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.

NaNo Day 1

NaNoWriMo day one was a success. Well, my ass is sore from sitting in this chair for so long, but the word count was a success.

Correct me if my math is wrong (and it very well could be... math: not my forté) but if I don't plan on writing on weekends, then I've got to get down 2272 words per day. To make that easier to remember, I've rounded up to 2300 and set that as my daily goal in Scrivener.

(Does anyone else love the Projects Targets window in Scrivener? Yeah, me too.)

I'm a dialogue-then-prose kind of writer. Dialogue the chapter first, then go back and add the prose. So I finished both the dialogue and the prose for chapter one tonight, coming in at a total of about 2600 words. That's a short chapter, but usually my first draft chapters are, so no worries. At least I beat my daily goal by 300 words!

Until tomorrow,
S.

More Scrivener Love

I love organizing. And making lists. And being neurotic like that in general. Some people don't take the organizational approach to writing, and that works great for them. For me, organizing background information is one of my favourite parts of the process. It's also a great way to procrastinate if I'm dreading a section, or if I'm just not feeling the writing mojo.

Scrivener is an incredible tool for the kind of organization I love. And of course, its creators have videos for all this kind of stuff if you need a tutorial, but if you want to see some more Scrivener action, I've got the goods.

In the MS I'm currently working on the world has magic. A few different types, with different classes and levels. My characters don't delve too deep into this stuff in the first book, but it'll come into play in book two onwards. So I needed a way to organize the types of spells and what my characters know about them. I'm just going to jump right in and show you how that's going…

Creating a new folder (see the Folder+ button in the bottom left?) and calling it Grimoire.

Just for fun, giving it a Red Book icon. As you can see in my binder (left side
of the screen shot) I love all the different icons to choose from!

Laying out how I want each "page" of my grimoire to look.
I really went to town on the formatting.
You can blame my graphic design instincts.

Moving that layout to the Template Sheets folder makes it a template.
Renaming it something appropriate, like Grimoire Page.

Creating a new text page in the Grimoire folder, from Grimoire Page template.

Referencing the spell (highlighted) from the MS text (on the left split screen) and filling in
the details in the Grimoire Page (on the right split screen).

Because I want to organize the Grimoire by the three classes of magic, I create three
subfolders under the Grimoire, changing their names and icons.

Dragging and dropping different spells under the correct class of magic, and adjusting
the page order so the lower level spells come first.

And that, ladies and gents, is how I'm going to keep track of the different types of magic in Deyl's world, the different spells, and what she knows or has seen about them. Whenever I'm unsure, I can just flip open the grimoire and find the answers I need. With the split screen view turned on, I can even reference them next to the text I'm working on. It's pretty sweet.

If you're a Scrivener user—or thinking about becoming one—I hope this helped!   :D 

Bye for now,
S.

Me: Editing

When I get notes back from my critique partner (in a Word doc) I copy them into a text document inside of my "Critique" folder. This way I don't have to keep Word open and jump between programs while I'm editing.

My Scrivener "Binder" on the left. Critique chapters in all caps and my MS chapters above.
Critiqued chapter six on the right, with her changes in red, and her comments in purple.

When I'm ready to start going through her edits I change my revision mode to "First Revision" in Scrivener (or second, whatever the case may be) which will colour any changes I make to my MS in red. It's like "track changes" in other text programs, and it's great because I can easily see what I've changed and later, when I re-read the whole thing, decide if the change made it better or worse.

Revision Modes

So I go through, scrolling both my MS and the critique side-by-side, and consider the her comments. If it's an obvious change I make it right away, and if it's something I want to think about for a while then I highlight my text and make a comment.

My MS on the left (ch10), critiqued chapter ten in the middle, Scrivener sticky notes on the right.

By the time I've gone through all the chapters like this I've usually got a few bigger parts of the story that I'm thinking about changing, based on either my own ideas while re-reading, or my critique partner's comments. I can select my entire MS and review all the sticky notes, which gives me a clear picture of the overall changes. Then I write out plans (cuz I like a good plan) for what I want to change, where, how, and why. Those plans go in another folder in the binder, so I can refer to them the same way I referred to the critiqued document. Side-by-side and everything.

The whole binder, with my planned changes as text files under "Notes"

When I'm ready to take those notes and start making changes to my MS, I switch to Second Revision mode and start hacking and cutting larger sections of text and rewriting. I can still keep my sticky notes column up (or not) if I want to refer to those, I can pull up my notes and plans in a side-by-side window, or I can go into full screen mode and just write, ignoring everything else and just see where the story goes. I can always check and see if I stuck to the plan afterwards :)

Second Revision in blue.

So that, friends, is a quick snapshot of how I edit, and how Scrivener helps me do it. I'm sure I missed something I wanted to show you, but I have to get my ass into work!

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.

More Scrivener Love

Just a quick post for anyone out there who's been thinking about purchasing Scrivener. Do it. The program is super cheap, and amongst other things, it's great for editing.

Right now I've got two documents on the go: the copy of my manuscript I'm editing, and the marked-up copy from my beta reader. Scrivener lets me keep both documents in the same "binder" and bring them up in side-by-side view. I can adjust the width of each column, scroll up and down each independently, and show or hide my sticky notes comments (thoughts for me to deal with later) on the far right.

And of course, this is just one of the many awesome things Scrivener can do. Try it out.

Hey, how's it going?

Well, I'm back.

So far, 2012 hasn't gone much like I expected it to. A lot of things have come up—some good, some very bad—and I haven't gotten nearly as much writing done as I'd like. In the early part of the year I wrapped up my first draft of my YA novel, SPEECHLESS and moved back into editing mode for my contemporary fantasy, I HAD TO FALL.

That was the end of February. That was also when tragedy struck my family and everything else ceased to matter for a while—I needed time to grieve. Just when I thought I was starting to recover from the loss, a new problem cropped up and I set aside everything else to help some friends through a tough, emotional situation.

Hopefully, though these the experiences were difficult to endure, I'll have gained something from them that will help me become both a better person, and a more well-rounded writer.

So I've jumped back into the editing process of I HAD TO FALL, working with my critique partner to start revisions. I spent a good part of my evening just importing her comments into Scrivener. Once those ducks were all in a neat little row I dove into chapter one, reviewing her notes and starting a list of issues she'd brought up and how I might address them, along with some of my own ideas and issues that have cropped up in the back of my mind while this project has been on the backburner. All in all, it was another good day. One at a time.

Tomorrow (as long as this cold I seem to be catching doesn't lay me out...) I'll try to make it through the next few chapters of her notes.

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!

State of the Writing

Well, so far today I've managed to get another 1500 words down on the page. It's not much, but then I don't really think word count matters in the outlining stage. Just MHO.

What really matters is that I've gone from a very loose, random, unstructured outline with too few characters, enormous plot holes and bad clichés to a full 31-chapter outline that has a smooth, start-to-finish plot, incorporating a variety of characters and their sub-stories, and only a few not-so-bad clichés. Excellent.

This evening I'm going to go back through the outline and clean it up, add notes and synopses, and update my character grid to match. Tomorrow, with the updated grid, I should be able to see the big picture and tweak the outline, hopefully until I'm happy with it and I can call the first draft done.

So next week, I'll be world-building. With my first novel, I HAD TO FALL, I started the writing without any real world building done, only loose character and location sketches, and just a lot less detail. This time I'm going about it differently. I'm hoping that, within a week or two, I'll be ready to start writing!

By the way, with this MS I'm really using Scrivener for the first time. Anyone got any neat tips and tricks for working with the program?

Keeping Promises

Hey, wow. So yesterday I flippantly promised I'd quit playing with Scrivener and get chapter twelve and thirteen done. Not that anyone actually reads my blog, but I guess making promises helps keep me on task, because I did finish twelve and thirteen today.

Well... maybe it wasn't the promise.

It was blissfully sunny and warm this morning, so I loaded up on java, grabbed the mac and the cat, and headed out to work on the re-write outside. Worked for hours. Easy to do, given the circumstances. Twelve and thirteen needed work in a few different areas. Both chapters have fight sequences that, honestly, I'd just written lazily the first time around. I went back and rewrote those sections, giving the action more tension and detail. There was also some magical inconsistency to deal with and some timeline issues.

And then I got sidelined by a potential change for chapter twenty-two. I've been considering two really major changes that would involve revising much of the ending. The idea I had today involved one of those ideas, adding a new minor character into twenty-two. She (pretty sure it'll be a she) would also have to be written into twenty-three and -four, but I don't think that will be a problem. What really sidelined me about this possible new character is how she can tie into book two - and book three, if I make it that far...

Finally, I'm going to add an excerpt from I Had to Fall to the Writing page tonight. Not sure what it'll be. If anyone's out there, feel free to share your thoughts :P

Ta-da!

Squeeeeee! This is my first post on my brand-spanking-new MacBook Air!! I feel like I've been waiting for this for years!

Oh, wait. I have been.

It really is awesome though. I don't know what else to say. I was running a six-year-old iBook G4 up to this point, so pretty much anything would be better, faster and smoother. I've got all my old files transferred over and installed all the software I wanted. I didn't take much music, since I keep my music library on the MacMini and just share the library. Brought over my favourites though, for travel purposes: Rammstein, Iced Earth, We Are The Fallen, She Wants Revenge, Foo Fighters, The Fray and Nine Inch Nails. Plus a few writing-specific playlists that I never leave home without :D

The other #squee item is that I've installed the trial version of Scrivener and spent that last three hours playing around with it. I gotta say... love it. I really don't care which program I use for composition, but Scrivener's organization of my timelines, comments, notes, character and scene sketches, etc. is absolutely wonderful.

I'll stop playing tomorrow morning though and buckle down on editing chapters twelve and thirteen. Promise.