{"id":1190,"date":"2020-09-09T08:50:15","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T12:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2020-09-09T08:50:15","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T12:50:15","slug":"tangled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/09\/tangled\/","title":{"rendered":"Tangled!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the word nerds among us, I was wondering if lightbulb\/light bulb is one word or two: https:\/\/sfwriter.com\/2009\/02\/how-many-dictionaries-does-it-take-to.html#:~:text=The%20American%20Heritage%20English%20Dictionary,one%20word%3A%20%22lightbulb.%22<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On December 30, 2019, Writing Ballerina wrote, Do you ever go to write, but find you can\u2019t untangle the jumble in your head that is ideas and things you need to fix and character arcs and subplots and everything else? So then you either can\u2019t write without getting lost and confused or you try to write and get overwhelmed and can\u2019t go on too far because you can\u2019t figure out what\u2019s supposed to happen next?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An exchange followed with Melissa Mead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Mead: Oh yes. In fact, I\u2019m doing it now! I may have to backtrack.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing Ballerina: I suppose I should tack on to this: what do you do to get past it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Mead: I wish I had a consistent solution. Mostly, I keep thinking about it and either writing around it or working on other things until things come together.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish I had a consistent solution too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a hard question to answer, because once I get myself out of this kind of mess, a merciful amnesia falls over me, and I don\u2019t remember how I solved it. Sadly, what I do recall is thinking repeatedly that I\u2019d found my way, writing twenty-plus pages and then falling into a ditch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, the medicine for one story may not cure another. Every project presents different challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve never abandoned a book, but twice I\u2019ve written different tales than the one I set out to tell. The books were Stolen Magic<\/em> and The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/em>. For both, I regret never being able to figure my original plots out because they interested me and I\u2019d still like to discover what would have happened. In the end, though, I wrote the book I could write and let go of the one I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember with both books that I changed POV more than once. Two Princesses<\/em> wound up in first person, and Stolen Magic<\/em> switches among three third-person perspectives. Finding the POV helped, so that can be one strategy, to change POV and see the effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Stolen Magic<\/em>, I simplified and simplified to find my story. That can be another strategy. We can ask if we\u2019ve taken too much on and complicated our plot with too many twists and turns and subplots. What can we strip away? What\u2019s essential? Greed was at the heart of my original version, and I kept that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can ask ourselves lots of questions and answer them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 What is the central problem of the story? If there is more than one, our lives will be easier if we decide which is paramount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Who is our MC?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Is there more than one MC? How many? Too many? (Not that there\u2019s a magic number. We\u2019re asking this only because things aren\u2019t going well.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Are the MCs\u2019 goals related to each other (belong in the same story)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Is the time span as compressed as it can be? The plot will tighten if we can compress, and compressing may help us simplify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Is this world too complex? Do we have to juggle so many eggs that a few go splat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can make a timeline and ponder it. This may help us see what\u2019s going on and what we need to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Same for chapters. We can summarize them. As I write, sometimes (often) I forget what went before. Being reminded keeps me on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t believe that every character has to have an arc. If a character is beckoning to us, we can answer the call in another story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in a late stage we can write the kind of outline I, mostly a pantser, write, a few paragraphs or a page, the broadest guide to the symphony that is our story, just the major movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for things we need to fix, I think we should leave them unfixed if at all possible until we have a complete first draft, because the task will be easier then. We\u2019ll know everything, and we\u2019ll know what isn\u2019t working and what is. What I do with this, is I note at the very top of my manuscript the things I want to keep in mind when I go through it later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s roll some fairytales together in these prompts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Your MC, a princess, is despised by her stepmother who owns a magic mirror, and she\u2019s going to prick her finger and sleep for a hundred years. Write the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Your MC loves the sultan\u2019s daughter and is in danger from an evil magician posing as his uncle, and his sister is stuck in the castle of a Beast. Write the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 For extra credit, smush the two above prompts into one, combining \u201cSnow White,\u201d \u201cSleeping Beauty,\u201d \u201cAladdin,\u201d and \u201cBeauty and the Beast.\u201d Turn it into a coherent story, I dare you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have fun, and save what your write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the word nerds among us, I was wondering if lightbulb\/light bulb is one word or two: https:\/\/sfwriter.com\/2009\/02\/how-many-dictionaries-does-it-take-to.html#:~:text=The%20American%20Heritage%20English%20Dictionary,one%20word%3A%20%22lightbulb.%22 On December 30, 2019, Writing Ballerina wrote, Do you ever go to write, but find you can\u2019t untangle the jumble in your head that is ideas and things you need to fix and character arcs and subplots […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,4,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1193,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/1193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}