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My new technique for character development is to spend time writing about the character in my notebook. I don't fill out a character sheet (although I do that as well), I just write about their thoughts, feelings, tastes, desires and history in a stream-of-consciousness.
In under a month and a half I've written almost seventy-five thousand words, and my story is coming to a close. The only thing I can really hope I get from all this is improvement in my writing. I hope all of this agonizing, fretting and frustration has amounted to a lasting something.
Thanks for the follow. Like Haydos, I'd also like to know what specifically compelled you to follow me. The genre of my story? The quality of the writing? The frequency of updates? Thanks again!
The benefit, too, of outlining with only (or almost only) the plot-beats is that it lets you see much of the scene in very few words. You can then add more and more beats as you see fit, piling them up until you have scenes rich in purpose and direction.
I think I've found an even deeper, yet related, problem with my writing: When I outline, I should be laser-focused on the plot-beats. This allows me to build up a stack of logical progressions that can give meaning and complexity to each scene. Without that, writing a meaningful inner monologue...
I think I've found a problem with my writing, and it's similar to a lot of other problems I have in life: I don't think enough but just fire it off. My first child will probably be a result of this.
I received my first criticism and first extolment in the same day. I finally got "likes" for the first time on this forum, and this is the most attention anything I've ever written has gotten. I'm eager to keep going, and to do even better!
My thinking was to go beyond the sensational and into the literary. When you describe the "skimming off the top" sequence, you did so in narrative summary, and as you demonstrated, it worked well for not only conveying lots of information quickly, but for condensing time and even to add some...
Something I often say is that it's a matter of who you know. Literally.
Two-thousand five-hundred and ten people, or my daughter?
Well, sorry, Norfolk Island, my daughter comes first. I have zero responsibility to anyone but her.
With the trolley problem it's a bit easier. If I don't know any...
The connection between exposition and action cannot be overstated. I was reading a piece I myself wrote and I happened to land on a technique a couple of times. Here it is. Context is important so I copied a little more than may seem necessary:
A change of topic was the desperate but obvious...
And so it was over. The air-conditioner kicked off, leaving the kitchen eerily quiet.
When a game is completed it's normal to whoop and celebrate, so the silence between the siblings felt unnatural, even to them, even as they did nothing about it. They just sat there in their respective...
Missy sat there looking more pitiful than Thomas had ever seen her. She had the dice in her hand still, but didn't really notice them. She was staring and her eyes were tearing up and her mouth was turned down in the most piteous u-shape. Thomas didn't like it either, but the story was the...
Daniel awoke the next morning and sat up into the fog of a thick, restive morning atmosphere. The blanket slipped from torso and stomach, crumpling in his lap, revealing the musculature that had been earned over years of arduous pursuit of the pernicious scourge. He ran his hands along his...