WIP Update: Doh!
Posted by annastan on July 7th, 2010. Filed under: WIP, Writing Rants.Last week I posted about the game of 20 Questions my friend and I played with my WIP. The session was immensely helpful and got me excited to work on the story again. On top of that, my friend offered to read part of my story to help me figure out if I’m on the right track.
When I read over his comments, they were right on and gave me a lot of food for thought. But there was one that made me want to hit myself upside the head. At the end of one scene he wrote: “I think something needs to happen here…beyond exposition.”
When I looked back over the scene, I realized he was right: the scene was pretty much all exposition. How had I not noticed that before? The truth is, I had. I’d just told myself that it didn’t matter if nothing happened in the scene because we were still getting to know the character. Um. Right.
So I guess the moral of the story is, no matter how long you’ve been writing and working on your craft, sometimes you have to be reminded of the simple things, like the fact that things need to actually happen in scenes!
How are you all doing with your WIPs? Any stumbles or triumphs you’d like to report?
July 7th, 2010 at 9:21 am
That is a very easy mistake to make – esp. at the start of a wip!!
July 7th, 2010 at 10:29 am
You always have such fantastic graphics
My tiny victory for the week was leaving the new, shiny idea and getting back to the serious WIP revision.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Yes, that! =)
I had a very similar duh moment with my wip earlier this week. I had a very long scene leading up to a dramatic moment and my teacher asked me why I was spending so much time getting to the big moment. Uh… because I had to explain what happened. But is it relevant to the story? Uh, no. I wondered if I should have a list right by my work space (my dining room table) of a list of question to ask myself, like, “is this scene necessary?”
July 7th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Oh yeah… I’m supposed to be working on that… Hmm.
That’s why critique groups are great btw!! I don’t know what I’d do without mine.
July 7th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Anna–I love those aha moments! I am adding more elements throughout my revision, which mean that it is taking me a while to get out of chapter one. Again. Sigh. But it’s really shaping up!!
July 7th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Currently drafting the last chapter! I’m jumping back and forth between writing and revision, as usual, because I’ll miss the composing phase, but I should get to type the last line pretty soon.
July 7th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
The more we know, the harder writing gets, doesn’t it?
But glad you are making great progress.
July 7th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Hey Anna!
Yes, I had a d’oh moment recently myself. I think sometimes we are just too close to our WIP.
But the good thing is that now that you see it, you can fix it!