Research for Project Wall
I’m trying to get a “Rough Draft” down of all the story ideas that I want to do. For me, a “rough draft” is simply me telling the story to myself. It has none (or very little) of the narrative techniques that one might associate with a traditional story: no pov, little-to-no characterization in terms of the 5 senses, feelings, etc. No internal monologue, and rarely even any dialogue. Heck, sometimes the characters aren’t even named yet, and are only identified by generic placeholder names that are usually their occupation or function in the story (“the antagonist” or ” the Ranger”). My “rough drafts” look an awful lot like Hollywood treatments or plot outlines for novels in that I’m only really interested in fleshing out the idea so that I know what I want to write about and how I want to dramatize it on the 2nd draft.
Researching Project Wall–Atlanta, GA and Quantum Mechanics
Unlike Unhallowed (formerly “Project Arizona”), where I specifically set out to learn a lot more about the time frame of the Old West, Project Wall is set in Atlanta, Georgia in the US. I live within a 2 hour drive of the city and I’ve been there several times, so I feel I have a pretty good working knowledge of the city. I did do research about the city (the city’s “crest” will actually feature into the story and was something I learned from research), but I have to confess, I did’t really do research on the same level as Unhallowed and I can’t but help wonder if that helped to throw me off my stride.
Mainly, however, I did research in Quantum Mechanics, something that features prominently in the reason for the story to be unfolding in the way that it is. I looked at various episodes of science shows that I watch and Youtube channels (on science) that I subscribe to as well.
When the Research Phase Doesn’t Go Well
I have a whole page of notes and things that I wanted to include in the “rough draft” and some things that I wanted to set up for the 1st draft where I start to do some of that expected narrative dramatization. However, thanks to trying to work on more than one project, I didn’t really emphasize research as heavily as I did for Unhallowed and my first “rough draft” totally looks and feels different than that from Unhallowed.
So much so, that I decided to start over. I’m going to scrap the first section of the story. However, I’ve already handwritten (in a notebook) the new versions of sections 1, 2 & 3 for the story. I just need to put it into the computer before Saturday, August 1st and I will have still met my own self-imposed monthly deadline. The original first section was just exposition and none of it matched anything that I had in my research or notes.
Sometimes, when the research portion (or even in the drafting phase) doesn’t go well, while you can continue to work, oftentimes it becomes muddled and not what you the writer want it to say. Sometimes you just have to start over and redo the process. Every story, and sometimes even every draft, is a learning experience. We talk about failure and how it is important to the learning process, but here in America, no one actually wants to fail. I suppose it comes from our American “exceptionalism” ideas and ideology, but writing is not a mathematical formula that works as expressed 100% of the time. Like any art or creative endeavor, sometimes seeing what you don’t want is sometimes as helpful as seeing what you do want as it forces you to take stock of the project and figure out if you’re going in the right direction or not.
Anyway, I’ve learned that what I was putting on the paper, while long, wasn’t actually good and was all exposition. The rough draft I’m writing now is much shorter, but is much closer to the original vision that I had in mind for the story.
Sidney
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Currently Working On (7/2020):
“Project Wall” (Science Fiction Story)
Drafting: First Draft
Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
Drafting: 2nd Draft (Working Draft)
Childe Roland Graphic Novel
Up Next: Rough Draft (Story)
I, Mage (Urban Fantasy Story)
Drafting: 1st Revision
