2008 WitchWRITER
Post by StoryGirl83 on Jun 25, 2008 0:13:27 GMT -4
I was in Sophomore english when we had a writing assignment. It was called Showing Not Telling. Or at least that is what we were supposed to do. We had a notebook and we wrote entries, sometimes our choice, sometimes our teachers. The idea was to describe what was going on rather than just saying it was going.
Telling: There was a big crowd for the concert.
Showing: The building was packed to the seams with people of all shapes and sizes. There wasn't even standing room left as the people pressed toward the stage.
Senior English found me with a different teacher in another school in a different city in another state entirely. My favorite bit of advise from that teacher was about our journals. We never used them in class, but I put mine to good use. My teacher said that we should keep them with us and whenever we had an idea, even in the middle of the night, to write it down. I have some ideas in there that are a sentence or two and others that going on for pages.
As a writter I always keep something to write with and something to write on with me. My mom doesn't understand when I tell her I have to take a pen and notepad with me someplace. It's just something I need to do.
An outline. I don't know who it was that told me that I needed an outline for my stories. Though I didn't tell him (I think the person was of the masculine variety), I pretty much freaked out at the thought. Later, the same person saw my overview of what I wanted in a story and told me that it was an outline. I calmed down. I could do that. I pretty much write overviews that can last anywhere from a paragraph to a couple pages. I have one that is four pages long.
Outlines don't have to be these long complicated things in roman numerals, but it is a good idea to know where you are going with a story. If you don't you end up rewriting things that don't fit with the plot line. I am rewriting a story, because I didn't think through the plot line and the bad guy wouldn't stay bad (thought that's a little different).
On that note, you should probably know who is good, who is bad, who is somewhere in between, and who is so unimportant that it doesn't really matter if they are good or bad. I'm a list person, so I make spreadsheets for my characters with everything I learn about them, descriptions, family, important relationships (best friends, boy or girl friends, stuff like that), any thing that seems relevant.
When I am having trouble with a story I try to figure out where I am going and what needs to happen next. I am actually sort of stuck on a story right now, so I am trying figure out what happens next. I have the long term down, but the short term is kind of hazy.
Sometimes if you are stuck it also helps to bounce your idea off of someone else. They may discover that the reason you are stuck is because you didn't realize you backed yourself into a hole or that you really need something to happen and that's why you can't go foward.
I hope this helps someone.
Marlena, I know you don't mind me proof-reading your stuff, so I changed your subject title from "Advise That Stuck" to "Advice That Stuck"--another pair of words to add to your list!
Telling: There was a big crowd for the concert.
Showing: The building was packed to the seams with people of all shapes and sizes. There wasn't even standing room left as the people pressed toward the stage.
Senior English found me with a different teacher in another school in a different city in another state entirely. My favorite bit of advise from that teacher was about our journals. We never used them in class, but I put mine to good use. My teacher said that we should keep them with us and whenever we had an idea, even in the middle of the night, to write it down. I have some ideas in there that are a sentence or two and others that going on for pages.
As a writter I always keep something to write with and something to write on with me. My mom doesn't understand when I tell her I have to take a pen and notepad with me someplace. It's just something I need to do.
An outline. I don't know who it was that told me that I needed an outline for my stories. Though I didn't tell him (I think the person was of the masculine variety), I pretty much freaked out at the thought. Later, the same person saw my overview of what I wanted in a story and told me that it was an outline. I calmed down. I could do that. I pretty much write overviews that can last anywhere from a paragraph to a couple pages. I have one that is four pages long.
Outlines don't have to be these long complicated things in roman numerals, but it is a good idea to know where you are going with a story. If you don't you end up rewriting things that don't fit with the plot line. I am rewriting a story, because I didn't think through the plot line and the bad guy wouldn't stay bad (thought that's a little different).
On that note, you should probably know who is good, who is bad, who is somewhere in between, and who is so unimportant that it doesn't really matter if they are good or bad. I'm a list person, so I make spreadsheets for my characters with everything I learn about them, descriptions, family, important relationships (best friends, boy or girl friends, stuff like that), any thing that seems relevant.
When I am having trouble with a story I try to figure out where I am going and what needs to happen next. I am actually sort of stuck on a story right now, so I am trying figure out what happens next. I have the long term down, but the short term is kind of hazy.
Sometimes if you are stuck it also helps to bounce your idea off of someone else. They may discover that the reason you are stuck is because you didn't realize you backed yourself into a hole or that you really need something to happen and that's why you can't go foward.
I hope this helps someone.
Marlena, I know you don't mind me proof-reading your stuff, so I changed your subject title from "Advise That Stuck" to "Advice That Stuck"--another pair of words to add to your list!
WitchWRITER M.C. 
