gategrrl | (no subject)

I hope everyone on my flist had a Happy New Year's Eve - the Guy and I didn't even pop off the cork of our faux champagne. We both felt a little "off" and funky. Not sick exactly, but not up to drinking. And there was no other fizzy in the house (nonalcoholic) to drink, not even with the kids. Both of whom, by the way, managed to stay up past midnight. Little Guy has practiced staying up while on sleep-overs at friend's houses.

I spent last night, off and on, going through my NaNo draft (I wouldn't even call it a rough draft) of Land of the Dead and divvying it up into scenes and chapters. I hadn't realized I started skipping marking chapters after Chapter 5 on the manuscript, although I had demarcated scene divisions. Anyhow, I did that so that I could load the monster into yWriter, and it worked!

I also got my copy of Editing for Fiction Writers from Amazon the other day, and have been going through it. Yeah, I depend a lot on Narration (Telling) rather than showing, in this story. It's something I have to fix because it's boring. Boring boring boring. There are enough infodumps to top up a landfill. This is going to take up a lot of time, getting it rewritten and revised. What I'm doing right now is going through, scene by scene, and writing down the summaries in yWriter's scene summary box. It's neat, because I can print out the scene summaries as a list. And an outline, too. I still can't believe this program is free.

Anyhoo, I'll be taking Mermaid to OSH (that's a home-hardware type of store, similar to Home Depot but smaller and friendlier) today for paintchip samples. She wants to paint her room. And honestly, I wouldn't mind painting the interior of the entire house. We still have the color scheme that the previous owners painted up, plus some horrible shelves that look like they're from the fifties (so my mother said on her visit).

What else...the Science Fiction Book Club got me in its marketing grasp once again with their $9.99 a book special offer. To be honest? All of their sales are a bit pathetic - it doesn't make it nearly as "special" if sales are constantly offered, but what the heck. I bit, and ordered a mammoth version of Salem's Lot, usually $24.00, Stephen King's new book, Dume Point (?), and the latest Temeraire book in that series.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Would you like to get together and do some editing this year?

OMG, would I?

I would!

I mean, I know what I have to do...it's just so overwhelming. I'm going to have to somehow combine one or two characters, smooth out the plot ... in essense, I think I have to do a total rewrite of this story. I think it's worth it, though, because the idea is sound.

Just let me know a date and a time, and I'll be there!

I'll have to print everything out, though, because I don't have a lap-top; I only have my PDA, and I don't think it can hold yWriter on it. :-( (although I could try dl'ing it on the PDA)

Been meaning to write you a note about yWriter software. I downloaded it and started using it, put one of my WIP in there and I can't believe how easy it is to use to keep track of stuff. I'd been feeling SO overwhelmed with pages and pages and PAGES of text in Word but once I broke it down, it was easy for me to see what needed doing and adding. I *LOVE* the way it breaks down the scene and you can see how many words are in each scene and then when you export it, it feels like I've made progress!! So THANK YOU for recommending it :)

Very cool. It does help by breaking down those unwieldy huge Word files into nice digestable chunks, doesn't it?

You've had no problems with exporting? Have you used any of the other features? There's a timeline feature, and one that uses other information that you put into the scene boxes.

I'm just beginning to figure out how to use it for my benefit. Apparently, the writer of the software writes in Word, then imports his scenes. Other people write the scenes directly into yWriter and then export the entire thing...it's great! And the guy who wrote it keeps updating it, too.

I had about 5000+ word document in Word that was getting unwieldy and I was using different colors to keep track of places where it needed changes. After awhile, it just got crazy to keep track and heaven forbid I needed to switch a scene around. So what I did was copy and paste from Word the original document into the different scenes. I haven't figured out the characters section yet, but it *did* help me realize I had a POV wrong in one section.

I only had a paragraph done for my 2nd chapter so I just used it as the summary. Then I thought about what I wanted to have happen in that chapter and created scenes with just a line or two, to sort of help me figure out what needed to be done. THEN I just picked a scene and started writing it out in there. I found it easier to use it that way, because it helped me to SEE what needed doing, whereas in Word it was harder for me to see what progress was being made or not.

I tried doing chapter 2 in Word too and then copying/pasting in the software but found it unwieldy and felt like I was doing double the work. At least using the software, it keeps me on task and I don't get overwhelmed by everything that needs doing, because I'm focusing on the scenes.

The only thing I worry about is making sure one scene flows into the next, but I expect that I'll know how that goes once I get more into writing the second chapter, since most of the first one was already done. Hope that helps!

Wow, you're doing a lot of work!

I do like how it breaks things down into the basic scene, and from there you can get the details down - like POV, who is IN the scene, what the goal for the scene is, whether it's a reaction or action scene... I could go on.

For my 52,000 word NaNo project, I went through the original text and divided it up into logical chapters, then marked the scenes with the " * * * " that yWriter requires, and then imported the entire bloody thing. It currently has 27 chapters. Some chapters have four scenes, others have one, some are simply notes that I wrote down because I didn't have the time to finish writing the scene.

I think my next writing project I'm going to outline via chapter, then demark into scenes, then import into yWriter. Of course, I have to think up what my current project is going to be. That's the tough aspect. I have to start brainstorming.

And good luck on your short story!

You know, I didn't realize you could import that easily! I may have to try as an experiment importing a longish WIP that just languished to see if I can do anything with it. Do you know if it let you do more than one story at a time?

I've tried using the notes feature, which I think is cool, it's just another way of thinking about writing. The goals and whatnot I haven't tried because I wonder if thats just not too much to worry about, as well as the locations and objects. But so far, the dang thing is pretty nifty.

Oh, I'm sure at different times, for different writers, the features that are built in come in handy for some, and not for others.

BUT I think the most useful features is the "goal" one, in each scene. It helps clarify what's supposed to happen and help keep up the reader's interest. If a scene is feeling "dead" or not going anywhere, it could be because there's no goal/conflict happening in it.

Oh, and that book I mentioned? VERY useful for rewriting. Some of it, I already "knew", but the authors of the book are pros, and put the different problems writers have into words, with samples.

I haven't used the "object" form, but I have started using the "places" form.

Do you find the places form useful? How are you using it?

All I've done with the Places form is to start a list of the places I remember my characters have been/are going. So far, that's two places, maybe three. I couldn't think of what else to do other than the list - no description yet of what happens in each location.

I'd expect that if you're writing a piece that doesn't go many places, you wouldn't need to use it. But if you're writing a Stargate fic, for example, and you have four characters and seven locations, it helps to keep it all straight, even if it's a short story.

I haven't used the "Items" form at all yet. I might use it for "Powers" or "Abilities" instead, so I can keep who can do what straight. Plus, I actually do have a few objects I'd like to add to it, once I get to them while I'm summarizing the scenes. It might be a handy way to keep things consistent within the story.

I just spent most of the evening putting in different WIP's that I have on my HD into yWriter. It really does help me get a better view of where my writing stands. Here's hoping I can be a bit more prolific this year :)

GG recommended it to me as well and I've been too busy to really mess around with it. It's really good then?

Well, let's just say that I read your post where your goal was to write 500 words a day and last night I sat there staring at a Word document and I was SO discouraged. Then I opened up yWriter to look at what I had typed in there already and I ended up writing close to 500 words. It did a really good job helping me focus on what needed doing. So yeah, I'm giving it my thumbs up. You *do* need to get used to it though, because it's a different way of writing just straight in one document.

I like the SFBC just because they are cheap. I've been with them since like 1994.

How are you liking Editing for Fiction Writers? Is it worth it?

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location form

Re: location form

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