Okay, it has been a hot second since I posted one of these goal posts. Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on my blog period (this was the last post, and this was the last goals post I did…). In fact, not since the end of summer reading. So, in this post I’ll let you into what I’ve been learning, what I’m hoping to do this month, and what I’m excited about.
Where the heck have I been?
I have been learning all the things and writing all the things. I finished the second draft of The Dragon Book and realized that there were some serious problems in the middle of the book that I didn’t know how to solve. Specific issues surrounding plot, structure, pacing, character arc, agency, you know all those elements that make up a story. So, I did what any sane person would do, I hired a writing coach.
I’ve been working with this coach since September and here are a few of the things we have covered:
Prose:
We worked on removing abstraction in my writing and doing those things that I should have already been doing — like show, don’t tell. The feedback piece is what I was missing to make my writing better. The difference in my writing from the start of the month to the end is insane.
Here is a piece from the short story I wrote that month:
The cold mud made general Xu Guiyang’s knees hurt. The wind blowing off the peaks above her smelled of fresh spruce and tasted like snow. The tips of her ears numbed. The soldier laid out beside her, heavy linen jacket untied and thrown open to reveal a reddening purplish mark above her left breast, tried to speak. General Xu leaned in to hear what the woman had to say. A pink tinged bubble rose from the soldier’s lips as she whispered her last words. The bubble burst splattering on the general’s cheek, the soldier’s words went unheard. The pulse in the woman’s throat stuttered and stopped. And as skin slowly turned cool under her fingers General Xu talked to her ghost.
This story isn’t done. I have a lot I need to fix, especially as I learn more about plotting, specifically plotting for short stories, and seriously, this will probably end up as a novella.
Pacing:
In October we worked on pacing, specifically ramping up tension and the ways to do that. One of the things that I loved from this month was the reminder that readers are smart and that I the writer don’t need to spell every single thing out. I don’t have a piece of writing to illustrate pacing well.
Creating the story’s dream:
In November we started working through John Gardner’s book “The Art of Fiction”. One of his big things is that it is the responsibility of the writer to place the reader into a vivid dream and to not distract them out of it. Additionally, as a writer of fantasy I need to ground my reader into the fantastic bits of the world as quickly as possible, so it then becomes common place and thus no longer a distraction.
This first example is from the first draft of this short story. It has the physical grounding, but none of the locational information that grounds readers into the reality of the world:
Naomi couldn’t breathe. She sat on the edge of her bed, her sinuses stuffed and slimy mucus oozing from her nose no matter how many times she blew it. Her head ached too, dully. She glared across the room at her tool belt with its pruners, hand ax, and belt knife. All she needed to do was stand up, put her tool belt on, and walk to the grove. A great wracking cough bubbled up from her chest and she pushed a cloth to her mouth and coughed until she had no air left.
This is the current draft of that same story. Very different opening. It still needs work, like a killer first line, and the story might need an end…but that is a problem for another day.
A bird landed on the crest of the drooping branch and pecked at the yarn tying one of the swaying votives to the branch. Two branches away, Runa moved slowly as she cut, not wanting to disturb the bird. She removed the wooden votives and strings, one by one, placing them in her twig basket with a prayer. Released at last, the branch perked up and startled, the bird fluttered away. Runa moved to a new branch, she whispered another prayer to the spirit tree. Her words mixed with the sound of the votive boxes – tied by shrine supplicants to the spirit tree – a song to the gods. Runa paused in her cutting, a finger traced a bolt of black, stark against the white of the spirit tree’s bark. White bark and purple leaved, the spirit tree shouldn’t have any black on it….
NaNoWriMo:
I participated in my 7th NaNoWriMo (nanowrimo.org). It was a busy month, I wrote a novella, two short stories, and a few flash fiction pieces. I always learn something new during NaNoWriMo. This year I realized how terrible my first drafts are. This is something I knew but hadn’t fully realized until this year. I’m totally okay with this, it just means that I shouldn’t show people the first drafts of things because it isn’t a good indicator of my writing level.
Plotting:
This is what we are working on this month and I’m pretty excited. This is one of my weakest skills and so I’m pretty excited to be diving in to this subject this month.
What I’m excited about:
Besides learning more about plotting, I’m pretty excited for the books I get to read this month and I’m in the middle of planning out next year which is always terrifying and super fun. I’ll do a more in-depth post about this as we close in on the new year.
I’m also excited about posting more on my blog cause I’ve kind of missed it.
What kinds of things have you been learning recently?
Bye for now!
