Archive for the ‘Dragon Blood’ Category

Jenna Said Solemnly

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

I 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.

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Blood-Stained Snowflake: Step 2

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

Randy 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.

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That Disastrous Outline

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

That intolerable outline? That insufferable outline? That despicable outline?

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

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Blood-Stained Snowflake: Step 1

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

Randy 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!

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Blood-Stained Snowflake: Premise

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Good fiction doesn’t just happen, it is designed.

This is how Randy Ingermanson begins his discussion on novel design in his article, How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method. I’ve found the snowflake method to be very effective, so I’ve decided to apply it to a story I started years and years and years ago, and every now and then write a little bit more to, or clean up what I have.

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Point of View in the Lobby

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

As a matter of improving my writing, I have taken to rewrite a scene to follow only one point of view. The idea here is to use a third-person perspective, with the point of view following multiple characters. While at it, I’ve also moved the scene from present tense (the tense I tend to write ideas in) to past tense (the tense I tend to write solid ideas in).

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