Yzabel / January 26, 2006

Not Wanting To Finish A Story?

These days, I try to isolate and understand a few more writing matters, that I hadn’t perused before, and I’ve been wondering if it’s very unusual for an author to find herself, to say it simply, not wanting to finish a story? Not for fear of failure or rejection, that is, but for the sake of keeping the characters ‘alive’ for a little longer.

Coming from a RPG background and from campaigns/chronicles that would last for months if not for years, I think I took a few bad habits, in that I want to keep the story going for as long as possible before putting an end to it. However, this doesn’t work well for novels, lest for short stories. When I find myself in the position of reader, part of me wants to world and characters to go on existing, yet part of me also wants the whole plot to get to a conclusion at some point–no neverending series of a gazillion of books that tends to all look like each other after a while.Read More

Yzabel / January 23, 2006

Nice Review

With my Internet connection behaving in quite a hectic way during the past week or so, I hadn’t really kept up to date with many posts, blogs and the likes (as could be seen easily enough–it’s Murphy’s law in action: when the connection drops dead, it’s always from 6pm to the next morning!). This is why I only saw this today: a nice little review on BloggyAward. What needs to be said is a warm “thank you”, I guess!

Yzabel / January 19, 2006

The Simpsons Already Did It

I know that what matters is the execution, not only the basis idea, but isn’t it very frustrating when you’ve come up with an idea, either for a novel or a short story, only to realize, a few days, weeks or even months later, that someone already worked along the same theme in a book or a movie you weren’t aware of?

Sure, it won’t prevent me from writing, it won’t make me give up my story if I believe in it (and if I didn’t believe in my own stories, wouldn’t this be sad?), but it keeps on irking me, to know that ‘someone else thought of it before I did’.

Fate has a twisted sense of irony.

Yzabel / January 18, 2006

You Want To Write In What?

No kidding, I must really be doomed when it comes to short stories.

I’m working on a quick plan for a text in French, one that I will send to the Harfang association. I don’t have that many hopes, since everybody here knows how much I suck at short stories, but one needs to start somewhere, and if I don’t try and practice, I’ll never improve.

Now that I’ve found an idea, I don’t know how to begin the story.

I’m hesitating between first and third person. However, and this is way more of a bother, I keep on feeling like I should write it in English. I’m on the verge of banging my head against the table, because this is so very stupid. For once that I decide to work on an imposed theme and try to see if I’m able to pull it through, I’m hindered by the choice of the language.

I don’t doubt that in a few days at the most, I’ll be able to go past this block and write the story for good, but this is aggravating all the same!

Yzabel / January 15, 2006

Role-Playing Games, Novels and World-Building

This week-end, I went back to sweet hometown and met with friends I hadn’t seen in a few years. Knowing who we are and what our common background is, there was no doubt that it would end with a tabletop RPG session, and no surprise here, it happened. One of my friends had in fact built his own little world, complete with maps and background history, which is the universe we played in. It reminded me of a comment left on this blog some time ago, about handing out my characters to players, placing them in specific situations, and seeing how it goes.Read More

Yzabel / January 12, 2006

My Problem With Short Stories

I’m going to come out of the closet for this one and admit that I haven’t been very talented with short stories. Yet.

While working on novels is all nice and well, these take time, and I’m not going to sit on my bottom waiting for the world to go on running. This is the reason why I’ve also been turning to ‘calls to arms’ for short stories, in order to have something else to munch on. A certain amount of French magazines and anthologies regularly hold these, and if chosen, the story goes the publishing road. Sure, it’s not much in itself. However, it seems fine enough for a start, as well as a sort of introduction to being published, right?Read More

Yzabel / January 11, 2006

Power Writer or Power Structure?

It’s a new year, it demands a new, good start in writing, and since I’ve discovered two months ago that planning is a good thing for me when it comes to novels, I’ve decided to invest money into one of these “planning” software for writers. A few demo and trial versions later, after having get out of the way the programs that more or less help in coming up with ideas and not found any free software that would strike my fancy, I’ve come to the conclusion that Power Writer may be my thing. It’s the only one I’ve tested so far that is complete enough, while not leaving me much room to get side-tracked (read: some products leave room to note files, but if I write down ideas this way, I forget half of them along the way, when I don’t forget where I’ve left the note files themselves).Read More

Yzabel / January 9, 2006

Spot On: 11 Ways To Get Your Story Rejected

A Newbie’s Guide To Publishing is a blog I follow at regular intervals, and a few days ago, its author, Joe Konrath, has posted an entry regarding his experience in being a judge in a short story contest. In his own words: “I can tell within ten seconds of looking at a story whether it will go on to the finals or not”. He then proceeds to list eleven points that will ensure a story, not to be published, but to go on the junk pile from the start. Of course, this is as usual a matter of perspective, and not every editor/judge/critic will proceed the same way; on the other hand, these points seem quite valid in my opinion, even if I know very well that following them all faithfully isn’t all there is to a good story.

The article is up on Joe Konrath’s blog. Here’s a summary of the points he lists (in fact, a general rule would be: “Present your story well, to at least show that you respect it”):Read More

Yzabel / January 6, 2006

NationStates: Ideas For World-Building?

NationStates is an old site, that I first discovered a few years ago. If I’m not mistaken, it had been put online at first in parallel with the development of the Jennifer Government story. Last week, I found a renewed interest for it, and created a new nation on the server. This is what got me to think some more about it, as a potential source for ideas.

The basis of the “game” is simple: one creates a nation, chooses its name, currency, animal/symbol and type of government, and every day (depending on the chosen settings), one or two issues are submitted to the “government” of this new country. Issues are on various topics, such as cloning research, minorities on television, people demanding a ban on cars due to pollution, and so on. Two or three opinions from imaginary inhabitants of the country are offered, and the player needs to choose one for each issue. Once these choices are input, the nation evolves to reflect the government’s new policy.

Where the ideas may stem from is exactly this: the issues, and the proposed solutions. Some are funny, some are just improbable, some are more serious. In any case, I think that it provides a good ground for imagination when it comes to creating a world for a work of fiction, and dividing said world in countries.

In all likeliness, the game won’t last me more than two or three weeks, as usual with this kind of things, but who knows? Maybe it can give an inspiration boost at times!

Yzabel / January 5, 2006

“Useless”scenes that don’t fit the plan of the novel

I’m very talented at that–writing scenes that I can’t use, or that turn out to be “too much”. I suspect it’s because I very often start by creating the characters instead of the plot, and as a result, I end up writing bits of scenes and chapters in the spur of the moment, only to realize later on that they don’t fit the general plan.

Truth be told, I’m calling them “useless” just because of this, because I spent time on something that doesn’t further the novel’s story itself. In a way, they are useful, since they allow me to develop the characters, to explore heir personalities, to set up events to react to, and this always turns to be a positive point when it comes to writing the “real” chapters. Thanks to the insight they help me get regarding my heroes, antagonists and even secondary characters, I can’t say that I’ve ever wasted time on working on such scenes. They also remain unedited, by the way; I don’t go around reading and rewriting half-chapters that aren’t placed within the flow of the plot yet. On this, at least, I don’t waste time.Read More