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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2012 11:56:19 GMT -5
X I pm'd you a writer who is doing a story about a young girl who falls in love with a young boy who is mute. She is in my region. I did do a search and there are quite a few stories with disabled characters.
I thought I had posted this question but perhaps I was interupted. What do the keywords do. Are they just a list or can you do something jazzy with them.
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Post by Ximena on Oct 27, 2012 11:32:03 GMT -5
Snapshots allow you to take a "picture" of your current scene so you can easily go back in case you make changes and decide you'd rather go back to an earlier version (since Scrivner auto saves).
Keywords are a way to organize your draft, helpful for revising especially. You can use it for themes, locations, characters,etc. then, let's say you want to search for every scene that takes place in a particular place or that as a certain character, you can do a keyword search and it'll pull up all the scenes you gave the keyword.
Make sense?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2012 11:38:08 GMT -5
Thanks Ximena, very useful to know.
Three days to go....
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Post by Ximena on Oct 29, 2012 18:10:29 GMT -5
OK, I don't think I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year... But I'm happy to help cheer everyone on! Here's some tips I learned from NaNoWriMo last year and from writing UnConventional so quickly: 1- OUTLINE - > have an idea for what you're going to write in advance, even if it's just a rough idea of the basic plot (I like to think in the three-act structure, with inciting incident, turning point, etc., but whatever works for you is fine). DON'T BE AFRAID to deviate from this, if you get to a point in your story and it seems to be going off in a different direction, DO IT! Let your characters help you guide it. (I had several different endings planned out for UnConventional, but as I wrote it ended up going in a totally different - and much better - direction. So thank you, Santiago!) 2- SET GOALS -> set realistic goals for your writing. If you don't think you can write seven days a week, then bump up your daily count. If you feel stuck one day, try to make up for it the next day! (Scrivner has a writing goal function, if that helps.) If you write seven days a week, then you should try to write at LEAST 1667 words/day. If you write five days a week, bump that up to about 2500. (Last NaNoWriMo, I often only had time to write five days a week, and some days I knew I wouldn't be able to write because of the holidays. So I would try to write extra whenever I could find some time on a normally "off" day - usually a weekend.) 3- WRITE DISTRACTION-FREE -> Figure out a way to write while eliminating distractions, if possible. Download one of the apps that turns off your internet for a set amount of time. Or grab a notebook and a pen and go outside. Whatever works, you'll be more productive if you're not compelled to check email or PD or twitter or whatnot. (I personally love my iPad for this. I sit at my kitchen table, hook up my bluetooth keyboard, and just write. It's partially how I was able to write as much as 18K words in one day while working on UnConventional.) 4- HAVE FUN -> NaNoWriMo is meant to be FUN. If you're feeling overwhelmed/stressed, or just aren't excited about your project, maybe you need to step back and think WHY this is. Do you need to take a different approach? Change a character? Or maybe you just need to write about something else! IF you are passionate and excited about your project, not only will the writing come more easily/quicker, but that will come through in your writing! (Part of the reason UnConventional came sooo fast to me is because I was so excited about the story and the characters, I couldn't wait to see what happened next - and that came through in the writing itself, because the book ended up with a very "page turny" feel with people falling in love with the characters, too.) 5- KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS -> This is kind of a bonus from tip #1, and it's something that anyone who has gotten writing advice from me will hear a lot. If you REALLY KNOW who your characters are, you will not only have an easier time in finding the plot (because they'll guide you to it), it will make your writing richer and easier. I realize not everyone thinks about me. My best advice is try not to FORCE things in your writing. When possible, close your eyes and try to imagine what your character is like. Anything and everything you know about them will only help you write their story better. For example, close your eyes RIGHT NOW and think of your protagonist. What is his/her favorite color? Why? Does he/she have a pet? Why/why not? How do they feel about animals? What car do they drive? Why? Are they an only child? Do they have a favorite food? Are they picky or do they eat anything? What kind of music do they like? Etc., etc. Even if none of these details appear in your text, they will help you figure out who you're writing about, and often, you'll discover bits of story you hadn't even thought about. For example, let's say you "learn" that your main character drives a Corolla, but you know that they really wish they were driving a Porsche. You could have stumbled upon a way for them to meet another character, or for a goal for them to strive for, or it could tell us something about them: they are a practical person on the outside, but inside, they really long to break free and be wild.... All of this possibility simply from a "minor" detail as to what car they drive!!  Good luck, everyone!!  |
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Post by Ximena on Oct 30, 2012 13:21:46 GMT -5
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Post by janewheeler on Oct 30, 2012 14:34:59 GMT -5
HINT HINT
Jane can't write a female to save her life
HINT HINT
(it's true)
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Post by hanabanana on Oct 30, 2012 17:17:41 GMT -5
female characters are the worst and ruin life.  |
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Post by Ximena on Oct 30, 2012 17:33:32 GMT -5
So then just write M/M and your problems are solved!! LOL. |
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Post by janewheeler on Oct 30, 2012 21:01:26 GMT -5
Not at all! First, I am a dev for guys with disabilities, so THEY'RE the ones that get me all excited to write. AB girls... meh. But I also run into the problem of thinking, "Okay, she's TOTALLY like me... except she needs to be NOT exactly like me... except that then this makes no sense..." and I overthink everything.
Blergh, indeed.
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Post by janewheeler on Oct 30, 2012 23:41:46 GMT -5
Oh, god, my characters would tire you out with all of their overthinking! Poor Eleanore and Ximena already have their hands full with me.
This is a good tip, though. I'll keep it in mind.
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Post by janewheeler on Oct 31, 2012 20:32:07 GMT -5
ALSO! Tabby (and others who make book covers sometimes), where can I find some decent free or low-cost stock photos that I can use in making a cover? I found the perfect one in iStockphoto, but WOW do I not want to spend $175 to decorate a book I haven't even started writing yet.
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Post by hanabanana on Oct 31, 2012 21:07:17 GMT -5
omg I'm so nervous. I still don't know what I'm writing about
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Post by janewheeler on Oct 31, 2012 23:44:59 GMT -5
*cough*sexydisabledherowholikesdelightfullybookishlady*cough*
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Post by Inigo Montoya on Nov 1, 2012 6:54:35 GMT -5
I wish I could write. But then again... thanks to my job I am regularly depressed and barely have time to pee in November, so maybe it's good that I can't.  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2012 14:45:34 GMT -5
I wish I could write. But then again... thanks to my job I am regularly depressed and barely have time to pee in November, so maybe it's good that I can't. lol I am like that esp the peeing bit. Jane I use my own photos so that is why my covers don't have any people in them. There are free photos too on the web. |
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