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On Outlining

On Outlining

As regular readers know, I despise outlining. I just can’t get myself to do it. My mind has started to shift on this over the years, owing mostly to the fact that I haven’t been able to finish a novel doing things my way. I mean, what’s the point in doing things over and over again, continuing to fail. At some point you need to make the decision: quit or try something new. Let’s try something new.

Let’s also not that when I say outline, I’m not talking about the roman numerals from grade school. I’m talking, rather, about a skeleton of a story. Just enough to know where I’m going so I don’t completely lose my way. Actually, that sounds more like a map. Let’s call it a skeleton map because almost everything sounds better with the word skeleton before it.

Anyway, I was really excited when I came across this blog post yesterday because I’ve been searching for it for a long time. What I’ve been looking for is a breakdown of the various parts of a novel, with a rough idea of what chapter each part takes place.  Here is must an excerpt of what I’ve found and at first blush seems exactly what I’ve been searching for. Read the entire post, linked below, for the full details:

Opening – Chapter One

Act One End – Chapter Six

Mid-Point Reversal – Chapter Twelve

Act Two End – Chapter Eighteen

Act Three Starts- Chapter Nineteen

Climax Starts – Chapter Twenty-Two

If I find I need more or fewer chapters, I just adjust. If one of these events happens sooner or later, no problem. The goal isn’t to follow this exactly and make it fit, it’s to guide me so the story unfolds at the pace I’ve found gives me the best story for my style.

My first pass at outlining will look something like this (but with the details of the actual story of course):

Opening – Intro of protag getting into trouble

Act One End – First major problem that throws a wrench into protag’s plans and forces them to act outside of their comfort zone.

Mid-Point Reversal – Unexpected event that sends the entire story sideways.

Act Two End – Protagonist’s actions have led them to a point where they can’t back down, but they’ll need to sacrifice something to continue.

Act Three Starts – Protagonist has acted in ways to bring them in direct conflict with the antagonist, it’s do or die, all or nothing time.

Climax Starts – Showdown with the antagonist.

via The Other Side of the Story: I Love it When a Plan Comes Together, Plotting a Novel: Part One.

Writing Tools: 750 Words

Writing Tools: 750 Words

I recently started lurking over at the writing subreddit on, well, reddit. There was a thread over there asking about useful writing tools. One particularly interesting tool was a website called 750 Words. The tl;dr on 750 Words is that it’s important to write at least 750 words a day, so why not make it fun?

**UPDATE**
I just discovered the site is becoming a pay to use site in April, $5 a month. Take that into account before you get hooked, or, enjoy the site now and pay later.
**End Update**

750 Words

Hello, welcome to a little thing called 750 Words

★ What is this site about?

I’ve long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist’s Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in “long hand”, typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It’s about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day. Unlike many of the other exercises in that book, I found that this one actually worked and was really really useful.

I’ve used the exercise as a great way to think out loud without having to worry about half-formed ideas, random tangents, private stuff, and all the other things in our heads that we often filter out before ever voicing them or writing about them. It’s a daily brain dump. Over time, I’ve found that it’s also very helpful as a tool to get thoughts going that have become stuck, or to help get to the bottom of a rotten mood.

750 Words is the online, future-ified, fun-ified translation of this exercise. Here’s how it works:

★ All Online

In the past, looking for a spare notebook was probably easier than looking for a computer. Not anymore. I don’t know if my hands even work anymore with pen and paper for any task that takes longer than signing a check or credit card reciept.

★ It’s Not Blogging

I’ve tried writing my 750 words a day on Livejournal, WordPress, PBWorks, Tumblr, and all of these other sites designed around putting content online. It hasn’t worked for me. I fear that I might accidentally forget to mark daily pages as private. And it’s just weird having my private brain dumps out on various sites that are designed to be more social. I don’t need to title my entries, or tag them, or enable comments, or any of that other stuff. This is writing, and it’s online, but it’s not blogging, or Twittering, or Facebook status updating. This is between you and you.

via About a little thing called 750 Words.

Let me know if you sign up. I’m headed over there do sign up now. I have no idea if I’ll stick with it, but I figure it’s worth a try.

How to Add a Sidebar to Your WordPress Theme

How to Add a Sidebar to Your WordPress Theme

I thought this was a useful article for those of you who like to tinker with wordpress themes. I know it helped me immensely.

How to Add a Sidebar to Your WordPress Theme

Most simple WordPress templates/themes generally employ a single sidebar. But, in keeping with WordPress’ open architecture, you can easily add a second (or 3rd or 4th) sidebar to your site’s theme. And, you aren’t restricted to using your sidebar in the typical sidebar area–you can put your new sidebar in a header, a footer, or any other area in your template. Additional sidebars let you place any WordPress Widget (such as Recent Posts, Pages, Links/Blogroll, Calendar, Tag Cloud, as well as any custom widgets) into new areas of your WordPress template. This technique is especially powerful when combined with custom WordPress page templates–with additional sidebars, we can have custom sidebars for each of our custom page templates. This is the approach we’ll teach you in this tutorial.

via How to Add a Sidebar to Your WordPress Theme.

Intangible: Flash Fiction

Intangible: Flash Fiction

This is my guest entry for the flash fiction contest at Lascaux Flash.

Intangible

She writes her number on the back of my hand with a black magic marker.

Then she says hello.

We dance the way people at parties dance, a fast slow dance of an excuse to press our bodies together, to what passes for music at these types of things. Stuck in the middle with you.

When she speaks, she leans in close, the black tips of her blonde hair tickling my face, her hand soft on my shoulder.

I’ve read when a girl is really into you, she’ll take any chance to make physical contact.

I’ve only read.

I fetch her a drink, standing in line for an eternity, glancing her way, worried should she leave my sight she will disappear, ethereal.

I return.

I don’t go here, she says, between sips of her beverage. I’ll transfer, I say, joking, but not really.

With nods and a smiles, my friends leave. Her friends linger, inspecting me as they embrace her goodbye.

Time passes. We find our way into the cold.

Our night ends at the threshold of her friend’s building. Call me as soon as you wake, she says.

I tell her this is not the end of our tale. She nods.

I spend the remainder of the night in my bed, watching the minutes flick by.

Morning light peeks through the yellowing blinds of my bedroom and I clutch my phone, finding myself paralyzed by the idea of blemishing the perfect of yesterday with the unknown of tomorrow.

Douglas Adams’ Birthday

Douglas Adams’ Birthday

Yesterday was Douglas Adams’ birthday and I totally missed it. In my defense, I don’t think he’ll mind.

Anyway, I thought I’d make up for missing his birthday by posting just a couple of Douglas Adams related things I came across yesterday.

First, Douglas featured on his very own Google Doodle yesterday.

Next, an absolutely brilliant exchange between Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”

“Why, what did she tell you?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.

Next, an interview Douglas did in 1985 with Letterman.