Lorne: Take care of yourself and ah, make sure fluffy is getting enough love. Gunn: Did he have anything? Fred: No. And who's fluffy? Are you fluffy? Gunn: He called me fluffy? Fred: He said make sure…wait. You don't think he was referring to anything of mine that's fluffy, do you? Because that would just be inappropriate.

'Conviction (1)'


The Great Write Way, Act Three: Where's the gun?

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


erikaj - Jul 23, 2009 3:44:58 pm PDT #1878 of 6690
Always Anti-fascist!

Yes, this. I thought it would help, but...


Scrappy - Jul 23, 2009 4:59:00 pm PDT #1879 of 6690
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

I think with writing exercises, it's a good idea to try a bunch of them, and only keep using the ones which actually work. take creatign characters. Some writers can write great dialogue but have trouble with a cohesive backstyory and would beneifit from writing detailed bios of characters. Some writers can create worlds and bios till the cows come home, but the voices of all their characters sound very similar, and and an exercise like describing the same event in the first person voices of three different characters can help with that. They're just tools after all.


Gudanov - Jul 24, 2009 5:20:58 am PDT #1880 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

No forward progress last night. I didn't have much time and I went back into chapter 1 to clean a few things up. For one, I can't believe how many times I messed up it's and its. I understand why I make the mistake, typing 's is just reflexive when doing a possessive. But, wow, I just don't see them when I read over unless I'm very careful. That's going to be tough, I mentally fix things when I read and don't catch mistakes easily.

My wife also gave me some good tips from some of her research. Be on the watch for sentences that use 'was' since they can typically be written stronger. Also, and I already sort of knew this but got lazy a couple of times, be on the watch for when I tell what emotion a character is experiencing.

The chapter 2 revision is going to be a tough one. There is a lot of information to convey about the setting and backstory. The backstory I think I can break up a bit and push back parts to be conveyed in smaller chunks over time. The setting is tougher, I need to find a balance between excessive narrative and still getting enough across to give the reader a mental image.


Connie Neil - Jul 24, 2009 5:36:43 am PDT #1881 of 6690
brillig

When I do editing, I keep a list of all the consistent misuses and misspellings, then I use the Find tool to look for every one. If it's something that's always wrong, like the way I put "hte" for "the", I do Find and Replace.


Gudanov - Jul 24, 2009 5:44:52 am PDT #1882 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

That is a good idea. I should definitely search on "it's" when I get the first revision done. It will take time to go through all the legit ones, but worth it to catch 'em.


Barb - Jul 24, 2009 6:48:13 am PDT #1883 of 6690
“Not dead yet!”

This is the aggravating part of revisions-- questioning what's really important. I'm so freakin' familiar with the story and the characters, I'm kind of losing sense of flow.

Oh well, I'ma just wing it and hope for the best.


Liese S. - Jul 24, 2009 8:18:02 am PDT #1884 of 6690
"Faded like the lilac, he thought."

Hey, Gud, I just wanted to say I read it and it's great. Busy day today, so I likely won't get to the detailed comments right away, but I didn't want to leave you hanging.

I really like the story, and I want to know what happens next! Which is good.


Gudanov - Jul 24, 2009 8:23:39 am PDT #1885 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

Thanks! Don't feel any need to hurry, I'll be chewing on chapter two of the first draft for a bit. I'm expecting that one to be hard.

Chapter three of the first draft will be more fun. I think chapter three is one of the better chapters of the first draft along with 5,8,9,11,12,15,16,17,18,24,28,30, and 31. 1,2,7,10,13,20,29 are the trouble makers. 30 and 31 will be a lot of work anyhow since it's the ending.


Amy - Jul 24, 2009 8:24:56 am PDT #1886 of 6690
Because books.

I applaud you, Gud. I hate revision with a passion, unless I have those lightbulb moments of, "Oh! He should have said THAT!"

And I tend to self-edit as I go, which is ... good and bad.


Gudanov - Jul 24, 2009 8:33:01 am PDT #1887 of 6690
Coding and Sleeping

It probably helps that I'm new to trying to write something that is, well, decent. I'm learning a lot as I go. It makes things more interesting.