I’m still playing catch-up both on writing and on uploading what I’ve written. Here the story continues.
NaNoWriMo 2009 Part 4
November 23rd, 2009NaNoWriMo 2009 Part 3
November 12th, 2009I meant to have this posted on the 12th, and now it’s the 18th… Here’s the next portion of my NaNoWriMo tale.
NaNoWriMo 2009 Part 2
November 9th, 2009I wrote days two through four, and on day five I didn’t like how fast the story was moving along. I spent days five, six, and nine filling in gaps within days two and three. Because of this, I’ll continue uploading the story in “parts” rather than “days”.
NaNoWriMo 2009 Day 1
November 2nd, 2009Last year, I wrote Dream Clover for NaNoWriMo. I met the 50,000 word minimum, but never finished the story. This year, I’m writing “The Pink Sylphide”, and I’m hoping to reach the end of the story as well as a 50,000 word minimum.
The Move to LaTex
June 7th, 2009I’ve used LaTeX before for various stories, but it never really “worked out” for me. The main reason was because I needed to be able to split story across multiple files. I simply did not know that this can be done in LaTeX! I’ve since learned more about using LaTeX, and I’ve started the conversion of my writings to LaTeX.
Jenna Said Solemnly
February 28th, 2009I have impressed myself. I ran a regular expression search “said [a-z]+ly[\s.,]” (sans quotes) recursively through my “Dragon Blood” story folder, and found only five matches. Considering this is the story I’ve worked on the longest (in bits and pieces), and at the same time is my oldest worked on story, this is a good sign!
What does this search match on? Anything with the word “said” followed by an adverb. This is important because an adverb after said is often (although not always negatively) telling rather than showing.
Conveying Emotion through Dialogue and Action
February 28th, 2009“I’ll never forget you,” the princess said, holding his hand.
“It’s not like I plan on going out there and dying,” the knight said back. He smiled. “Wait for me. I will return.”
The princess let his hand slip from her grip. She turned away from the knight. “My brother proclaimed the same. What of him?”
“Prince Eric is out there.” The knight placed his hands on her shoulders. “And I’m going to find him, and bring him home.”
The playwright walked out onto the stage. “Is everyone following along?” he asked the large theater audience. He gestured toward the princess. “She wants her love, the knight, to return safely, but she believes she has already lost her brother to the war.” He motioned to the knight. “The knight is a proud warrior who will not admit defeat before has even left the castle. He tries to console the princess, for he loves her so, by assuring her that the prince is still alive.”
A man from the audience–third row back from the stage–stood. He cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted out, “We get it! You don’t need to explain it to us! We’re not morons!”
Blood-Stained Snowflake: Step 2
February 8th, 2009Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method, step two:
… expand that sentence [from step one] to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the novel. … Ideally, your paragraph will have about five sentences. One sentence to give me the backdrop and story setup. Then one sentence each for your three disasters. Then one more sentence to tell the ending.
That Disastrous Outline
February 7th, 2009That intolerable outline? That insufferable outline? That despicable outline?
Maybe I should start at the beginning.
Blood-Stained Snowflake: Step 1
February 3rd, 2009Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method, step one:
Take an hour and write a one-sentence summary of your novel. … The sentence will serve you forever as a ten-second selling tool. This is the big picture …
[This sentence is] the hook that will sell your book … to readers. So make the best one you can!