1. TheHippieFarmer

    TheHippieFarmer New Member

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    Blogging my stories

    Discussion in 'Marketing' started by TheHippieFarmer, Jun 13, 2011.

    So I posted here a few months ago about my crippling writer's block. I blamed my situation (Travelling through Vietnam on a motorbike), my lack of progression (Was doing a couple of thousand words every few weeks), and a few other things. I was stumped, and set it all out here. In return I got some good, positive feedback and some helpful advice. :)

    Anyway, cutting a long story short - or in literal terms after making a short story longer - the first draft of my novel is complete. I had a large quantity of beer to celebrate, and am now letting the book settle like a good wine, waiting until I've forgotten all about it before heading on to the second draft. So thanks for the support, guys.

    I've created a blog in the meantime - Making it to the page - which will cover my progress from this point in. I'll be updating on my second draft and the process of getting the book from my laptop to a publishing house. In between I'll be linking and discussing articles and different aspects of trying to become a published writer, which hopefully people will find useful. It's be great if you checked it out, and if you're already involved with Blogspot or anything then I'd love to read what you guys have as well!

    Thanks again, and I'll post from time to time with further updates here as well. :)
     
  2. Domino

    Domino Active Member

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    That's brilliant. :) Big congratulations to you. I wish you every success with it.
     
  3. thesims

    thesims New Member

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    Great initiative! I will be following your blog.
     
  4. James Scarborough

    James Scarborough New Member

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    Congratulations. I'll also follow along with your blog and wish you success. Also, I'd be very interested in hearing about your travels in Vietnam.
     
  5. Leiela

    Leiela New Member

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    A few years ago I used to write a story blog which lasted several years and had over 1000 posts. I was great and I loved doing it and eventually it got a small fanbase of loyal readers.

    It was a medieval fantasy which rather than telling a single story it was the Tale of a kingdom and the various family's and supernatural creatures. Initially it started with a small group of stories surrounding a few families but as the blog grew so did the stories and the number of characters.

    The issue was that long term the story got tied up it knots I tied myself up so badly with unfinished and ill thought out plots the story didn't even make sense anymore. So much so that it became impossible for new readers to get into it because they couldn't jump in without reading 100s of posts to figure out what was going on.

    I want to start a new one! This time learning from my mistakes.

    The biggest failings last time around where.

    1) The number of POV Characters, the Last blog had over 30 pov characters towards the end, I think it made it too difficult for people to relate to anyone because no one character really got enough 'screen time' don't get me wrong there where some favourites people really routed for but I think the pov jumping was baffling to all bar the most loyal readers who had started with the blog in the beginning and had time to get to know the characters.

    2) Stories merged into one another there was no separation of storylines. This made jumping in impossible for new readers. They had to start from the beginning and the reality is with this sort of thing once you get so far people don't want to ready 1000's .. they need the ability to get into it without it being overwhelming 'can't be bothered there's too much' territory.

    3) Lack of 'end goals' for storylines. I often started stories with no-real idea of where they where going or what they were doing. The lack of separation also made it difficult for me to keep track, I often left storylines unfinished or wrote myself into a corner by having one story arch actually collide and ruin another unintentionally. Because I wrote post by post there was no real way of editing my previous work, once it got posted I was hostage to the decisions I'd made writing that post, there was no re-write or edit to change things so previous chapters worked once I knew where a story was heading.

    I would like to retry this sort of story telling again, I've got an idea for my first set of characters/stories and the world.

    My ideas to combat some of this is as follows.

    1) instead of having 1 rambling world with lots of crossover. Keep it simple stupid :) Think about my writing as multiple short stories told in a single world. Keep stories separate, each with a start-middle-end. Stories my vary greatly in length and complexity but that's ok, start-middle-end is the important thing.

    2) Have stories tagged and posted in a format which allows each story to be 'read stand alone' they should make sense even if readers have not read any of the others.

    3) Posts should only belong to 1 storyline. Don't try to progress multiple stories within one post.

    4) There should be no more than 4 active stories.. new stories don't start till existing ones end. Use judgement, if a story is complex with multiple POVS run it on it's own, or make sure that other concurrent stories are short/simple in comparison.

    5) POV's need to be managed. The world should have a small number of main POV's. Each story should have one of these POV's as it's main POV for consistency.

    6) POV Characters from 1 active story may appear as 'bit parts' in another but they should never be a POV in that story because it will lead to confusion and possibly a goal conflict.

    7) World changing events should be few-far between, if and when they occur the event needs to be written into the separate stories in a way that makes sense to them. Stories shouldn't be the victim of events happening in other stories.

    Does this all sound feasible? Any other ideas or things you think I should manage/think though before I start?
     
    thelonelyauthorblog likes this.

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