Patricia C. Wrede's Blog, page 78

Cliches and some things to do with them

Sooner or later, most writers go through a period of worrying that their work is full of clichés. Some folks take this to ridiculous extremes; one person I ran into was worried about their heroine's hair color, because it just seemed clichéd to have her be blonde, brunette, or redhead, but the writer couldn't think of anything else (non-natural hair colors having been discarded for some reason).

People fret endlesslyabout whether their plot has been used before, or used so often it's become...

Working out what comes next

I'm currently just getting started on the third, as-yet-untitled book of the Frontier Magic trilogy, and the first step of that is working out the plot in more detail than "they explore the Far West to find out what happened to Lewis and Clark and what's up in the Rocky Mountains; various characters solve assorted personal and romantic problems" which is pretty much what the original outline said. So I thought I'd talk about how I do that. Warning: I'm trying hard not to, but there may still ...

Changing things

Several questions come up a lot about plotting - how can you be sure it makes sense, how can you be sure it's not clichéd, how do you develop it, how do you get it to work out. Most of the answers have to do with looking at things from a different angle from the one the writer is stuck in (which is why plot-noodling is so useful - other people are pretty much automatically looking at things from a different angle than whatever angle you're using).

But mainly the answer to all those...

Default values

Nearly every writer has what I call a "default setting" for many or most of the basic pieces of writing. They tend to automatically write in first person, or third, or multiple viewpoint. When they're thinking up stories or developing ideas, they gravitate toward the action/adventure plot, or toward one focusing on relationships, or toward something more character-centered where the main point is someone learning a lesson. They gravitate toward the same kinds of characters, settings, genres.

W...

Revising long after part 4

 This is the last part of Chapter 1 of Shadow Magic, as revised ten years later for the omnibus Shadows Over Lyra. Strikethroughs are the deletions from the original; plain text is the original that was kept; bold are additions. Italics are my comments, which are few on this part. 

Bracor led them inside and up a long, spiral staircase to a pleasant, though simply furnished, room.  Maurin was pleased to find that the cleaning frenzy in the courtyard had not completely stripped the castle of...

Revising long after part 3

This is the third part of Chapter 1 of Shadow Magic, as revised ten years later for Shadows Over Lyra, and the second of the posts that was supposed to come up while I was away, but didn't because I am apparently incapable of properly using the scheduler. The final part will go up tomorrow. Plain text is the original version; strikethrough is what I deleted; boldface is what I added. Italics are my comments on why I did what I did.

A long whistle from Har brought Maurin's eyes down, and he As...

Revising long after, part 2

This is the next part of Chapter 1 of Shadow Magic, as revised ten years later for Shadows Over Lyra. Plain text is the original version; strikethrough is what I deleted; boldface is what I added. Italics are my comments on why I did what I did.

"I'll mind," Maurin muttered, too low for Har to hear.

"There's still Master Goldar."

"Fear not, my friend," Har said, striking a theatrical pose. "We shall yet win for you the freedom of the city, overcoming all objections of . . . " His speech was...

Well, that's annoying

Once again, the auto-posting has failed me. Coming up next: all the posts that didn't while I was out of town with no internet access. I'll put the rest of the chapter up in two-day intervals, starting tomorrow morning (Saturday), so people have at least a little time to digest them.

Thanks for your patience.

Revising long after, part 1

Last week, I suggested that people find books that have been reedited by their authors for a years-later reprint, and compare before-and-after versions. To show you what I mean, I'm going to post the first chapter of my first novel, Shadow Magic, which came out in 1982 and which I revised ten years later for an omnibus edition. It's going to take me a few days to get it all up. The strikeouts are words, phrases, and sentences that appeared in the original version but that I deleted on...

Twitchy, twitchy

Barely over a week ago, I turned in the first draft of Circuit Rider, after a major death-march push to get the thing done somewhere within shouting distance of deadline. The plan was to spend a couple of weeks taking care of everything that got put off to finish the book (laundry, dishes, yardwork, finances), catch up my Dad's paperwork, do some research reading and planning, maybe take a vacation for the first time in…I think it's two years, but it could be three or four, and start the...