Some stories you just gotta enjoy writing.
2 Likes
Y’all I’m gonna need a dummy version for this plot beats thing. Am I the only one who can’t seem to get it? 
3 Likes
Given you know Jude’s story, I can send you how I lined it up with the plot beats. It fits fairly neatly considering I wasn’t aware of this until the other day!
3 Likes
On the one hand, I feel like that might help me finally align the mess that is FWR.
On the other, I worry that being consciously aware of it might ruin my writing 
.
.
.
Oh, send it through, dammit!
4 Likes
Just don’t treat it as a rigid thing. Some beats may be missing or shuffled around. But they help with thinking about what you might be missing or a bit of reordering or emphasizing things.
2 Likes
That’s how I hope to go about it! I usually have a pretty clear idea about what my stories are and where they’re supposed to go.
This particular one, however, is the 4th in a series (of 5) and I’ve reached that point where I’m finding it very hard to do something new & different while sticking to the good-ole’ series flavour. As a result, it’s my roughest draft yet, a mish-mash of fun & meaningful scenes which aren’t necessarily cohesive
So I hope an actual external structure will help me cut the dead weight and make it all neater.
2 Likes
I’ll email ya
3 Likes
Sounds perfect for it!
3 Likes
Got it!
LE: of course it’s a spreadsheet…
LE2: I think I’ve got most of these covered especially in the second half of the story, I guess I just gotta take some time and sit down with it for a Real Talk™ one of these days!
3 Likes
What else would it be!? If I could write novels in spreadsheets I would (and probably have).
I should have said, those plot beats came from a film script rather than a novel, but think it works in the same way.
3 Likes
If you can get a hold of the novel book, it’s really worth it IMO. Kindda good for stepping back from actually frantically writing for a while, and thinking about stuff… I always try to get those breaks reading it between books. Not with ONC, obviously 
because I am a fool.
3 Likes
Yeah, I know it was originally written for film, I’d even found an article detailing it by using The Matrix as an example… Which I hadn’t watched… I should give it another try now, I finally watched it on Sunday!
I have very limited patience for non-fiction books 
but who knows, I might give this a shot if I can get my hands on it (not holding out any hope though). I’ll try the spreadsheet first! 
2 Likes
I find it engrossing read and I dream a lot when I read it trying out my book ideas vs the plot categories they discuss, but I am also fascinated with the process of plotting and writing a book, so YMMV… if only I could find something like that which made me an enthusiastic editor!
2 Likes
I took a plunge and signed up for a workshop pairing up for Enemies with Benefits. It will probably take a while to find a partner, and I am getting close to the end in the draft.
I feel, I really need a boost to start my editing phase on everything that needs editing… I want to actually enjoy it this year and go into it with a positive mood and more love than usual. 
Today total word count reached 60K, and I started the new chapter, switching POV for a big emotional chapter before the finale part. I decided on changing some things about it a little bit back, and I think it will be better if I am going to focus it on just my character turning away from the mafia rather than mixing in the love scene. I will handle that in the ending.
2 Likes
I ended up deleting the portion that was giving me trouble, and I think that was the right decision because I feel like I escalated the conflict too quickly without any build-up or foreshadowing, so I pushed it back a couple of chapters in favor for more character building and micro-conflicts while starting to hint at it. Probably not going to get much done today because I’ve got a ton of schoolwork, but maybe I’ll squeeze in 500 or so words.
2 Likes
Outlining is exciting don’t get me wrong but at the same time I am having difficulties choosing which outline format will work best for my story. I have a lot of planning to do still between character bios, fictional terms & etc, and other things.
Whew! wipes sweat away
2 Likes
I used to do character bios, but not anymore since whenever I write the characters just evolve on their own 
2 Likes
My character bios will consist of the character’s personality, background history, relationships, and maybe physical descriptions.
3 Likes
I never did those…
2 Likes
eh did it once and never again hehe
2 Likes