I remembered part of my dream last night, so I thought I would write it down. I’m a little fuzzy on what was happening in the story leading up to this but I remember this part pretty clearly. (Well, ok, it’s been embellished a little)
Sort of related to what traveller said, I wanted to say a little bit about “viewpoint” characters and deciding what is “on camera” vs. “off camera”. There are three “voice” styles. First person is, “I went to the store.” This makes it very clear who is speaking, and who your viewpoint character is. Second person is, “You went to the store,” or “You are on your way to the store.” (Second person is not used much except in Choose Your Own Adventure books :) And third person is “Joe went to the store.” Most of us will probably write in the third person. With third person, you have to give the reader some cues as to who the viewpoint character is. The viewpoint character is usually your main character, but you can sometimes switch to another viewpoint character if you want to show something else happening out of sight of the main character. The best time to do this is at a chapter break when you would naturally change scene anyway.
I win! Total: 50947 words That includes Notes: 5363 words but I don’t care, they are good notes. It doesn’t include two pages of family tree, one continent map, one half-of-city map, and makes no account for blood, sweat, and tears (well, perhaps it does with the sweat part).
47204 words.. I am so close. Unfortunately we have a second-thanksgiving type visit tomorrow and I will probably get next to jack done, so the remaining ~3000 will be cranked out late tomorrow night and Sunday.
Just finished a difficult bit of writing. Things should start going a bit faster after this. Here is a snip of it if you want to check it out. Lise said, “Perhaps you’re right, Ayden.” She turned on her side, propping up her head with her hand, bringing her nose-to-nose with him. “You made me feel better anyway. Thank you.” Then she kissed him on the cheek, and got up. “Good night, Ayden.” ...
After two meager (one might say “paltry”) nights of 522 and 748 words, tonight was better. It was all NOTES but there are 1100 more words of notes, all of them plot ideas. I will probably not include the “kidnap” plot in the finished product, because it was not really going anywhere (due to me not figuring out who the BAD GUY actually is or what he wants) and also because it involves the duke’s army riding out to rescue the kidnapped nobles and my main character is just along for the ride and not doign anything. ...
Please contribute your ideas regarding how magic might work in a fantasy world…
Day off. Writing was good. Everyone should try it. Now I will distract myself with good eats, and a bit of Good Eats, while I let the storyboard shuffle itself some more in my head.
I didn’t get my minimum done, but I am taking a day off from work tomorrow, so that will help. I am about a day ahead anyway. Chapter 10 is ready for viewing. Working table of contents is here. Other than this I have another chapter like 2/3 done but it is out of order so I had better not expose it yet. To those of you who have read some of the story and commented, thanks!
On today’s episode of “action novel writing”… A Poll!