Tag: writing

Writing101: This thing called PLOT, level one.

AM Devine

Hi there, Adrienne here, and today, we’re talking about plot.

I’m not going to lie to you, I bloody well suck at plot. In fact, I suck so badly at it, that I almost never can plot out my story until I’m at least halfway through writing it.

Plot is my primary writing weakness. Knowing the kinds of words I’m using is my second weakness (such as adverb, preposition etc. I can not remember what each word is classified as. Gods, someone get me a new and proper oxford dictionary). Fortunately, they are only mildly interconnected.

I have books on plot, my editing and writing buddy (whose computer I have posted from at least once) has books on plot. Both of us are actually kind of bad at it. We both admit to this.

Plot has a few main steps that everyone agrees on. Firstly, a Beginning, a Middle and an End. These are also referred to as the Beginning, the Climax/Conflict, and the Resolution. There are other steps, but I’m going to cover those in another post, as plot is one of the most complex writing subjects.

 

A quick way to remember this is with this:

BEGINNING:

Cinderella loses her father.

Cinderella is treated like a servant once he is gone.

MIDDLE/CLIMAX/CONFLICT:

The Ball.

Cinderella loses her shoe.

RESOLUTION/END:

The Prince tries the shoe on every female in the kingdom.

The shoe fits Cinderella.

They live happily ever after.

**NOTE: I’m using the Disney Cinderella.

Now, do you see how the things flow together? I know for a fact that I have left out quite a few major plot points to the movie. I did that simply to show what a simple plot it. the Plot: Level Two post will get more into detail.

Writing Prompts: Week of June 30th- July 6th

AM Devine

Here we go, back on track. Mostly.

Like usual, the old school rules apply. 250-500 words per prompt. For those of you participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this year, expect some weird posts from me about that later in the week.

 

Sunday: Long after I encountered (you fill in the blank here) the first time, I came across it again. Describe how (your fill in the black) changed if it did at all.

Monday: The possibilities are endless, what would you do with a lotto jackpot?

Tuesday: Write a short bit about a veteran space cruise Captain answering questions that he is tired of answering.

Wednesday: Name a good something possible. Now, how would you go about making it inevitable?

Thursday: Write about a voice that most people refuse to hear.

Friday:  ~ FREE WRITE ~

Saturday: Open a short with this line of Dialogue: “So, it has come to this.”

Writing Prompts: Week of June 23rd – June 29th

AM Devine

One thousand and one apologies for the fact that this is coming in at the end of the week, for real.

 

Here we go! If I don’t tell you how many words in the entry for the day, remember it’s 250-500 for the normal word count range.

 

Sunday: Write about an hour of the day where nothing goes right.

Monday: This is what you can see by starlight.

Tuesday: It was sunday, the time it happened.

Wednesday: Write about a massive digital projection clock, one you can see from across town.

Thursday: This is where I went wrong, but everything turned out alright.

Friday: Write about small changes.

Saturday: Write about what kind of life you’d expect to see in an alien subterranean water world, such as under the Ice of Europa, one of the moons of Juipter.

Writing101: Free Writing

AM Devine

Writing 101 this week was supposed to be about plots, but I suck at plot, and I got stuck. And while I was working on the prompt posts here and there, I found a commentary about free writing. And I decided to write a post about it so that I could do a free write here and there.

 

A thing that used to happen a long time ago in my English classes, was the writing of a daily journal. And four days a week, we would be told what to put on the paper. And on Fridays, we got something glorious. We got the opportunity to write for a bit on a subject that we wanted to, with no direction from the teacher. More often than not, I actually wrote in a kind of code, because with the exception of one of my many English teachers, I didn’t want them to know that I actually liked to write. Why? Because they weren’t exactly the most accepting of the fact that a 6th grader (through 12th grade) could actually write better fiction than most of them could. I had mostly inconsiderate English teachers, and most of the time they were outright rude to students who had dreams of making it as writers, but I loved the value of the free write.

A free write journal allowed me to clear my mind, and get the cobwebs off my creative gears.

 

I enjoy free writing, it allows the mind to wander without direction, and allows the writer to be as discombobulated as they would like.

 

Truthfully, how one free writes is that you get to a new page, or a blank screen and you just start to write. Anything that your mind comes up with, you put down. It doesn’t need to all flow in a stream. It doesn’t matter if the various thoughts connect, or if they even make sense when read all in a line. Just write.

 

<3
Adrienne

 

Writing Prompts: Week of June 9th-15th 2013

AM Devine1 Comment

Each week, I’ll post up a new set of writing prompts. They’ll be short, and you won’t need to go a long way with them. If I don’t give a general word count in the prompt itself, assume between 250 to 500 words is the minimum. If you want, post them in the comments below, or migrate on over to the forums and post them there.

 

Sunday: Write a dinner scene, where one character intends to finish something.

Monday: Write at least 500 words about a business woman and a locket.

Tuesday: Write a recollection. Something from the past that you haven’t thought about in a while.

Wednesday: Write about the future as you hope either science or technology can advance.

Thursday: Choose a type of weather. Write about a character that is affected by it.

Friday: A master of some field discovers that their field of expertise is based upon a massive falsehood. (i.e. meteorologists, colliding cold and warm fronts don’t cause thunderstorms, something else does.)

Saturday: Write about a high ranking member of a religious organization learning that another path holds more truth than their own.

 

I’ll try to keep this up by getting ahead of myself and having them auto post. Otherwise, here they are for this week.