I had my first creative writing class today. I love my professor. He is the more flamboyant version of my fifth grade teacher. Which is good. I like flamboyant people. I like flamboyant people more when they are flamboyant about their subject. That was too many uses of the word "flamboyant." I apologize. Seriously though, he was very enthusiastic and has a clear love for language. The worst thing that can happen in a class is your professor doesn't care about what he/she is teaching. There are only eight people in my class. This is also good, because the less people in a creative writing class, the better. More attention for me. We did this super cool free-writing exercise, and I was quite pleased with the results. It was fun fun. I think my professor should probably come home with me, and help me do the exercise every day. It's not something you can do by yourself. I would post it, except it's three pages long.
The bad thing that happened was how Theseus made his first appearance in the second draft of ATRS, and he acted like a total dick. I don't know why I allowed him to behave that way, as I will have to rewrite that whole section. I can't have two spoiled, bratty people in one story. The underworld is not big enough for the both of them. Meg has enough snottiness for an entire royal family.
I did some research and found Thebes (Megara's city) and Athens (Theseus' city) are rivals. How perfect. It sets up the whole story for me. What a lovely coincidence. Now if only Thebes had a patron god/goddess like Athens does, and my life would be set. I don't think so. If anyone knows otherwise, please speak up.
Plotting is the worst. I hate, hate, hate plotting. Once I know what's going to happen, I can write until my fingers turn blue, but I need to figure out what's going to happen! How do you figure out the plots to your tales? Music? Other books? Dreams? Fire away.
One final question. How long do your chapters generally run? I am trying to keep mine short for the sake of pacing.
Good luck with your class and your WIP. :D
ReplyDeleteI figure out the plot as I go. Or, more precisely, my characters tell me what's going to happen as I type, or at random moments during the day.
For my chapters, it depends. They are usually between 1000-3000 words long. It depends on the story. Some stories call for longer chapters. :D
I'm trying to keep my chapters from surpassing the 3,000 word mark. But again, it all depends on how you write. Being the massive dork I am, I looked up the Percy Jackson stats on Amazon, and those chapters run at around 4,000 words. Which is really long, but they feel short because they're so action-packed. I, however, do not have Rick Riordan's talent and need as much help as I can get in making things move.
ReplyDeleteI'm team Jacob all the way! I'm still a little bitter about how Meyers dealt with him in the last book...
ReplyDeleteAs for chapter lenghth, ours are typically very short, usually under 2,000 words. Not intentional, just how we write, I guess. And we did get a lot of good feedback on the pacing of our book, so maybe that has something to do with it?