A timely little exercise tonight. Happy Halloween, everyone!
Prompt: coma
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Set pre-series; Dean is twelve, Sam is eight.
-----
Sam Winchester watched with a half-amused, half-exasperated expression as his older brother Dean tore into their trick-or-treat bags with a fervor most kids reserved for Christmas morning. “Dude, we made a killing tonight,” Dean exclaimed as he began separating the candy bars--his favorite--from the rest of the individually-wrapped pieces of hard candy and little packets of candy corn.
“Whatever,” Sam muttered as he began pulling off the accents to his costume. Dean had dressed him up as a shadow wraith, which turned out to be a super-lame idea because everyone thought, due to Sam’s all-black outfit, that he was going as a ninja. For his part, Dean had gone out as a werewolf. Everyone knew immediately what he was.
“We’re not doing this next year, Dean,” Sam argued, yanking off his black hoodie, revealing the black T-shirt underneath.
“What are you talking about?” Dean asked, looking up at his little brother in surprise.
“I mean I’m done with the dressing up and knocking on doors.”
“But … Sam.” Dean gestured at the piles of candy surrounding him as if he couldn’t understand why someone would willingly pass up this opportunity. “The whole point of tonight is to get ourselves enough free candy to put ourselves into a sugar coma for the next week.”
“But it’s dumb, and I hate it.”
Dean blinked hard. Next year he would be thirteen, too old to go out trick-or-treating on his own. He’d been counting on being able to use the excuse of having to take Sam around for the next couple of years, at least. He opened his mouth to argue but he could tell just from the look on his little brother’s face that he meant business.
So instead he tossed a Milky Way, Sam’s favorite, to his brother. “We’ll talk about it next year. Right now? It’s candy-coma time.”
Sam held his determined expression for just a moment before tearing into the Milky Way, plopping down next his brother, and eagerly digging in.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Writing Exercise #1
In order to help get my creative juices flowing a little bit, I've decided to do some writing exercises using one-word prompts, which I'm getting here and here. The rules, as I've set them up for myself, are as follows:
-Fanfic and original characters are both fair game
-No agonizing over it. This includes: no worrying about word count, no editing the hell out of it, no fiddling with it.
Basically, the idea is just to write whatever pops into my head and post it. I'm hoping this will help me get back in touch with my style and normal voice.
Anywho. Here is the result of the first exercise, using a prompt given to me via Facebook:
Prompt: windows
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Sam Winchester
Set during Season 1, Episode 5: “Bloody Mary”
-----
It was said that mirrors were the windows into the soul, that mirrors provided the one true reflection of yourself. As a matter of fact, Sam had told Dean something similar just a few hours ago. It had to be true, though, because Sam hated what he saw in the mirror.
The figure staring back at him was something other than human. A freak who got dreams that told the future. A scared little boy who had ignored those dreams, refused to believe them. Refused to believe that Jessica would meet the same fate as his mother. Tried to convince himself that the nightmares were stress-related.
But deep down, he knew the truth, and he’d let her die. All because he’d been too afraid to lose control, too afraid to admit that the life he’d fled was catching up with him. He’d done nothing to stop it, nothing to warn her. And he’d left her alone.
Out of all his transgressions, leaving her alone was the one for which he’d never forgive himself.
Never.
Mirrors were definitely the windows into the soul. The one thing that never lied, that always showed you the truth.
Sam was ready. He shifted the crowbar in his hand, and began to chant: “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary …” He paused just a moment before uttering the final, “Bloody Mary.”
-Fanfic and original characters are both fair game
-No agonizing over it. This includes: no worrying about word count, no editing the hell out of it, no fiddling with it.
Basically, the idea is just to write whatever pops into my head and post it. I'm hoping this will help me get back in touch with my style and normal voice.
Anywho. Here is the result of the first exercise, using a prompt given to me via Facebook:
Prompt: windows
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Sam Winchester
Set during Season 1, Episode 5: “Bloody Mary”
-----
It was said that mirrors were the windows into the soul, that mirrors provided the one true reflection of yourself. As a matter of fact, Sam had told Dean something similar just a few hours ago. It had to be true, though, because Sam hated what he saw in the mirror.
The figure staring back at him was something other than human. A freak who got dreams that told the future. A scared little boy who had ignored those dreams, refused to believe them. Refused to believe that Jessica would meet the same fate as his mother. Tried to convince himself that the nightmares were stress-related.
But deep down, he knew the truth, and he’d let her die. All because he’d been too afraid to lose control, too afraid to admit that the life he’d fled was catching up with him. He’d done nothing to stop it, nothing to warn her. And he’d left her alone.
Out of all his transgressions, leaving her alone was the one for which he’d never forgive himself.
Never.
Mirrors were definitely the windows into the soul. The one thing that never lied, that always showed you the truth.
Sam was ready. He shifted the crowbar in his hand, and began to chant: “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary …” He paused just a moment before uttering the final, “Bloody Mary.”
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Writer's Block ... Of a Sort
I think it's time to admit that I have writer's block.
Well, sort of. I've mentioned before that I've only had one real case of writer's block where I just could not write a single thing, and that the block lasted close to two years. I'm not at that point right now. Where I am right now is a kind of burnout.
I've written and rewritten and reworded my first chapter so many times that I've honestly lost count. Nothing's coming out the way I want. It's not bad, per se, just ... not what I want.
I can't keep writing it over and over to make it come out the way I want. Especially since I don't exactly know what it is that I want. I just know that what I have now isn't it.
What do I usually do in cases like this is work on something else. Something new, maybe, just to spend time on something different in an effort to get the creative juices flowing again. I don't have any new plot ideas at the moment, so I'm embarking on a rewrite project.
Here's hoping that by the time I'm done with the rewrite, things will flow better in my main project.
Well, sort of. I've mentioned before that I've only had one real case of writer's block where I just could not write a single thing, and that the block lasted close to two years. I'm not at that point right now. Where I am right now is a kind of burnout.
I've written and rewritten and reworded my first chapter so many times that I've honestly lost count. Nothing's coming out the way I want. It's not bad, per se, just ... not what I want.
I can't keep writing it over and over to make it come out the way I want. Especially since I don't exactly know what it is that I want. I just know that what I have now isn't it.
What do I usually do in cases like this is work on something else. Something new, maybe, just to spend time on something different in an effort to get the creative juices flowing again. I don't have any new plot ideas at the moment, so I'm embarking on a rewrite project.
Here's hoping that by the time I'm done with the rewrite, things will flow better in my main project.
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Self-Deprecating Notes
Since I am still massively unhappy with the voice in The Witch of November, I'm trying something I should have tried many months ago: I'm starting over. Not completely, mind you, (again, I have not lost complete control of my faculties) but enough that I'm not trying to simply reword what I have to make it sound better. I'm actually rewriting the damn thing line by line, much the way I do for a second draft.
A good chunk of my problem right now is getting back to the heart of my style. In trying to find that perfect voice I had in my head but could never make work on paper, I must have reworded things a hundred times. And the more I reworded it, trying to make it sound "cute" or "punchy" or "witty," the less it sounded like ... me.
I recognized that a while back but I didn't stop fiddling and now it doesn't sound like me at all. It's okay, I guess. Some parts are a little clunky, and some parts are a little trying-too-hard; those kinds of fixes are easy once you recognize them. But the problem I have with it now is I don't see me in the writing at all.
It was in trying to fix the mess I've made of my first few chapters that I came to realize a few things:
1) There is such a thing as using too many fragments. I tend to use fragments for emphasis or to give the writing a more conversational tone. However, using too many fragments one after another or in conjunction with each other makes the writing read choppy and look sloppy. Oops!
2) I'm not remarkably witty. Or consistently funny. In trying to make the writing wittier than I actually am, it winds up smacking of trying way too hard. It's better when I just let the humor come when I feel it should rather than trying to inject some kind of droll remark in every line.
3) I have a bad habit of explaining things forty-seven ways from Sunday. I started writing first drafts this way because I had the opposite tendency at first: I'd just write whatever popped into my head and by the time revisions rolled around, I'd reach sections where I had absolutely no idea what I meant. So now I explain everything, mainly so when I get back to that section in edits, I'll have some idea what I'm talking about. The result is exposition in the narrative, the dialogue, and in the inner monologue. Which is a lot of freakin' exposition. Oy.
4) I tend to be very all or nothing. My characters are eleven, so I have it in my head that the narrative has to be in kid-voice. I'm a long way from eleven, so kid-voice is hard to maintain over the course of a novel. As a matter of fact, the only time in recent memory that I completed a project in kid-voice was a 13,500-word Supernatural fic called "Corpse Fire" (oddly, one of my favorites, if it's cool to have favorites of your own work.) My usual style is a tad more adult. Why it can't be okay in my head for me to write the narrative in my normal style and leave the kid-voice for the dialogue, I can't tell you.
5) I tend to write a lot in the passive voice. You know, the "The floor was littered with debris" construction rather than "Debris littered the floor." Or "He was sitting on the sofa" instead of "He sat on the sofa." Again, oops!
Also, I start sentences with "But" and "And" a lot. And while that's okay sometimes (see what I did there, did ya?), it's totally not cool all the time.
A good chunk of my problem right now is getting back to the heart of my style. In trying to find that perfect voice I had in my head but could never make work on paper, I must have reworded things a hundred times. And the more I reworded it, trying to make it sound "cute" or "punchy" or "witty," the less it sounded like ... me.
I recognized that a while back but I didn't stop fiddling and now it doesn't sound like me at all. It's okay, I guess. Some parts are a little clunky, and some parts are a little trying-too-hard; those kinds of fixes are easy once you recognize them. But the problem I have with it now is I don't see me in the writing at all.
It was in trying to fix the mess I've made of my first few chapters that I came to realize a few things:
1) There is such a thing as using too many fragments. I tend to use fragments for emphasis or to give the writing a more conversational tone. However, using too many fragments one after another or in conjunction with each other makes the writing read choppy and look sloppy. Oops!
2) I'm not remarkably witty. Or consistently funny. In trying to make the writing wittier than I actually am, it winds up smacking of trying way too hard. It's better when I just let the humor come when I feel it should rather than trying to inject some kind of droll remark in every line.
3) I have a bad habit of explaining things forty-seven ways from Sunday. I started writing first drafts this way because I had the opposite tendency at first: I'd just write whatever popped into my head and by the time revisions rolled around, I'd reach sections where I had absolutely no idea what I meant. So now I explain everything, mainly so when I get back to that section in edits, I'll have some idea what I'm talking about. The result is exposition in the narrative, the dialogue, and in the inner monologue. Which is a lot of freakin' exposition. Oy.
4) I tend to be very all or nothing. My characters are eleven, so I have it in my head that the narrative has to be in kid-voice. I'm a long way from eleven, so kid-voice is hard to maintain over the course of a novel. As a matter of fact, the only time in recent memory that I completed a project in kid-voice was a 13,500-word Supernatural fic called "Corpse Fire" (oddly, one of my favorites, if it's cool to have favorites of your own work.) My usual style is a tad more adult. Why it can't be okay in my head for me to write the narrative in my normal style and leave the kid-voice for the dialogue, I can't tell you.
5) I tend to write a lot in the passive voice. You know, the "The floor was littered with debris" construction rather than "Debris littered the floor." Or "He was sitting on the sofa" instead of "He sat on the sofa." Again, oops!
Also, I start sentences with "But" and "And" a lot. And while that's okay sometimes (see what I did there, did ya?), it's totally not cool all the time.
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