I thought this would be a good opportunity for those of us who are writing their own stories (probably 99%) to get to talk about where they are in the journey of weaving their tale. Right now I'm in the process of laying down my scenes. I've developed my characters enough that I know them very well, and I've worked out my setting and big plot points. Once I'm done with mapping out these scenes, I'll move on to actually writing! It's really exciting. So what about you guys? Where are you?
I'm envious of your ability to stay structured! I'm currently on my first draft, a good ways into the Big Scary Middle. Every chapter I write changes my original characters and storyline just the teeniest bit! It really is breathtaking how in control my characters are once I start writing them.
^Good for you Haha, thank you. I've worked on this story of mine non-stop in my free time off work. It's all I've been doing for two months now. That's how I've stayed structured. It wouldn't have happened any other way. I know what you mean about your characters changing. That's why I've gone ahead and planned more than discovering things. It's just my own way.
I've been doing the same in my free time over the past month or so. It feels good to actually be productive with my free time! I'm trying to stay slightly structured, and am trying to keep my characters in line, but good lord do they like to do their own thing! My two main characters were originally going to be a lady killer and a badass, respectively, but the second I put them together in the same scene they became a couple of giggling 12 year-olds. Oy. Okay, time to stop procrastinating on here and actually go write. ^^;
^Haha, again, I can completely relate. That's why I've planned more. And yeah, I need to go write, well map out some scenes
I'm about 80,000 words in and about three-fourths through. Every time I make a little progress, I come to realize some area that I have an issue or some research I need to do, or something along those lines. The closer I get to the end, the more muddied up I seem to get. Then... the daunting task of revising is in front of me. So much fun though.
^*jaw drops* wow. . . .That's awesome. Just keep at it This is your first draft. And personally to me, that's the best thing about it. You get to make it stronger and better and you gain a whole better understanding of it.
I'm on my hundred billionth "first draft" (mostly false starts and do-overs and a little bit of "taking out the trash" haha). Just now I brainstormed about 20 characters. Going to try to flesh them out tomorrow. And then... ? I need help keeping it all straight. But I AM thinking that if I can flesh out my characters each, they can each tell me a thing or two about how they connect to another one or more characters, and I'll hopefully be able to build on my story that way. I still need a lot of assistance, though. This is exactly as lonely a sport as everyone would have me believe, but that's why I feel it's necessary to have one or two people helping to keep me in check along the way!
^Yep, I've been there too. I've gone over one certain story of mine repeatedly and now it stands rotting in the bottom of my drawer and at the back of my mind. But I know it's still a good story and a good one to save aside for a future time. Keeping my facts straight has been a big problem for me as well. Not knowing what I was actually doing, I took some composition books and went off on a long brainstorming journey to find out what I wanted to say in my story and who I wanted my characters to be. I've come out of that travel well but I've had to deal with my rash disorganization. I've like chewed through three books so I'm going back on my notes now and keeping the facts that I know are true to my now clearer characters. I think you definitely want to flesh out your characters as much as you can. Find some journey inside of them they are trying to finish. Like reaching a goal or reaching the resolution to some conflict of theirs. But I think there should also be a separate conflict outside of the character that becomes your story. The scenario if that's what you want to call it. This is very much a part of your character, but at the same time it runs on its own. Oddly, it's like a character itself that's trying to reach the end of its own journey. The end of your story. To keep your facts straight, make sure you take time out of every day to go over your own notes. This will solidify what you're trying to construct
I currently have three main projects that I switch between when I get exhausted of one. Project #1: I wrote the first draft of the first book by hand, as well as most of the second draft. Unfortunately it was mostly done during high school, so it has some glaring issues. Having more or less fleshed out the major characters by this point, I'm trying to start the "second" first draft, but am trying to focus first on reorganizing the plot. Project #2: Out of all my projects, this one probably has the best fleshed out characters. It's also my most difficult project due to the fact that its the most serious and "deep" out of all of the stories. I did technically finish the first draft of this one, too, an electronic version, a couple years back, but it was a horrid draft and I did it just for the sake of finishing it. Right now I'm at a bit of a dead end with this one, since I'm basically trying to recreate the plot from scratch. Project #3: I started this one very, very recently, but I already have most of the main characters fleshed out; since this story is much, much, much simpler and less serious than the other projects, I'm also zipping along the plot planning pretty easily. I'll probably get to start writing some of the scenes very soon.
In my sci-fi story, I'm about to write in my first draft the part where all my protagonists first meet, but this is on hold until I can assemble some of the stuff needed for the dialog. I need to outline the mission the MCs are being sent on before I can really write a mission briefing scene. In my fantasy story, I didn't do any world building, or make pages of notes or anything like I'm doing for the sci-fi story. I had a vague idea of where I wanted it to go, and I just wrote the first draft off the top of my head like I do with most of my short stories. I'm about maybe 50-60% done with a rewrite on it. I'm not sure what I want to do with it when I'm done lol.
My characters are developed, and I am done with the fundemental parts of the planning stage. By the way, I'm not writing my story into a novel; it's going to be a movie script whenever I am done with the planning stage. I'm in the scene analysis of my story. I find this to be the hardest stage in the movie writing process, because I have to define the purpose of the scene (they all have purposes, but it's hard to identify what the purpose is). And then I have to do some plot research to ensure that non of my scene are not questionable to the point that the viewers wouldn't be in the suspension of disbelief. Other than this, I am excited to have my first movie script written.
My currrent work in progress is my detectives Cream and Black I restarted it yet again over the weekend it is back to around 12K I am really, really happy with it, but struggling to keep them out of a complicated personal relationship.
163k words into a story I started in November. I'm currently working through chapter 42 (of 50) and I'm at the point now where I just want to zip to the end and work more on outlines for books three and four. This is Bk2 and I'm not planning to redraft it until all four in the series have been written. I've not been writing in linear order so this is actually chapter 28. It's one of the two hardest in the novel. Together, chapters 27 and 28 form the turning point to bring out different sides in the three main character's personalities. It was made clear from the beginning they were all lying and hiding things about themselves from each other, so it only makes sense that they're going to be hiding a side of themselves from the reader too. The first half of the novel shows them as they would "want" to be seen and the second half is where their real personalties start to come through.
Haha, yeah. Aside from just wanting to write my story since it's my hobby, I don't know what I'll do with it afterwards. I thinking of giving it to a younger sibling as a birthday present, but that's it. I don't have any other idea. If you're looking for a good script grammar book try The Hollywood Standard by Christopher Riley. It's good for the technicalities of writings scrips. Yeah -- making sure you write good scenes and making sure they go in the right spot and cover the needed material at that time -- it's not easy. I had a short stint of writing my own scripts a year or so ago and quickly quit. I didn't have the knowledge really of what I was doing. lol ^Oooh, that sounds really good! 12K? That's great Charlotte ^That is very ingenuitive. Hiding a side of themselves from the reader. I started off on my story knowing I wanted to keep a certain fact out of the foreground to my readers but then also decided I needed to really hide the fact from them as well Oh, I do that all the time! I do try to write my story in a linear way, but I just can't help it at times. I skip ahead constantly and start writing the bare minimum of future scenes. It just comes easy to me.
Right now I've just started my first draft on my Steam punkish Fantasy thing...I'm still working on the first chapter );. Right now I'm trying to think of some sort of battle that my MC is going to have to fight. I'm kind of having the writers block type of thing going on. >.<
^*nods head* Tell me about it. Steampunk, fantasy? Sounds cool. Maybe try to take a breather and move onto your characters or settings or something. That always helps me move on from the inevitable questions coming my way. Sooner or later you will get your answer though. I always do. But unfortunately you've got to be patient and like suffer. Writing isn't fun all the time. lol
I'm in the process of planning out a large futuristic fantasy world. Not just a plot, but the world itself. I don't care about a story plot right now. It's all about travelling across the world, discovering the characters and seeing the cities, towns, everything really, through fresh eyes. Honestly? Apart from the war, I'd love to live there. Once the world is built and I have all of the characters fleshed out I'll get to work on figuring out how all of this fits into a story. But until then, I'm off to follow Aidan through the Nottac capital city! Hmm, I wonder if it has a name...
^Haha, that is why I love fantasy. Having your character discover a whole new world and getting to create it yourself! Just remember that aside from all the cool quirks about your city, it won't be that important until you have a reason why your character is there.
^Awesome thing about how I work. Everything I can think of has a purpose. So I never disregard anything. And even if it isn't important I still like to know these things. I even drew out one of the signs at a local Voll Meeting Place. I don't have to know these things, but I like to. I like to see things vividly, even if I never mention them.
Hehe, I feel so small. I started a novel in November and I'm on 39k words (Chapter 8) Shows how people work in different paces ey? Anyway, I currently writing the 8th chapter of my story. A bit nervous because this will probably be one of the longest chapters and also has a fight scene...and I've never written a fight scene before. It'll probably be crap now since it's the first draft ^^;
Thanks but I'm not quiet there yet (I'm at the beginning of the chapter) but I hope you don't mind if I PM you or something when I do need help
I'm nearly done with the first draft (at 14, joy!) but it's looking to be longer than the 20 pages I expected it to be. I'm not looking forward to typing it up on my Wii.
