What's On Your Mind About Your Writing?

[CoffeeBeans]

My story has a prologue.

I can't come up with any reasonable way to get rid of the prologue. It's the only time the limited third switches, and the only time the reader sees something the MC doesn't. I haven't done anything with it in revision yet, because I'm hoping to find a good way to ditch it...

 

[Blinkk]

I'm bashing my head against a wall with this Story Swap. I need to switch to something else. Gahhh, back to my main WIP, 1000 ghosts methinks.

 

[Anna Spargo-Ryan]

Switching from fiction to features is really hard.

 

[mccardey]

I've almost decided to dump New Novel - not because there's anything wrong with it*, just because I've kind of understood what it was all about and now I'd like to move on with something else. But I'm dumping it by degrees - doing the Edit From Hell (cutting it down by two thirds on a pretty much page-by-page basis) and then I'll see if there's anything left that I want to explore.

It's sort of fun, but it does make me realise how much more I could get done if I did my thinking in thoughts instead of in writing.

ETA: Off-topic, but Dear Little Old Man Who Lives Next Door just came knocking at the door with two opened beers - one for him and one for my husband. I've sent him up to The Studio. It seems mean - he's about to experience what happens when you interrupt my husband mid-photograph - but he might as well learn.

Start as you mean to go on, I say...

 

[mccardey]

My story has a prologue.

I can't come up with any reasonable way to get rid of the prologue. It's the only time the limited third switches, and the only time the reader sees something the MC doesn't. I haven't done anything with it in revision yet, because I'm hoping to find a good way to ditch it...

Just so you know - I like prologues.

 

[MookyMcD]

I don't love or hate them, but "I can't come up with any reasonable way to get rid of the prologue" is about the best reason for having one I can think of.

 

[mccardey]

I don't love or hate them, but "I can't come up with any reasonable way to get rid of the prologue" is about the best reason for having one I can think of.

Yes, this. Beans, what are you writing? I think it's mostly in Sf and SFF that the prologue-hate has a bit of a history. I don't think it's a wholesale thing.

 

[SunshineonMe]

I'm hoping I'm almost done with editing

 

[Suzanna Owen]

I'm still trying to edit, and each chapter is more mortifying. I'm wondering if I can fool myself and pretend I'm editing someone else's work, so I don't have to keep stopping for shame spirals.

 

[CoffeeBeans]

Just so you know - I like prologues.

I don't love or hate them, but "I can't come up with any reasonable way to get rid of the prologue" is about the best reason for having one I can think of.

Thank you both so much. I've been imagining any potential agent reading a prologue on the first page and just clicking right off.

It is SF/Steampunk, and currently the prologue is 800 words. I can probably get it down to 500 or so, but any attempt to switch it into a letter or some other format just seems more confusing/distracting.

 

[MookyMcD]

Finished edits on the revised version. It's off to my CPs. I had three agents put me on a R&R, all telling me the same thing (needs to end differently). I'm thrilled with the new ending (and feeling more than a bit amateurish about the old one). I'm going to hate waiting for the CP feedback (the delay, not the content when I finally get it).

In conjunction with the R&Rs, I fine-toothed the crap out of the stuff I kept (again). Combined with the completely new/different 30K words, the reading level dropped from 6.1 to 5.7, which was a pleasant surprise. It's not oriented toward that age group (it's upmarket satire) but that's a good benchmark for being readable.

My MC's sister has such an inventive foul mouth, I've also had to add a number of new words to my spell check dictionary to keep them from red-flagging every time she opens her mouth.

 

[elinor]

I really worry that I can't put enough emotion into my writing anymore. When I was writing as a teenager I wrote in the lotr fandom, and while I am the last person to say good things about myself ever, I know I was really good at emotion. But these days I worry I can't seem to get it down anymore, for fear of turning into purple prose. Purple prose has always been a problem for me and I try really hard to tone it down but I worry I am going too far in the opposite direction now. It's something I really need to think about.

 

[Isilya]

I've procrastinated so much that I already have my spring cleaning done...

 

[Vanir]

I'm currently working on three things, a fantasy short story (first among many I've planned) set in a world I'm building in hopes this will get me to write the longer story I first thought of set in this world, a "fanfic" so to speak set in the Warcraft universe and is also a short story since I don't like to make long stories in fan fics and lastly a steampunk story set in a world my wife has created about air-pirates! Hopefully to spark her into writing the story she's been telling me she wants to write but says since she knows how it goes it would be boring to write! I wanna read it damn it!

 

[BethKLewis]

I'm currently trying to figure out if swapping POVs is going to work. I want to tell the same story from different characters because I love that narrative, you get to see so much more of the world and different motivations. But I'm trying to figure out how it's going to work and if it's even a good idea. I'm worried that potential readers will be annoyed that I've shifted POVs just over a 3rd of the way into the novel.

 

[elinor]

Wondering if I should kill off the MC's BFF within the first few chapters, or whether I should make them not be her BFF. I always hear that killing off characters early in the book is a bad thing.

 

[V.J. Allison]

I really want to get down to it and add more to the WIP today but it's not going to happen. My son has the day off from school (snowstorm) and well, I'm stressed out at the moment. Stress knocks me off the writing curve and if I want this book done by the end of January of next year, I HAVE to get moving in it. Preferably NOW, thank you.... *SIGH*

 

[MookyMcD]

This thread always makes me laugh. I can relate to almost every post. Clean things to justify procrastination, check. Parenting interfering with writing, check. Trying to decide whether to commit to a huge POV change, check. Realizing I need to kill or at least seriously maim a character, check...

 

[Blinkk]

This thread always makes me laugh. I can relate to almost every post. Clean things to justify procrastination, check. Parenting interfering with writing, check. Trying to decide whether to commit to a huge POV change, check. Realizing I need to kill or at least seriously maim a character, check...

lol, we should start a club.

 

[PamelaC]

I figured out that I have to hook my own interest when I write. It's something I did naturally back when I wrote fanfiction, because when I posted an update I wanted my readers begging me for more! Somehow, I thought that feedback was the magic ingredient that kept me motivated in fanfic but was absent when trying to write a novel. But now that I figured out I still need to end each session with some type of hook that makes me excited to get back to the story, it's like a weight has been lifted! Not only am I motivated to write it, I have hopes that someone might actually want to read it someday!

 

[triceretops]

I've never had so much work in my life. But it's all client, magazine and freelance stuff. The good part is the extra cash and print exposure, but the bad part is the tedious monotony of it all. Next big project is a science one dealing with all things space and universe.

Tri--just going through the motions...

 

[rwm4768]

I'm considering a major reworking (again) of what is currently my MG fantasy. I've been told the characters sound too old, so I'm considering making them high school freshmen now. Of course, that would put them in that awkward 14 age group that's right at the edge of YA and upper MG.

 

[Nina Kaytel]

I have never in my life worked so hard on editing a scene. A single scene.
It's the scene I had in my head since I began writing fourteen years ago. It took three days, two questions on AW, and a crap-ton of research on punctuation and POV, but it's done -- it is beautiful (and I posted it on my blog) and I am so friggin proud of it. I want to pet it and love it and call it George. I finally have some skill set to adequately write it.
Now, I die happy.
If I never see the words run, crumble, shatter or clamor again it will be too soon.

 

[Blinkk]

I have never in my life worked so hard on editing a scene. A single scene.
It's the scene I had in my head since I began writing fourteen years ago. It took three days, two questions on AW, and a crap-ton of research on punctuation and POV, but it's done -- it is beautiful (and I posted it on my blog) and I am so friggin proud of it. I want to pet it and love it and call it George. I finally have some skill set to adequately write it.
Now, I die happy.
If I never see the words run, crumble, shatter or clamor again it will be too soon.

Congrats. Isn't that good feeling? Wayne Dyer says, "Don't die with the music still in you." I love that quote, and it relates to your situation for sure.

 

[triceretops]

Oooooh...nice quote. Now relevant.

tri