Day 95: Characterization again
I got some writing done on my manuscript today, but I also spent a lot of time working on my characterization for the series.
The reason is because I went walking and was listening to the archives of the Writing Excuses podcast. They are mostly writing craft-based topics, which is what I wanted to refresh myself on as I'm writing the books in the series.
Two really good podcast episodes were about heroes and villains, and it gave me ideas for how to adjust my characters to hopefully make them more interesting and relatable. The information was what I'd heard before, but I'd forgotten about it.
A relatable villain thinks he's the hero of the story. There are some purely evil villains (like Sauron), and they serve a purpose in storytelling, I think. But the villains in my story are not purely evil. In fact, I have backstories written for each of them, and they've had incidents in their lives that helped form them to being the way they are.
However, I realized today that I had neglected to add those to my Snowflake step 6 (expanded synopsis). I think I had thought that those character points would just naturally be revealed in the series as it progressed, but since I had plotted out my heroes' spiritual arcs, why wouldn't I also plot out my villains' internal arcs? That way I could be sure that the most important aspects of their backstories and personalities would be revealed at the right places in the series.
So I spent time adding those things to volume 1 in the series, then to the parts of volume 2 that I've written, and then to the synopses for volumes 3 and 4 (I only got as far as volume 4 today). I'll continue working on those tomorrow.
I also want to think about my heroines and if I should adjust their characters a bit. They have abilities that come out more in volume 2, but in some ways they're a little too unusual and capable at points in the volume 2. The podcasts made me wonder if they were as relatable as they could be. There would be more conflict and emotional tension if they were more like the everyman hero as opposed to Superwoman. I might brainstorm about them when I go walking tomorrow to try to fix this problem.
So I'm disappointed it was another low word count day, and I can't entirely point to the work I did on characterization. Unfortunately I got distracted by retail procrastination because I need a new clock next to my desk since I'm tired of replacing the alkaline batteries in my old one, and I ended up wasting an entire hour. Ugh! I need to do better tomorrow!
But I shouldn't complain, because I got 1777 words done on my manuscript, which isn't anything to sneeze at. It's a NaNoWriMo day!
I guess after a couple days of wonderfully high word counts, I've been wanting to keep up my momentum, and stopping the writing in order to do characterization is kind of a drag, mentally. I don't think I shift gears easily when it comes to my writing process. It's probably easiest for my brain to stick with one process at a time.
Well, if I can finish the characterization tomorrow, I'll be back to a higher word count day on Saturday.
Time spent writing: 3 hours, 47 minutes
Total number of words: 1777 words
Average writing speed: 1461 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 56 minutes
My takeaway for today: In terms of writing craft, there's still a lot for me to learn or that I've forgotten, so writing podcasts have been helpful!
The reason is because I went walking and was listening to the archives of the Writing Excuses podcast. They are mostly writing craft-based topics, which is what I wanted to refresh myself on as I'm writing the books in the series.
Two really good podcast episodes were about heroes and villains, and it gave me ideas for how to adjust my characters to hopefully make them more interesting and relatable. The information was what I'd heard before, but I'd forgotten about it.
A relatable villain thinks he's the hero of the story. There are some purely evil villains (like Sauron), and they serve a purpose in storytelling, I think. But the villains in my story are not purely evil. In fact, I have backstories written for each of them, and they've had incidents in their lives that helped form them to being the way they are.
However, I realized today that I had neglected to add those to my Snowflake step 6 (expanded synopsis). I think I had thought that those character points would just naturally be revealed in the series as it progressed, but since I had plotted out my heroes' spiritual arcs, why wouldn't I also plot out my villains' internal arcs? That way I could be sure that the most important aspects of their backstories and personalities would be revealed at the right places in the series.
So I spent time adding those things to volume 1 in the series, then to the parts of volume 2 that I've written, and then to the synopses for volumes 3 and 4 (I only got as far as volume 4 today). I'll continue working on those tomorrow.
I also want to think about my heroines and if I should adjust their characters a bit. They have abilities that come out more in volume 2, but in some ways they're a little too unusual and capable at points in the volume 2. The podcasts made me wonder if they were as relatable as they could be. There would be more conflict and emotional tension if they were more like the everyman hero as opposed to Superwoman. I might brainstorm about them when I go walking tomorrow to try to fix this problem.
So I'm disappointed it was another low word count day, and I can't entirely point to the work I did on characterization. Unfortunately I got distracted by retail procrastination because I need a new clock next to my desk since I'm tired of replacing the alkaline batteries in my old one, and I ended up wasting an entire hour. Ugh! I need to do better tomorrow!
But I shouldn't complain, because I got 1777 words done on my manuscript, which isn't anything to sneeze at. It's a NaNoWriMo day!
I guess after a couple days of wonderfully high word counts, I've been wanting to keep up my momentum, and stopping the writing in order to do characterization is kind of a drag, mentally. I don't think I shift gears easily when it comes to my writing process. It's probably easiest for my brain to stick with one process at a time.
Well, if I can finish the characterization tomorrow, I'll be back to a higher word count day on Saturday.
Time spent writing: 3 hours, 47 minutes
Total number of words: 1777 words
Average writing speed: 1461 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 56 minutes
My takeaway for today: In terms of writing craft, there's still a lot for me to learn or that I've forgotten, so writing podcasts have been helpful!
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