posted
I have three different story lines in my head that are my own I'm trying to keep straight, not to mention the stories I need to read for others. I keep confusing characters. Feel like I need a stiff drink.
Posts: 341 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
You could try writing it down in plot summaries and a list of characters for each plot then as you get more ideas for scenes write them down in their appropiate place in the correct summary.
Posts: 48 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
I always write out my novel plots on color coded index cards. that way, I can outline one thread by itself but mix the cards in the order I want to tell the story.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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posted
I not only need to mellow out, but workable instructions on how to do so without shutting down entirely.
Posts: 283 | Registered: Feb 2006
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But yes, it can be hard to discipline yourself as to which one to work on, and you can be trying to work on one when another character or scene will spring unbidden to mind.
Discipline helps. For me, that's been something I've learnt, to an extent, from the Short Story Competitions at Liberty Hall - by focussing on deadlines I'm generally finding it easier to work on one thing at a time, rather than scattershot.
posted
Definitely a problem. I once wrote a short story, back in the bad old days of typewriting, where for half a page I used the name of the lead character of the novel I was then working on. It was a year, half a dozen form rejections, and a critiquer who asked "Who is this?" before I noticed it. Boy, talk about embarrassing...
I wish I had a remedy, 'cause it still comes up now and then. And a lot of my characters are cut from the same cloth, so it's hard to tell them apart, really.
Then again, this is a problem in the writing stage. In the spinning-around-my-head stage, mostly they don't have names...sometimes they don't even have character...
posted
Oh, a stiff drink is definitely the solution to this problem. Did wonders for F. Scott Fitzgerald. His life was the sort of endless bliss to which we should all aspire.
Posts: 976 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Did Fitzgerald write "The Great Gatsby" while drunk? It seemed like he did, but I thought the book was crap and only a strong will and a fast reading speed that got me through it.
My point is: Don't drink and write. Do relax though. Meditate and take a walk. Focus by not focusing. That was zen this is dao. Relax and breathe , breathing very important, if you stop...
posted
If Fitzgerald was drunk when he wrote The Great Gatsby...
quote:You ask us to believe that you can read between the lines of the text. In support of this contention, you present no evidence other than your obvious inability to read the lines themselves
posted
It's a paraphrase. Original is cast in the third person, which probably makes it more versitile.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
This is as good a place as any to post this question. Has anyone tried giving up all thought of commerical considerations and writing solely to please themselves? How long did it take and how well did it work?
Posts: 283 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I did, from 2000 to 2004. I'd come to the conclusion that, if all I was getting from paying markets were rejection slips, I might as well try writing something just for the fun of it, without hope of selling. I called it "Internet Fan Fiction." (Well, a lot of people who do it called it that. I called it that, too.)
I thought it worked out fairly well. I think more people read the hundred thousand or so words I posted than read the million-five words I wrote to send to publishers. Certainly I got more comments on them than anything else I'd written. And it seemed my stuff was liked and appreciated and admired---it's one thing to think you're a good writer, which I did, but another for somebody to tell you you're good. (I haven't been sued yet, either...but that may be for another discussion some time from now.)
Of course, I think I was writing to please myself first, and to please other people second, long before this period. Certainly I try to do so now.
posted
I never had any commercial considerations from the beginning...there are much easier ways for a person with my capabilities to get money, after all.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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