Sylvia's novel writing blog

Setting up scene cards

I've come to realize that creating a good book takes master planning. Before, I tried outlining the novel according to ideas I visualized as being an integral part of the story, but when I tested some of those outlined segments against the litmus test of whether micro-tension occurs, or that definite things and countering obstacles are happening (beats and swings), they fizzled out by the time they got onto paper.

I decided scene cards are the way to go. I had already started cards, but they weren't helping me enough--they're were simply mini-synopses of each chapter. I'm methodical by nature, and after scouring for a way to get swiftly and effectively from point A to point B, I came across an email from an editor that attended my Chicago writing workshop last year. In this email, she provided a scene card template about the size of an index card that has the following information on it:

Scene synopsis:

Time / place:

Viewpoint character:

Inciting incident:

Goal:

Opposition:

Strategy:

Beats / Swings:

       1.

       2.

       3.

Outcome:

Images / Notes / Dialogue:

What makes this scene important / critical:

This new way of writing scene cards has been revolutionary for me; it really forces me to integrate my thoughts revolving around a number of fiction writing components  It was not only painless, but fun to write my first new scene card yesterday, and I came up with new and interesting ideas that I would not have come up with otherwise had I only wrote a mini-synopsis as before.

I tend to write a multi-sentence synopsis, so I wrote my synopsis on the back of the card. As for the beats, those are pieces of action with a goal in mind, whereas a swing is a change in strategy toward a goal, or denotes that the goal has changed. i've just started understanding this concept. I'll think about a good example in the coming days to add to this post, but if you have an example, would you post it in a comment? That would be really helpful.

As I've already said, I have about 70,000 words, many embedded in passages which need to be rearranged elsewhere in the form of flashbacks, or thrown out completely.

Still, I'm shooting for a total of 100,000 because it's a nice neat word count target. I'm going to divide the book into approximately 50 scenes, again because it's a nice neat way of dividing up a book since that equates to about 2,000 words per scene. About 20 scenes will be part of the historical storyline, and about 30 scenes will constitute the modern storyline. Since I'm going to start flat out writing on November 1st, for the next seven days until that date I'm going to write about 7 scenes a day in the format I've listed above.

Novel writers are...(fill in the blank)

Sometimes it feels insane to pursue novel writing, and I know it sounds pretentious when I say there's no way around writing it. I still feel bound to finish it with a drive I haven't experienced before, except the time I had to get my son out of me when the OB-gyn wielded an epesiotomy knife at me.

This past year, I've read several fiction and nonfiction. Fiction includes The Shadow of the Wind; a rereading of The Steppenwolf; Girl With a Pearl Earring; Eat, Pray, Love; and poetry by Rosalia de Castro. Nonfiction includes The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I've also listened to a lot of Julia Cameron's The Artist Way, the audiotape version of her book that I had made copies from the library in Pacific Grove, CA years ago. I found them in a box here in Al-Ain started listening to them again and again. Now that I've created a little and have been wanting to return to my novel manuscript but know that I'm afraid of beginning the whole process again, I've learned so much about myself and my fears by listening to her wise words. Audio version is nice because she has a gentle yet stern voice to put you in your place while you make your commute to work every day. Anyone whose fear of making mistakes is preventing them from creating should read or listen to her book. Immediately. For your sake and ours. 

 The Artist's Way

Julia Cameron

No surrender in November

Maybe you thought I forgot about this blog? Or even the novel? Well, not entirely.

In May, I submitted my pages to the writing workshop, then decided to take a rest from writing and editing. In June, we took off for Mexico, and the beginning of a wonderful and fun-filled summer vacation began. Then July rolled around, and I attended Donald Maass' Intensive Writing Workshop. I haven't been the same since then (in a mostly good way, though:). I learned so much in his workshop, grew so much, came to realize my strengths and weaknesses. I have a lot of strengths in my writing, thank God, at least enough to make me want to continue writing. My main weakness was that I included too much backstory and did not start the action soon enough. Too chronological. Too linear. As I sat there day after day, getting wonderful feedback reports and strutting back to my hotel room, all glowing and self-content, it began to dawn on me how much more work was in front of me. I thought I was going to be finished by the end of this year. Now that I believe it will be two more years, maybe more, to ensure it's loaded with the kind of impact I want it to have.

Sigh.

That's okay. After the workshop, I got a little depressed about the idea of requiring many years to complete my novel. But now that I've had some time away from writing it, I'm looking forward to giving another crack at it. First I want to continue with the reading program I've imposed upon myself. I got the idea to do this from the writing guidebook Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. In it, he says to read 6 books similar to the type you want to write, whether genre, plot type, setting, or character. You're supposed to read each one once for pleasure, then reread each of them again with a set of index cards in front of you. This time, make notes on what's happening, scribble down what works for you as well as what you don't like in the story your reading. I will probably only do 3 because I have small children, but so far this idea seems to be helpful. I'm almost finished reading Eat, Pray, Love. I like a lot of things Elizabeth Gilbert does, and have already made some mental notes of things I would have done differently.

My writing no is pretty

I've come to realize that a creation must become monstrously ugly before its true beauty can be realized.

This past month I've been working on a prologue scene that will relieve me of all the exposition that's been weighing down my dialogue in one of my chapters. My word count would be over 70,000, but because I've been paring dialogue and narrative, my word count has hovered at 65,000 for about a month. It's like my work was ballooning outward, crammed with ideas, and I had to get in there with a knife to give it shape.

I recently registered for a week-long intensive writing workshop in Chicago this coming July with literary agent Donald Maass. I'm very excited about it since aside from daily instruction, he and his staff will critique the first 50 pages of the manuscript.  I have two months to prepare my manuscript and synopsis before sending it to his agency.

In a computer lab on Christmas Eve somewhere in the Middle East

It's Christmas Eve and I'm sitting in a computer lab during my break at the university where I teach English because, well, I teach in the Middle East where Christmas isn't considered a holiday. Fair enough since last week we were off due to it being Al-Eid (a holy post-Ramadan kind of holiday that includes a lot of family time, feasting, and gift-giving). Still, there's a lot of pressure on westerners living over here who have to work, shop, cook the Christmas feast, bake ginger cookies and be there to watch their children open their presents.

As of right now, I'm between 75-80% finished of my writing target of 75K words. That boils down to only writing a meager 18K words or so. I think I know which scenes still need to be written, and I'm doing them one by one, usually taking two days to write a scene, but I've been going at a very slow pace because a lot of editing still needs to be done as well so that it's a polished first draft. I'm a little worried about the historical storyline since I haven't been working on that much at all in past months, and now I'm trying to figure out how it's going to fit. I have my outline of scenes I can look at to jog my memory, but my current storyline and its themes have evolved to the point where I can't just insert the historical storyline (as is) as I had intended.

You would think writing is a joyful hobby, but I tell you, I only feel joy maybe 1 out of 5 times when I sit down to write. It's painstaking, tedious, humiliating at times, and brain-sapping as if I'm solving a very difficult puzzle, taking every scrap of mental effort I had been saving to mop the kitchen floor with.

Anyway, it's likely I won't complete the first polished draft by December 31 since my husband and stepson are leaving for Nepal the day after Christmas and will be away for almost a week. Creche is on holiday, so I'll be sitting here working and watching my two little goats kids. That's okay, I'm not crying over not meeting my writing goal because I think I've done pretty well considering I didn't begin writing this novel until July due to the arthritis thing (however, I had written scenes, outlines, character sketches, and done research earlier this year and last year). I think the important thing is the determination a person has along the way when s/he is striving to meet a goal.

Writing is sometimes kinda scary

It's mid-December and the sands are blowing outside my window. I'm just 70% above my writing target. I can now see the handful of scenes I need to write to complete the novel I'm writing, and I'm both thrilled and terrified at the same time. But overall, as of today anyway after completing a scene, I am beginning to feel a sense of relief that I am accomplishing the task I set out to do one year ago.

Recently, I thought of another couple books that have deeply influenced me and my writing: On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, and Candide by Voltaire.

 

 

 

 

 

On the Road: 50th Anniversary Edition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winesburg, Ohio (Bantam Classic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Candide (Dover Thrift Editions)

 

 

 

 

 

I have a week off to write instead of teach due to Al-Eid holiday in the UAE. So I am going to get as many scenes finished as possible while juggling my time with my family, especially since my super cool step-son Max (and personal investor) is coming to visit. Meanwhile, in the evenings I am reading my manuscript aloud to listen for anything that sounds stilted or wrong, and rewriting in the rare moments I have when I'm not power writing. I've also emailed the first batch of 50 words out to a few people. After the first polished draft is complete, I plan to ask as many of my friends as possible to review the manuscript while I am in Spain for a couple weeks in January researching my setting on the Camino to Santiago de Compostela.

By the way, I am pleased to announce that my nonfiction The Long Distance Relationship Guidebook has been doing well at the online bookstores.

 

 

 

 

 

The Long Distance Relationship Guidebook

Sylvia Shipp

 

 

 

 

 

Focus on the journey my butt

It's December and this past week I've been fermenting the last leg of my main character's self-discovery journey on the Camino to Santiago, and hover at 65%. I say "self-discovery" because I've realized that overall, that's the overarching theme in my novel. There are many books and films out on this topic, but none resemble my own (thank God).

I was just reading the reviews of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert on Amazon.com, and it terrified me how some reviewers lambasted her. I hope she never reads some of the vicious remarks people have written. They were lambasting her for two reasons: 1) she received an advance from her publisher before taking off for a year on her journey toward self-discovery to Italy, India, and Indonesia, and 2) they say she is too narcissistic. I don't know, isn't the point of self-discovery for people to focus on themselves? I haven't read the book, so I''m withholding judgment for now. I sympathize with their concerns, but still, I wish people would show a little more tolerance towards others, even if they have been given a helping hand. And furthermore, it's not like she hadn't traveled a lot under spartan conditions before getting any help from her publishers.

I've researched other notable works on second chances and self-discovery, and I've come to realized how influenced I am by Herman Hesse's books Siddhartha and Steppenwolf which I read in my twenties. 

I'd like to deepen my understanding of a person's self-discovery by watching Woody Allen's paragon of reinvention, Shirley Valentine which is about a middle-aged woman who is dissatisfied with her marriage, travels to Greece alone and ends up finding herself again.

On a lighter note, there are the films Bread and Tulips (Pane e Tulipani), Under the Tuscan Sun and more recently, The Holiday, all of which I've seen over the years and enjoyed very much.

The Holiday

Shirley Valentine

Bread and Tulips

Under the Tuscan Sun (Full Screen Edition)