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Dang, that freak-out felt good. And it was productive, too!
Wow. That was cathartic.
I got some great writing done tonight. Still not enough, only one page. But I've learned something about the way I write.
I don't do character sketches. I start out with dialogue.
Dialogue comes pretty easily for me. I think that's because I learned to speak German and French as an adult, so I had to be quite conscious of how people speak. I had to train myself to listen carefully. So for me, it seems...so far anyway...that it's through dialogue that my characters reveal themselves to me.
The way I'm working with this so far is to put two people together and make sure they disagree about something. Conflict about something. Try to make their language patterns sound different -- different vocabulary so you know who's talking.
Maybe that's the way I have to go...write a lot of dialogue with conflict, using those scenes or whatever as my character sketches, then step back and see what comes next -- let the details of the story arise from the eavesdropping I'm doing on my characters.
Then do the detailed outline as I go, outlining somewhat ahead. I do have a general idea of the story, just not the details yet.
I'm having waaay too much fun for this to be legal!
I got some great writing done tonight. Still not enough, only one page. But I've learned something about the way I write.
I don't do character sketches. I start out with dialogue.
Dialogue comes pretty easily for me. I think that's because I learned to speak German and French as an adult, so I had to be quite conscious of how people speak. I had to train myself to listen carefully. So for me, it seems...so far anyway...that it's through dialogue that my characters reveal themselves to me.
The way I'm working with this so far is to put two people together and make sure they disagree about something. Conflict about something. Try to make their language patterns sound different -- different vocabulary so you know who's talking.
Maybe that's the way I have to go...write a lot of dialogue with conflict, using those scenes or whatever as my character sketches, then step back and see what comes next -- let the details of the story arise from the eavesdropping I'm doing on my characters.
Then do the detailed outline as I go, outlining somewhat ahead. I do have a general idea of the story, just not the details yet.
I'm having waaay too much fun for this to be legal!
2 Comments
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Comment by Curt on June 2, 2009 at 4:31pm - Sounds like an interesting way to do things.
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Comment by Valeria Kendall on June 11, 2009 at 11:24am - Sorry it took me so long to approve this. I couldn't find how to approve at first, then I was down for a week. Hope your writing is going well!
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Tues, Nov 17: Cozy Mysteries: Amateur Sleuths and Feline Detectives
November 17, 2009 from 6:30pm to 8pm – The New York Public Library
A panel of mystery authors who specialize in writing about amateur sleuths. Evan will talk about his Hidden Manhattan mystery series, featuring Anna Winthrop, a New York Sanitation Department garag...
Organized by Mystery Writers of America | Type: panel, discussion
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