Welcome to Practice Corner

[witchyemerald.livejournal.com]

I am a true believer that you always can learn and grow, in anything you do. And in the case of writing, every time you start a story, it's a blank canvas, and anything can happen. You can play with styles and techniques, because you can go as far as you imagination and the delete button. So, weekly I will post writing tips and exercises to help with your writing.

To start, I chose a topic that, yes it's back to the basics, but I think is a great place to start with winter fests, exchanges and NaNoWriMo -

Plotting

So you looked over a fest and found the perfect prompt, or was bitten by a bunny, and now you're itching to start writing. You sit down at the keyboard, favorite drink by your side, ready to write the next epic story that will have readers running to your creation and ...nothing. Or in my case, too much of everything.

I am not talking about writers block (that is a whole other post) I am talking about not being able to map that story in your head. So what you do? Well go back to plotting it out!

Here is a list of 25 ways to Plot, Plan and Prep your story. It is really interesting and, yes, you will not use all of them, but I bet there is a way that will work for you on that list.

Question: What do you do when plotting your longer stories?

Now for the exercise part. Pick one of the following H/D plots and plot out how you will write it. You don’t have to write it unless you want to, but work on how you will write the story.

AU! Harry and Draco didn’t meet in Hogwarts. Instead, they meet at the Quidditch World Cup as rival seekers

After believing Harry Potter died in the war, Draco Malfoy receives an unusual letter.

Draco’s new neighbor keeps him awake late at night

Draco finally gets the chance to be the knight-in-shining-armor

As a Prefect, Draco discovers Harry out of bed after hours one night

Prompts from http://drarrypromptoftheday.tumblr.com

Comments

[xonceinadream]

I honestly am more of an in your head plotter. I'll walk around having conversations between the characters in my mind. I think it's part of why I have such trouble writing descriptions because my fics are very about dialogue. I prefer not to plot out, though, because I like seeing where things go. I feel like I'm very limited if I plot it out and it's where I always get writer's block trying to turn in a story in that direction. I try to keep from plotting out too much.

With really any of those prompts, I'd work it through in my mind. For instance, the new neighbor keeps him up at night, I'd start with how they'd meet. I'd figure out what their first conversation would be, picturing it all in my mind and figure out what they'd say to each other. So, I suppose even though nothing is written down, I do plot. I just don't do it on paper.