Re: I can't end this interminable relationship ...

On Feb 7, 9:52 pm, Rik Roots <r...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Nicky wrote:
On Feb 6, 11:17 pm, Rik Roots <r...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've got a 6 page chapter-by-chapter summary, together with half a page
of things still to be done, possible directions, etc. Would anybody be
willing to have a quick look at it and offer suggestions?

I ask for too much help already ...

I can't get my head round six pages. Have you tried diagrams?
My method is outlined in the Summer 2007 edition of this
http://www.armadillomagazine.com/( Its a post I made to another group
and isn't really an article at all)
and my plotting strategy is on my websitehttp://www.nmbrowne.com/
I'd explain but regulars are bored rigid by it already. It doesn't
always work even for me, but it sometimes does.

I actually looked at your website around this time last year as I was
getting myself ready to start on my learning curve. Unfortunately, those
plans got hijacked by the characters ...

Ah apologies for repetitive and unhelpful advice.

snip random stuff which I've never actually tried...
Pretty much done all of this. Every writing session starts out with a
"what would happen if ..." brainstorm before I give up and let the
characters write the words themselves.

I don't usually do that before each session. I think I just gaze into
space. Sometimes I paint my nails.

What story does your book most resemble - take that pattern and invert
it.
 What if the main characters were being manipulated by something/
someone else,
Introduce a frame story, maybe someone has a secret and is
misrepresenting themselves, maybe everybody is.
Maybe the villain is the hero ( or his father)

All the main characters have their petty agendas impacting on each
other. I've got one last 'secret' I could pull out of the bag, but it
feels too contrived for me to resort to it just yet.

Yeah I think twisty stuff tends to feel contrived but some readers do
like that. In spite of my planning I quite often don't know exactly
how the end is going to turn out - mainly because my plan is curiously
low on useful detail. Usually I find that I've laid down everything in
such a way that the course I choose seems to have been preplanned and
inevitable. I rarely have to backfill. You may find that when you get
it - it seems blindingly obvious - or not as the case may be : )

Pick out the main plot points and join the dots - try joining them
differently.
Find the turning points when other things might have happened but
didn't, mess with what you have until something falls out of your
unconscious...

Good ideas for revising the story, but I haven't finished the first
draft yet.
I've never done this either but I thought it might suggest a place to
go - if you've taken a wrong turn.

Play. Sometimes if it all gets tight and serious its easy to freeze up
- come up with twenty endings at random including crazy elements that
don't fit.
Come up with five more that follow the conventions of another genre -
murder mystery, police procedural, thriller, romance, comedy of
manners - what might happen if you were writing one of those books?
Free up your thinking and if nothing works leave it, forbid yourself
to work on it for a month and write something  else.

This is, I think, the sort of advice I'm after at this stage. I'll give
it a go.
Let me know what works I'm a bit stuck myself at the moment. I have
nothing on my plan that is the remotest use to me. I am at around 58k
of 80 and about where I should have been plotwise at the 40k mark.

What I'm probably going to do is read it through red pen in hand, do
some one line chapter summaries and assess how bad it is. Like you,
I've had too many breaks in the writing of it and lost impetus. I
should have written it in the white heat of my first enthusiasm and I
can't now remember why I didn't - I was probably hanging around to see
if my synopsis was accepted - yes, I think that was it. Bloody
synopsis is pretty useless as I deliberately left myself a lot of
wriggle room.
One line chapter synopses sort of help because if nothing much
happens I know I probably need to come up with something to plug the
gap and that may feed into a new story thread. My chapters are short
and usually deal only with one scene which makes it easy. The plot is
probably too simple so I will try to make some connections with some
of the earlier material to try to break down the linearity of the
current plot.
This is an 'and then, and then' kind of story so it's Ok that its
linear, but I'm worried it doesn't really develop properly.

Eg for connections there is a lost macguffin in the second chapter
which I could find again.( That would screw up the plot royally so I
don't think I have enough words to play with)
There is a disaffected baddy I didn't kill off; an honourable enemy
who might yet do something interesting; a former enemy who is always a
bit of a wild card and a new threat whom I had temporarily forgotten
about. I know I have to get to the set piece battle however and most
of my ideas are not getting me there. I think I probably do need to
deliver a proper battle scene for this book, but I don't much like
writing them.( Hence even my characters are procrastinating) I think
there's plenty to work with now I stop and think about it, I just need
to bring some drive and direction back into the narrative, working in
some stray threads from further back in the book ( maybe that's upbook
as its on screen? ) might just do it. You could try that too if you
haven't already.

Nicky
.

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