Do you remember those cheap notebooks you had in elementary school? You can get a 3 or 4 pack, usually for less than $5 at the local drug store or dollar store, sometimes even cheaper (Dollar store) and I think they are about 30, 32 lined pages in each notebook. They usually came in different colours as well.
What I do is I try to have 3 or 4 (or 10) just laying around and I will try and write up a story via pen & paper method, double spacing things out so that I can go back over what I've written and red-pen it, substitute other words for it.
I've done the following with varying degrees of success.
1. I use the size of the notebook to determine my story length.
2. I've broken down chapters using the notebooks. Remember how I said they came in different colours? I will have the green notebooks as chapter 1, the pink notebooks as chapter 2, etc.
3. There's a section at the front of the notebook for your name and then subject, in addition to #2, I also have notebooks which have various subjects like plot, character(s), geographic area so that I don't do something real dumb in a story like having someone who's miles from a highway hitchhiking. (HOW do you hitchhike out when the nearest highway is 50, 70 miles away?)
4. Similar to #3, I also have smaller index cards which are also colour coded that I jot down things I want to use in the plot or a quirk of the character like he only smokes a specific brand of cigarette.
5. I don't normally do this part until I am going through a fourth draft, but if you're repeating the steps in #1 - #4, you can also use different coloured ink pens if you want to really emphasize a certain point. For example, a MAJOR plot point would be where one of the main characters DIES (in RED INK) so you don't end up having him resurrected in a future chapter and have one of your beta readers say...."Umm....didn't this guy die back in chapter 3 or something?" I toyed with the idea that no, that wasn't "John S," that was "John W," but even though "John" is one of the most common English names that exists, I decided to just change the names around. Less confusing.
6. I can also move things around physically and visualize it. Like notebook #1 = chapter #1....maybe it should be chapter #3?
This method won't work for everyone, especially not people who write on a word processing program or employ a software program.
I do notice that I have a tendency to overwrite....for example, I feel I *MUST* write a full notebook to be a "full" story/chapter. I think this goes back to the idea of just WRITING and going on and on and on which is something that I DO like doing, but the problem is....I HATE, HATE, HATE so much the process of cutting out all the clutter and making the story better. I'll finish with like 5,000 words and then I end up with MAYBE 1,000 or maybe even less - if I'm really on a roll, maybe less than 500 words. It feels like a failure to do this - like the 5,000 words I wrote, that was WORK. Now, I'm discarding so much of the work I did.....
For example, I wanted to write a hitman character committing a crime and I basically had one paragraph, so I developed it more to fill out the notebook and it made it worse!!! It was BORING!!! Like I went over his entire day leading up to the murder, the murder itself, the escape (well, he walked away...) and then I had him just taking a stroll to recharge after the tension of the previous day. I really should have just had a murder scene and left it at that. Let the investigation figure out what else happens when they try (if they do) to solve the murder.
I also have a tendency to want to make things as perfect as they can be and having an artificial limit keeps me from carrying on forever. You know, "don't let perfect be the enemy of good." You can always improve the background, the world building, the environment you operate in, BUT when you run out of room....that's it! It's time to double, triple check the information you have, make sure it's coherent and now it's time to WRITE the story.
So, what do y'all use? Do you limit the amount of paper you have to write in? Set a timer? Do you have a mini-you running around demanding attention?
What I do is I try to have 3 or 4 (or 10) just laying around and I will try and write up a story via pen & paper method, double spacing things out so that I can go back over what I've written and red-pen it, substitute other words for it.
I've done the following with varying degrees of success.
1. I use the size of the notebook to determine my story length.
2. I've broken down chapters using the notebooks. Remember how I said they came in different colours? I will have the green notebooks as chapter 1, the pink notebooks as chapter 2, etc.
3. There's a section at the front of the notebook for your name and then subject, in addition to #2, I also have notebooks which have various subjects like plot, character(s), geographic area so that I don't do something real dumb in a story like having someone who's miles from a highway hitchhiking. (HOW do you hitchhike out when the nearest highway is 50, 70 miles away?)
4. Similar to #3, I also have smaller index cards which are also colour coded that I jot down things I want to use in the plot or a quirk of the character like he only smokes a specific brand of cigarette.
5. I don't normally do this part until I am going through a fourth draft, but if you're repeating the steps in #1 - #4, you can also use different coloured ink pens if you want to really emphasize a certain point. For example, a MAJOR plot point would be where one of the main characters DIES (in RED INK) so you don't end up having him resurrected in a future chapter and have one of your beta readers say...."Umm....didn't this guy die back in chapter 3 or something?" I toyed with the idea that no, that wasn't "John S," that was "John W," but even though "John" is one of the most common English names that exists, I decided to just change the names around. Less confusing.
6. I can also move things around physically and visualize it. Like notebook #1 = chapter #1....maybe it should be chapter #3?
This method won't work for everyone, especially not people who write on a word processing program or employ a software program.
I do notice that I have a tendency to overwrite....for example, I feel I *MUST* write a full notebook to be a "full" story/chapter. I think this goes back to the idea of just WRITING and going on and on and on which is something that I DO like doing, but the problem is....I HATE, HATE, HATE so much the process of cutting out all the clutter and making the story better. I'll finish with like 5,000 words and then I end up with MAYBE 1,000 or maybe even less - if I'm really on a roll, maybe less than 500 words. It feels like a failure to do this - like the 5,000 words I wrote, that was WORK. Now, I'm discarding so much of the work I did.....
For example, I wanted to write a hitman character committing a crime and I basically had one paragraph, so I developed it more to fill out the notebook and it made it worse!!! It was BORING!!! Like I went over his entire day leading up to the murder, the murder itself, the escape (well, he walked away...) and then I had him just taking a stroll to recharge after the tension of the previous day. I really should have just had a murder scene and left it at that. Let the investigation figure out what else happens when they try (if they do) to solve the murder.
I also have a tendency to want to make things as perfect as they can be and having an artificial limit keeps me from carrying on forever. You know, "don't let perfect be the enemy of good." You can always improve the background, the world building, the environment you operate in, BUT when you run out of room....that's it! It's time to double, triple check the information you have, make sure it's coherent and now it's time to WRITE the story.
So, what do y'all use? Do you limit the amount of paper you have to write in? Set a timer? Do you have a mini-you running around demanding attention?
