Chapter twenty-one of *False Perceptions* is now complete. Okay, that’s not completely true, but it’s as complete as first draft needs to be. I think there’s a bit much showing, but my brain didn’t want to come up with more dialogue today. The book now contains 54456 words. It lookes impressive, but I’ve only written 35 scenes out of the 60 in my outline. Trust me, I thought of a lot of random smaller scenes that needed to be added thus far that weren’t in the original outline, but still, I’m guessing I’m a little over half done the first draft.
And now I must go and play with my new fantasy character, Shann. I don’t even know what kind of a story he intends to star in. We’ve got a lot to talk about, if we’re going to be ready to write a story together in July.
How do YOU get your ideas? I have to work pretty hard on them. All I know right now is I want to explore writing a Christian fantasy, and Shann has decided to be in it. Who is he? I don’t know. What kind of a world is it? I have no idea. What huge good and evil struggle will he be involved in? I would really like to know. Maybe some of Holly’s workshops would be a good place to start.
“Hello, Shann, and welcome to IMLW broadcasting system. My name is Valerie, and I will be interviewing you today for an upcoming feature presentation. Please tell me a little bit about yourself.” Heh. You think it will work?
Congrats on the good start back into writing after the holidays! You’re ahead of me. (Grin.) As to how we each get ideas . . . Let’s see. How do I do that? I usually get an idea of what particular issue I want to address in the book. Then think about my main character and what part of that issue I want him/her involved with/struggling with. Then I play around with my other characters, figuring out what parts of the issue I want them dealing with. Then I figure out a unique interest/struggle for each character that may be personal and not necessarily related to the main plot but that rounds out the character by having them deal with it. By then, the thing has taken off and it’s more figuring out which ideas to throw OUT of it rather than looking for ideas to keep in. I have a tendancy to run too many subplots, I think. 🙂
That’s interesting, Ruth. It seems you start with theme? I often discover the theme last, after the whole book is written. Isn’t it amazing how different roads can lead to the same end? Hmm.
In the past I’ve always started with a character and their personality. A story line has just sort of evolved from there. But this time around I’m trying out Holly Lisle’s workshops and strangely enough I’ve started with a map of my world “D” and I’ve found that in the making of that map and the answering of the questions in that workshop that more and more of a story is being birthed.
Though only one “lesson” in, I really do recommend trying it out. Here is the link to where I’m starting:
http://hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/wc2-1.html
The map workshop is really fun!
I agree, Tina. A few years ago I downloaded Holly’s ebook, *Mugging the Muse*, and printed it out. I was skimming through it again yesterday, trying to jumpstart Shann with ideas. I came across the maps workshop, but it was too late in the day to start, so it’s on my list for today, AFTER I get in the quota of words for *False Perceptions.*