The Learning to Write Process
Ξ March 24th, 2008 | → | ∇ writing |
I have completed my second draft of the Tree House. I’m running into some snags in my writing style. I have corrected some of the “age” issues that I identified earlier. You can go back and reread The Tree House 01 and see some slight differences. Upon another couple readings, there wasn’t really much wrong, more likely, I needed to clarify some things rather than let them be so loose.
I’m trying to write something that I don’t have fully planned yet. That’s hard. but it reveals itself as I go along and I kind of enjoy that. problems to solve, pictures to paint. I’m also trying to figure out how to put you in a scene without having to describe it to the nth detail. Maybe that is being lazy.
The next thing I am confronted with is dialogue. Up to this point, Terna has been “thinking”. Now we have people to interact with. Now we have thoughts and multiple people to keep track of. In all my other writing, it has just been me blabbing about whatever I blab about. This takes me to another level where I am going to have to do conversation and thought and person tracking. I have to learn to use quotes “” correctly, and I have to figure out how I’m going to style all that and keep it consistent.
I’m having to learn to write for myself too. Kind of like playing guitar. I like sounding good and I like playing cool stuff. But I really play what seems cool to me. I don’t worry about if it is cool so much for other people first. I need it to be cool to me to enjoy it. So, I am trying to write in the same way. does this section seem cool to me? what’s wrong with it? how would it sound better to me? how is it weak? ok, make changes. Not that I don’t want to consider my reader, but since I like to read, I would hope that what I write is something that I would want to read, otherwise why torture anyone. Sorry, trying to work through some of my performance issues.
This is harder than it seemed. It is also quite demanding. But I’m having fun and feeling quite alive.
Please reread The Tree House 01 and then read The Tree House 02
enjoy!
on March 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Dialog is tough. I struggle with it often. The real problem for me is making each person distinctive when writing dialog. That is harder than it sounds because in reality all the people in the conversation are really you the author. I find it helps to meditate on the person I am writing dialog for. The better I know them the better the dialog will be. I also try to hear the person’s voice and inflection in my head as I am writing my lines. Oh, and one last thing, I read the dialog aloud and change my voice to reflect each character. Think of how the reader on a book on tape brings characters alive. It is especially helpful with dialog since words on paper often work differently than spoken words.
- Sean