[Writing War Dogs of Mars] – Handler meets Dog

04. June 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I managed to get the dog to handler introduction scene down last night. I think it works. This is one of those scenes where it’s important to show the hero more than competent at his job. This is one of his strong points, so I’m exploiting his talents.

I’m now onto the antagonist’s point of view. He’s in an interesting place. He’s basically attempting to build up a liberation army with very little equipment. He’s well funded. I haven’t gone too deep into the people who are funding him, but it’s not real important for this book. It’s enough to know that Mac [the baddy] is not the top of the food chain.

It’s also fun to play in his head. This is a character I have a lot of sympathy for. He really wants to do what he thinks is right for The People. Granted, a few parades in his honor wouldn’t be turned down, but that’s not the only reason he’s doing it.

I’m working day job stuff from home today. I’m writing some technical documents that actually require some thinking and focus—two things I don’t get large stretches of at the office. I’m not criticizing my day job, I actually like where I work, it’s just a bit distraction heavy sometimes. I think tonight will be a dedicated writing night. I’ll do my workout during lunch so I can completely focus on getting a few more chapters phased.

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin

18. May 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: General Wank · Tags: , , , ,

Progress on ‘Restless’:

After sitting on ‘Restless’ for a few weeks, I gave it a read this weekend with my critical reviewer’s hat on. Overall, I’m still happy with it. The story is doing what I want it to do.

I decided to cut a few large sections. I cut the entire first scene, which might leave the reader in the dark about some of the main character’s motivations, but in a way that might work out. I also cut out a section of the scene that I initially liked when I wrote it, but upon a cooler reading found it to be an obvious button pusher bordering on melodrama.

With those scenes cut, I gave it another read and then added a very small section to help give the ending a little more believability. My last bit of criticism was the prose. I used so much passive voice that I’m now in the process of writing a whole new draft.

I think I did a good job of capturing the character’s voice in the story, but if you’re going to read a 10k story, it shouldn’t feel like 25k. Additionally, I’ve found with the redraft that I can leave a lot of the description out.

I’m beginning to feel like the part of me who wants to get story down and deal with conflict is completely different than the part of me who wants to write pretty words.
So I think I will always need a prose draft. And that’s ok. It lets me relax a little more when writing my first draft.

Progress on ‘War Dogs of Mars’:

I’m still working on pre-writing. I have a pretty descent looking outline taking shape. I should say outlines, because I build an outline for each POV character. I have four POVs in this story.

I’m taking my time with this phase. I usually don’t. I normally rush to get an outline, knowing it will change while I’m writing. I know this one will change as well, but I’m not really outlining the plot, I’m outlining the various character journeys and how these journeys will change and shape the characters and their relationships.

Fly by the seat of their pants writers probably think that sort of preplanning is crazy, but it does work for me on a certain level. What I’m attempting to do is get myself down to three drafts. The first draft will go to my experts. I’ll take their feedback and make revisions based on their suggestions and then write a new draft [this is more of a cut and paste rewrite].

That’s the draft I’ll likely get a workshop member to read. I might make some changes based on that reader’s feedback and then start the actual redraft. That’s the one I do for prose. I have a plan for the prose in this novel. The separate POVs will all have their own distinct style. Nothing too gimmicky, because honestly, I hate it when the writing isn’t somewhat transparent, but I also hate it when the characters aren’t distinguished in some way through the language and writing. I know, picky bastard, aren’t I?

So I’m making some progress.

Novel Progress

05. May 2009 · 1 comment · Categories: General Wank · Tags: ,

Progress on the novel isn’t quite speeding ahead the way I originally planned. I think part of the problem was trying to find an appropriate voice to get things rolling. My initial attempt was just a little too pretentious. Also, I want to inject a little humor into this novel and starting with the character on some sort of drug induced trip from Earth to Mars wasn’t working. It was cool, but it wasn’t honest. The second attempt was just a real warm up to where I am now. Basically, it was all description and no action. I fixed it by adding a character to have some conflict with. That’s my biggest critique now. I see way too many scenes where a character is presented in isolation and we spend the whole scene or chapter in his or her headspace. My own goal lately has been to get my characters on stage.

One of my best diagnostic tools has been asking the question, “How would X handle this scene?” I’ll finish something and then say, “If John Scalzi wrote this dialogue, what would he do different than me? If Gene Wolfe wrote this bit of description, how would it read? And if I feel there’s something really wrong with something dramatically, I’ll call on my inner Alan Ball. It’s fun and allows me to sort of step outside myself and see the story in a different light.

So I finished the first scene this morning and feel pretty confident. It’s not perfect and there are a few things I’m sure I’ll do to it before I’m finished, but it gives me a great starting place.