Dialogue First

Someone asked me yesterday what I meant by turning the dialogue into prose. Most of you writerly types out there probably know what I'm talking about, but for those that don't, it's a writing method. For me, it's the method I like best.

When I start outlining a new MS (like I did for my NaNo novel back in early October) I start with a list of goals. That turns into an outline, what I want to happen from start to finish, that's about 3K words long. Then I break that into chapters and scenes, add details and makes changes. The final word count for my NaNo MS outline was about 21K words.

Basically, by the time I start writing I know exactly what's going to happen. My first draft doesn't very often deviate much from what was in the outline. If changes are going to happen the the overall story, they'll happen in the next round of revisions.

I like to think of the actual writing not as the telling of the story (I already know the story from the outline) but getting to know the characters and finding out how the story affects them all individually. So I start each chapter by writing just the dialogue first. Like this:

S      Hi, what's your name?
F      Frodo Baggins, what's yours?
shayla punches frodo.
S      Shayla Smith. Pleasure to meet you, Frodo Baggins.

I'll toss in a few words for description, expression, actions, but it's mostly the dialogue. I find it allows the characters to lead the way through the story, keeping me from spending too much time internalizing the MC. Once the chapter is finished I turn around, go back to the beginning, and start re-writing the dialogue into prose:

"Hi," I said with a smile, opening the door. "What's your name?"
The stranger hesitated. "Frodo Baggins, what's yours?"
I leapt over the counter and punched him in the face, sending him sprawling head over furry feet.
"Shayla Smith. Pleasure to meet you, Frodo Baggins."

So that's turning my dialogue into prose. And actually, since I'm talking about it, here's how Scrivener makes that whole process awesome:

Left window: dialogue. Centre window: chapter four outline. Inspector (right side): synopsis and Project Targets

But now I'm apparently having an allergic reaction to either cats or smoke, so I gotta go dig up a Reactine. Until tomorrow,

S.

Character File: Alicia Bowmyn

Yesterday evening I puttered around on a Manga-Avatar site, building sketches of all my characters from I Had To Fall. As a graphic designer, I like visual things. I thought it would be most excellent if I could draw out my characters and always have them as references, helping to make them more real when I'm writing about them. (By the way, if you're thinking, "you're a graphic designer, just illustrate them yourself!" then you should know that I'm not a graphic artist, but designer. I'm a strictly stick-figure kinda illustrator.)

So I avatar'd all my characters. Then I thought, wouldn't it be cool to do a blog post tomorrow as a character study, and show off one of the new avatars, along with a description?

Things just snowballed from there.

I didn't post this morning because I thought, hey, instead of just slapping the avatar image in with a description, what if I made like a faux case-study sort of thing? That would be cool. But for that I needed some of my design software, which I don't have at home. So I packed up my lunch an hour early and headed into the office, where I promptly started designing a folder to build the character content into.

By the time I was supposed to start work I'd decided it would be best to make the character study like a sort of police report / case file, complete with the Hunter's emblem at the top and a hand-written-in report on what the Hunter's might know about the character. Plus maybe they'd found a scrap of paper (like an excerpt from a book about said character...?) to put in the case file too.

So I spent my lunch hour finishing everything up. It's not my best work (this isn't really my kind of design anyway) but with a little more tweaking I think I'll be happy. So without further ado, here's the character study for Alicia:

So, thoughts anyone? Improvements I could make? Because I'm going to do these studies for all the characters, plus some studies on each race specifically. I have to kill time on my lunch break anyway, right?

Hahaha...

S.

Miss the Writing

So far 2012 has been all about editing I Had to Fall. I started with my critique partner's notes and worked through all the minor changes she recommended. She'd brought up some bigger issues and ideas, so I allowed those time to percolate. Lots of percolation time.

The trade show business is busiest here from early March until early June. I end up working ten hour days and weekends (paid overtime, thank god) and, after I get the house tidied and dinner done, I basically go to sleep. So I had a bit of lull during those months where the editing was on hold.

I picked up my work again after the Global Petroleum show and worked on it fairly regularly. So I'm clipping along at a good pace now, getting about a chapter done (the major edits now) per day. Which is great. I like where the story is going. But...

I miss the writing! I can't even remember the last time I was working on something I was actually writing instead of editing. I miss plotting, and dialoguing, and finding things out about my characters I didn't know, or having them take me places I didn't expect. Don't get me wrong, I love editing - it appeals to that side of me that likes to have to-do lists for my to-do lists, all alpha-numerically organized of course. Writing is the creative side, and I really miss it.

I've got at least three more weeks until I'm finished editing I Had To Fall. I'm not sure what I'm doing with it after that - trying to find another beta reader, or querying it into the world - but I know what my next project is going to be: something that needs writing!

That was my little rant for today. Since I discussed so much editing, I think tomorrow I'll show you all some pieces from Scrivener and how I use that in my editing process. Until then...

S.

Tuesday Tunes: Them Crooked Vultures

I really should look back through my posts and see if I've already done this song... but I'm lazy, and I'm 90% sure I haven't.

Them Crooked Vultures only has one, self-titled album out there. But it's an awesome chunk of music. That being said, it's a little too laid back for my usual writing tunes. Great for editing to, though! Very relaxing when focusing on those troubling logic problems. And for whatever reason, I really love this album on repeat while I'm designing at the office.

Not now, chief. I'm in the fucking zone.

And I realize I haven't posted since last week's Tuesday Tunes, which isn't very good of me, considering that I recently resolved to post more often... oh well. I made it back to Calgary in time for the weather to turn shitty again, making me wonder if everyone lied about the nice weather they had during Stampede. Hm?

On my return I found my garden in total disarray, but still growing strong. Mostly. I definitely have a slug problem. Let me know if you have toads to sell or give away. The strawberry patch is thriving, and I've found more time for editing than I'd anticipated.

I've finished the simple and easy revisions: the little problems like repetition, grammar, word choice, etc. that my critique partner pointed out. These were mostly changes that I didn't have to spend much time thinking about, it was a simple matter of keeping what I had, smacking my forehead at obvious mistakes and changing it, or a short deliberation and then writing something new or cutting something entirely.

But along the way I've made notes on the bigger issues. These are going to take some serious think-time and list-making. Like introducing Deyl's split personality, which I had halfway decided to cut but my critique partner has convinced me to include. Which means the dual personality parts need to be beefed up, and that affects the entire story in a lot of different ways. I'm also taking another look at how quickly Deyl's knowledge and use of power develops, and thinking about slowing it down. Seems to make more sense if it takes her longer. I also need to clarify a few things throughout the entire work, like what Deyl's weaknesses are and how the fae use their powers. All of these things will affect larger parts of the story, so I want to be sure I have a road map for the changes before I make them.

Since my critique partner is in China until the end of the month, I'll move on to the list-making process while she's gone, and see what I can come up with. Onward!

S.

Big Changes

Man, I'm tired.

No desk job for me today. It was Emergency Graphic Design Only - the rest of my day was spent in the production department, on my feet, trimming graphics and installing displays.

But I still managed to get through chapter nine of my editing process tonight, despite the exhaustion... and yes, I am clearly a wuss.

I was never really happy with the ending for chapter nine. I've re-written it at least twice already, but I still wasn't happy. My beta reader also ran into some confusion there, which just reinforced my opinion that it needed work. I had a wonderful 'Aha!' moment this evening, when I came up with a solution.

My MC, Deyl, suffers from a bit of a Dr. Jeckyll / Mr. Hyde thing, though she is fully aware of the existence of Mr. Hyde. I've struggled with incorporating this alternate personality since my very first rewrite, and I had pretty much decided to cut it altogether. However, there were still some vague references to it scattered throughout the novel, probably because I liked the idea and couldn't really let it go.

My beta reader liked it. Wanted to see more of this Mr. Hyde personality. Bolstering my resolve, I've made comments during this edit on how / when / where I can work Mr. Hyde back in, and make it better for doing so.

And one of these spots is the end of chapter nine. I've just made comments for now, but I am definitely excited to rewrite and see if and how this all comes together. With any luck I'll have chapter ten edited tomorrow, at which point I think I'll go back and put together a more cohesive rewrite plan-of-action, with some questions for my beta...

Real life.

Real life, it sure gets in the way of digital life, eh? I've been barely more than a ghost on here, fb, twitter, aw, and authonomy for the past couple weeks. First I was knocked over by the first cold of the season, then my mom came out west for a week-long visit here, and now I'm scrambling to get ready for Halloween, another season of teaching knit class, and my ten-day trip through California that starts in... 19 days! Ah!

Which also means I haven't had much time to write. Which sucks, because I hate putting down the first draft once I get rolling. Dang. 

What I have been able to get done with this first draft in the past couple weeks is... interesting. I think I was on about chapter eight or nine, when I realized that I needed to make a major change to the characters. Essentially, I had two female characters that were so similar to each other (both happy little friends of the protagonist) that I knew I could condense them into one character to move the plot forward faster. Which seemed like a great idea, until I held the idea up to my character grid and saw that I would be left with only two female characters and about eight male characters. Bit of an imbalance that I wouldn't be happy with.

So I brainstormed another solution. I can cut one of the men (who I already had some issues with in terms of character development) and use one of those two females in his place. It changes her essential purpose completely, yet still leaves her character intact. Instead of being a happy little friend, she's now a happy little friend with a seriously evil ulterior motive. Which makes her way, way more interesting and solves my initial problem. I'm happy with the idea.

Good thing I can at least brainstorm while ill / visiting with mom.

Normally, I'd just push forward with the story from here and worry about reworking those characters in the first edit. This time I think I'll go back and change it (rough and dirty though the changes may be) before I continue. It's a pretty major change, and I'll feel better about moving on if I just fix it now.

So if I can find some time to get back to writing before California, that's what I'll do...

Growth: Why I hope writing is like designing

Last post I talked about character development, and then I disappeared for a few days. Because I was busy busy developing characters ;)

Now I've got a full cast of well-rounded, multi-dimensional characters to work with, a solid 25K outline that covers everything right up to climax of the story, and I'm ready to start writing!

This is, of course, the best part of the project. And this time, I'm facing the challenge of a main character who interacts with—but doesn't speak to—any of the other characters until a third of the way through the story. Yes, challenge indeed.

Speaking of challenges, I'm also in the midst of learning how to critique others work. I'm beta'ing novels from two different writers and I've already found that it's a very different thing from critiquing my own work. Another interesting thing that's come up, is when one of the writers was worried I'd be offended by her comments. I assured her that I wouldn't be, but it led me into some further connections between my day job as a designer and my evenings and weekends as a writer.

I've mentioned here and elsewhere some of the similarities between the two. There is another aspect of writing that feels like design (and probably like many other jobs, but hey, this is my experience): Growth.

I went to college to study graphic design. My profs taught me the how-to and the rules of design, and then sent me off to give it a go. I laid out my ideas, thought they were amazing, only to have the Profs turn around and tear them apart. They showed me -- either gently or ruthlessly -- what I was doing wrong. Sometimes the feedback was bad enough to nearly put me in tears.

So I tried again.

For three years.

By the time I received my diploma I could hardly bear to look at the work I'd done in my first year--it was so hideous! I'd come a long way since then, and I never would have if I didn't have my professors and colleagues ripping my ideas and my work to pieces.
Then I went out into the Real World. I picked up a job in Calgary almost immediately after I finished school, designing trade show booths. That was four years ago. When I compare my early days there, to the work I do now, so much has changed. I've really learned to separate my ideas from myself—when someone hates my work, it's the idea they hate, not me. Thick skin, that was a big change. Also:

I'm faster. A job that would have taken 8 hours of design four years ago now takes me 2 or 3.

I'm better. I used to have to work through five or six different concepts with clients, making radical changes, before I got what they wanted. Now the design is usually signed off in two or three proofs, covering only minor revisions.

I'm smarter. Four years ago I struggled to see the problems in my own designs, what I could do or change to make the client happy. Now if a client comes back to me feeling unsure about how something works in the layout I can see immediately what I need to change to fix it.

What I'm saying with all this rambling is that I hope, when everything is said and done, that my writing evolves the same way my design has. I spend a lot of time writing, and I think what I write is good. Now I'm having beta readers tear it apart, and that can only be a good thing. I hope I learn a lot from seeing my work from their viewpoints. And I hope in a few years I'll be able to look back on my early writing and cringe.
I hope that, with time and effort, I'll be a faster, better, and smarter writer.

Has that happened for you? Or are you like me, looking ahead and just hoping?

Characters are people too.

I really, really love character development. I've written a solid outline (sitting at 22K words, still needs a bit of tweaking) and now I've moved on to some world-building and character development. For me, this works best because I know how the story goes, I know who does what and why, and I'm starting to have a good feel for what these people—characters—are really like.

But it's not quite a complete picture. Not yet.

To really flesh out my characters I use photos and character sketches. I try to cram as much detail into those sketches as possible: nicknames, meanings, relationships, dates, physical descriptions, strengths, weaknesses, internal and external conflicts, history, special abilities, distinguishing marks and personal items, habits, likes, dislikes, etc. I usually pull a photo off the web of someone who looks similar and use Photoshop to make a few quick and dirty changes to the appearance, where it doesn't mesh with what I have in mind for that character.

***fyi, the Mac program Scrivener is AWESOME for this kind of stuff. Go download the free trial right now. I'm not kidding.***

I like to start with a character's history. In life, I always find that the best way to understand a person is to understand their history, their background, where they come from. It can tell you so much about why they do what they do, or think the way they think. Once I have a history in place, other details fall in line. A unique twitch, habit or scar resulting from something in their past. A personal trinket or token they carry around from someone or some time in their life story. What drives him or her? What secrets is he or she keeping?

At the end of the day, I've got more than a name paired with a personality. I've got a person.

Because characters are people too!