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Post by Siana Blackwood on Mar 31, 2016 7:53:46 GMT
There's a new month about to land on our doorsteps, so it's probably time to start thinking about what Steve activities and events everyone wants. 1. As we all probably know, there's this big external event happening. 2. I had an idea about posting small planning/editing exercises. 3. The 'Short Story Feedback Challenge' is still active for the whole of April. 4. All the roleplaying!If none of this appeals to you, speak up! Ditto if you have a great idea for something else. Other vague ideas: * WriDays * Flash fic/short story challenges * Blogging, posting, tweeting etc. challenges * Discussions/workshops * Non-writing challenges e.g. drawing, craft, baking... * The traditional 'work towards completing a list of goals' * ...? Also, regardless of what challenges we run, what are your plans for April?
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Mar 31, 2016 13:37:56 GMT
I have an idea for a writing/planning exercise, which I mentioned in passing on my thread, except I probably won't limit the questions to that one set. Y'all can use any question set as a jumping off point. The idea is that those worksheets are supposed to be helpful, except I never can quite figure out how to use that raw material when all I can think of is 'list of scenes don't match 1:1...durr.' Basically, it's moving from just one layer of abstraction to another instead of amorphous brain burp to implementation. My idea is that it's good for queries and synopses...but for outlining you could do it again for each main character, and get a pretty good snapshot kernel of each leg of the motivation arc layer. I guess the short description is that this is one layer of a sort of emerging 3D snowflake that actually unifies all aspects of a story, like motive, rather than just 'figure out what happens at the high level, then low level.'
I should mention that this only works if you try to eliminate any static sentences or extraneous setup from your answers. I am using it to generate a practice query (thus, I HAVE to think about moving things forward with each sentence), which helps me keep in mind the depth of answer I need to shoot for when answering the character questions. For those questions, I had to tinker with the meaning so that they actually applied to my story, not force my characters to fit those molds. It helps a lot more in the end.
I'll put up a real thread...EVENTUALLY!
Non-writing...well...for myself, I'm gonna bake something this month. I haven't baked in FOREVER.
Drawing...uh...I'm gonna FINISH a drawing that I said I'd do in a month and still haven't finished ALL LAST YEAR.
Not sure how we can expand on these to suit most people, unless it's 'draw a character/cover.'
I have ongoing goals which I've...uh...if not neglected, at least only made minimal halting progress on.
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Post by Siana Blackwood on Apr 1, 2016 3:18:49 GMT
As far as April plans, I think I might as well plan to panic-flail and get nothing done for about the first week and a half, then get distracted by something I haven't worked on for ages. Real answer: I'll be working on one ongoing project, a couple of shorts and a few random distractions. I'm sort of playing around with a whole lot of different stuff about planning and editing, because I'd really like to have a reliable method of identifying the weak points in an existing draft. So, maybe focusing on that. I have no idea whether any of that could be turned into a shared activity unless it's something like 'write/edit a short story this month'. Maybe a Flash challenge? About the writing/planning exercise, is it better to have a new thread for each exercise, or a collection thread where regular new exercises are posted?
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Apr 1, 2016 4:23:15 GMT
Depends. Individual threads are good hen we're still developing exercises as we do them, and people get the chance to comment and ask questions. A collection is good if it's finished, polished, and posted, ready for people to pick and choose what they need.
I'm also [supposed to be] doing a whole load of writing, so I don't know if I'll have time to do anything extra myself.
Also, does anyone else other than Siana and myself want a particular kind of exercise? Otherwise, we either end up making something just for ourselves specific to what we're doing and only one person [self] does it, or we make something general that's the exact opposite and nobody does it. With exceptions.
My real goal is just...write a draft of something this month. Preferably several somethings.
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Post by monica4567 on Apr 5, 2016 16:39:40 GMT
Since I'm in editing phase, with some planning, that idea appeals to me. What sort of exercises did you have in mind?
I'm not participating in Camp since I'm in editing phase, which doesn't rack up word count much. But - BUT - I did finish the storyboard for my editor this morning, so I will be switching back to planning out my sequel(s) while she has that.
Don't know how I would consolidate these plans into concrete goals...
April is very busy for me - something every weekend! In fact, that's how the next three months look. Ugh. Gotta fit writing in there somehow.
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Post by Siana Blackwood on Apr 6, 2016 3:17:56 GMT
Some examples of the sort of exercises I have in mind: * This worksheet about condensing the plot into a Agent found. ( More details about it here). * That exercise I've completely lost where you imagine you're in a dark room and objects appear one by one. I don't know if that's exactly how it goes. * Exercises based on random pages from the infamous ' Novel Boot Camp'. * Maybe some of this novel-revision workshop as well. * Picture/word prompts from places like Tumblr, Pinterest etc. * A couple of query-related exercises from AW, if I can find the thread again. * Something like 'choose a thing to think about and then freewrite for x minutes'. * Character sheets, questionnaires and other types of worksheet. * Maybe flash fiction. * ... Mostly, it's supposed to be things that could be done in an hour or less, but that might highlight unexpected things about our work and get us thinking about the problems from different angles. I'd really like to set it up in a way that means everyone takes turns finding and posting things, because we're all in slightly different places and wrestling with our own problems. With different people choosing the exercises, one day we might have something about high-level motivations, another day something about dialogue with subtext, then a thing about economics, or story structure, or how to describe your MC's house... and so on. Being able to have more than one person choosing the exercises means we'd get a much better variety than if just one person is responsible. (Side note: one person could also post a multi-part exercise over multiple days if desired.) Basically, anything and everything provided you can get something out of it in less than an hour. Somewhere between 'we all take turns to post' and 'just post a thing whenever you feel like doing an exercise'. Is this at all the sort of thing either of you would be interested in?
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Post by monica4567 on Apr 6, 2016 15:12:19 GMT
Maybe I can somehow make my sequel planning into a goal...?
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Apr 7, 2016 0:41:03 GMT
Anything which you can divide into tasks that you can check off as Done counts as a goal. If you are not sure how to turn planning into a goal, you could always check it off as one entity. What do you need to get done in order to get It to a state where you can start writing? Do you know how you're planning, or are you still deciding what approach to use and how much to develop?
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Post by monica4567 on Apr 8, 2016 0:39:23 GMT
I'm plotting my sequel (preferably also some of Book 3). I have the first half sketched out, main turning points, etc. But the second half turned out to be not much more than "she looks for him," "they fight," etc. So trying to work out the second half is my goal. I think I can manage to break that down into separate tasks!
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Post by Siana Blackwood on Apr 18, 2016 3:33:03 GMT
New idea for a challenge. I've been thinking that I really need to learn more about plotting and planning, and that I'd like some kind of organised activity where I'm not just sitting in a lonely corner by myself. Therefore, designing challenges again. It would go something like this: 1. Each week, participants acquire things with plots: plot bunnies, WIPs, books, movies, TV series, short stories, games etc. Any combination is fine. -- Complete works you'd be analysing the existing plot. -- Bunnies/WIPs you'd probably be creating plot elements from scratch. 2. Find a 'quick and dirty' plot worksheet - e.g. 'outline your novel in 30 minutes', How to Put It Together Into One Neat Tweet and probably a bunch of others. Aim is to find sheets that give a good medium to high level view of the plot. 4. On weekends (or whatever time we're most likely to have people here to read and discuss) participants post their completed worksheets. Then we all have a look at them and discuss. -- Note: need an arrangement for avoiding spoilers. Bonus ideas: * Line it up so that sometimes we all read/watch the same thing, then fill out a worksheet for it. * Alternate weeks between analysing a published work and making up a rough plot for one of our own ideas. * Switch/share worksheets.
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Post by Jᴀy V. Aꜱᴛᴇʀ 💀🐍 on Apr 18, 2016 4:21:34 GMT
Veeeeeery innnnnnterestinnnnng.....
I'm doing the thing where I fill out worksheets for my own stuff anyway, but I've been quite irregular about it this past week due to time constraints, so added accountability would be terrifying nice.
I DO like the idea where we all fill out worksheets for the same thing and compare/discuss.
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