[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Writing Excuses 7.16: Continuing with Mary's Outline

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/04/15/writing-excuses-7-16-continuing-with-marys-outline/

Key points: watch for decision points, turning points. Build your themes. Use something three times before it becomes pivotal. A low point may signal the transition from Act II to Act III. Also incapacitation of the mentor. Be careful of resolving conflicts too easily or quickly, give them depth and time to be interesting. Be wary of inactive, uninvolved characters -- make them active, get them personally involved.
Running overtime with lots of words! )
[Howard] Since it's likely that I'm not going to get exactly what I want from Mary, give us a monkey, a bronze pot, a baby, and pizza in completely different situations than what we've just heard.
[Brandon] All right. This has been Writing Excuses.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Writing Excuses Season Three Episode 18: How to not repeat yourself

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/09/27/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-18-how-to-not-repeat-yourself/

Key points: Balance continuity and similarities with new stuff. Watch for reuse on small details and for reuse of themes and storylines. Try different takes, outcomes, characters, directions. Hang a lantern on reuse -- let the reader know that you know you are doing it. Try recombination of disharmonious elements and random jumbles to make yourself stretch.
doubletalk... )
[Howard] No, no. But you pick several... you pick among one of these several sentences and then you roll the dice for nouns and adjectives and whatever. It's like MadLibs, only when you're done, you realize, "A Princess is trying to eat a pie and the magic frog doesn't want her to." You come up with story seeds, from which you could go...
[Brandon] Well, we have a writing prompt.
[Howard] Okay. Writing prompt. A princess is trying to eat a pie and someone is trying to stop her.
[Brandon] And the fate of the world depends on it.
[Dan] [musical interlude -- dun, de dun dun...]
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

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