Monday Resources VII

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

welcome to june!
and good grief we are in the last days of the first half of the year, hope your writing mojo is doing good?
let's see if i can slide you over some mojo with some new information:

• this entry on the list was inspired during a lovely chat in the hd_writerssrsbzns room.
  so we all know our stories thrive on the "what happens if..." thinking, but sometimes the trouble is we are having too many possibility and we don't know how to go on, which 'what if' would work best; i don't know if many of you have learned that in school too, but my teacher taught us the "what if- cheat sheet"
  how does it work? easy:
  you take a sheet of paper and write on top of it "what if scenario character b does something and character a reacts to that in a certain way" make sure to write as clear as possible what is happening in that scene
  and then go on- "what is the immediate reaction?" what is the emotions provoked- make at least 3 points for the immediate scene, but you can of course add more
  then you make another points: "what are the long term affects that is the outcome provoking? what else will be influences - try to go at least 5 scenes into the future and try to work out how that will affect at least 1 character not in the scene themselves
  
  
  example written solemnly for showing purpose
  
  "what if harry in his haste because he is late breaks draco's favorite dragon figurine?
  intimidate reaction:
  
  
  1. harry curses, because damn he is late and has no time for that
  
  
  2. draco enters the room, after he had head the crash and finds his figurine on the ground- snarky comment "just because you didn't like it" or "if you did not just say you can leave it there i would have moved it"
  
  
  3. harry fidgety: "no, i just fell out of the floo, because i hurried and stumbled"
  
  
  4. draco raising eybrow, not sure if he wants to believe that, because it is his fav figurine and harry had eyed it strangely ever since they moved together
  
  
  5. harry getting annyoed: "well excuse me for being nervous for having your mother and aunt over!"
  
  
  
  
  long term effects:
  
  
  1. due to the arguing the both forget to repair the dragon- teddy and andromeda arriving first stepping into the shards- now beyond repair - draco feeling stupid for forgetting to repair it but also very sad, it was a gift from his father when he was a small child after all
  
  
  2. harry talking to hermione for feeling guilty, and odd about the now gone dragon - maybe trying to replace it?
  
  
  3. at one afternoon tea alone with his mother, draco is asked by her why the figurine is gone- "are you still so angry at your father?"
  
  
  4. hermione helping harry to enchant a new figurine to move and be unbreakable and maybe displaying a happy family memory from the malfoys- which would lead to harry talking to narcissa for the memory
  
  
  5. draco touched by the gift- maybe talking about why it had been such a special gift from lucius- introducing harry to a lucius he had never known- the father figure he never knew existed
  
  
  
  i hope this makes it clear what i mean
  
  and then you make a new one for the other possibilities - writing with hand here is simply faster, but of course you can also do it on the pc- what it will do is show you which story is more to your liking, where your ideas are coming from where the flow is already there, because one of the possibilities will not be written as easy as the other



• the next entry is about how you can describe places, and make full use of the potential a place has, i found it quite interesting, but i would totally agree with the author and say only pick the important ones, the ones that truly matter, and do not describe all the places in such an intense way, as it might slow down your story to much



• and last but not least, take a quick look at neil gaimans eight rules for writing. they might not be new, they might not be useful, but they might boost your confidence and get you back to getting your words down- and that is what really matters, write on, write hard!
  

i hope you could take something away from this post, that it was helpful to you, and that you feel the words tingling in your fingers, itching to be on paper!
have a very productive june and a nice summer/winter ahead!
go words! go fun!
*me leaves a nice hill of mojo for you to take*


do you want more tips on one certain topic that i so far completely ignored? (i am posting here what catches my fancy in hope to motivate you to get words down- so if you have something you need to know or read or be motivated on, let me know and i shall dig around the net trying to find something for you)
do you have a tip you want to share, but are thinking: "meh"- just pm me or write me a mail smirkingcat[at] yandex. com and i shall check it out and include it in a future post [with your name or without it]