Fleshing Out the Skeleton

Last week was a decent week of writing. I got the first draft done on my work in progress. Although, in reality, it is more of a skeleton than a true first draft. Somehow, I reached ‘the end’ at 30,000 words when usually my first draft ends up at around 110,000 words and I have to go back and tighten like crazy. However, this story has demanded to be written in a different way, with only the bones showing up to be put down in the first draft. Therefore, I must now go back and flesh it all out. I need to add tendons, then layer in some muscle. Then fat and flesh as well as a few veins. I think a lot of the story’s arteries are already in there, even though I only have a skeleton!

What I’m going to be doing in my next draft is layering in character motivations, making connections between my characters as well as ensuring they all have their own little plot arcs and conflicts. (Just the major guys get plot arcs though.)

Here are some questions I will be asking myself as I plan out the next attack:

* What does this character want? What stands in their way? What helps them?

* How does this character’s desires get in the way or help other characters with what they want?

* What kind of relationship between character X and character Y will result in the most interesting events, the most conflict, or the most conflict resolution? i.e. How will these secondary characters cause things to happen in the story?

* How can minor characters assist in developing plot points to help further the story question? How can these character’s help reveal the story’s theme or emotional message?

I’ve got some big questions for the next round of story layering and some major brainstorming to do. Now if I can just find a few hours of head space, I’ll be set.

Do you need quiet time to brainstorm? Or are interruptions okay?

Character Motivations

Hmmmm…I’ve noticed that my protagonist’s best friends tend to be a bit…well snippy. And a bit mean. I wonder what that says about me? Maybe it is some anger I have towards an old friend or something–or the fact that I find many women to have a snippy edge to them–or the fact that I am trying to add an interesting edge to my character dynamics.

Character foils? Maybe? Maybe not.

I think I need to work more on my character motivations. They have them, they are spurring them on, but they aren’t all that obvious to the reader. Which is fine in some regards, I don’t want to be obvious and boring. At the same time, I don’t want it to be so challenging or disjointed that the reader tosses down my work in frustration.

For example, in ‘The 15 Date Rule’, I am trying to illustrate that a lot of women find my main character, who is smart and beautiful, intimidating. But how do you show that? Well, through their actions, which are not going to be favourable. But how do you show that it is intimidation or jealousy that is making them act that way? A little trickier–unless you make them really mean and again, obvious.

So, I suppose this is my puzzle of the week. A tricky, tricky puzzle seeing as I figure these things out in real life based on a feeling I get from a person rather than the words that they speak.