I debated coming down to be part of the condo which I shared with members of Dave Wolverton’s writer’s workshop. Last time I hosted, most of my roommates excluded me from their conversation. I can understand that I did not attend the workshop, but no effort was made to include me and I felt like a third wheel. I was disappointed in that. I didn’t look forward to being excluded a second time.
This time the group of members is more inclusive and I’ve appreciated that. They are all fun in their own way. Below are some of the things they do or learned that helps their writing and I wanted to share them:
1. Aaron will mark different scenes of a story with letters to identify what emotion is needed. One scene might need more humor so he puts the letter H. Then when the author is in a funny mood then he comes back and writes humor in the story while he’s feeling funny. If he is feeling frustrated about something he can go back to the story and work on a frustration scene.
2. They said that in Dave’s workshop, he gives advice of giving yourself assignments. This is especially useful if you have writers block. One example is to delve deeper in the mind of the character. You tap into their thoughts, their self-dialog, the dialog in their mind that they might create with someone else.
3. Another thing: First person is intimate. You can’t give outside perspective. First person cannot give all the details of a room because that person won’t see them, such as noticing the fridge that is behind them. The reader can see only what they see. Third person is where you’re telling what the character is seeing but it can be expanded.
4. Book on editing: , self-editing for writers by Remington brown.
5. Inciting incident should start within the first 10% of the book.
6. First try fail cycle should occur within 25% of the book, third is within the 40%
7. During the climax: validation of the protagonist’s actions should come from the opponent. The validation shows what makes the hero unique. I.e.: star wars, “you have learned much Luke Skywalker”. Or in harry potter. Lord Voldemort tells Harry “I couldn’t touch you but now I can.” In Harry Potter Professor Dumbledore says “I’m sorry I failed you but you accomplished much anyway.”
8. Look up emotion thesaurus. There is a link to fear and it will provide all the body language that describe the emotion of fear: http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/p/emotion-thesaurus.html
9. The author of the book Wicked approaches description in an interesting way. He will describe a mountain with horse metaphors such as snort, huff, bucked and then the group of characters will ride up the mountain.
10. Dénouement or reader’s validation: the actions of the protectionists has to be validated during the climax by the antagonist and need a guide or sidekick with the hero that validates as well such as Sam in the Lord of the Rings saying “Wd did it” after they tossed the ring into mount doom.
11. Check out this plot chart: http://www.google.com/search?q=plot+chart&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=iJxQUML8IIvU2QXZ74GoCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1440&bih=723
12. Link to descriptions: http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/2008/08/introducing-sensory-saturdaymeet-our.html
13. Here is a something I want to try. I am currently collecting a bunch of the National Geographic magazines. It is my hope to create a note book of buildings, clothes, cultures, landscapes so that when I need to describe something I can flip through the book to help me in my descriptions.
Those are a few things I learned just this morning and thought I’d share. Do you have a pretty juicy piece of advice that has helped you? Please share and provide your web site.
