I had an after thought. Could I put the voices into brackets? eg. ************ I must keep awake, keep my eyes on that door... who ever opens it, they are the one I've been searching for, keep focused.... eyes fixed (look over there!) No keep eyes on the door. (quick, you will miss it) Focus. Focus. (What if you are wrong?)(Yeah what if that door never opens). ************* Would this type presentation work? Can a reader grasp that the brackets show another voice from the same MC? Did you realise there were more than 2 voices in his head with the double brackets? I just want a style that flows rather than, as I said before, having to point out its a voice each time.
You can try pretty much anything, and see whether it works. I just grabbed Gary Gibson's Stealing Light, published by Tor (an imprint of Pan Macmillan) and he puts all speech by the spaceship computer in angle brackets <like this>. He also puts thoughts in italics, which some here would have you believe makes your work unpublishable. What matters is that what you write engages the commissioning editor, and that anything unconventional looks deliberate (rather than a mistake) and doesn't jar.
You don't need to point out that it's a voice every time - you could just write it like ordinary dialogue, using the name of the voice, and start a new line every time the speaker changes. BUT - if you want to mix the narrator's thoughts with the voices within the same paragraph, I think it would work to put the voices in brackets. It looks fairly clear and easy to read to me. Not sure. You could use some dialogue to clarify early on that the text in brackets are the voices. E.g:
That character would be tough to do in 1st. I think you're better off in 3rd. If you're stuck on 1st though, you'd have to do something like this: "blah blah blah," Bob said in my head. Jimbo disagreed. He told me, "blah blah blah BLAH!" You'd have to make sure you're VERY clear on the voices. Give them names & character traits. Don't know if I'd attempt it personally.
It's both. How well can you stylize what's been beaten into the ground? For me, I don't have an issue coming up with a unique plot but I have difficulty adding style. __________________ Rapid Prototyping
This is another one of my "either/or" topics. I'm curious to know what those of you prefer when writing. Old style Writing Using pen/ink/pencil and paper or... New style Writing Computer, laptop, etc, (anything to do with typing) I use both, but I prefer Old style over New style. What are your ways of writing?
New style Writing. My hand would hurt if I tried writing 39k words! And my work would look messy. I only write on paper for school xD
Old style. Nothing better than filling up your closet with papers of stories. But then it's a pain to type it up so you can send it to friends...
I hate writing using pen and paper. I'm left-handed and it smears if I write too quickly - but if the writing process is too slow then I just lose all interest in it. I've been touch-typing for a decade and as a result I'm pretty damn fast at it which means typing is much more efficient than writing by hand. I often outline using pen and paper during breaks at college but I wouldn't sit and do any actual writing this way because it's much too slow. I'm not even slow when it comes to hand-writing (thanks, politics lecturer ¬.¬) I just find I'm much faster at typing.
when I was younger and started writing stories it was not much of a choice, because there were no computers in peoples homes, (yes, I'm that old, tihi) so pen and paper was the only choice except from a typewriter, but that was nothing for me. When I got my first computer I still found the old way the best way to write because I couldn't get used to thinking while typing, hihi. Now I prefer my laptop before pen and paper, but it doesn't mean I don't still like good old handwriting and when I write down ideas and inspirations I always use the pen and notebook. Also, when my computer recently broke I had to stick to pen and paper and I have not produced so many ideas and scenes in a looong time. So I think there is something in it that awakens my inspiration. It's just more practical writing on the pc directly instead of rewriting everything. Besides it gives me cramps in the fingers
I jot down my storyline ideas using pen and paper. Otherwise I use a computer - spreadsheets for my scene lists and openoffice for the main text.
It has to be new style. If I wrote everything with a pen 90% of the paper would be lost to scribbling things out.
pen and paper for the win! I cut a4 paper sheets in 4 pieces on which I write in my tiniest (and I DO mean tiny) handwriting, so that I'm the only one who can actually decipher it later on. And so that people around me can look at it without them being able to actually read the tiny letters. The only downside is that it is easy to loose such small papers, especially if you drag them with you every where you go. And another downside is if you drop water or something over it, they are ruined forever.
New style - computers and networks. Except when I go really old-style and just tell the story to myself in my mind... on the bus... while taking a walk... when the police take me in for being a public nuisance...
I use a bit of both, I do all my planning on paper (usually with a pencil) and then I use that as a reference while I type up a story. Sometimes I'll even do a first draft of a story in Old Style, though only with short stories (ie: 10k words max). The current story I'm working on, as of yet left untitled, is all on pencil/paper as of now with three paragraphs typed up. (Likely more later today).
Old style first draft, I enjoy writing with pen and paper most. Then for my rewrite, I'll type it up, and edit from there. It's a good system.
For notes and lists and ideas, I like writing in a notebook, but I struggle to hand-write so much as a paragraph when it comes down to actual writing. I even prefer pecking at a cellphone keyboard. I think it's partly about how horribly unreadable, ugly, and childlike my handwriting or printing looks. Ideas can stand up to that ugly medium, but paragraphs can't.
I fluctuate between old and new. Most days, I can write just fine on a computer, but it won't be anything that can bring a satisfied smile to my face. Plus it's a lot easier to get distracted with all the computer's nifty features. Handwriting... I enjoy it. Much more than typing, anyway. That hand cramp may be painful, but I know it's only happening because I've just written a relatively substantial amount without stopping, and for a stop-and-go writer like me, that's a good feeling. It also forces me to concentrate more on what I'm doing, meaning the word bundles are of higher quality. And I'd much rather see a filled notebook than a hundred pages in Word. But then there are those days when my imagination simply won't wait for my hand to catch up. Those are the only days when I do my writing on the computer. They're rare, so my keyboard gets less use than my trusty mechanical pencil that I've been using since high school. Let's see, that's about three years now... A personal record for pencil-keeping.
Haha, I'm both. I like writing out my rough drafts, notes, and other things with just a pen and paper. But once I start to really get it going, I'll switch to a keyboard. It's fast enough for my brain
I seem to share the same idea of many people here: I use old style for note-taking, plotting, or just writing out small scenes, but new style for the actual writing or "final" draft. I find that while note-taking I can just fill up a sheet of paper with random plot, character, or setting ideas, etc. Then I can somehow draw from those ideas and create something a bit more solid in a Word document. It's quite a bit simpler to erase and reword things while on the computer. I also use old style while I'm somewhere that I don't have access to a computer. Even still, I hardly write more than a page or two, because then comes the tedious work of typing it all up.
Definitely both! I hand write when note taking: whether research, character description, inspiring quotes, and all the other things I've forgotten. I actually don't think I've ever taken notes on a computer. I only transfer or type new ideas on the computer because I type too fast. When I'm brainstorming I like thinking as I'm writing, like stream of conscious stuff, and I won't get enough time if I type. On the other hand, I am forced to type when I'm actually writing because I think of my prose kind of like a speech in my head and I have to be able to keep up with it. Ahhh rant!
