I know I made a few posts about participating in Camp NaNo, but I thought that for all of the followers who have been kicking around for a bit would like to know: 

I created a giant interactive cabin or sorts for those of you following along with Camp NaNo. It’s called campywriting. Please feel free to join if you are participating, or just want to activities and word wars/word sprints to get you motivated! 

I’ll try to start reblogging some of the activities to here, just in case ;) 

I hope all of you are ready for April, Camp NaNo or not. The days are getting longer and that means more time for writing!

So a week or so ago I wrote a comparison between one first person version and another. Now I shall attempt the 3rd person versus 1st person. 

 The original comes first, then the rewrite. 

Read more …

keyboardsmashwriters:

An inherent part of writing well is reading well. It’s not enough to simply take good books and read them and love them to pieces – we do lots of this already. Honing our skills as writers depends on how much we write and how well we read.

Writers grow by switching on the critical eye and analyzing why particular books worked. Book reviewers often summarize the important elements of the story and judge whether or not the story worked for them overall. Literary analysis is more dissecting the text looking for themes and meaning and reflections of the author’s troubled love life.

Writers, however, can benefit from looking into the seemingly simplest elements, the tiny threads that weave together and form the entire tapestry. We first learn to speak by listening to others and imitating vocal patterns. We learn to write by imitating what we read, and we learn to write better by reading more effectively.

Here are some things to look for as you read:

• What scenes of the story read faster than others? What parts make you turn the page without thinking and what parts give you the opportunity to stifle a yawn? Look for sources of tension or conflict, especially if either is steadily rising. Look for points in the story where characters move the plot, or the plot moves the characters.
• Sentence flow carries a narrative. Follow how the author played with sentence length in both slower and faster scenes. Study their techniques in speeding up or easing back on the speed of the narrative. When were longer sentences used? How about shorter? What effect did it generate?
• Look at the dialogue on its own, without any surrounding action or tags. Just the dialogue. Can the characters be told apart by certain nuances with speaking patterns, idiosyncrasies, or colloquialisms?
• How are the surroundings described? What sorts of things does the environment reveal without ever directly telling the reader? Clothes, food, building materials, and even character? How does this indirectly reveal the setting? The time and place?
• With a particular scene that carries a very thick, defining atmosphere or mood, look for colors and sensations. Look for word choices that carry a subliminal effect, the way the narrator or characters regard their surroundings. Even easily overlooked signs such as body language can make an impact.
• Study how the five senses are utilized, as well as how creatively the author approached using the senses. If the author used any clichés, then in what way? Were the clichés redone with a fresh take? Used in an unexpected manner?
• How did each chapter or scene or section carry the rising action? What moved the story from point A to B and how did the characters reflect this?
• If the story had multiple points of view, how did each point of view differ? What was the tone of the language used? How did the various points of view carry their weight in the story? How did those characters impact the plot?
• Why did you like a particular character? What made them appealing or rounder? What sorts of qualities gave them dimension? What scenes really elevated them from the page and turned them into real people?
• Why did you not like a particular character? What had you expected out of them? Where did they fail to deliver?
• What are the subplots? How are the subplots developing beneath the central plot? By the end of the story, how were the subplots solved?
• How did the author tie off the ending? Were all your questions answered? Did you throw the book at the wall or cradle it gently to your bosom? How did the beginning and the end tie together? What was your lasting impression of the book?

There are a ton of other questions to ask as writers read, but getting started is key. As the critical eye develops, asking these questions will become a natural part of reading and it becomes easier to see more and more of the threads that compromise the story.

The biggest problem I’ve had so far is that the critical eye doesn’t seem to have an off button!

#seriously though it doesn’t #i can’t read a book anymore just to love it #i have to dissect it

You mean “#my life as an english major”?

But these are all things that you’ll want to keep in your head as you start to read. Even more so if you’re reading from the genre you’re writing. Certain genres have a mood attached to them, and figuring out what sort of sentence structure/speech patterns/descriptors work will help you in your own writing

I’m going to make a third attempt at an old novel of mine. And while I’m still caught in the 3rd vs 1st person debate, I decided to rewrite (or more technically, rephrase) a few of the old scenes.

This is my test scene, rewritten in 1st person/present. The original comes first, then the rewrite. 

Read more …

This isn’t another “sales post” like my CharaHub one, don’t worry. 

For those of you who know of NaNo, Camp NaNo is essentially the same thing, except that you do it on a different month and it is less formal (no MLs, no forums, etc). Previous years had it in the summer—June or July, and August. This year, with the doing away of Script Frenzy, it has taken over the month of April (and will occur again in August). 

Writing 50k in a month is always a fun challenge, isn’t it? We’re all masochistic, that’s why we’re writers. 

Basically, I’m going to be informally competing. I’ve got two comics to script, fanfics to write, and a brain to put back together before tackling another full-length manuscript (Hello, August Camp NaNo!). I was curious if anyone would be interested in doing/reading an “informal cabin” type of deal. Originally, I was thinking of making another blog that people could join and post random comments and word counts to, only I don’t know how much use it would get (still, I’d love to be able to try this if there is enough interest!) The second idea would be to just use this blog and have daily talks and motivations and such through this blog alone and not a group blog thing. 

You can be participating in Camp NaNo officially or not—doesn’t matter. I’m just wondering if this is interesting to anybody?

what are you a salesperson

Yes.

So I actually finished my novel back on Thursday, for those of you who don’t follow me elsewhere! I got so wrapped up in things that I forgot to post about it here. I now present to you with the final counts: 

Word count: 133600
Page count: 228
Chapters: 30

I am now going to proceed to start edits. Nothing too big because I honestly don’t know what else to do at the moment. This evening and until February 28th I’ll be posting editing updates, mostly of hilarious typos I might find, how much passive voice I managed to erase, and how many sentences I get frustrated over. It’s going to be grand!