lookingland (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lookingland) wrote2005-10-23 07:57 pm
lookingland) wrote2005-10-23 07:57 pm
Entry tags:
transubstantiation, snowflakes, and other itchy thoughts ~
i finished my outline for The Kidnapped Christ last night ~ the ending is still warbly and meandery, but i think i should prolly have enough words before i get there that i can squeeze it down by then. and on the other hand ~ there's a good chance i won't be writing this in chronological order from the first scene.
especially since the first scene is rather complicated and requires some nuances that at the moment i don't really have the brain power to navigate. it involves L & M in the makeshift chapel of the converted saw mill talking about the Eucharist.
uh ~ huh?
yeah.
i have some thoughts on how i will accomplish that without turning it into a treatise on the Real Presence and getting all mired down into the theology of the business ~ the scene is mostly to set up the diametrically opposed attitudes of the primary characters (belief vs. a hostile sort of skepticism), as well as to establish a few plot necessities: mainly the financial situation of the parish (finances? what finances?), and the importance of what will be a central silent character throughout this melodrama: mainly God Himself, who's about to be kidnapped.
but yeah, i don't really feel too much like starting there.
i might start with the kidnapping itself. or perhaps at the ending (i often write the endings first).
either way, that's the beauty of the outline: i can just pick a scene, any scene, and leap right in ~ i'll worry about assembling the puzzle later.
interestingly (for someone, i am sure), this is the same way i used to write my college papers. never in order, always sort of simultaneously spiraling inward and outward. books "happen" to me, the way i see it. they emerge like those magic trees that grow when you stick the chemically treated paper trunk into a little pan of water ~ the way the crystals bloom.
i think this is why the so-called "Snowflake" method doesn't work for me personally. because i've always created in fractals intuitively. when someone breaks down the process and defines it, i get all rumpled because it creates the semblance of verbal rules over something that mathematically complete without them. it's spontaneous. it shouldn't be explained or need explaining.
not that i don't appreciate that someone bothered to explain it ~ and i hope it works like gangbusters for those of you who are doing it ~ because as a process it has tons to offer.
but i just cringe at it personally. can't explain that except that i feel like it's too much of a reduction of the creative side of the work ~ there's just soooo much more that goes on than simply piling words onto words.
i'm blithering. it's official.
be forwarned ~ the more my brain goes, the more i shall likely be posting.
: D
~ this has been an official NaNoish posting.
especially since the first scene is rather complicated and requires some nuances that at the moment i don't really have the brain power to navigate. it involves L & M in the makeshift chapel of the converted saw mill talking about the Eucharist.
uh ~ huh?
yeah.
i have some thoughts on how i will accomplish that without turning it into a treatise on the Real Presence and getting all mired down into the theology of the business ~ the scene is mostly to set up the diametrically opposed attitudes of the primary characters (belief vs. a hostile sort of skepticism), as well as to establish a few plot necessities: mainly the financial situation of the parish (finances? what finances?), and the importance of what will be a central silent character throughout this melodrama: mainly God Himself, who's about to be kidnapped.
but yeah, i don't really feel too much like starting there.
i might start with the kidnapping itself. or perhaps at the ending (i often write the endings first).
either way, that's the beauty of the outline: i can just pick a scene, any scene, and leap right in ~ i'll worry about assembling the puzzle later.
interestingly (for someone, i am sure), this is the same way i used to write my college papers. never in order, always sort of simultaneously spiraling inward and outward. books "happen" to me, the way i see it. they emerge like those magic trees that grow when you stick the chemically treated paper trunk into a little pan of water ~ the way the crystals bloom.
i think this is why the so-called "Snowflake" method doesn't work for me personally. because i've always created in fractals intuitively. when someone breaks down the process and defines it, i get all rumpled because it creates the semblance of verbal rules over something that mathematically complete without them. it's spontaneous. it shouldn't be explained or need explaining.
not that i don't appreciate that someone bothered to explain it ~ and i hope it works like gangbusters for those of you who are doing it ~ because as a process it has tons to offer.
but i just cringe at it personally. can't explain that except that i feel like it's too much of a reduction of the creative side of the work ~ there's just soooo much more that goes on than simply piling words onto words.
i'm blithering. it's official.
be forwarned ~ the more my brain goes, the more i shall likely be posting.
: D
~ this has been an official NaNoish posting.
no subject
When I was rewriting my Kate and Jill story, I would wander from chapter to chapter sort of in the way you described, but still the original draft was written chronologically. One thing I've always wanted to do is write a story backwards. I've always wanted to start with an ending scene and then work my way backwards until I reach the beginning. Haha ~ endings I seem to have the most trouble with, so it'd be a huge challenge for me. I tend to have scenes from the beginning and middle that inspire a story and then I work systematically through them to the end, where the ending eventually reveals itself. ha! I guess I write the way I read a book! I'll pick up a book read the first chapter (or the first couple pages) skip to the middle and read a few pages and if I like it, I'll read it. :D
It seems a lot of writers have a starting image (me included!) that begins their creative process, and then story grows from that little seed. The way you described your writing gave me this fun little image: A tapestry that is tangled, its beauty hidden by the mess of threads. Each thread extracted and untangled with each question answered, until all the threads are untangled and ready to be woven into a finely structured piece of art. ^_^
no subject
: D
i usually come up with endings first. for me to start with an image at the beginning or early on is unusual.
my civil war trilogyl started with the image of two soldiers sitting on a dead horse drinking coffee. that became the ending scene of the first book (though they couldn't sit on the horse in the final analysis, alas ~ hahahahaha ~ it just wouldn't work, though the horse is still in the scene).
last year's NaNo started with the image of morse and marithé going to confront the devil in the form of patient john fischer. this ended up being sort of the climax moment of the book.
so i guess it depends ~ generally speaking though ~ whatever i start with, i usually keep and build around.
~ and like you, i pick up a book, read the first line, flip to the end and read the last line ~ and if i'm intrigued, i'll read the book.
: D