When One Thing Works For Another

Since storyboarding for one work in progress, I have been tinkering with the tense and point of view in another work in progress. As I go through scenes in that story I have been noticing things that aren’t working that I didn’t see before. It’s like while I go through this unstoryboarded story, I can see it storyboarded in my mind and where the story has flaws–just as if I had storyboarded it.

I will still storyboard this story, but it is interesting to see where things are flowing and where things aren’t. It is like storyboarding the one story, I opened a door in my mind. I like it when doors open!

Except, I have hair.

Online Studies

Hi!

My instructor, Susan Meier, said it’s okay to promote her in the comment section of my last blog post. And no, she isn’t some evil taskmaster. She is kind and very willing to answer everyone’s zillion questions.

Susan Meier

It is only lately that I’ve discoveredRWA’s (Romance Writers of America) online courses. They are fabulous because they are affordable (usually in the $20-$30 range for the ones I’ve taken), the instructors are willing to answer questions and in some courses, even give you specific feedback on your work. As well, you never have to leave the comfort of your couch–everything comes in on email. Does it get any better than that? Of course it does! It improves your writing and puts more tools in your toolbox.

Right now, I am taking the Orange County RWA Chapter’s course called, “Can This Manuscript Be Saved?” And as many of us in the course have discovered, yes it can be saved! I can’t tell you how much that storyboard is clearing things up in my mind. It’s almost like I have a new, fresh brain when it comes to that story. I can look at it and see where my focus is off. I seriously cannot believe I procrastinated on making a storyboard for as long as I did. (And even though Meier didn’t specifically tell us to storyboard in her lesson, this was the method of displaying scenes that I chose. I totally give Meier credit for the Eureka moment in regards to storyboarding as the idea came directly from her suggestion to do the action/reaction/decision exercise mentioned in my last post.)

I’ve also popped over to Susan’s ‘How to Analyze the Books You Read’ workshop. (It’s free.) Although it is romance focused, the ideas can be applied to any genre if you are trying to determine what your book needs in order to fit a publishing line–or even why certain publishers keep rejecting your story.

What I like about Susan’s approaches is that everything is very simple yet effective. You don’t need a PhD in creative writing to make use of her tips.

What more could you ask for?

Storyboarding

I have finally submitted.

Way back when I was a librarian, I did some reading to the grade nines in my school. I researched the author Gary Paulson as well as read from some of his stories. When I did background research on him, I discovered that he uses storyboards. He writes it all out on a long sheet of paper on his wall. He knows what is going where and why and when and all that detailed sort of thing. At the time I laughed to myself. Who would ever put that much work into their story? Surely you can keep it all flowing in your mind and it all stays together and focused, right?

Not.

(Please note this man has written over 70 books and knows what he is doing.
I on the other hand, have no published books and sometimes know what I am doing.)

It certainly is tricky to step back and see everything when you have two subplots competing in a 115,000 word document. Somehow, it is a bit difficult to get far enough away from that beast. And I tried. Oh, I tried. I wrote down all the scenes in a notebook. Sometimes I even wrote down all the scenes along with their purpose. Honestly, I learned that I can excuse anything. This scene? Oh, well it is there for humour! I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that my scene list didn’t help me out much. Still I rejected the storyboard idea. Too much work. What a waste of sticky notes. What a lot of tinkering. It won’t actually help. I’d better check my email instead or read a book on writing that will hand me my magic answer on why my book has no focus and what I can do to fix it.

Right. You can pretty much guess how that worked out for me too, can’t you?

On the up side, I learned a lot and fixed a lot of other things that were wrong with my manuscript that I may not have otherwise noticed.

Finally, I came across an online course on saving your manuscript. Oooh, a $32 solution! Plus a very valid excuse to check my email several times a day? Golden.

The instructor recommends you take your printed-out ms and tag it with sticky notes–things that pop out as not working for you. (By the way, printing out my ms is another thing I procrastinate on. I’m cheap, what can I say?) As you flip through, you’re to keep the idea in mind that any action begets a reaction which leads to a decision. That decision leads to a new action, reaction and decision. It’s so logical and obvious that I’m shocked that I didn’t come across the idea sooner. A few days before this lesson, I had written out each scene (one or two words about each scene) with an arrow to the next scene. Looking at this I could see some things were not flowing the way I wanted them to. But still, what could I do? Then I was provided with the brilliant action/reaction/decision tool. Using this flowchart thingy, I took each scene and wrote it on a coloured stick note along with whether it was an action/reaction/decision.

Naturally, some scenes were simply an action and some had an action and a reaction with the following scene holding the decision. Sometimes, I had a scene that had none of the above. Just a brilliant baby that I was unable to slaughter in edits. But now I can see what pesky scenes are interrupting my flow and the story’s focus. Those scenes I noted on yellow stickies. The romance/home life plot is pink. The work life plot is green.

I stuck all those stickies on my wall. Damn things keep falling off though–even after getting heated by the blow dryer to see if it would make the adhesive more sticky (it doesn’t appear to). Anyway, when they aren’t fluttering to the floor and amusing my cats, they give me a chance to step back and see where I have the different plots bunched up, where things slow down and where I have to do some edits.

My next job is to figure out how many pages each scene is and write it on my sticky notes. When I do that, I think I will be able to address pacing. How? Well, I will have my action/reaction/decision listed there and depending on how important a turning point it is–or not–I will be able to determine if the length of the scene is reflective of what is happening action/reaction/decision wise. Yes! More purposeful edits lined up for the future.

I think I can do this. Oh heck, I know I can. And I’m excited because…oh hell…this is going to cost me a lot of mochas as motivation, isn’t it?

Freaky Moment

So I am reading someone’s chapters rewrite. And I’m making notes on their characterization, thinking about their plot and all that good stuff.

Meanwhile, my daughter, who is unable to read or write yet (she can print letters), is on the kitchen counter making me a note. She comes over when she is done and hands me a note.

The note says, “plot”.

Story Arcs

I’ve been working on the progression in one of my stories and it has been an interesting adventure. It is serving to be much harder to fix than a couple of overused adjectives. Anyway, I created story arcs for the several different plot lines I have going on and lo and behold, the tip of the old arc is not where I thought it was for one of the story lines. Who knew that the big event of the office break-in would be a mere turning point for the main character and not the climax? I didn’t. Heck, I didn’t even really think about it. It was an interesting surprise!