Foibles of Plot Straightening

This weekend I finally did what I kept meaning to do (months ago). I upload my trilogy into Scrivener. Yes, they are now all in the “Book with Parts” template. I did this because I’ve become very aware that my plot needs work. Book 1 doesn’t really contribute much to the overall story and no one gets anywhere near death...

(Okay I do kill off one of Phoenix’s scouts and one of Griffon’s scouts, but Sarah didn’t witness it because she was out for the count. Still, it’s more romance than action/adventure while the other two are a much better mixture.)

Anyway, once I had the three books all in one place, I began to split apart the chapters. I did this for Book 1, since it has so few and then I went looking at Book 2. Splitting off the beginning of Book 2 and adding it to Book 1 does an amazing remedy for the lack luster plot. Now there’s a climactic fight scene, in which a villain dies after mortally wounding the Heroine. Of course I’ll need to edit it a bit, since it needs make you want to read the next book, not the next chapter.

So, I moved on to Book 2 and stopped to ponder something. No villain dies in this one, though our Heroes manage to save the Royal family. I read some place that a villain, even if he’s not the main boss, should die. So do I make up a villain to die in it, or make it seem like the villain is dying? Or leave it as is?  I’ll have to come back to that question later*, since the ideas is to get down what I have, not what I will have. I did decide that leaving the book off with our Heroes in a coma wasn’t nice, so I move some of the beginning bits from Book 3 over.

I haven’t started on Book 3 yet, aside from moving the beginning bit over, but I know one thing for sure; the climax doesn’t happen as close to the end as it should. There’s a lot of winding down the killing of the Master mind Villain to the marriage of our Heroes. I’m contemplating turning that into Bonus Book 4, for those who really want to see them happily wed and bed (and no I don’t go into details, thank you very much). *giggle*

One of the things I’ve suddenly realized. Having looked at all this – my Phoenixes of Vervell Trilogy need a lot of work. And I’m suddenly wondering:

• Should I consider them to be my practice novels and shelve them for eternity? (Be still my beating heart! Breathe my hyperventilating lungs!)
• Should I shelve them for now, until I’ve learned more about plot and structure? (But it’s already been at least five years since I wrote the first book!)

No matter what option I go with, and I lean toward the second for I love Sarah and Hasón and their tale, I’ve come to realize:

• I’ve gotten pretty good at creating characters. I’m not an expert, but the ones I have been working with for a while are living beings in my head.
• I could use a hand with plot and structure, perhaps with some practice in pre-plotting given how discombobulated last year’s NaNovel went. (Not that I’ve bothered to read it since then)

NaNo! Why that’s only four months away *gulp* and I plan on participating *double gulp* But I think I know what I’m going to do...

• Buy “Save the Cat” and read it – several people have said it’s great for helping pantsers plot
• Pick a story to plot - Alethia’s Lament? Rainbow Island? Another story off my hard drive? Something completely new? – yikes, this’ll be the hardest bit!
• Tell you all about it! (So erm... what would you like to know about my process leading up to NaNo?)

:} Cathryn

P.S. And what would you think if I slowed down my posting rate - this posting weekly is taking too much precious writing time at the moment. *sigh*

Two Days Late and ... 200 Dollars Short?

Tuesday marked the official end of my class with GothamWriters Workshop. I took the Creative Writing 101 class that lasted for six weeks. Our teacher was great and my fellow students were interesting, especially the ones who participated in the discussions. In fact, we might even form a writers group out of it. We’ll see. I already feel as though I’m in too many. But the question is:

Was it worth the money I paid for it?

Well, many of the lessons, echoed or were echoed by the recent book I bought, “My First Novel”, which I was reading while taking the class. A lot of it seemed to be stuff that I’ve been picking up by osmosis and practice. However, the lesson on show versus tell was a good one, especially the exercise that went with it.

I wrote about  (and shared) 
Princess Cristalina. I drew this
when I first imagined Rainbow
Island, back when I was 10.

In fact, I think the exercises were the best part. It was like Marc’s Daily Writing Practice blog, only done weekly and requiring more words (but no more than 500). Unlike the exercises in the book, there was a teacher on the other side, who gave encouraging feedback, while pointing out weaknesses. One of mine is that I’m not good at writing short stories. I might think I am writing one, but it always seems to turn into an excerpt form a novel.

As to the class structure, it worked out well. The class was conducted on-line, but rather than totally self paced, it had deadlines and discussion with the teacher following each lesson.  And I can now print the lessons, the discussions AND my work with teacher and student comments (you could share your last piece with whole class). Very useful to me since I didn’t take notes.

The virtual classroom also had a live chat feature. It wasn't used too much. Only two of us caught the teacher at one of the scheduled times (as far as I know). It’s just hard to coordinate a international group. Besides, our teacher was running  the class while nursing and infant, traveling, and getting so sick she had to be hospitalized (she’s better now, thank goodness).

 So was it worth it?

Yes, I think so. It wasn’t that much more than other classes I’ve heard about (it actually cost around $300 something). I also wanted to make sure I didn’t jump the gun and launch into one of Gotham’s genre specific classes without verifying I had the basics covered. Still, I might be able to get just as much form a slightly cheaper cost. I know a fellow NaNo Marylander is taking one soon. I'll be checking with her once it's over. 

Still Gotham does have a few things going for it:

• They call themselves Gotham and are located in the major metropolis of New York City, which gives them major cool points
• Their on-line class structure was very easy to navigate, even we didn't use the live chat much.
• The instructor was very nice and approachable (though I couldn't ask for clarification to her comments on my work)
• According to a classmate, if the teacher drops the ball they are willing to transfer you to a new class with a better teacher (that’s how she came to be a student in my class).
• They offer genre specific classes, as well as some geared towards the business side of publishing. (My plan is to take the Fantasy/Sci-Fi class next).
• Technical help was quick to respond to me and fix the issue I was having.

All in all, it was a good experience. So I’ll be back, if I have the funds for it. The family extracurricular activities are looking as though they may be a bit more expensive this coming school year.

  

:} Cathryn Leigh