Writing101: This thing called PLOT, level one.

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.

Writing101: Free Writing

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

 

Happy Birthday to me, and a new Writing:101

So today is my birthday. I’m 25 today, which means cheaper car insurance, and no more obnoxious fees if I need or want to rent a car. And honestly, thats about it.

I had been meaning to do a new post for the Writing:101 series for a few days, but I kept getting distracted by things going on around me. This one is going to be about character creation.
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Writing101: So you have an idea…

Welcome to Writing101. This first post is going to be about IDEAS.

 

Ideas area glorious thing. Everyone actually has them, but very few actually decide to act on them in any meaningful sort of way. Welcome to a kind of exclusive club, to which the only real membership fee is the statement that “I have an idea, and I want to try to make it into a full story”.

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