Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Less progress
I'm one pooped puppy. I'm going to sit here with my document open and stare at it and surf and stare and try to muster my writing brain cells for one more charge tonight, but it's not looking good, folks. Those poor neurons are badly outnumbered by the combined might of exhaustion and resistance.
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Today is a new day Karyn and besides you did a lot of research yesterday. That counts!
ReplyDeleteNot sure if this is any help, but I read in Orson Scott Card's 'How to Write SciFi and Fantasy' that if you're stymied so early on in a WIP, it might be that your focus is misplaced.
ReplyDeleteHe came up with something called the MICE Quotient:
"All stories contain four elements that can determine structure: Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event...which one dominates?" If you're having a difficult time progressing, and you've barely started the tale, it might be that you're thinking of it with the wrong element as the focus. Are you interested in taking the reader through your awesome, odd world, as in 'The Wizard of Oz'? (Milieu) Or is there a deliberate Idea you want to explore (Stephen King's 'Carrie')? Or is it alllll about the Characters? Or, lastly, are the Events in your story what carries the reader through, such as anything Tolkien ever penned? Every story has a major MICE focus, coupled with a minor one...
I'm looking at this conundrum myself, being that I've started my book three times, and get stopped at Chapter Three repeatedly. Your plight sounded so familiar I just thought I'd throw Mr. Card's idea out there!
Hmm... Thanks, Cris. That's definitely food for thought. Will most definitely ponder. (*goes to see if that book is available for my kindle*) I can feel something's wrong, but I don't know what. Gotta just keep pushing on somehow, though. I can fix it in revisions I hope.
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