During the last eleven or so months I attended a longditudanl workshop on novel writing hosted at the Melton Library and given by Merelene Fawdry. In that time I listened intently making copiuos comments in the margins of the comprehensive study notes she provided. As Kundela had been almost completed I was able to follow her teachings whereby through ignorance and luck I'd managed to include and understand many of the points we were learning.
The whole process filling me with pride, allowing me to say 'I am a writer.'
Jump forward to this November and to when I started writing Toby Farrier. The planning was first class I had chapter outlines set and made sure there was a logical flow to the story. I developped a story board for tracking the action and places. Much moe reliable than drawing on the memories securley filed away in my head. I even wrote a story about a bus ride for the characters helping to fix their little nuances into my memory banks. Character charts completed for the main players helping to prompt me for things like hair colour, relationships, and other minute details. So you would think that writing this book should have been a simple matter of blasting the words down. After all the bones of the story had already been written.
Not so, because now after 25,000 words I realise I have a problem with the timing of the action.Or more to the point I should have planned a timeline. My only course of action now is to go over the story and plot the happenings. Taking care and drafting a line of sequences with dates and times to flow the series of events.Either that or find a good reason for Toby to have a party on the last Monday before school breaks up for the Christmas holidays.
Thanks for reading my rant and if you are planning a story of any kind learn from my mistake and jot down notes as to the timing of events. It is much easier.
Okay it's now time to get back to Toby and get his story finished.
No comments:
Post a Comment