Children are natural storytellers. They tell us about their day, their imaginary friends. They explore what-ifs. They love the art of the story.
I remember when I was little, I had these cards that had sentence bits on them. Some of the cards contained nouns, some verbs. I used to love shuffling them and reading a new story. Sometimes, I’d even string together my own story. By the time I’d left elementary school, I was writing down my own stories, and to this day I still have a notebook in my bag dedicated to writing whenever I feel inspiration strike.
It’s important to encourage the development of storytelling in children because the basic building blocks of just about any story are the foundation of writing in general. It grounds the student in the beginning-middle-end formula that can elude people. They learn to weave a point in to their stories. They develop characters. They create and resolve problems.
Erika Dreifus has a great method for developing storytelling with her niece that I think is just wonderful! Her niece tells her a story, and Erika writes it into a special notebook. I’m sure as time goes on, this toddler will fill many such notebooks, and will be able to watch her storytelling develop as she learns and grows.
Perhaps more children should be encouraged to keep stories in a special notebook, too.
Posted by Rebecca as Resources at 7:51 AM EDT
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Up until the beginning of this year, I used to use this great writing software called RoughDraft. I loved it! I could keep multiple files in tabs (great for checking cohesion between chapters), and it had a built-in notepad.
Unfortunately, when my computer was repaired after blowing a resistor in late December, I went to download RoughDraft, and found it gone. I was heart-broken. RoughDraft has seen me through so many projects!
For now, I’ve slapped together a temporary, if inelegant solution. My old notepad files were saved as straight txt files, so I open them in Notepad and resize to serve as a type of sidebar. Then I open the piece I’m working on in Wordpad and resize it to fit in the open space left by Notepad.
I still have the piece I’m working on and a notepad together, but I really miss my tabs. It’s a shame I can’t find a replacement for this wonderful bit of software, but I’m muddling through!
Posted by Rebecca as Resources at 8:12 AM EDT
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I’ve started keeping a file of lines I remove from my stories. The idea is that I can add them back in if I find that I really can use them, but for the novel I’m currently editing, it’s been more of a trend analysis. I’m amazed at how much my characters laughed, giggled, or sighed over the first third of this novel!
In my files for the two novels I’ve been editing over the past two months, though, I’ve found some lines that killed me to remove. I was reading over the notes file for A Night in the Lonesome November over the weekend, and amidst all the removed laughter and sighs, there are some lines that didn’t work in this story, but would make great jumping-off points for other stories.
I’m now thinking about adding a section in EverNote for lines discarded from all of my stories that would be viable writing prompts or first lines somewhere else. Then when I need a little inspiration, or I just want to write something, I can go to that section and pick a line that jumps out of me!
How about you? Do you have any lines on your cutting room floor that would be perfect somewhere else?
Posted by Ceara as Writing Prompts at 8:08 AM EDT
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I’m slowly winding my way through my editing queue and picking up the odd outside editing job here and there. The one thing I think I spend most of my time correcting is punctuation. Somehow, it’s either not being taught well in schools these days, or it’s being glossed over, causing actual learning to be prohibited.
It’s a shame either way.
Punctuation came about as a means of telling actors how to interpret lines. There were only three marks, and they denoted inflections and pauses. Today, we have a lot more than three punctuation marks, and they are there to help simplify complicated sentences. They’re fairly helpful when used properly, and can lead to immense confusion when abused.
Fortunately, there are guides to help with the most common punctuation situations, including this quick reference that I plan to keep handy for the next client who tells me they’d love to sort of understand the point of the comma.
Posted by Ceara as Resources at 7:43 AM EDT
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I broke down last week and finally bought Writing for Comics with Peter David. I loved Peter David’s work as a teenager, and every time I’ve thumbed through the book in the bookstore, I’ve found something very useful, something that’s made me think. The purchase was very overdue.
What ended up being the final straw was thumbing through and finding a section that suggested taking a myth or fairy tale and shaking it up a bit. Of course, this is a fairly common recommendation, and I’m planning to create templates for as many fairy tales as I can think of (thank goodness for my upbringing!). What ended up making that afternoon different was that I was looking for a starting point to play with interactive fiction. (I’m not using my original plan because it just has too many flaws that would be nightmarish to straighten out.) reading that page just triggered something in me. I took the book into the cafe, bought it and a hot cocoa, and sat down and started fleshing out some general ideas.
It was that trigger that caused the book to join my library.
A couple of days later, I was reading Shojo Beat, which features a series on creating manga co-written by a manga-ka I’m somewhat partial to. This month’s installment focuses on story plots, and talked about taking an old familiar story and twisting it into something else.
In my notebook right behind my notes from the day in the cafe are some notes I wrote while waiting for a movie. I took the old (mostly forgotten) fairy tale “Rose Red and Snow White” and started playing the What-If game. It’s a brief outline, full of symbols you have to follow to get through everything, but it’s a start. At the very least, it’s got my brain working in what I hope is the right direction.
Posted by Rebecca as Writing Prompts, Interactive Fiction at 7:32 AM EDT
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I very nearly wrote that back to an author I was doing some editing for over the weekend.
She’s actually a great writer, a real joy to work with. Normally, her stories are fairly tight and just need some light content, character, or grammar work. She’s starting to push her boundaries as a writer, though, and this time it showed. It’s okay, because I think working through this is going to make her even better.
I first ran across the term “resist the urge to explain” (RUE) in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, one of my favorite editing books. I’ve almost abused the term ever since. As it might imply, RUE is a reminder to not overexplain yourself. If you state something, don’t restate it. If you’re trying to convey that your character is frustrated or confused, show us that through the character’s words and actions. Don’t overtask poor little adverbs. If you feel the need to use “very” or “almost”, there’s probably a better way you can explain something to us.
Simply, many readers aren’t stupid. They have imaginations that lead them to choose a book over the television from time to time. They’re looking for you to give them enough to frame a scene so that they can fill in the blanks with knowledge from their own life, to form a connection with your story. Readers want to exist in your story. Give them that chance. Don’t overexplain. Don’t describe to death. Give adverbs a break.
In the end, you’ll find it also makes your writing stronger because you are becoming so adept at describing without beating the reader about the head and shoulders.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 8:08 AM EDT
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Between work and being sick, I haven’t had much time to devote to studying or thinking about interactive fiction lately. Over the weekend, I gave EverNote a long-needed overhaul. The writing section is the only one complete at the moment, but I made sure to give interactive fiction its own category. So far, it’s only housing the notes on my experiments in writing the pseudo-educational book that got me started down the interactive path. There’s so much work that needs to be done on that one, mainly because I seem to be the queen of two-dimensional characters (or characters who are long-lost personality twins).
When I think of interactive fiction, I realize that I want to drive it entirely by the decisions. Even the storyline is an afterthought. I’m sure we can all agree that this is no way to write. Period. End of statement. So then I started trying to decide how I wanted to approach fixing that particular story. It will probably have to be story-driven, but my next project will hopefully shape up to be much larger.
A larger story should still have a compelling storyline that makes sense all the way through regardless of choices, but I think I want to work on both my character development issues and my growth in interactive fiction by making it a character-driven piece. The choices that come up will be based more on the character the reader has stepped into- their goals, their values. It’s going to be very challenging for me, but I think the end result will be well worth the frustration.
Can (or perhaps should) interactive fiction be driven by a character as opposed to the ever-changing story landscape? That’s going to be a driving force in my second project.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 7:59 AM EDT
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