Fine Tuning

I spent my evening watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 and brewing a batch of oatmeal stout. The photo above is my shiny new electric brewpot. Now I can brew indoors and not royally freeze my ass off. The whole time I was brewing, and watching giant food items talk, I was thinking about structure.

I’m currently reading Structuring your Novel by KM Weiland. 

As a writer I want to tell the best possible story. So far I’m writing, and getting words down every day, but I need to fine tune my process. It’s been really interesting as I read her book to see things I’m missing out on. Little things, things that could make an interesting scene really great. Things that could, hopefully, take those scenes to the next level.

She references movies and how they have the structure of a story down pat. And she is extremely correct. Throughout Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 I could see it, pick it out, learn from it. I was excited to sit down and check my newest scenes. Sure enough, there it was, I needed to add more. Just a line here, a paragraph there, and whammo. It sang.

I still believe in the million word theory. After I write a million words I’ll have a good grasp. So far I’m at about 170k. I’ve got a long way and a lot of writing to go. There are things I can see now that I didn’t see before the first book. I’m learning to see it. Sharpening that edge. Fine tuning.

8,350 Words