Day Three: Imagery, Character Profiles, and Revision

"Before you write, every single time, be securely in the moment you are writing. Know exactly where your character/self is in time and space," from The Practice of Creative Writing page 109. 

This has to be one of my favorite quotes in the chapter of images in the afore mentioned book. It helps me stay focus on the images that I want to create rather than the thoughts going into the images. I've noticed in my creative writing that I add in too much thought. I second guess myself, which isn't good because the readers will start to second guess the book and the image that they are trying to create. It doesn't create a smooth ride for the readers if they have to think about the writing and think about what's being said. One of my favorite quotes ever is, "When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing."  ~Enrique Jardiel Poncela. 


This quote says how much work is put into writing and when something can be read without effort, you can tell that the writer cared very much about their writing. This is the kind of writing I hope I'll be able to do, in the future. 


Yet, one of the things I'm most unsure of is character profiles. I can understand the need to put height, weight, hair color, and eye color, I mean, I even do sketches of my characters to get a feel for them (albeit the drawings really aren't that great) and I may put in some background, so I can see where my characters are coming from. My problem, though, is going into detail on your character when all you want is a small summary. I think that if you go into too much detail on your character you'll loose any wiggle room for them to  run wild with. Besides, how are you going to develop your characters if you have all of their personalities written down to a T? 
If you already know exactly how they act and don't allow them to go outside that little box then your characters are probably going to get boring after a while. Even on cartoon shows that run for seasons, you can see some development of character (unless it's Spongebob, I don't think he has every really developed). What I'm getting at, is even when you're 90 years old, your personality could change within a year if the right circumstances were put upon you, so why can't a 15, 21, 30, 45, 57 year old change in a believable way?


Revision can be fun sometimes. If you really enjoy the story you've written and think that it's one of the best you've written. Yet, it can be hard. This first paper for my class I've completely rewrote 3 times, and I wasn't happy with it until the third paper. My first paper was too whimsical, it wasn't concrete, and there were a lot of thoughts in it rather than images. I didn't leap, I just wrote it straight through. 
My second draft was after I talked to my professor about the first. I didn't care for it too much because it was too factual. The whole time I was writing it, I was wondering where I could put in my own imagination, and kept backing away from adding anything in. I think that while I barely remember this story besides the fact that it was really factual, it was really helpful in creating a concrete basis in my story. 
I started off my third draft very awkwardly, kind of similar to my second draft, but I stopped writing it when I realized that it wasn't image based, but thought based. I don't know what happened during that time either, but I suddenly got an image, or an idea (my book prefers image over idea because image is imagination based, and idea is though based, and it doesn't like wordy thoughts) of my main characters father being in the tavern where the catalyst happens. I was very happy with the turnout of that image, and starting off my story with a nice image is a great way to keep a story more image base because you're always referring back to that image at the start. If you start with an image and slowly go towards a more thought based story, it doesn't seem to hold together as well. At least that's what I believe.
Also, readers can tell when an author has gone through a lot of work to make a novel easy to read, although I don't think they know it when they first read it if it's really good, but a reader can tell when a story isn't quite right. Plus, it takes time to get a following of readers, with everything, not just publishing. We can't all be one hit wonders, and I personally would rather not be a one hit wonder. Revision isn't just something that can be tagged at the end of a story as a to do. It should be something thought provoking. Revision should get your mind working, figuring out what works, and what doesn't in a story. If stories didn't rely on revision, then many books would not still be around because they wouldn't have been as good, no matter how unique and well thought out the story is.   

Day Two: The Second Draft

I went to see my professor today, and he gave me some good advice. I didn't make my story concrete enough for my readers to be able to see the story. He told me that if I added things like events, places that people could see, that it would be better, and that I should research about it.

It's odd. Most people think that writer's can create things from the top of their heads and make it all factual and sound great, but in fact they have to research, a lot. I didn't know this until I read a manga comic that was suppose to help beginning mangakas with their stories. You might be thinking, but that's manga, it's not even from America. But just because it's manga doesn't mean that they don't put in as much time and thought as an actual writer. Some have to research even more than a writer because they have to also draw the pictures, but I digress.

Writer's have a responsibility to their readers to make their world just as real as it possibly can be, even if it's in another universe. In an alternate universe you still can't have a person to be able to walk 30 miles in a day, unless they have 7 league boots, but that's another story (Howl's Moving Castle, in fact).

 Anyway, so after I researched the time of Charles the II a little, I wrote up my second draft. It's almost the complete opposite of my first draft. I didn't think to ask him, but now I've been wondering if even if you are making it somewhat historically correct (like setting, place, battles) does it have to be completely correct? In my other draft, I had the main character interacting with a king of an alternate universe, but now that character (a little different now, too) doesn't have to be close to the king. Really, all she's trying to do is get into the war to prove that women are just as capable of fighting as men, but does everything have to be historically correct? I mean, once Charles the II is enthroned there are no more wars. So do I even need this part of history? Can I have my own world that's just taking place during this time in our world? (17th century, if you're curious, but don't want to search Charles the II on Google)

In my original story, I wanted them to capture a duke's son who is neutral to whatever war is going on, and realizing that, they want to release them, but realize they could get some money out of this duke if they ransom the son. (They were a rebellion. They don't get much money, if they don't have a lot of supporters.) In the end, the duke's son is actually interested in the rebellion and decides to join, so the rebellion takes the money and keeps the son (I know, aren't they terrible! That duke is going to start a terrible rumor about them, and make all the other nobility iffy about helping the rebellion out.) In the other one, I'd even had a pretty good plot line going on.

The current ruler of the nation that rebellion is fighting against is actually an insubordinate of another country, whose ruler is patient as well as smart (a terrible, terrible combination). He gets his insubordinate to let the country fall to rambles so that when he comes to conquer this country, everyone would think he was saving them from a terrible king. The rebellion obviously doesn't know about this, so when the other land starts attacking this one after they had started their own war, it completely surprises them.

I thought it was an interesting storyline, but how am I to fit it in if I'm trying to make it historically correct? I've seen other authors do it pretty well. Create their own story line and make it (somewhat) historically correct, but I don't have any of those books on me, and I don't know any other way to figure out how to do it.

Day One

In class today we had to bring a rough draft of our first paper. I didn't know that it had to be a maximum of five pages, and I had eight, but that's okay. It's easier to cut things out (sometimes) than it is to add things in without sounding like you're just BSing it.

Our professor had us group up with a partner. I tend to be on the shy side of things, so he had to set up a partner for me, but it was all good, and I even saw her later today in front of the language tutoring lab. She forgot her paper, but had her plotting paper with her, so I added in some things on her paper. It's a ghost story, and it sounds really interesting. She said there was some trauma that was in the family, and I wrote down different ways that the trauma could affect the family. I hope it was useful.

She said that my story sounded interesting, and I was happy, but while I had described the places and scenes, she said she wanted to know more about how the characters looked. Whoops. I tend to like to draw out what my characters look like, and because I have that image in my mind I tend to forget to write in a description of my characters. Also, sometimes it feels awkward writing a description of my protagonist. I don't want it to be like a list of attributes, kind of like you write in a journal, "oh I have blue eyes, brunette hair, I'm 5' 3.5" and I hate oranges." (For the most part that's me, except the oranges part. I like them.) So, I don't want to list out what my character looks like, but I have to describe her somehow. Hmmm. I mean with the other character, it's not that hard. My protagonist can describe him in different ways like, "She glared into his dark brown eyes" and "She watched that bob of brunette hair from her peripheral vision as she took down one of the robbers" and "She pushed his slight figure out of the way of the kicking horse." I was going to say short, hehehe, but then I remembered that he's only like an inch or two shorter than she is, but he's going to hate that. He's the king, he shouldn't be shorter than his guard. Or maybe he should be. It makes the guard look better.

And, Argh! I hate conclusions, for the most part. Like some of the stories I write, I'm writing towards that situation. Like the one I wrote over the summer about how a woman is haunted by a dead stalker, and in the end she dies in the same spot he did. Or maybe it's the fact that she died. It's almost always easy to conclude with the death of a protagonist. I mean, after the protagonist dies what else can an author do? It's not like anything of interest to the reader is going on.

Anyway, getting off track here. So, my conclusion ended in some weird, that so doesn't sound like a solid conclusion type of conclusion. It reminds me of my Public Speaking class. I had a few speeches where I would end with a kind of non conclusive word, and kind of flounder my arms in an attempt to make it known that I was done. That's how I feel my ending is like.

Huh, I was just thinking how sometimes in a story you end as you began. So my story began with her jumping from tree limbs in search of the kings camp, so maybe I could end with them walking back into the camp? But, she's injured, oh, wait, that'd be cool. She starts above the ground free because she hadn't found the king yet, but now she is bound by her promise to her father, and bound to the king, who is bound to the land.

Awww, poor Mia. Of course, if she hadn't made that promise she would be married and having her fourth child by now. Instead, she's a totally awesome ninja, navigator, commander, jack of all trades kind of woman, and a master in each area. I think that sounds so much cooler than being married and having kids, although I wouldn't mind it. Hey, that'd be kind of interesting. I mean, this is just a short story, but it was part of a bigger, probably novel like idea, but I was thinking if I did start writing it, I could create a character that is married and has four children and pregnant with another baby to, um, contrast to Mia, who is "anything the kind needs her to be." She could even have long blonde hair and brown eyes and is short to contrast even more with Mia.

So that's day one as a beginning writer. Interesting.