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Post by Siana Blackwood on May 26, 2015 3:12:42 GMT
It's that time again - trying to come up with Steve activities for the coming month and thinking about how Camp is coming up and various other things like that. Then thinking... yeah, but you guys probably all have a pretty good idea what you're doing in the near future and there's no point planning activities that would take you away from what you want to do.
Therefore, questions.
1. What are your plans for June?
2. What are your plans for July and beyond? If you're doing Camp NaNo or you're on the fence about it, mention it here.
3. Any challenges/activities you'd really like to see on Steve?
Some things to think about while you're making plans:
* SSSS II * Our probably-upcoming 'safe space' for posting complete works of original fiction * Camp NaNo * Any external challenges you might be considering
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on May 26, 2015 23:50:50 GMT
1. What are your plans for June? - Reading Challenge - SSSS:Nibble - Something to take DPBs to the next level. As a pantser I have difficulty outlining, but without a plan my writing ends up a mess. The iterative daily discrete deliverable approach seems to work for DPBs and NaNo, but I need something in between ideas and writing to organize the ideas into something like an outline. Something for me to think about.
2. What are your plans for July and beyond? If you're doing Camp NaNo or you're on the fence about it, mention it here. - Probably I'm doing Camp, most likely on The Star Dragon. - The outlining daily challenge to outline TSD and get of ready to write. I still done know what the challenge is.
3. Any challenges/activities you'd really like to see on Steve? Daily outlining challenge to go after DPBs but before writing.
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Post by Siana Blackwood on May 27, 2015 0:58:45 GMT
1. What are your plans for June?* Continue Necrobabies, my current SSSS project. * Finish Sparkling Mistletoe. * Do something to Necrohaven. I'm not really sure what, but I need to get enough of it in some kind of order that I'll feel like writing the thing in sequence is actually possible. Some kind of activity involving organising existing material, coming up with a high-level description of the story and setting up a system where I can fill in the gaps in the story as I write. * Possibly that SSSS: Nibbles. I think I even have an idea for it. 2. What are your plans for July and beyond? If you're doing Camp NaNo or you're on the fence about it, mention it here.On the fence about Camp. I'm never sure if it's worth it. Anyway... * Start writing Necrohaven as a serial/polished first draft/I don't know what it really is on Steve. I have no idea how well this is going to work or how long it might take, but I have a vague idea that somewhere around 1.5-2k per week would be reasonable. * Start rewriting Dispersion. This assumes I can finish Sparkling Mistletoe in June - Dispersion starts when Sparkling Mistletoe ends, whenever that is. At this point I'd like to have a complete second draft of Dispersion by the end of 2015. * Various ongoing bits and pieces about smaller projects - short stories, expanding/combining plot bunnies etc. 3. Any challenges/activities you'd really like to see on Steve?The big thing on my list that I have no idea how to do is organise Necrohaven, so I want to come up with an activity about organising an incomplete chaos draft into something that can be written/rewritten in sequence. That and some kind of incentive to not stab and burn Dispersion within the first 5k. I've done that too many times already. I don't know how to make these things into challenges, though . They seem more like my specific problems rather than something we're all facing and can attack with the same underlying principle. Well... I mean, BICFOK is a principle and 'make a list of stuff and go through one task at a time' is a principle, but BICFOK only works when there's a specific product to come out at the end e.g. writing a draft during NaNo, and 'make a list' is usually a pretty boring challenge.
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on May 27, 2015 4:03:53 GMT
The big thing on my list that I have no idea how to do is organise Necrohaven, so I want to come up with an activity about organising an incomplete chaos draft into something that can be written/rewritten in sequence. That and some kind of incentive to not stab and burn Dispersion within the first 5k. I've done that too many times already. I don't know how to make these things into challenges, though . They seem more like my specific problems rather than something we're all facing and can attack with the same underlying principle. Well... I mean, BICFOK is a principle and 'make a list of stuff and go through one task at a time' is a principle, but BICFOK only works when there's a specific product to come out at the end e.g. writing a draft during NaNo, and 'make a list' is usually a pretty boring challenge. It's not just you. This is my problem too. I could use a chaos draft challenge. I talked about TSD, but I have a bunch of Dark Arcana and one Darkspace chaos drafts which need organizing. I need to know where my gaps are, how to fill them in, and how to organize them so I can rewrite them in a linear manner during a wrimo. If I could have that (no idea how to do it), then I wouldn't need that outlining challenge (not that I know how I'd do that either). Outlining would help to avoid the creation of chaos drafts in the forest place, but of I could even bring myself to do that it would be for newer works. If I can salvage what I have already though, all the better. BICFOK for me wouldn't work here because it is what produced the mess in the first place. What's the use of writing more and more words when I can't figure out how to use them? So, more: -Outlining challenge for pantsers (so I'm not going in blind on the chaos draft, thus hopefully making it less chaotic) -Chaos Draft organization challenge for pantsers (so I can actually move on to wr ite a real first draft, not a whole new BICFOK-fueled chaos draft).
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Post by Siana Blackwood on May 27, 2015 5:25:37 GMT
Pre-challenge challenge: design a methodology for creating an outline and linear draft from an existing chaos draft?
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Jun 1, 2015 18:04:23 GMT
In trying to organize a chaos draft, what have you already tried that didn't work?
For me, it was reading through and physically trying to put what I had in order.
This question is open to anyone who has tried this or has this problem.
Second, what kind of elements are usually present in your chaos draft which need to be organized?
For me, it's character arc ideas mixed in with random scenes, world details, and idea rants.
Why am I asking? Because my brain is boiling, oh yes precious it is, but not telling, no we won't! It's a SECRET precious! We wants it pretty before we tells Steve, precious!
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Post by Siana Blackwood on Jun 1, 2015 22:36:39 GMT
I'm just answering these for one particular set of stories - the 'Necrochaos' stuff. That's probably part of my problem, because I usually write linear drafts with only occasional jumps into randomness. Anyway, answers. In trying to organize a chaos draft, what have you already tried that didn't work? Treating the chaos draft as complete and trying to write a linear draft. (Roughly) linear works best for me most of the time, but just for this one concept it causes instant paralysis. Dragging the scenes into approximate chronological order. This should work, but I still haven't figured out an easy way of having a high-level overview. It's a software problem - I don't have anything that combines a good writing environment with a good organising/outlining environment. Writing up a high-level summary and trying to match existing scenes to summary paragraphs. That probably should work, but it seems to be more of a method for spawning new random scenes than getting any kind of grip on the story as a whole. Multiple AUs are a pretty big thing. Following on from that, inconsistencies created by different characters filling exactly the same role in the story. Isolated events that seem to be either setup or conclusion to a huge event I have absolutely no idea about. There are all these massive gaps where I sort of know what happens, but never seem to be able to write anything to fit. It's like I have the foreshadowing and the aftermath, but it's impossible to see the actual thing. A weird, hard-to-explain thing about if the character exists in plot A, I'd destroy any possibility of writing plot B. I don't even know if it's true. Maybe if I managed to sit down and write the whole story I'd find that it really all fits in together somehow.
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Jun 1, 2015 23:27:51 GMT
Yeah, sounds like what happens to ALL my stories.
I've tried physically dragging things into order, and it never works. The thing I've found about pantsers (linear or not) is that they do not work with top-down approaches, because it's small picture & details first. A pantsed draft is the lowest level of detail there is, and I realized recently that trying to jump from a chaos draft to a high level synopsis is quite a quantum leap. (I'm guessing that's why our synopsis challenges failed.) Therefore, we need to take all those outlining processes the internet shoves down our throats and turn them upside down/backwards. That is, instead of going from chaos to high level, we should just aim for the next level up. In outlining terms, the lowest level scenes to just loose chapter structure or something with gaps, without worrying yet about how they're connected.
I was thinking for the chaos-to-eternity challenge (yes I just named it after a metal album), it could start with just grouping scenes that go together, and then knitting together the individual bits, without worrying about forcing it into a big picture quite yet. With each iteration, the chunks revealed small gaps that could be bridged with a mix of writing and cutting/editing. Two characters filling the same role would go into the same group. It wouldn't involve getting rid of any plots, options, or arcs, at least not before that decision falls into place naturally anyway. Then go back and do it again. As the process keeps going, the plot options kind of clarify themselves, and conflicting characters start to either take on different roles or they combine.
It's what ultimately ended up working out for me in writing short stories, so I figured it might work with novels. I started out with 20 random bits, then I did a frenzy of cutting and rearranging to get it to 10, then got it to 5, then 3, and so on. Since there's so much more text though, rather than a direct copy/paste, the text (or summaries) would have to be dumped into some text files or lines in a spreadsheet first. The difference is that rather than trying to force an outline upon it, it would just be populating the lowest level of an outline (or story bible for the infodumps) with what's already there. It's okay for the outline to be partial, since after all, the draft is partial.
As for software, there isn't really a good option out there for both writing AND organization. You could always keep these chunks in a strictly labeled folder hierarchy, and then in a spreadsheet associate an easily remembered code to each chunk so you know where to find it. A wiki would also work. Like the way you set up your SLOS, you could create a page for each scene or chunk, and then dump them into folders or groups.
I'll be doing something along these lines this month too, with Evernote, but instead of plot bunnies, it'll be scenes and chunks. I'm not sure yet if I'll have the actual text in there, but I'll certainly have 'notecard' type summaries. I know Scrivener has this feature, but I've never been able to make it work for me. It enforces an order, where at the moment there is none.
I think I've hopelessly garbled this explanation. Does this make any kind of sense? (I might even need to revisit this and clarify.)
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Post by Siana Blackwood on Jun 2, 2015 0:45:35 GMT
So I need to think of it as more like a 'Scary List of Scenes' rather than an outline? Also I probably need to assume compiling it all into one place is going to take a comparable length of time rather than being something I can throw together in a few days?
And... time for the 'write it as a serial on Steve' idea to be consigned to oblivion, or at least significantly delayed. It relies on me being able to write a linear draft and getting from here to there is going to take a lot longer than just the 30 days of June.
If I could figure out how to keep track of it all, I think I'd prefer chaos drafting to linear drafting. I'm not so good at holding the whole story in my head as I used to be, but I still suck at creating an outline from scratch.
I have this weird feeling there's a solution to my Dispersion problem lurking in here somewhere. It might be arranged in sequence, but it still feels like a chaos draft.
Right. 'SLOS II: From Chaos To Eternity' coming soon?
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Jun 2, 2015 1:58:55 GMT
So I need to think of it as more like a 'Scary List of Scenes' rather than an outline? Also I probably need to assume compiling it all into one place is going to take a comparable length of time rather than being something I can throw together in a few days? Yeah, 'Scary List of Scenes' sounds about right. Yeah, doing this does take a while. I have no idea what would be more efficient. It's just what has worked in the past for me. YMMV...this is the first time I'm legit trying it out on a novel-length chaos draft, and I might end up putting my foot in it at the end. XD And... time for the 'write it as a serial on Steve' idea to be consigned to oblivion, or at least significantly delayed. It relies on me being able to write a linear draft and getting from here to there is going to take a lot longer than just the 30 days of June. Yeah, that's kind of why my SSSS story failed. I was trying to write my chaos draft, my first draft, and my second draft at the same time. There are times when adding pressure helps, but I guess I was deluding myself that I could quickly produce a complete linear draft that actually makes sense when it takes me 30 days alone just to generate that much random text. That said, you could always write a serial draft after you've got most of your chunks in order. Then it would be pretty easy to extract a mostly complete outline. If I could figure out how to keep track of it all, I think I'd prefer chaos drafting to linear drafting. I'm not so good at holding the whole story in my head as I used to be, but I still suck at creating an outline from scratch. I'm just impressed that you could hold it all in your head in the first place. I never could do that, which is why I write chaos drafts in the first place. I have no idea how to outline unless it's AFTER I've written the entire thing. Does anybody know this arcane magic? 'SLOS II: From Chaos To Eternity' coming soon? SOON.
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Post by monica4567 on Jun 5, 2015 19:43:00 GMT
Hello there! I'm just getting back online after a couple weeks on vacation and almost entirely disconnected. And it's June! How did that happen? So, new month, new challenge? Or something...
Therefore, answers:
1. What are your plans for June? I'd like to finish the first draft of my novel! I've been inching towards the finish line, so I don't know if it's too much to try to finish it this month. But we can hope, right?
2. What are your plans for July and beyond? If you're doing Camp NaNo or you're on the fence about it, mention it here.
I was thinking of spending July (assuming I finish my draft) of planning out the sequel to this novel, to give my first draft a rest. But now that I think about it, isn't Camp Nano word count based? If that's the case, I'd just do a challenge here, so I can focus on outlining the sequel.
3. Any challenges/activities you'd really like to see on Steve? I really like that we can set our own challenges. This is just what I need. Custom goal, but a way to feel accountable (to all of you!). I don't really need anything else.
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