Sewing together a new first draft

One of my objectives of having a blog is to track the learning experiences of the process of learning to write fiction so this particular entry is an attempt to log some of the things that I’ve noted recently. Currently I’m working on a second version of the first draft of my 3DayNovel. I don’t consider this to be a second draft as I’m not revising much of what has […]

NaNoWriMo 2011

ATM there’s one week left to complete NaNoWriMo 2011. This is Year Four for me; two wins, one abortion on Day Three in Year Two, plus this year. But this year I’m not really doing it according to the rules. I started off following the rules. I did the same as I did in Years One and Two; coming up with an idea during last couple of days of October. […]

Outline, 3DayNovel, and writing

I did the 3 Day Novel this past September. The word count is half what I get from doing NaNoWriMo but it’s a complete story, though a short one. I went into this with a detailed outline which helped a lot. In the process of doing the writing I hit most of the outline targets but I know that the story is short; some scenes are missing, possibly some secondary […]

Plotting: “Bad Teacher”

Not long ago I watched the movie Bad Teacher. What interested me most, beyond that particular striking wide-eyed attractiveness that is the Cameron Diaz from Something About Mary and Charlie’s Angels, was the plotting. The two central story lines are: Explicit goal or holy grail: in this case it’s money for a breast augmentation operation, which in turn she believes will enable her to marry rich, and, Growth of the […]

Emotional Masturbation

Apparently there is something bad or wrong about masturbation. It’s not natural, or it’s devoid of the element of procreation or sharing that is supposed to be the purpose of sexual drive. Some people who accept masturbation as okay have issues with pornography. Besides being devoid of procreation like masturbation, pornography also devalues the act of sex and devalues the people/gender/activities that are displayed. Some authors then carefully try to […]

Theatresports for writers, courtesy of blog spammers

I have a blog, actually more than one blog, but all are anonymous and all very narrowly focused in terms of topic, which is probably why I have more than one. The main one has been around long enough that I get the same blog comment spam as anyone who has a blog of their own is familiar with. Some of these spam comments (all of which are picked out […]

Review: Visitor Q (Originally Bijitâ Q)

Dysfunctional family, healed with the help of an outside visitor. Sound like a good storyline? Now, how dysfunctional can you make the characters, both as family members and as individuals? How about using prostitution, and incest? How about combining the two so that the incest comes about when the daughter is charging the father for the sex, including a surcharge for cumming too early? Is that too wierd? Wait, it […]

POV Exercise

I’m not certain how this is going to work out, but here’s the deal: Write a scene and identify the point of view that it uses. Then re-write the same scene from another point of view, and then another, and then another, until all four (first person, third person, third person limited, second person) are all done. For any other than third person you have the option to change character […]

POV Exercise: Third person

It’s early but the late fall evening is already dark and the sky is spitting tiny droplets of cold rain. The Broadway articulated bus is heading south, away from downtown. On this section of the route more passengers exit than enter the bus. People are heading home and the bus is in the process of emptying. In the courtesy area behind the driver a man is sitting in his wheelchair […]