The first big, big, convoluted story I ever planned out, which I came up with about a decade ago (wow! time flies!!), I currently refer to as "CURSE1000".
Below is a short bit, taken from my old livejournal, which I believe was going to be a nightmare sequence.
Anyway, here it is! This was part of a first attempt at writing a chapter of a story (I did write a whole chapter or more), which ended with me thinking very poorly of it and not writing again for quite a while (basically until now), but rather, just accumulated ideas endlessly instead - something that really does come easily to me. (Which is why it's time to learn to write very, very well!! Practice practice!)
Here~
He turned the bronze
doorknob and stumbled awkwardly out his bedroom door, awoken by uncommon
noise from downstairs. Awareness stung him alert as the sounds
continued louder, coarse screeches and chaotic volume was all he could
make out. He scurried down the spiral of steps leading to the living
room. Halfway down, the air became thicker, it seemed to saturate with
chaos and despair as he heard the screams of his mother and father. He
began to sweat profusely as he hurried down the remaining steps and
turned the corner. It quieted down, but he could still hear a certain
gargly, torn voice emitted from another room. The lights were off,
making the living room dark and shadowy. With difficulty finding his
way in the darkness, he crept into the room cautiously, eyeing the
yellow light emanating from a room he couldn’t yet see. He suppressed
his voice with his left hand over his mouth after tripping. His heart
seemed to skip a beat as he glanced down to find his father, motionless
and blood ridden on the floor before him. Flustered with confusion and
dread, he stormed through the room to the kitchen and saw his mother on
the kitchen floor. “Kai! Run away!” His mother yelled, holding
herself up from the floor with her right palm. Kai entered the room
dumbstruck. A large, cat-like beast shrouded in flame stepped
powerfully toward him from the right. It stood on its hind legs, taking
on a human-like form covered in fur. Its torso was covered in slashes
and stained with blood, and the claws of its paws were huge and dark and
glistened like steel. The beast roared ferociously with its head
facing up and its breath engulfed the ceiling with unnatural looking
flames. Kai noticed his own sword on his back, sheathed and strapped
around his torso. It seemed to appear out of nowhere, but disregarding
this, Kai took a brave step forward and reached for the sword handle.
Although the blade is large and wide, Kai can wield it adeptly, but now
Kai found it difficult to pull out. Not only his blade, but his breath
and his body also felt unexpectedly heavy, so he hesitated before
reaching for the handle once more. Suddenly the beast crouched slightly
and launched its titanic, flaming body onto Kai, crushing him into the
floor and sending the sword flying into the living room and sliding in
circles on the floor. The beast dug into both sides of Kai’s chest with
its claws. Kai screamed in pain as the demonic beast continued to tear
flesh with the claws on its legs. Kai’s was overpowered by the sheer
weight of the beast as well as the spiritual pressure enveloping the
room. Kai’s mother could only scream his name in tears tirelessly as
she watched desperately. Spread across the wooden floor, Kai’s long,
carmine hair was slightly scorched as the demonic feline gave out
another intense roar. Kai’s eyes turned and widened as the beast lunged
at Kai with its fangs.
Cool! Its not even that bad considering it was written a fair time ago, and even in its current state, with some minor editing I can see it being just fine!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if chapter by chapter writing is the best way to go about crafting a whole story - not sure. To properly divide the chapters seems like you'd need to have the whole plot planned out in each chapter to properly segment the story in a way that made sense and also built it up well, foreshadowing, reccuring stuff, etc - but that said, its not BAD either, even if it needed restructuring after it was finished and all that. Process matters less than end result I'd say - 10 minutes or 10 years of polish, so long as its 輝いている then its all 大丈夫だよね~
Rachael always says being creative takes a strong confidence, cuz you're putting yourself out there and opening up to the possibility of large failures, but if you can put that out of your mind and just create endlessly... well then you're well on your way to becoming a heroic spirit in a world of unlimited created blades.... errrr I mean writer... yes... writer >_>
I use the chapter-by-chapter strategy for a few reasons, but I am still in the midst of making considerations about it, and I think you are also correct in a way nonetheless. I think just do whatever works for you.
DeleteSome of my reasons for so far doing these kinds of stories this way:
-gives me a "yes, finally done!" time/goal during writing sessions, allowing me to motivate myself due to the light at the end of the tunnel.
-I actually have done some chapter-by-chapter planning for each individual chapter, redoing the plans over and over until it all works well, but also taking a step back and putting it all into perspective in a very broad sense, which usually brings animated visions into my head like seeing flash moments that convey critical moments of the story from start to finish (not really "finish" yet though, just where I've left off in planning).
At the same time though, when I write I try not to limit myself to my plans, instead I just follow the flow of my imagination, because when it comes to my own made up characters and worlds, I have no problem imagining it all like it's an existing anime or something.
-Lastly, it gives the reader places to stop at and feel like they've chosen a good part at which to stop reading until next time.
But continuing on this last point, what I just said is the least of it; there are two more reasons which, at the moment, lead me to write chapter by chapter:
1. In book format or similar, people would want i to be chaptered off. Doing that later could be complicated, as it could very well require story alterations. Why that is, is partly answered by the next point;
2. Those awesome cliff-hangers! Chapter contain within them a structure similar to that of an entire story, except that a chapter doesn't have to finish anything. It's only the same (in the case of my chapters which will very often be cliff-hanging or page-turning) if we compare with some book series everyone hates where the end of the book is a complete disappointment and requires the book after to answer anything. (Maybe people don't hate those, I'm just repeating what I've heard.)
So that's my personal reasoning, but I am not at all adamant about it, I can change at will. I just presented that to show some reasoning~
I am interested in learning about alternate methods though!! :D
I wants to know~
~Yukigami
Thanks Johnny!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, honestly I think it's pretty bad, but as you said it's old. Very old, actually. Were you the one who said that before? Comparing me or someone with unlimited writing ideas to Emiya? I guess it was you, but otherwise it was my brother, which would be a real coincidence.
But yeah, to be honest, I really have an unlimited flow of ideas, and to add to what Rachael said, for some reason I have no fear in making up unique/strange characters, worlds etc. even though the sad truth is that other people probably won't have the same enthusiasm or even acceptance of them. But since I'm not afraid, might as well do it right?
That said, this is why I believe that technical writing skills - particularly for what I'm writing specifically, of course - are probably my highest priority to cultivate so that I might fabricate and portray my characters, worlds and stories as well as possible!
I'm in class right now, but I keep having to stop taking notes for a second because an extremely irrelevant idea pops into my head, and off to the Evernote I go! ;)
Once I have some time, you have GOT to show me how to use illustrator! (and eventually, Photoshop too~)
~Yukigami
P.S. So I'll start referring to you as Johnny Chow now then, rather than "my friend over at WakeGaNai". :)