Writer's Weekend, Day 4--Sunday 6/12/05
Jul. 11th, 2005 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAnd, finally, the last day of the conference. As happened for me last year, there was a lot less programming to attend--though what we had available was good stuff nevertheless. Out of the panels available ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seimaisin and I just went to one, which was....
...Tapping the Creative Process, moderated by Liz Wolfe, Ken Rand, and Adam Jones. This was a panel all about trying to shake your brain up if you're having trouble connecting with your creativity.
Liz espoused a concept I've seen bouncing around LJ in meme form: mind-mapping. (For those of you who aren't already familiar with the idea, you can read up on it on Wikipedia's page on Mindmapping.)
Ken Rand plugged his book From Idea to Story in 90 Seconds, and Drawing With the Right Side of the Brain was recommended as well.
If you're stuck on what should happen next in your story, try to think about everything that might possibly happen, and how the characters might respond to these events. By doing this, you might find that the route the story should take will present itself.
The concept of "farmer's faith" (if you keep spreading the crap, eventually flowers will grow) was touched on as yet another reminder to keep at it. It's hard to keep writing when you are very aware that the words you're putting onto your screen are less than sterling, but nevertheless it's necessary to keep going. You won't find out if you've got good words in you until you get the bad words out of the way.
'Fast writing' can help liberate you from getting trapped by thinking every word you write has to be perfect immediately--something that reminded me of Nanowrimo in a big way. Now, just Googling around a bit on the concept of 'fast writing' doesn't point me at any immediately useful links. But regardless of whatever method you use to achieve it, I do get behind the idea of getting the words out first, then going back and fixing them later as needed.
A few tips and tricks out of the visual arts were mentioned, things which could be tweaked to apply to writing. For example, turning a picture upside down to see what this does to your perception of it might be likened to trying to flip a scene around to the antagonist's point of view rather than the protagonist's--if you do that, how does that shake up your perception of the story?
"Negative space" is another concept that can apply to writing. For example, don't talk about a character that's sad, try talking instead about the wall they're walking past--and use terms that convey the character's mood. This can be an excellent example of "show, don't tell", as you take the emotion out of the person and splash it across the landscape.
Mix up your manuscript, and pick a page at random. Is there tension on each page? Try the Page 117 Test--open up a book and go to page 117. Does that grab you and make you want to read page 118?
First sentences need to grab you. Use active verbs! And if your first sentence is crap, again, go ahead and WRITE and then go back and edit later.
One way to approach dealing with criticism in your writing: if you have only one story and it gets rejected, it's crushing. But if you have 99 more stories you're sending out, the impact is a lot less. The moral of this being, of course, KEEP WRITING.
After that was Closing Ceremonies, pretty much. There was a lot of good feeling there, and a lot of folks had banded together to buy a visit from a housecleaning service forwritersweekend came and picked me up, and that was that.
Very much looking forward to next year!
seimaisin and I just went to one, which was.......Tapping the Creative Process, moderated by Liz Wolfe, Ken Rand, and Adam Jones. This was a panel all about trying to shake your brain up if you're having trouble connecting with your creativity.
Liz espoused a concept I've seen bouncing around LJ in meme form: mind-mapping. (For those of you who aren't already familiar with the idea, you can read up on it on Wikipedia's page on Mindmapping.)
Ken Rand plugged his book From Idea to Story in 90 Seconds, and Drawing With the Right Side of the Brain was recommended as well.
If you're stuck on what should happen next in your story, try to think about everything that might possibly happen, and how the characters might respond to these events. By doing this, you might find that the route the story should take will present itself.
The concept of "farmer's faith" (if you keep spreading the crap, eventually flowers will grow) was touched on as yet another reminder to keep at it. It's hard to keep writing when you are very aware that the words you're putting onto your screen are less than sterling, but nevertheless it's necessary to keep going. You won't find out if you've got good words in you until you get the bad words out of the way.
'Fast writing' can help liberate you from getting trapped by thinking every word you write has to be perfect immediately--something that reminded me of Nanowrimo in a big way. Now, just Googling around a bit on the concept of 'fast writing' doesn't point me at any immediately useful links. But regardless of whatever method you use to achieve it, I do get behind the idea of getting the words out first, then going back and fixing them later as needed.
A few tips and tricks out of the visual arts were mentioned, things which could be tweaked to apply to writing. For example, turning a picture upside down to see what this does to your perception of it might be likened to trying to flip a scene around to the antagonist's point of view rather than the protagonist's--if you do that, how does that shake up your perception of the story?
"Negative space" is another concept that can apply to writing. For example, don't talk about a character that's sad, try talking instead about the wall they're walking past--and use terms that convey the character's mood. This can be an excellent example of "show, don't tell", as you take the emotion out of the person and splash it across the landscape.
Mix up your manuscript, and pick a page at random. Is there tension on each page? Try the Page 117 Test--open up a book and go to page 117. Does that grab you and make you want to read page 118?
First sentences need to grab you. Use active verbs! And if your first sentence is crap, again, go ahead and WRITE and then go back and edit later.
One way to approach dealing with criticism in your writing: if you have only one story and it gets rejected, it's crushing. But if you have 99 more stories you're sending out, the impact is a lot less. The moral of this being, of course, KEEP WRITING.
After that was Closing Ceremonies, pretty much. There was a lot of good feeling there, and a lot of folks had banded together to buy a visit from a housecleaning service for
writersweekend came and picked me up, and that was that.Very much looking forward to next year!
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