On Writing
Hi, this is Viewtru, guest blogging here again.
I guess that most of you know by now that I am taking part in this year’s NanoWrimo novel writing challenge. There are a few days left and my plot is almost ready. Still some details of the plot to figure out, though.
My entry will be a kickass wuxia novel to be called, “The 3-in-1 Kungfu Girl”. The story revolves around Pei Pei, a foul-mouthed kid from a fishing village who has a great survival instinct. She becomes a kungfu exponent because of a series of accidental happenings. Remember my recent story on ”The Twin Dragons of Li Daifu”? Well, Jade Flower and Li Chiang will have some tiny cameo roles in this story. Wu Chuan will have a much bigger role.
It seems to me that it is much easier to write the middle portion of the story than to write the beginning or the end. It’s like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. The middle is always the easiest part to squeeze.
When I was in school trying to write an essay, I would take about 20 minutes to figure out the first two lines. After that, I only need take only fifteen minutes to write the long middle portion. And then there would be no time to think of a proper ending because my favourite TV programme will be on.
I never did like doing essay homework. You know why? Because you can’t copy essay homework.
You know what homework I love doing in school? Mathematics. You can always have a great day watching TV at home and then go to school the next day and copy mathematics answers from the brighter kids in class. The teacher wouldn’t know who copied whom. We were da experts in the fine art of copying.
But not with essays. You really shouldn’t try to copy an essay.
There was only one case that I remember that a kid copied another kid’s essay WORD FOR WORD and submitted it as his own original effort. Of course the teacher spotted it. She wasn’t retarded. Well, not totally. The whole class was aghast. One should always copy in such a way that it could not be so easily detected. I mean, come on, there are certain professional standards among school kids, not simply simply copy anyhow you like. Hello? Stupid dumbass. The whole class was ready to flunk him.
Hey, gotta go now. My 3-in-1 coffee is calling me.
This is Viewtru signing off. Have a good day ahead!
October 26th, 2005 at 9:16 am
have a great day to you too!
October 26th, 2005 at 10:11 am
Good luck to both of you in the Nanowrimo!:smile:
I remember at my school there was this one kid or should I say dumbass who tried copy mathematics homework but figured out that he was so ’smart’ , he copied the answer and changed the process of getting the answer.
OMG, he is so stupid!! eventually the teacher caught him and he was the laughing stock in my class for all time.:lol:
October 26th, 2005 at 10:26 am
i would suggest begining the story right in the middle of a fighting sceene… with the your heroine a spectator… so in the very begining u engage ur audience with a thrilling fight sequence…
October 26th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
About writing essays:
those were da days, viewthru, when the taecher punished you for copying another’s essays.
Today, the teachers (most of them, based on feedback from friends and parents..and even some students themselves…) ENCOURAGE the students to “spoT’ essay topics and then mermorise them, reproduce them word of word…and that way, when they are lucky the “spotted” topics actually come out, score an “A”! And this method has the implicit support or sanction of the HM or principal — of course, some of these teachers would spell their position as heedmaster or prnciple and not know the diff!
October 28th, 2005 at 1:23 am
Rijac - that’s actualyl not a bad idea. Many authors start in the middle of a story and then either use flashbacks, or go back to the beginning.
Of course, I was going to suggest to Viewtru that he start writing something in the middle to get the juices flowing and then go back to the beginning and write that bit. There is no rule which says you ahve to write a novel in the order in which it will be read. A good rule of thumb is to work on one scene at a time ANYWHERE in the novel and fill in the gaps.
This of course means planning your plot, characters, subplots etc before hand. Watch out for accidentally writing about something which the character doesn’t know about.
I’ve been caught out in one of my movie scripts doing that, where on one scene a guy mentioned something and two scenes later he doesn’t know about it and someone informs him of it! Luckily I caught it and changed it.
It wasn’t from lack of planning, I just accidentally included the scene where the character discovers something AFTER a scene where he uses the information! Was as easy as placing the scenes in their right order.
Starting is the hard part. ‘It was a cold and stormy night’ doesn’t always do!
BUT, you can always start with a line like that and just WRITE and WRITE and WRITE. When you do the rewrites etc, you can go back and change it.
(and if you are going to get published and you DON’T do rewrites, then maybe you need to seek different profession.) I do a lot of my re-writing as I go, but it’s always good to go back and read it after the first draft. There is alwasy places where you can improve the language etc. (That’s what re-writing is for. Improving. You should already have a good story happening). Like they say, writing is 10% writing, and 90% rewriting. (Who makes these rules?)
So next novel, start in the middle and work your way out!
October 28th, 2005 at 8:58 am
minishorts: I usually have great days. It’s the reason I seldom ever rant.
The other kenny: That kid is giving us copiers a bad name. For mathermatics, he should not try to be creative and invent his own process.
rijac: The fighting scene beginning is one of the beginning ideas that I am toying with.
yichong: They judge schools by the number of ‘A’s achieved, so teachers have jumped from ‘educators’ to being ‘A’ facilitators.
Dabido (Teflon): Yes, writing is 10% writing, and 90% rewriting. In the NanoWrimo, I won’t have much time to rewrite. Thank goodness for spellcheckers so I don’t have to spend time to look up the spelling of every word. I will have to watch out that the sequence of the subplots are correct though as I have changed my plots here and there. The middle and ending plots are practically sewned up. The beginning part is still being decided.
October 28th, 2005 at 9:16 am
viewtru, you know what? I’ve turned off the spell check function in my word for the heck of it. sigh…
nothing beats good, old fashion editing… come to think of it, i’m looking forward to editing it more than anything else. the cantonese call it a ‘zhek yit beng’.