Writing Process Wednesdays, and, Plot vs. Character

Well, now I know where I stand on that famous debate, even though I was trying hard not to take sides while I plotted out my novel as I thought I was also getting to know my characters at the same time.  Wrong.  I find, personally, that it takes writing some scenes and bits of dialogue over and over again for me to understand how each individual character feels, behaves, speaks, and changes over time.   

This makes planning out such a complex novel as Who By Fire much less simple than I had imagined, and I find that it seems to be, currently, beyond my writing skills.   I continue to work on honing my craft, of course, and to work on plotting out this novel, while remembering that it         

comes based on all of my prior work.  Also, having the very positive experience of writing and getting surprisingly strong feedback both for this novel project idea that I developed from my family history research, and especially for my short short series (which I wrote completely off-the-cuff, and found both easy and pleasurable to write) more so but perhaps also with the help of the novel journaling process, in a different way than I had expected.  The series: (Ann and Anna) was so easy, and even fun(!), to write that it now makes me wonder how on earth I can keep slogging my way through Who By Fire, which is proving to be so difficult for me at the moment.  Every time I think I know my protagonist, Isaias (whose name will later change…), he changes!  He still looks mostly the same, sort of, but his way of thinking keeps changing on me, and I am having a very difficult time nailing down how he interacts with his two best friends (who were initially meant to be a mentor or advisor type, and a ‘particular friend’ as they used to say back then, or a best friend, who was also a rival for a love interest that has now turned into a cautionary tale subplot protagonist.  All of this with old scenes written that now need to be either altered or simply thrown away and rewritten altogether, which is hard to do, given that I am a person who values productivity and hates to see time and effort go to waste (yes, I know that that effort did not go to waste, but it feels like the time I spend writing initial scenes, voice journals, and novel journals, indeed are a waste of time since they do not end up directly in a publishable novel that I can immediately begin querying!!).   I think I am starting to realize that Who By Fire is currently biting off just a bit more than my writing skills to this point can chew, and I am itching to go back to Ann & Anna, make that series of posts into a prequel for a novel (especially since several people have called the series “#NovelWorthy” (which I had never heard of, many thanks, ladies) and just take off from there, if a novel based on an already blog-posted (and thus published, which I also did not realize back then serial can be shopped for publication?

 

Thoughts, Writing-Knowledgeable  Readers?

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (with link to Ann & Anna serial…)

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 

 

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, Novel Journals, and Project Do Better

  So my novel journaling has been very topsy turvy.  That turned out to become a serious problem for me, once I began writing the scenes for the rough draft, and  remembered that I had left notes in a spreadsheet, and on paper, in different locations at random.  All of the writing advice insists on keeping a novel journal as you go through the writing process, but personally, at this point (and it has now been 2019-2022, three years, since I began jotting down ideas, excerpts, timelines, and research notes), for me, the novel journal is getting to be more of a hassle than a help, it seems.

Maybe I will find out, later on in the process of writing this novel, that it is helpful.  I hope, at any rate.       

Also, having already tried to put too many subplot and scene notes in too many spreadsheets and online reminders, as well as on paper, I am drowning in paper and in online notes, and even in bookmarks stuck in my research books for this novel project that I paused to write a nonfiction book, and restarted!  I found that a short series that I wrote completely off-the-cuff actually helped me thinking about this novel, more so but perhaps also with the help of the novel journaling process, in a different way than I had expected.  The series: (Ann and Anna, linked below…) was so easy to write that I found myself wondering what was so difficult about this project, and then I realized that I already knew everything about the series, because I was using a historical personage with a known itinerary, and adding a second protagonist with a history that I already knew intimately, since she was drawn from my own family history.  Not as a person that I found, but a person that I have been trying to find for many years.  But looking at the known history and tracking backward, it is clear that such a person, or persons, certainly existed in my family, sadly.

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools, through story, which is one of humanity’s most powerful tools,  that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann and Anna)

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and, Character Bibles and Subplots

  So my hero’s wife, Lucy  is trapped elsewhere, and thus has her own subplot, which I began to plan out before doing very much (if any) of her character bible or voice journal work.   

That turned out to become a serious problem for me, once I began writing the main plot scenes, and came along to her first subplot scene in       

Also, having already tried to put too many subplot and scene notes in too many spreadsheets and online reminders, as well as on paper, I was sure that I had notes on her voice, and the reason I wanted to use first person present tense rather than my usual either first person third or third person third (aka storyteller ) for her voice! 

 

 

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 

 

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and, Yes, Do Plan That Scene!

I thought, initially, that a reaction scene should be short and easy, but in writing it, found that it is not as simple as it seemed it would be.  So, I always need to know what happened where in the scene before this one, what should happen, or at least where my main chars need to be in the scene after this one, and the time of day, which generally gives me a hint about the weather, since I also need to know what the weather is doing, but tend to imagine that as I am imagining the scene.  I personally find that the scene only comes to me if I relax long enough to let all of my senses get ‘in’ the scene, which is kind of like a visceral form of day dreaming, I suppose, as it really takes some concentration, for me.   This scene was made more difficult by the fact that I imagined it would be so easy or simple to write that I hardly bothered to outline it, and depended on my main outlines    and my initial book spine of ideas for each of the 15 most important scenes, sketched out as a sort of outline turned mind map, which only makes sense now, two years later, with the help of all my other outlines and scene cards!  So, taking notes on bits of paper, a spreadsheet, an app, and in random document files (as I had the habit of keeping various notebooks and online files open at the same time to deal with the excess of random ideas in popping into my head constantly, back then).  Now I use Google Calendar to set reminders, which I often then reschedule when they pop up!   Bad Idea, it turns out.

Hmmm…     

Also, trying to put too many subplot and scene notes in too many spreadsheets and online reminders, as well as on paper, is not helpful! 

 

 

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 

 

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed

     I was certain that I had reviewed this book around 2010, but that may have been on some other platform from before I was on Goodreads. I remember losing quite a few book reviews on some reading platform that predated it,  almost 20 years ago I think back around then. In any case this is an excellent book. Worth buying if you have any interest in the families of Virginia even free families of color from Virginia because so many of Sally’s children apparently passed into the white community and disappeared, like some of my own family members. The abuse from the press that poor Sally was subjected to at the time by Jefferson’s enemies is terrible to read about, but the empathy and the sympathy the author uses in reconstructing Thomas Jefferson’s life, and his inevitable dilemma around this relationship, really moved me. Coming from a family that revered the possible connection with Sally Hemings, I’ve always been skeptical about the relationship between Sally and Jefferson, because she was a slave and I would always have to tell my mother that ‘Mom this was no romance: Sally was a slave, remember?’  But after reading  Gordon Reed’s book, I have to wonder whether Sally indeed felt more than an obligation in this relationship. Because she had a choice, as the author shows, while she lived in France, even if it did mean leaving her family at the mercy of people across the ocean, she still had an impossible, gut-wrenching choice.  The Hemings family was treated very well at Monticello, but that could have changed, had Sally decided to stay in France, no?

     This image from 1804, apparently the only surviving image from her lifetime, does not show her remarkable beauty.  It also seems not to reflect her son’s description of her as an “Octoroon,” nearly able to pass for white.   My mother has always insisted that we are descended from  Sally Hemings, although with no actual proof, that I have been able to find.  She has also always found the old story of Sally to be a romantic one, while I have always contested her point of view, reminding her that Sally was a slave, and therefore had no choice in the matter of whether to submit to such a relationship.  What I did not realize was that Sally was also both a young and impressionable girl who may indeed have fallen in love with the sensitive and kindly Jefferson, and also a vulnerable girl whose family was at the mercy not only of the master, her master, but also of every overseer and White person, man or woman, at Monticello.  So, yes, it could have been a romance, as mom insisted, but also, still, it would have been one that was born of coercion and backed by the threat of violence to her loved ones, as I reminded her (in not so many words).  This is the tragedy of The Old Dominion’s ‘Peculiar Institution’ which led, in no small part, to my writing both Ann & Anna, and my ongoing historical fantasy WiP Who By Fire, as well as my nonfiction works.

    The story demands to be told not only of the families who were forced to make choices, but also of the Fancies who had no choice.  And of the fathers who lived in anguish because of it, not to mention the mothers, sisters, aunts and grandmothers, both of blood and of adoption, who tried to care for children wounded by an inhuman system.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and How Not To Plan A Subplot

This is the third subplot, very poorly planned out, for this novel which is taking a third year, now, to get written.   Minnie, I believe, is the only main character that I have not introduced, although come to think of it, some of the characters that I have introduced do not show up nearly as often as she does. 

Hmmm…     

Also, trying to put too many subplot and scene notes in too many spreadsheets and online reminders, as well as on paper, is not helpful! 

 

 

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 

 

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and An Over Planned Scene

This is the scene for which I had too many notes about possibilities and risks of escape, written down on paper and in my spreadsheet, and then again duplicated in an app that I no longer use, which is taking a third year, now, to get written.   

Also, trying to put too many scene notes in too many spreadsheets and online reminders, as well as on paper, is not helpful!  But writing this scene excerpt was helpful, once I decided which scene to put it in, three or four times over:

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and An Abysmally Planned Novel

This is the set of ideas I had to rush to get down, which is taking a third year, now, to get written.   

Also, trying to put too many scene notes in too many spreadsheets and online reminders, as well as on paper, is not helpful!

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and A Not Well Enough Planned Scene

I left my notes a little too sparse on this scene, and had trouble after about half way through, while writing the preliminary rough draft scene. 

This scene draft would have benefited from knowing two of my characters better, before starting to write the scene, so I ended up drafting it and then noting that I will certainly have to redraft both the scene itself, and connected scenes that mention certain characters.  But, my main goal was to firmly introduce (as opposed to merely dropping the name of) one of my major characters, before the end of Act I.    I am glad to see that the character languages work I did earlier, getting to know which languages the main chars would like to learn, and why, made it far easier to move from the previous scene into this scene.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, and A Well Planned Scene

I changed my notes to  this scene card quite a bit before writing this scene only twice before putting it into my rough draft. 

I guess that is progress.  I went back, after writing some character journals for Is. (he hates being called that) and Martin/Meir, once I had a better idea of their relationship.  A bit like the Mentor in the Hero’s Journey, but not quite.  Updating this scene card several times made it a mess, but helped, when drafting the preliminary scene.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.