The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting Nov. 4, 2010

Whoops, snuck that extra bit in about putting a dragon in your imagination (or something like that) and forgot to reflect on the old nano notes from day 3.

Let's see, what were they now? Actually, what were they then? Here we go, over at http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/140933.html I rambled on about the fun of writing the parts that you can see, that come trippingly to the fingers or mental vision or however you gather your wordy delights. Pick out scenes that you are excited about, that you want to explore, that you want to write NOW -- and write them. Then add in some prequels and sequels and probably the sidequels here and there, and before you know it, pow! You've got a peacock of scenery ready for grooming.

Now, admittedly, in the heat of the nanowrimo drive for words, you probably have some disarray to deal with -- like having the wedding before the proposal, and other minor sequence and plotting issues such as that, but hey, that's what January is for, right? So for now, hit those scenes you can see, the highlights and low dives and other fun places for your characters to congregate and get in trouble. Later on, when you have time, you can delve into the alleyways and other hidden crevices that you need to dig into to get these scenes connected, foreshadowed, reactions properly tucked in, and all that.

Hopscotch, and skip the bogs.

And then there's the old adages from over here http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/141064.html to give different viewpoints a try. After all, we talk about using first person, third limited or perhaps third cinematic, a drop of omniscient, and such options. We also fiddle around with which viewpoint character to use. But for nanowrimo, go ahead and try them out. Write the scene in third limited. Then write it again in first person. What does it look like from the villain's point-of-view? Write it and see! Or how about from the dorky sidekick who never says very much? Drop us into that first person and see what happens!

Or you could even play around with some radical viewpoints. Second person? You really want to write a scene that way? You can do it! Or perhaps you just want to tell us how that fight scene felt to the sofa that everyone was crashing over? Ouch?

So, explore some of the options that we often skip. Give them a whirl. See the scenes from both sides now, and then maybe from another direction. Focus on the scenes that make you want to write them, the high points of your story. Make those words count up, and let the story flow (well, actually, since you're not worrying about order, I guess it's more like running randomly along, here, there, and over somewhere else, but at least the words will flow, right?).

Where were we before I got distracted? Oh, yes. High points and traveling points of view. I did it, he did it, they all done it, and then someone else saw it.

Write!

Try another viewpoint?

Normally I go along with the standard writing recommendation to use third person limited -- pick a viewpoint character and stick with showing us the story from that point of view, with some dipping into their head but nobody else's. But especially for nanowrimo quotas, you might want to take another approach. Or two or three :-)

First, you might try writing the same scene using more than one style of viewpoint. Start with third person limited, then try it in third person omniscient -- including bits and pieces from everyone's point of view. Or perhaps rewrite it in third person cinematic -- no interior monologue or reflection, just external description, action, and dialogue. Just like the movies. Or shift it into first person, and see how it works in the up close and personal mode. Later you can decide which one you want to keep.

Second, you might want to do the third person limited rendition, and then do it again using a second viewpoint character. Tell it from the protagonist's point of view, then tell it from the villain's point of view. Sherlock Holmes and Watson? Try telling the same scene from the point of view of several of your major characters. Remember to make each and every one of them recognizably different. The senses, the details that they notice, what they focus on should let us know whose shoulder we are looking over even if we didn't have a name somewhere in the beginning of the scene.

Third, you might wander through some bit players, or even some variations such as pets, computers, diaries, and so forth. Every one of these can offer a different look at the story that's going on. What does the plot look like from the vacuum cleaner's perspective? Or perhaps the policeman on the corner, the newspaper reporter, the anthropologist from the Smithsonian who is studying the case? What about the historian looking back at this story 100 years from now? These may not be points of view that you want to use for the whole book, or even for an entire scene, but go ahead and play a little with narrating the story from an unusual point of view. Or maybe just a piece of the story -- what does the chase scene look like in the jumbled description of the cab driver who got suddenly yanked into the middle? Does a newspaper obituary provide the reader with some distance from the death of a character?

Fundamentally, go with your first person or third person limited baseline story. But if you're looking for a few more words and a change of pace, take that scene and run it through the viewpoint wringer. See what happens if you adopt an omniscient point of view for this scene, or make it purely cinematic. Consider shifting the point of view, and write the scene again from a different character's point of view.

Don't get rid of any of your alternatives yet. Just write them up, and count the words towards your total. Selection, editing, and revision come later -- right now, you're building up a wordy pile, aiming at getting a solid slab of work in hand to shape and prune later. So feel free to try some variations, and see what they look like. Who knows, you may decide that telling the story from the point of view of a mouse running underfoot really is the best point of view, at least as long as the cat doesn't catch 'em.

tink
(hum - about 500 words? 1,500 more to go!)