Re: 'mode' for a scene?

R. L. wrote:

[Nicky]

> >I am quite intrigued by your approach it
> >is different from mine.
>
> From what I've seen posted here* about your 'circular diagram' and planning
> peaks and valleys of tension, I'm not sure our basic working approaches are
> so very different. I also start with emotion and a feeling-shape for the
> whole book, and look for events to fit inside that shape/feeling.
>
> What seems very different is our ways of recording this, and of posting
> about it, and the kind of input we want from others here.

> Didn't you speak of some story of yours that was getting an 'hourglass'
> shape? Or plotlines that 'cross'? That's my sort of approach too. (I think
> I posted about this at the time.) Instead of using paper, I make some
> sketches on paper but mostly make my 'shapes' of the plot using a flowchart
> program or Word's View/Outline and color-coding various blocks. Your idea
> about connecting different events with lines running through the circle
> sounds like a good way to represent what some people here call 'plot arcs'.
> This sort of right-brain, kinesthetic, kinesthesiac, pictorial, color,
> feeling approach is what I really use at home.

I see a fundamental difference in that Nicky seems to use 'unconscious
competence' while you try to make it a conscious process. And I'm not
sure whether that _can_ work.


> However when I have a problem and want to ask for input, I don't want to
> post all my color shape images and such on a website and send people there.
> They probably wouldn't make much sense of it anyway, it would be too much
> to ask. And my descriptions about my process would be all mixed metaphrors,
> colors, textures, flavors....

You need to find a process that works for you. Feelings and emotions and
vague ideas about the shape of stories tend to suffer much in
translation; particularly if you're having several layers of the same -
your thoughts, your own shorthand about them, the way in which you write
about them, the way someone else reads them, the way *they* would
describe their own writing processes - I'm sorry, I think there are too
many levels of abstraction involved to make much sense.


> For me such descriptions of process are too individual for getting into
> detailed questions here.

But I, frankly, cannot always work out from the meta-discussions just,
exactly, what it is you want to gain from them. Let alone help you with
your understanding of what you want to know.


> I can't fully understand an image or metaphor
> that is useful to someone else, and might damage it if I tried to dig into
> its details. (My personal associations with clock and 'coming full circle'
> are not pleasant ones.)


But do you have your own? It appears to me that you're trying to soak up
as much as you possibly can without having the foundations of your own
craft as a frame of reference.

And the only way to find out what works and what doesn't for you, and to
gain a better understand will be to write. To write, in blunter terms,
shitty first drafts. Acquire a frame of reference. *Read*. And don't
just read the same four or five things you've been quoting here, which
are often *not* the best examples of the craft, but read *lots of good
books*. Get a feeling for what is possible. Then take a basic book on
writing, or a basic list of skills, and ask yourself 'can I explain this
in simple terms'? (Which is, to my mind, the best way of figuring out
whether I've understood something.)

I thimk writing, _because it is so complex a task_ is one of the things
best learned in stages. Completing stories that have beginnings,
middles, ends, characters not made entirely out of cardboard and
interesting backgrounds might seem as if it's not good enough, but
that's a feeling writers need to get over. After all, first paintings
are rarely breakout pieces. Why should novels be?

A certain basic understanding before you start is a fine thing. Too much
knowledge, too much booklearning can leave you paralized, and that seems
to be one of your problems - you're always coming back saying 'but I
don't yet fully understand-' - so what? Planning writing and writing are
two different beasts, and it might be that your real problems aren't
where you think they are, but unless you put pen to paper, you won't
know.

You've often talked about wanting to write a novel. What's stopping you?


> Also, the things I've found most helpful, come from *terms* that others
> here have used. Many from Patricia. Some from a reference here to Bickham.
> There's much to dislike in him and to disagree with, but at least he
> supplies some memorable terms and gives many simple examples of those
> terms.

What you then do is to try and refer _everything_ back to them, rather
than seeing them as an enhancement or a springboard.


Catja


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