking around the corner. This has seriously hindered my writing progress.

Most recently, I was trying to work through a couple of logical gaps in my story. Ideas I had had that needed just a bit more work to mould them into useable threads. I spent a long time just sitting and thinking and came up with a few things to explain the ideas I wanted to use. This was great. I was really pleased with what I’d come up with. The problem was that if I had chosen to follow through with them, it meant I was 40,000 words into my second book, with not a single word of the first written anywhere. This was a rather daunting prospect.

So I did some more thinking, talked to my wife a bit about it and came up with some alternatives which I’m now happy with. The problem now is that having stalled with the writing a little, I’m now suffering the dreaded conviction that my entire story is a boring pile of crap. Which brings me all the way back to second guessing myself on the whole thing.

I keep telling myself ‘a finished draft is better than a perfect draft’ and to give me credit, I’m planning to do some writing this weekend, but I wonder how often other writers do this? Do they constantly criticise their plot before even giving it the courtesy of getting it down on paper? 

I’m sure I’m not alone, so I’ll just keep repeating that mantra ‘finished is better than perfect’!