Tag: writing

Work In Progress #5

~ Author Kevin J Fellows ~ Leave a comment
Plot, Character, and Worldbuilding are each part the same thing. Each element has its own framing to narrow the focus but they are different sides of a three-sided die.
I spent the entire time today working out characters, plot, and worldbuilding. Working them simultaneously works best for me because they really are the same thing. Characters live in a world and do things.
I had a plot idea and needed to figure out how it affects the main characters. I learned it drove one character to a different location with a new character. That new character was a military leader. Okay, how is the military structured, what rank does this person have – worldbuilding. Once I knew, then I could work out how that character achieved that rank, which I can only do as I learn about that character. Then how does this character react to the first character? I can only do that when I know both characters.
As I worked through these character dynamics, I needed to have a relationship one might call marriage because I realized the new character was in such a relationship. Okay – worldbuilding again. How do marriages worked in this culture; how some of it varies in other cultures because I will eventually need to know. This was all so I knew what the stakes were for this new character.
BTW the most beautiful 3-sided die you’ll ever see: https://www.shapeways.com/product/RBVF4Z6JY/modern-art-d3-3-sided-die

Work In Progress #3

~ Author Kevin J Fellows ~ Leave a comment

Today I read my story The Bottle of Salvation Containing the Nectar of Ruin thinking it was maybe ready for submission. It’s been beta read and a part of it critiqued in a group. It’s very close but there’s still a copy & paste error and some other things that don’t feel right.

I’ve mentioned before how I like to read a published work by someone else in a similar vein and then read my own in-progress work. It helps to see if there are any glaring, or jarring parts.

I also read aloud. If you aren’t reading your close-to-finished work aloud you probably aren’t as close as you think. IMHO.

I guess one more edit, and another read, and then maybe it will be ready.

Work in Progress #2

~ Author Kevin J Fellows ~ Leave a comment

Today I returned to my story, Melina Unbound. Made some progress with Melina’s voice. She still isn’t the bitter, angry young girl she’s supposed to be but it’s better. I find I have to keep going over her words (she has no dialogue but it’s first-person so all the words are hers) and find new ones that don’t just relate what’s happening but also tell about her and her emotions. The first thing was to use contractions. Then there had to be more than a description of the food but what she thinks of it as she describes it.

The first draft was third-person and I’m still finding her and replacing with I. I’m also trying to figure out where the section breaks should be. There are jumps in time that need to be set off by a break, and there are more significant breaks where something fundamental in the story has changed. Something like a combination of paragraph breaks, scene breaks, and then story shifts represented by what? An extra break that becomes scroll art in the final copy?

I can worry about that later. I just need to finish this revision.

Short Stories Fast

~ Author Kevin J Fellows

Writing 50,000 words of short stories in a month is my personal challenge. I wanted a way to jump start my short writing and this challenge is certainly doing that. My writing tends to be long with many plot threads and an epic scope. Writing short requires focus on a few characters, a single plot, and one or two locations.

Writing short requires depth. Not that an epic shouldn’t be deep, but a short story demands a depth that is apparent and felt in just a few words. Also, specific to genre, the short story does not give much space for world building. I am finding that challenge to be the most enjoyable. Defining the character’s situation within a secondary world or alternate first world in no more than a paragraph or two worth of words is delicious. It can only help in my longer works to be more concise and focused.

Writing this many stories (I’m up to five so far) in a short period of time has also revealed my tendencies and repetitive faults. This may be the most valuable part of the exercise. Rather than learning over the course of a year or two that I always start a short story the same way I see it right away, and I can correct it before any of the stories goes out into the world.

This #NaStoWriMo may be the way I spend next November too.

How is your #NaNoWriMo #NaStoWriMo going?