Rub Some Dirt on It

Nora Jones is gonna be sinking soon on the radio.

I’ve been working on writing, but not writing these past several days. Yesterday I penned something with pen and paper. In the past when I’ve done that I’ve also promised to scan and post those here. Don’t bother looking I only fullfilled that promise once. I’ll not bother now.

What have been up to? I cranked out a beatsheet template in SuperNotecard that goes a long way to illuminating the structure of a story. I also added helpful notes to it that I hope will aid me in following and then understanding that structure better. These notes are paraphrased from Larry Brooks’ storyfix.com site. A site that follows through on it’s pledge to teach story structure. Something I missed out on when I took the novel writing class at Lighthouse in Denver.

I’m getting better at reading like a writer as well. Starting to see how book chapters are more than good places to stop reading and turn out the lights. I now get more of a sense from them that the author scrawled a line across a notecard or a sheet of paper or a monitor like “And then I need the MC to…” As if there were a plan. And then wrote it so well that it only seemed the MC was a living breathing choosing thing clearing her path in a true world.

I feel like I’m getting better seeing the point of conflict in a story. That sounds as dumb to me as I’m sure it reads to you. Let me try it this way: I’m starting to realize that facing conflict is what I enjoy about a character. What makes me like them more. I think as an author I want to coddle my characters. Like I literally don’t want to be too mean to them because I don’t want them harmed.

In this latest story idea I need done by Saturday night I’ve got murder rolling around in my head. I’ve not written it out because I just don’t want to inflict that level of conflict on my character, but I’ve also not let go of the thought. So far I’ve kept that incident at bay with the justification that murder might be a bit extreme for this short a story, but it nags at me: if this were the real world someone could die. Someone could kill. Someone could deflect the blame. Someone could take it. It complains that I’m being a pussy.

“Rub some dirt on it and hike on camper.”

434 words on day 497