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.

Tuesday Tunes: Shred Kelly

This past week of writing—or plotting for NaNoWriMo, as it were—has been mostly accompanied by Shred Kelly's 2012 album, In The Hills. On repeat.

If you've never heard of them, check out their album at shredkelly.bandcamp.com. It's most excellent. For this Tuesday Tune, here's one of my faves:


At first listen it seems to be a song about a bear. My theory is that it's actually about Sage being the stalker-girl she was born to be. What do you think?

That's all for today. Off to do some more NaNo plotting...
S.

A month?!

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted! It only feels like a week. Guess that's a sign I'm getting old...

I've been busy. Lots of knitting and reading, but I also lost a week when I was laid out by a nasty head cold, and I've been getting out of the city to do some bird hunting with Idiot#1 on Saturdays. Sundays means knit class, so I've been spending a chunk of time prepping for that too. Maybe if I can get my life in order I'll post some pix... but that's a big maybe.

Work has been busy too. Usually is in September and October, but I'm already starting to see the slow down that's fairly standard for November & December.

Which is a good thing, because I've also started outlining a new novel for NaNoWriMo. Pretty excited about it. Don't know exactly what genre you'd call it—maybe you guys can help me? Characters are older teens, but it's not exactly a coming-of-age story, so maybe not typically classed YA. The main character is a regular teen, but the opening chapter is the beginning of the apocalypse and the people he falls in with are time travelers—a bit of a sci-fi element, yeah. Current world, current time. No fantasy beings, just people who seem normal but are actually time travelers. A bunch of teens trying to get from point A to point B in time, because they're being chased by other time travelers that want them dead. Fighting, yes. Killing, yes. End of the world, happening around them.

Any ideas?

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!

Outlining

Some people outline, some don't. Me? I outline like a crazy person.

The last few posts I've talked about how the outline process is going. Right now, pretty good. I wanted to be a bit further along than I am at this moment, but that's okay. And here's why. I was guesstimating how long it would take me to finish the outline, based on the first two books I wrote. It's taken longer than I thought it would, so I started wondering if that's because this book is YA and quite different from the first two novels. Then I thought, maybe I've just managed to become a more detailed outliner? And there is the answer, folks. I checked.

I started writing my first MS when the outline was complete at 4K words. 
I started writing the sequel to that when the outline was complete at 6K words.
My current outline is at 13K words.

It could all be mumbo jumbo... but I don't think it is. I still have more fine-tuning to work through on the outline, specifically turning bullet points into finished thoughts that complete each chapter's events from start to finish. But those parts that are already done feel really, really complete. Like I'm ready to go with a fully detailed map of where the chapter and the whole book should go. Or even better, like I'm armed for battle with a semi-automatic machine gun, rather than the shotgun I had before.

So there it is. I hope the extra time spent at this stage will mean the writing process goes faster, smoother. We shall see...

What about you? If you're a crazy outliner like me, have you found that your outlines have grown more or less detailed from one MS to the next?

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?

We have a title!

Okay, some success since yesterday's post:

I messed around some more with the synopsis, and did get Vera talking sooner. Not as soon as I thought would be necessary, but that led me to something else…

The working title: SPEECHLESS.

It might not stick, but it'll do the trick for now. I also came up with an external crisis that I like, and that meshes well with the rest of the story and characters. I got far enough along in the synopsis today that I felt like switching over to my first draft character grid.

It was a good thing I did. Right away I can see plot holes and… I don't have enough characters! Over the next few days I'll jump back and forth between the synopsis and character grids, filling in those plot holes and adding some more characters. I've already found another character floating around in the free space in my mind who fits in as a nice little antagonist with my current cast.

And what did I say about the trilogy split revealing itself in the process? It did :)

To be honest, I'm kind of looking forward to working with a character who doesn't say a peep until a third of the way into the story. It'll be a challenge, creating interaction and engaging the reader while limiting Vera to non-verbal communication. But a challenge is a good thing.

For a Monday, it was a good day! Must be because it's a holiday...