Sunday, September 30, 2012

Checking In

I finished the structural changes to the first draft! The Grand Pre-Revision Plan is complete, with one hour and fourteen minutes left to September.

Tomorrow begins phase two of the rewrite.

Friday, September 28, 2012

That's Enough of That


Okay-- enough with the multi-colored updates. I'm starting a fresh clean new post.

So. Three days left to September, and only one thing left on the GPRP: 

Make changes to a copy of the first draft MS. Cut and move scenes, fix chapter breaks, spin new scenes where they belong.

Doesn't sound so bad, right?

Well, it is. I'm dreading starting it, and am in fact putting it off right now by posting.

I did this once with Eleven Names, and it's just so much more work than it seems it should be. Here's the process:

1) open up a copy of the MS (always save an untouched original in case of cut-and-paste disaster!), as well as the list of the scenes and chapter breaks as they exist now, and the list of how they should be arranged.

2) Start on page one of the MS and scroll through, until you hit the first scene that needs adjusting.

3) If the scene needs to be moved, cut and paste it into a blank document, making sure you find the true beginning and ending of the scene. Keep the blank document up until you hit the part of the MS where the scene belongs, and paste it in.

4) If the scene needs to be cut, cut the whole scene and paste it into a document titled "Cut Scenes". Don't delete it! You never know what you'll need later. Oh, and remember to read it before you move on, and make notes about any necessary character development or worldbuilding tidbits that will have to be worked in elsewhere now that you're axing this scene.

5) If there's a new scene, spin or write a phase outline for the scene in the appropriate place.

6) Don't forget to fix the chapter breaks as you go!

Bleah. It's worth all the annoyance of this process to have a structurally sound first draft to work with, but it's not fun.

Monday, September 24, 2012

The Next Week

I got through items 1-3 from yesterday's list, but I feel like I toiled all day on it. This stuff is taking me longer than my estimates, and that's left me even more nervous today than I was yesterday. I know it's not the end of the world if it takes me an extra week to finish this pre-revision stuff, but I'm also wary of  getting too cozy in this "thinking and planning and writing about writing" state.

So here I shall post all that remains on the Grand Pre-Revision Plan. And every day I shall update this post with my progress. I think it'll help keep my butt applied to my writing chair.

9/25/12 Update:
9/26/12 Update:
9/27/12 Updated: Not my most productive day. Feeling unfocused and in need of a good night's sleep. Spent an embarrassingly long time watching X-Factor auditions on YouTube.
9/28/12: last update to this post! It's becoming unwieldy. And I'm running out of colors. ;)

1) Do CUT TO's and scene cards for the following characters:

Tom
Ruyad-- in progress: CUT TO's done, 8 of 16 cards done 
Ottoline

2) Do CUT TO's only for the following:

Saadia
Rowan
Lovisa
Aya
Park

3) Do scene cards only for:

Trio-- in progress: 10 of 30 cards DONE

4) Wherever characters share a scene, paperclip cards together. in progress: clipping as I go

[5) Print out plot work and put in binder. I've actually decided not to print most of it out now. I'll be using the various scene lists and CUT TO's and problem/solution chains to make scene sheets, and then printing those out as needed.] Printed out the GMC chart, which turned out to be 12 pages!

5a) List the worldbuilding details that need to be included, and work out where to slip them in. --in progress: about half done

6) Make changes to a copy of the first draft MS. Cut and move scenes, fix chapter breaks, spin new scenes where they belong.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Scene Cards

I've been making up index cards for the 52 scenes in TOB, jotting down the chapter, setting, time, action, characters, and objects, and where applicable, symbolism, backstory, subtext, bombshells, and chapter hook. I had hoped to have these finished last Friday, but working out the chapter breaks ate up a lot of time. And I barely wrote this weekend-- The Parent was visiting, The Son had soccer practice and a playdate, The Husband and I went on a fabulous date to Home Depot to shop for a new bathroom sink, and I tutored.

Long story short, I have exactly half the cards completed, and am starting to freak out a little about having only seven more days to get all the remaining pre-revision tasks done. Tomorrow is a long writing day for me, and I need to make the most of it. Goals:

1) Finish the scene cards. Estimated time: 2 hours.

2) Do CUT TO's for Akenam's scenes. Estimated time: 30 minutes.

3) Make cards for Akenam's story line. Estimated time: 2 hours.

4) If I have extra time, start the CUT TO/scene card process for Tom or Ruyad.

Non-writing goal: make butternut squash macaroni and cheese!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Making Progress

Ten days left to finish the GPRP!

Here's what I've been up to:

1) Voice exercise. I took a first-draft page from the opening scene, which was written in a fairly neutral third person voice, and re-wrote in first person. The first person version was stronger and more engaging. But! Then I took the first person version and translated it back to third, retaining some of the flavor of Willa's speech and thought processes, but with a little more distance. And THAT version was better than the first person one. So for now my plan is to stick with tight third person limited, but to try to incorporate more of Willa's soul into the writing.

2) "Highly Motivated Antagonists" exercise from The Fire in Fiction: determine the biggest, worst, most improbable thing your Antagonist does, then work out 12 reasons why someone in real life would never do this-- or would be prevented from doing this. Then for each "objection", work out why in this case all these reasons fail to stop the Antagonist from doing the big bad improbable thing.

3) CUT TO's. This is an exercise from The Weekend Novelist Re-Writes the Novel (which is a pretty damn awesome book). You zip through the plot with a series of images-- "We open with..." "CUT TO:..." Each scene gets 1-3 images, depending on its complexity. This makes it easier to look over the plot as a whole, and to spot where you have boring or pointless scenes, where you need to add a scene, and where you don't have a strong enough picture of what happens. Which leads me to:

4) Scene order. I've fiddled around some more and have what I think is the final version of the scene list. I've got one or two more little holes to spackle, and then I'm ready to move on to the next phase.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Mid-Month Goal Check

Hard to believe that September's already half over. Time to assess my progress on the Grand Pre-Revision Plan (GPRP):

I've finished all the Character and Setting work, and am chipping away at the mountain of Plot work I'd hoped to do. I finished the goal/motivation/conflict charts, and have been working my way through problem/solution chains for all the characters' goals. This is not a step I originally had on the GPRP, but it's really helped to tease out all the plot threads and work out each one step by step, and seeing what steps overlap and clash with other characters' steps.

Using the scene grid as a starting place, and keeping the problem/solution chains in mind, I've drawn up a list of all the scenes that belong in the book. There are 52, 9 of which will be completely new scenes.

I still have a ton of plot stuff left. Next up is going to be a voice exercise that will probably take me all of a Son school day to do. I feel sheepish admitting this, but I'm still not sure what voice to use. I wrote the first draft in third person, but I've started daydreaming the scenes in Willa's voice, and it's given them so much more life that it's left me wondering if I should switch to first person.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Checking In

I haven't had as much time to write as I hoped this week because, true to form, I blew off the book club book until the last minute and have been furiously reading to finish it before we meet tonight. Insult to injury: it's Fifty Shades of Grey. Thank dog I'm almost done.

Today my goal is to finish reworking the goal/motivation/conflict charts for the four key characters. The GPRP allotted me an hour for this. HA! I've put in at least four over the last few days. It sounds deceptively simple: all I have to do is write down what the characters want, why they want it, and what's standing in their way. But then it gets more complicated, since protagonists tend to have more than one goal, and there's both external and internal goals/motivations/conflicts, and I need to work out the steps to achieving each goal and the motivations and conflicts for each step. I had to go back and re-read like half of the Donna Dixon book to remind myself how all this stuff works. And my first crack at the GMC from last year was a giant mess.

While it's been a lot more work than I anticipated, I feel good about what I'm getting. The goals are more urgent, the motivations more compelling, and the obstacles more logical. I think when I'm done with the chart I'll do a problem/solution chain for each external goal in the book, to help me better see how all these goals are crashing into one another and making plot.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Data Entry

Man, that scene grid was a BITCH. Tedious (checking the word count of every scene, scanning them to remind myself who is in them) and depressing (gah-- some of it is so poorly written!).

Glad I did it, though. I think having a detailed map of what's in the book now will help me to figure out what needs to be cut, what needs to be moved, and what needs to be added.

But for now I need a break from anything remotely resembling data entry.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Moving Right Along

Enough pitch-fiddling for now. Rest assured, I have been working on other things. I finished the world bible on Friday, but haven't gotten around to printing it and putting it in the purple binder.

Now I've moved on to plot work, which will consume most of this month. The first step is to make a scene grid (not unlike the character grid) that outlines the book as it exists right now. It's taking a lot longer than the character grid, because I have to scroll through the MS and check the word count of each scene, as well as remind myself of what happens, where and when it takes place, and who's in it.

I half-assedly worked on it last night in front of the TV and got half of Act I done, but I think if I focus on it I can get through an Act an hour. We're having a fun early-autumn weekend (apple picking and corn maze yesterday, cave exploring and panning for semi-precious gems today), so my only writing goal for today is to get the rest of Act I into the scene grid. Tomorrow is an after-K day, so I should have no problem finishing the grid then. I'll also print out the world bible and bind it.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

One More Time.

Version Five.

I need to just step away from Query Shark for a while, right?



           Willa Bresher wanted her life to matter. She didn't want the fate of her entire culture resting on her shoulders.

            Her home is Haven, a network of villages clinging to civilization three centuries after a plague devastated Earth's population. Headstrong and restless, Willa is determined to escape the banality of village life by earning an apprenticeship with the arcane guild of mind-linked "Bridgers", who control the flow of goods and information between villages.
           
            When she encounters an intriguing outsider named Akenam in the ruins of an ancient city, Willa's path begins to veer off course. Space-dwelling humans have returned to resettle the planet, and their intentions toward the aboriginal Terrans are unclear. 

            Willa follows Akenam to a distant island to join five other envoys at a summit meeting to argue over land allocation and trading rights.  She soon finds herself fighting for Haven's survival when a message from her long-dead mother leads her to uncover a centuries-old conspiracy that threatens her people. Aided by Akenam, whose loyalty she doubts, Willa risks everything in order to save her home.

            Trouble is, once she's uncovered the secrets of Haven's past, she's not sure it deserves to be saved.

I Lied

Version Four.



            Willa Bresher wants her life to matter. Her home is Haven, a network of villages clinging to civilization three centuries after a plague devastated Earth's population. But Haven feels too small for the big dreams of a confident and restless young woman like Willa.

            She bolts from the threat of marriage for an apprenticeship with an arcane guild of mind-linked stewards, who guide the flow of goods and information between villages. Her mentor is a visionary leader with a radical plan for Haven's future. Willa needs to prove she's as smart and daring as any man in order to secure a place in that future.

            When she encounters an intriguing outsider named Akenam in the ruins of an ancient city, Willa's path begins to veer off course. Space-dwelling humans have returned to resettle the planet, and their intentions toward the aboriginal Terrans are unclear.  Willa follows Akenam to a distant island to join five other envoys at a summit meeting to determine the future courses of all their civilizations. 
           
            There she clashes with the summit leader, a 370-year-old scientist with a grudge against Haven. Akenam has been assigned as her aide, but she doubts his loyalty and resists his friendship. Back home, Willa's former mentor is determined to make himself Haven's first king. And a message from her long-dead mother may be the key to unlocking a centuries-old conspiracy that threatens her people.

            Willa never meant for her life to matter this much.

The Pitch, Version Three

I swear this is the last one for a while. I got sucked into Query Shark, and couldn't resist fiddling with the pitch just a little more.


           Willa Bresher wants her life to matter. Her whole world is Haven, a commonwealth of villages struggling for survival three centuries after a plague devastated Earth's population. But Haven feels too small for the big aspirations of a confident and restless young woman like Willa.

            She bolts from the threat of marriage for an apprenticeship with an arcane guild of mind-linked stewards who guide the flow of goods and information between villages. Her mentor is a visionary leader with a radical plan for Haven's future. Willa needs to prove she can be as smart and daring as a man in order to secure a place in that future.

            When she encounters an intriguing outsider named Akenam in the ruins of an ancient city, Willa's path begins to veer off course. Space-dwelling humans have returned to resettle the planet, and their intentions toward the aboriginal Terrans are unclear.  Willa follows Akenam to a distant island to join five other envoys at a summit meeting that will determine the future course of all their civilizations. 
           
            There, Willa clashes with the summit leader, a 370-year-old scientist with a grudge agaist Haven. She can't decide if she can trust Akenam-- even though she might be falling in love with him. Back home, Willa's former mentor is determined to make himself Haven's first king. And a coded message from her long-dead mother is starting to make sense.

            Now Willa's choices matter more than she'd ever imagined.

Friday, September 7, 2012

World Bible

I'm going to push to finish the worldbuilding work today. The Son has his first day of after-K at his old nursery school (Mondays and Fridays until 3:00) today, and I haven't picked up any daytime tutoring hours from the boarding school yet, so I have a long day.

If the character work took more time that I'd expected, the worldbuilding work has taken less. A few minor changes and additions to make, a fairy tale to write, and a few exercises to complete, and I'm outta there.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Pitch, Version Two

Here's my second attempt:


           Willa Bresher is too headstrong and restless for ordinary village life. Her whole world is Haven, a commonwealth of villages struggling for survival three centuries after a plague devastated Earth's population. But Haven feels too small for the big life she dreams of living.

            Willa escapes the threat of marriage for an apprenticeship with the mysterious "Bridgers"-- a guild of mind-linked stewards who guide the flow of goods and information between villages. Her mentor is a dynamic leader with an exciting vision of Haven's future-- a future she desperately wants a piece of.  But when she encounters a dark stranger named Akenam in the ruins of an ancient city, Willa's path begins to veer off course. 

            The world beyond Haven is is changing, too. Space-dwelling humans have returned to resettle the planet, and their intentions toward the aboriginal Terrans are unclear. Now Willa must follow the intriguing and infuriating Akenam to a distant island to join five other envoys at a summit meeting that will determine the future course of all their civilizations. There she untangles a web of secrets, lies, and conspiracies, and discovers that one of the most serious threats to Haven's people lies in the heart of home.


I know it needs a lot more fiddling, but that can wait until I'm ready to send out queries. At this stage, writing a pitch is more of an exercise in understanding the novel.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Character Bibles, Romantic Heroes, and Embracing Your Inner Slut

The character bible is done! I didn't finish it until this morning, but it's printed out and hole-punched and resting in my new purple binder, with the book cover mock-up I did tucked inside the protective plastic.

Revising the character work I did last summer took a lot longer than I anticipated. Willa pretty much jumped into my head as a real, complete person, but that's rare for me. More often, I find that the first, instinctive choices I made while building characters are not as interesting or effective as they could be, and I wind up making changes after the first draft-- sometimes just tweaking, and sometimes a major overhaul.

Saadia and Akenam are the characters that have had the biggest overhauls this time around. For Saadia, this is her third rebirth into a radically different person. She's not a major character, but she reappears in Eleven Names and so I was wary of making any decisions about her that would be hard to live with later.

As for Akenam... I accidentally cast him using the same mold as Bresher, the hero of EN. They had different upbringings and different coloring-- other than that, they were the same guy, just in different circumstances. And one of my Romance pet peeves is authors who write the same hero--who is so obviously their own idealized Dream Man-- over and over. Now, I do think that you need to be at least a little bit in love with your own hero (and/or heroine) to write a Romance (or in my case, a Romance subplot). But I also think that hero-love needs to be polyamorous. There's a whole world of imaginary men out there! Surely your skirt can be blown up by more than just the one!

In my case (being naturally hero-polyamorous), I think it was more that I've spent sooooo long writing about Bresher, I was just falling back on what felt comfortable and familiar. I kind of knew from the beginning that I was off track with him, because I had an idea of the voice I wanted him to have and I just couldn't make the Akenam in my head talk that way. (For some reason, I can build a heroine from scratch, but a hero needs to be based on someone: an actor, another character, or a real person. Not sure what's up with that.)

Then a little more than a month ago, when I was deep in Act III, I stumbled across a new Akenam on a YouTube video (no, not going to tell you which one!). So I fired the old one and re-cast him, and from that moment his voice has been perfect. Seriously, dialogue flowing from my brain through my fingers.

I did the same thing with Bresher, come to think of it-- wrote God only knows how many drafts with him cast all wrong, then re-casted him only to have angels sing.

So, to return to my initial point: my old profile of Akenam needed a lot of work.

But now it's done.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Soundtrack, Redux

As part of the character work I've been scrambling to finish this weekend, I did some shuffling of my soundtrack for TOB, making sure that each key character has his or her own theme song. I also auditioned new songs for the love theme, and checked that the few "atmospheric" songs still feel relevant. Here's what I wound up with:

Willa's song is Emergency Exit by Beck. I'm a huge Beck fan, and I love this song and have been listening to it a lot for the past year without connecting it to Willa. For a while I wished it could be Akenam's song, but it's not earnest enough. The twangy guitar, the cadence of the vocals, and the agricultural references made me think of it as a "Haven" song (Haven is Willa's nation), but it only just dawned on me that it was a good one for Willa herself. Maybe the male singer threw me off. But Willa's not exactly a girly girl.

The lines that particularly remind me of her:

it's a little too much to ask of faith
it's a little too late to wait for fate
so tell the angels what you seen:
scarecrow shadow on a Nazarene.

kindness will find you
when darkness has fallen
'round your bed...

Akenam's song is still Just Breathe by Pearl Jam.

practiced are my sins, never gonna let me win.
under everything just another human being.
yeah I don't wanna hurt
there's so much in this world
to make me bleed

stay with me
you're all I see...

did I say that I need you?
did I say that I want you?
oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
no one knows this more than me.

Tom's song is It's Good to Be King by another Tom (Petty).

it's good to be king
and have your own world.
it's helps to have friends
it's good to meet girls.
a sweet little queen
who won't run away
it's good to be king
whatever it pays.

Ruyad's song is Fix You -- but the version from the movie Young @ Heart, not the Coldplay original. Needs to be an old man singing it, because no matter how she appears in the story, Ruyad is an old man inside. She's not exactly the warmest or fuzziest of characters, but this song really gets to the heart of the pain and conflict in her backstory.

when you lose something you can't replace
when you love someone but it goes to waste
could it be worse?

lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
and I will try to fix you.

Ottoline is Willa's deceased mother, but her story is vital to the events in TOB. Her song is Search and Destroy by Sanders Bohlke, and it's another killer. Listening to it has made Ottoline so much more real to me.

I was wide awake with the bodies in the gutter
waiting on a man who gave his word
I was told before to be not afraid
soon my fears will emerge.

And later:

and the lovers did feast and the birds flew away
and I was so mad at the coming of the day
but I will leave the monsters all at bay
and we can believe it's better this way.

And then there's the love theme. Willa and Akenam outgrew their old one, so now I'm trying out:

Strangers by the Kinks. If Akenam existed in the here and now, he'd definitely be a Kinks fan.

so I will follow you wherever you go
if your offered hand is still open to me

strangers on this road we are on
we are not two we are one

And, finally, the songs that remind me of specific scenes or sections:

"On the Road to Find Out" by Cat Stevens (Act I)
"This Time Tomorrow" by The Kinks (Act II, and the very end of Act III)
"Fuse Box" by Mychael Danna (all flirtation/romantic scenes)
"Allah Hoo" by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (beginning of Act III)
ETA: "Drifting In and Out" by Porcelain Raft (Act II and parts of Act III)

Saturday, September 1, 2012

September Goals

It's probably naïve of me to be surprised by this, but what was supposed to be an overnight visit to the computer hospital for Oberon turned into a four-day stay. I did manage to get a little writing done (finished the on-paper exercises, and wrote up quick sketches of all the minor characters for the character bible), but I was hoping to be further along by now and am feeling thwarted. The Son started Kindergarten on Wednesday (all went well), and it was frustrating to feel like I wasn't able to take full advantage of his school hours. And now of course it's a three-day weekend, when I'll have to scrimp for every writing moment. Gah!

My September Goal is to complete the GPRP. I have 48 hours (very loose and wobbly approximation) of work remaining.

My goal for the long weekend is to complete the character bible.