Posts
RE Last Post: My Ideas, or Are They?
In my last post I discussed details for story and whether or not they are things I'm unconciously "borrowing" from other novels or not, in an email to me, fantasy author Brian Rathbone said:
"World building is tricky stuff, and it's easy to go overboard--overthinking details that readers will never consider, but then again fantasy readers are notoriously fastidous. I found if I thought about all that too much, I'd just get stuck, so I wrote a really terrible first draft, not caring about mistakes or typos. I just dumped the story from my brian. From there I foud it easier to rearrange, clean up, and edit ad nauseum."
I thought that was pretty good advice, and thought maybe someone reading may find it helpful.
YA
This will be similar-ish to a post I wrote on my book blog, but from the writer's rather than the reader's perspective. A few posts ago, I said that my story would be a YA urban fantasy. While I've been thinking about my story, I've realised my main male character will be around 18-19 years old. No matter what the outcome to this blog, he still will be that age, and whoever enjoys my story enjoys it, but do you think the story could still be considered YA if he's 18-19?
A few months ago I was taking a Writing for Children's class, and one of the things my teacher said made a YA novel a YA novel was having a protagonist who was within the YA age, i.e. a teenager. Is my teenager too old to be considered an actual teenager/young adult? Things will blur slightly for me here, as living in the UK, anyone over 18 is considered an adult - completely legal, where as things are different in the US, where my story will be set. Research is needed, I get that, but isn't this point more of an opinion thing? How old is too old for a YA story/novel? Should I not bother labelling my story either YA or Adult, and just write it? What do you think?
Antagonist
I've realised my story is only kind of half formed in my mind; there's no problem. There are problems within the story which cause the story to come about, but no Problem - personified - who is causing it all. In other words, I have no antagonist, and if there story is going to get anywhere, I need mine to show his or her face. As an inexperienced writer - who knows hardly anything - three options come to me:
- I can research my fantasy element, and see what comes up in regards to enemies, and see if I create my own, or
- I take the view that I don't know about my antagonist because my protags don't know about him/her yet, so I should just write until he/she makes an appearance, or
- A mixture of the two above
Catherine Haines' Blog
Catherine Haines is a book blogger and an aspiring author, and I follow her various blogs, both on, writing and on reading. I am yet to move on to her blog that is just for writing, Working Title, for posts that will help me personally, but on her website, Catherine-Haines.com, she has a few posts on writing that I found quite interesting and helpful. One was Laying Down the Law, where she discusses questions she has to ask herself regarding the limitations of the fantasy elements of her stories (which will help for my antagonist, probably), and the other, Wiki for Worldbuilding? Apparently So! was about how a private Wiki can be used to keep notes on a story - I just need to work out how to get one.
If anyone knows of any other aspiring or published authors who have blogs where they discuss the writing process, I would really appreciate it if you could send me the links. You can never learn too much, can you?
Beta Readers
This is a question for other writers. What's the deal with beta readers? Do all writer's need a beta reader? Can anyone be a beta reader? If not, how do you go about getting one? I don't think I need one just yet - I'd assume you'd have to have at least a chapter done before getting your work beta-ed, but the info would be useful.
Writer's Block/Stuck Exercise
This is something I thought I would share as it looks like it will be quite useful. I was browsing fantasy author Beth Revis' blog, and I saw a link in one of her posts to an exercise writer's can do when they're stuck on blog Inside a Dog. It gives a step-by-step of things to include in a paragraph of prose, which could lead on to an idea or a scene in your story. Looks quite good to me!
Ok, that's me done for now. Now to researching and thinking and brain storming and some writing possibly ;)
I did think that exercise on Inside a Dog was simple and effective--glad you liked.
ReplyDeleteRe: beta readers--Wait until you've got a work done and you need criticism or help perfecting the work. As for who to find--just ask some fellow writers! :)
Thank you for the advice! I'd heard about beta readers but didn't really know too much about them, so had to ask. I'll get to the writing first, thanks. And the exercise is pretty awesome!
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