Tag Archives: writing process

Plot as Illumination of Character

by Liana Posted on January 4, 2014
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Writer, Know Thyself: Plot & Character

I came to a sudden realization the other day when I was working on Dowse and Bleed then the collaboration and also thinking about all the aggravating articles recently claiming the three-act structure is the only one: I really don't care about plot.

Now, this doesn't mean I dislike plot or that I don't think it's important, but I do mean it's not even a secondary consideration for me. I care about structure because structure is fun, especially for a poet, but I don't take any time to analyze my own plots or even to develop them. That holds no interest for me, and I don't look for a particular plot in books I read. In fact, that's why I adore love stories and am so totally sick of romances. I'm not interested in the "how did they fall in love" and we're done here. I'm interested in two separate people and then how they interact together, etc.

I wrestled with this for another day before I finally came to the conclusion on how I could not care about something so fundamental to story. Most writing articles and books address characters that drive the plot and plots that are born out of the characters' struggles. That makes for a good story, but I'll probably never, ever write that kind of story ever.

I love plots that illuminate character. And that's probably why I tend strongly to the literary side of genre and love Jodi Picoult's books, even though I've heard some genre writers sneer at them. Her books are complicated messy stories about characters. The plots reveal the characters, rather than characters driving the plot.

Dowse and Bleed is the most incredibly plotty story I've ever written in my life. When I wrote that first draft, it was a quick ramble through a decent, engaging plot, but when I came back to it, it was with two questions: whose story is this and why is it her story? Out flowed something considerably deeper and much more 'me.' The plot is secondary because it exists to reveal something about Rachelle and no other reason.

This is also why I haven't been able to get through Collateral Damage yet, I'm pretty sure, or any of the other Special Unit fics percolating in my head. That revelation, that core idea, isn't there for me yet. I wrote Dowse and Bleed from a prompt about the sides of love:

I've looked at love from both sides now / From give and take, and still somehow / It's love's illusions I recall / I really don't know love at all

"Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell

It's not this perfect match with Rachelle, but it was close enough for me to devote a story to this relationship she has to love and the idea of love. It was an interesting revelation for me.

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Scribbling on the 3rd, aka This Way Trouble

by Liana Posted on January 3, 2014
This entry is part 33 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Fandom

I am crazy. I have never successfully completed a big bang or NanoWrimo type challenge in my life, and I just signed up to do a 10K couples big bang writing Tris/Four, which is basically an AU required to happen.

:headdesk:

I am positively certifiable.

Reading

On the rest of January 3rd, I finished reading The Tenth Hell. Crazy me. Another awesome, gut-clenching, nobody's good, nobody's bad, it's all too real round of Picoult.

I always figured Rachelle would like Picoult's books. They fit her worldview.

Publishing

I also finished finalizing my publisher file for Dowse and Bleed. Anyway, it just needs hyphenation, which is driving me batty. I'm going to have to do it manually, and I already hate the idea.

Found via Hugh Howey a wonderfully formatter who will turn my Createspace .doc (which I will separately convert to PDF via OpenOffice) into Kindle and Smashwords files for only $35. I have decided now would be a good time to start putting money into publishing. That saves me a lot of work for a very small cost, all things considered.

Writing

Wasn't I supposed to write in there? I'm sure that was on the agenda. Tonight then, me and the keyboard shall meet. The Drought beckons, but I can't read through all my scribbling time.

So it's scribbling time and I did the normally very bad thing of going on Twitter first. This time it was a good thing. Check this out: My Write Club. Lovely. Thanks, Kayla!

Started in my seven sentence fic, got carried away, and am not going to try and count the sentences. It was 344 words though.

:mulls over scene: I've known the opening scene of this for me for a while now and it keeps coming out wrong. I'm going to kill it and start in the middle like I always seem to do anyway. Ah, well.

I imagine that total is about to get totally shot for Spintered Gates, but that's my no-pressure project anyway. I'm basically percolating it on paper instead of in my head.

Back to collaboration. I don't have Scrivener on my tablet, which is a real pity, though I feel compelled to share the joyous news that my CD backup arrived today and is now tucked safely on my bookcase. You didn't need to know that, but I sure felt like being giddy about it. So what the collaboration particularly needs from me right now is some plot-noodling. Let's do that on paper, shall we?

So in searching out my plot, I didn't find what I wanted, but I did find something interesting. I left way too many gaps when I first started drafting my part of this collaboration. My writing partner is much better disciplined than I am. I sketch, percolate, then gap-fill. It's kind of painful.

And off to bed...

Word Count

  • Fiction: 1284 words
  • Poetry: 0 words
  • Blog: 597 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 344 words
  • Total: 2060 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 940 words
  • Total: 55,978 words

January Totals

  • Fiction: 1333 words
  • Poetry: 0 words
  • Blog: 1417 words
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Scribbling? Not so much... January 2, 2014

by Liana Posted on January 3, 2014
This entry is part 32 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

So the story of yesterday is that I did some editing, formatting, and plenty of day job work and all that, and I did my chores and Sabbath cleaning and got a new arrival that thrilled me to my toes, then when it was time to write a few sentences for bed, I discovered the book I bought last week, cracked it open, and ended up reading through half before remembering the primal need for sleep.

The book is The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult. Last Sunday, I really wanted to buy a new book. A paperback book, preferably mass market size. I looked and looked and looked and was getting ready to leave when I saw Picoult's name. I'll buy and read anything she writes—anything. It came home. My grandfather handed me Return to Me, so it took me this long to remember I'd bought it.

Sucked in. Want to finish reading it even though I ought to use my work break today for writing fiction. Or poetry. :shrugs:

On the new arrival, I ordered a keyboard for my tablet. I found the on-screen keyboard just didn't work for me when I got into serious writer mode and I couldn't manage any major production. Game changer with my new wireless keyboard. I'm so excited to start using it.

Slow start to January, but that's okay. We'll get there.

Word Count

  • Fiction: 0 words
  • Poetry: 0 words
  • Blog: 739 words

January Totals

  • Fiction: 49 words
  • Poetry: 0 words
  • Blog: 820 words
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A New Year's Scribbler: January 1, 2014

by Liana Posted on January 2, 2014
This entry is part 31 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

The daily scribble posts are back. On New Year's Day, I didn't actually expect to be productive. I expected laid back holiday, wherein we ate a scrumptious meal, spent time with family, and kept our four-year-old tradition of a treasure hunt, albeit a week late due to my sister and I having been sick heading into Christmas.

We did that, but I was also productive.

Reading

Read through some Yuletide reveals and one of the two new stories at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I also 'accidentally' stayed up to 2 o'clock in the morning reading Lynn Austin's Return to Me.

Note: I am extremely picky about historical and non-Old Testamental Biblical fiction. Most of it bores me unless it's written extraordinarily well. I tend to like Old Testament stories and I like classics that were written in historical periods, but not ones written about said historical periods. That said, I liked Lynn Austin's Gods and Kings series about Hezekiah. This book is set during a period of Biblical history that fascinates me (and is Old Testament): the interval between Daniel and Esther wherein there was Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah, and Haggai. So I figured I'd like this book.

It had issues. Overall, I liked it. Can't say I loved it because the prologue was fabulous and then the first ten chapters were so tedious that I skipped five of them and probably never will read them. The middle was driven by a bad promise the main character kept despite knowing better on so many counts it wasn't even funny. The ending was fabulous. So... mixed feelings. Probably won't reread.

I've been reading The Drought and Quartz as well and am hoping to catch up within the next month.

Publishing

Hammered away at "Dowse and Bleed" by tweaking four or five lines that were bothering me (apparently I'm one of those artists who won't stop editing until you pry her work right out of her hands), laying out the interior less hyphenation, and figuring out whether to add chronology to the cover. Also categorized it as a science fiction procedural per BISAC. Thank you, lithiumlaughter and in_the_blue, for helping me figure that one out. I haven't decided whether I want to add an excerpt for a forthcoming story in there, but am leaning strongly toward not.

To publish this baby in January, I particularly need to finalize the cover and finish pounding away at the summary, which I was doing yesterday. I thought it was perfect than realized it really didn't have a strong enough emphasis on what a special-type human was or that this was superhuman fiction. :headdesk: Back to the drawing board.

I'm tempted to work on Kingdoms and Thorn for the February story, but then it might be waaay better to do one of the other storyworlds for lots of reasons, so leaving certainty on the back burner.

Writing

Wrote 12 sentences instead of seven on book I should not be writing but is pestering me anyway.

Did some percolating research for fanfics in progress. I've got a particular scene I want to write for Finding the Ground and am still mulling over exactly where I want to check into Laurie. I think I know, but I keep waffling.

Also reread a bunch of Divergent series stuff. Is it awful to say I want a serious romance fic on the level of short story like what I write for Rogue/Gambit? Tris and Four have this serious fade to black moment and I'm pretty sure it was the standard fade to black and I wanted more. Additionally, I've got other serious Divergent plot-bunnies. I'd like to make them wait until I update some of my older fics so many people are waiting on, but no promises. Never those.

Collaboration

Discovered the joys of Scrivener for collaboration. I can add status notes about who worked on which part last, setting keywords, folders for our alternate chapter/scene orders and compiled files, etc., etc., etc. And we're sort of writing multiple timelines, so the brain went crazy with ideas yesterday. For collaboration, Scrivener is awesome.

Which brings me to...

New Arrivals

Scrivener: I officially love you, thecatisacritic. Thank you!

Duotrope: I thought about submitting "Dowse and Bleed" before I changed my mind, but now have a trial of Duotrope. I should do Heinlein's challenge in light of it, but I don't need the pressure, so probably won't.

Word Count

  • Fiction: 49 words
  • Poetry: 0 words
  • Blog: 81 words
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Letter to My Former Self

by Liana Posted on December 8, 2013
This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series December Ramblings

So, thecatisacritic asked what would you as a writer tell you the writer of five or ten years ago? As an author's note to this, I probably wouldn't. Oddly enough. But put to, here goes:

Dear former self,

I know you always think of yourself as a writer, first and foremost, but I wanted to suggest to you that you start thinking of yourself as a human being. You'll never be able to un-engrain that deep writer-identity from your consciousness; you dug in too deep. Stop trying. God gave you a talent. Use it, hone it, focus it, but give up on trying to get rid of it.

It is important, no matter who tells you otherwise. There is nothing more powerful in this world than an idea except for love.

It's going to get worse. You're going to lose faith for a while, lose heart, forget everything you ever believed in and pretend you never believed in it in the first place—at least with your actions. You're going to go through a valley of hard times and testing, but stay strong. You're going to be okay. You've got a God who loves you even when you don't understand. You aren't a lost soul because you don't know how to find your way. You're a writer and you're His. Cling to that, and you'll be just fine.

Take it from someone who knows, 'kay?

Hugs (you'll need them),

the scribbler

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New Arrivals

by Liana Posted on December 4, 2013
This entry is part 4 of 8 in the series December Ramblings

Again, nothing prompted, so I picked my own topic to ramble on. :grins:

  • A Samsung Galaxy 3 Tablet in white - You want to see gleeful, shocked scribbler? This was it. I'm thrilled to my toe-tips. Now, I just need to buy a keyboard that can keep up with me, though I'm getting the hang of Polaris office.
  • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin - I have wanted to get my hands on this book for a long time, particularly because I love M.C.A. Hogarth's The Worth of a Shell, and the two get compared a lot relatively. So I have it now due to the Yuletide bookswap and I'm thrilled to my fingertips.
  • An actual pinch-hit I managed to snag for Yuletide the other day. I don't know what I was thinking, seeing as I still have to do my regular assignment, but I can't seem to keep the grin off my face.
  • The Splintered Gates storyworld - This was a total accident, I promise. It arrived after watching too much The Book of Daniel (love that movie) and everything I could get my hands on about the upcoming Divergent movie, then playing too much mentally with the space-version of Vardin. So I could dump the Vardin and keep the clans that arrived and their physiology and their societal structure and the things already interesting me about it and the new ways to combine characters, some old, mostly new, and yeah. This is scary. I have other work to finish first, you know?

What's new with you?

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On Blogging for Readers

by Liana Posted on December 1, 2013

A/N: So this post got lost in email to self oblivion, but since I just remembered it existed, I hereby post it for your enjoyment. I wrote this on November 18, actually.

So Catherine Caffeinated talking about blogging because you had something to say, and it got me to prop my metaphorical chin on my metaphorical hands, plunk elbows on the edge of the desk, and think about why I write. Do I write because I have something to say?

I have often thought about what would make a good blog for a fiction writer and finally thrown up my hands in disgust and realized I hadn't the foggiest idea. My nonfiction and fiction interests are separate and apart. Writing is for writers, not readers. But this made me think about: what is it I have to say when I write fiction? A lot, actually.

I said it once before: I write fascinated. I have found that I am interested in the same things that differentiate literature I love from that which I fangirl. I am interested in cost and sacrifice, power and strength, and mastery of oneself. I prefer the twists of complexity, characters who make hard decisions and pay high prices but accomplish their goal. I love order and making logic of chaos and impossibility. Fiction puts my world into perspective: it enables me to see the underlying patterns and constraints grant the freedom to make those hard choices. Selflessness, love, resolve, endurance, the ability to stand persecuted and not defend oneself—these things are power and a power I wish I had.

But how to put that into blog posts? M.C.A. Hogarth does it with meta and does it beautifully, but I have never been able to write meta. It pulls my characters out of their worlds and makes them constructs. They do not exist in my world to talk to me; they are not voices in my head, but people in their worlds. They are flesh and blood and mind and bone and heart and spirit and blood. I have tried meta and cannot do it.

I have written fanfic but that always becomes simply fic. I dislike writing descriptions of their history unless it is answering a question. Most readers do not read endless fic upon fic on a blog if it is not a serial. I'm fascinated by words, but even I am bored by other conlangers posts about the lexical features of their languages. I love the social structures of my worlds, but best when shown in fic.

En brief, I have a lot to say about love and power and strength and romance and angst and tragic choices, terrible sacrifices, and efficient success with terrible consequences, etc., but I say it in fic. I still don't know how to blog it.

But it has me thinking.

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One Out of Four

by Liana Posted on November 20, 2013
  1. I'm actually losing mail in Yahoo because it works so poorly now. I can't organize it, find it, or deal with it. I'm seriously considering signing up to Writing.com just for the email.
  2. I've been chaptering and working on the collaboration fic. It's going well. One thing at least is.
  3. What's with the new email updates, FF.net? They don't list fandom in the email title. I never know anymore if I want to open it or not.
  4. To all internet services everywhere: can we please stop reducing functionality and calling it an upgrade? Please?
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November Novel, Day 3

by Liana Posted on November 3, 2013
This entry is part 29 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Four sessions: 313, 15, 190, then 1997 words. If I had energy to write more about it I would. Let's just say I wrote some awful stuff and gave a character panic attacks. Wow. And 185 of semi-fluff. Whoohoo. Then 131 of actual fluff. This is good.

Count

  • November Novel: 2,831 words – Total: 4098 words
  • All Fiction & Poetry: 2,831 words – Total: 4218 words
  • Blog: 49 words – Total: 479 words
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On the Writing Front, November 1–2

by Liana Posted on November 3, 2013
This entry is part 28 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

So I got an 84 word start on the November novel, due to a gift scene popping into my head as I got under the covers. Problem: I was in bed. Solution: I memorized the dialogue and wrote it this morning.

Then I dove into the collaboration fic and got 1075 new words by cycling back through the section that needed it and adding two new scenes on the end because lo and behold, they were in my head last night as well.

It's back to the November novel. (I like that better than Nano. :shrugs: ) I've got snippets and snatches I've been collecting. I guess I better go dig them up and add them.

Stopped to add another 299 to the collaboration. Done with that for the day. Back to Novembering it.

Got all my old stuff in there that I think belongs in this story: 3143 words. Now, let's go from there. Ended at 3263.

Saturday night, I managed a snippet. Heading into a work-intensive Sunday, can't promise instant scribbles, but the ideas are there. Too bad the collab can't be my nano. I don't think... Must check the rules.

Count

  • November Novel: 1267 words
  • All Fiction & Poetry: 1,387 words
  • Blog: 430 words
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