Category: writing

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Snake-Up writing

Snake-Up

Normally when I write something*, I have the Main Character already fleshed out in my head. I can hear their voice and have a pretty decent idea of how they are going to react to a situation. I’m not yet in love with him or her, but I’m in serious like with them. I draw their name in little hearts on the inside of my Trapper Keeper and imagine all the fun interactions they are going to have with other pretend people yet to be created. 

**
“Of course I like Amy. Not just like, but like like!!” 

The problem is, I used to be a pantser, and while the character was pretty well developed, the plot wasn’t. I can’t count the number of times I wrote a scene and then stared at the computer going, “Well, poop.” There are literally dozens of sections in my WIPs where the words “SOMETHING NEEDS TO HAPPEN HERE” or “HOW THE HECK DOES THE MC FIND ANSWERS?!” appear.

And yes, they are in caps.

But hey, at least the MC is singing bright and clear with a unique voice, right?

Fast forward to a current WIP and the exact opposite is the case. Instead of pantsing this one, I actually sat down, drew a map, and gave the story clear, defined milestones. It was a first and, to be honest, has made the process of putting-words-to-digital-paper waaaaaaaaaaaay easier. But while the plot is clipping along, the MC feels a bit…bland. Like cold oatmeal eaten in a room with beige wall paper on a gray, Saturday afternoon.***

That said, I’m not too worried because that’s the miracle of edits and revisions. Sure, at the moment my MC might be more Barney Fife:

****
Fear the mighty deputy. FEAR HIM! 

and less Snake:

*****
So how’d he get his nickna…ooooohhhh…..

…but that’s okay. This go-around, my primary goal is to focus on the plot in order to build the foundation of the house. Once that’s complete, then I’ll go back and paint the walls, add some nice accent pieces, and generally tweak all the parts needed to make the story a lovely little home. I figure I can always “Snake-Up”****** the MC once he and I feel better about the world he’s operating in.

How about you all? Do you find that you start with a Main Character and then write the story around them or do you have the world/plot fleshed out and build the MC into it?

*and by this I mean a story, not a tweet, blog post, diary entry, prophecy, treaty, concerto, blood oath, etc.

**image courtesy of this site

***I know, I know. I’ve used this before. My Rolodex of similies is limited. 

****image courtesy of here

*****image courtesy of this place

******COINED!

Categories
Cleaning the Basement writing

Cleaning the Basement

This past weekend, CobraMrsFit and I began the long, agonizing journey of cleaning the basement at my folks place. This was due in part to needing a place to put the lumber that’s going to become hardwood floors, but it was also because I’ve been an adult longer than I was ever a kid and yet I still have crap in my parent’s basement.*

And crap is the only word that can describe it.

I’ll spare you the gory details, but there were a few notable items among the mounds and mounds of garbage.

1) Folders from Freshman year of college, complete with notes. You can even see where I dozed off. “Let’s see, if two trains left at…zzzzzzz…..”

2) A cassette player still in its packaging. That’ll come in real handy when I make a mix tape for CobraMrsFit.

3) A box of my favorite books I thought long-gone.

4) A box with all my cookbooks, also thought lost to the ravages of time/moving a lot in the previous career.

5) Approximately 47 old movie ticket stubs.

6) A set of golf clubs my grandfather gave me when I was 8. Steel shafts and wooden heads.

7) 5 rocks (for the geologists in the crowd: 3 granite, one marble, and one purple geode).

8) An old journal with only one entry which begins, “I have decided that I will actually keep up with a journal this time.”

9) My very first attempt at writing a novel. It is, in a word, atrocious. However, it’s now in a folder with the other WIPs to remind me of where I started and that with enough effort, there are places I can go.

10) My all-time favorite: A love letter to CobraMrsFit that I never sent because 13-years-ago me completely chickened out. And yes, I finally gave it to her.

The list goes on an on. Suffice to say, I plan to clean more than once a decade from now on, but it was a wonderful (if not disgustingly dirty) trip down memory lane.

How about you all? Any tales of Stuff You Found?

*okay, quick note about this so you all don’t think me a complete slacker: I moved back to the DC area exactly 7 minutes after the housing bubble collapsed and wound up at the folks place for a while because 1) every place I tried to buy got snatched up by investors with cash and B) the banks weren’t lending money. Because of the time-lapse, all three bedrooms of my old house showed up before I could find a place. The boxes went into the basement and have been there ever since. The moral of the story: gut your place before you move!

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