Planning - AWARE (Part one)A Lesson by Octavious If you are a planner and this is your first time planning a fantasy then this is a lesson you might want to look at, this will show you how to be aware and what to concentrate on Some writer will plan things for years before they begin to write anything. When your writing a fantasy book,it isn't a bad idea to plan out what you think will happen, but when your writing you need to make sure to be AWARE. Avoid Write Alter Relate End (A) - Avoid: this means you need to be careful of all cliches, always think about what you are writing and thinking. Now as a writer, I would assume that you are also a reader, so an easy way to know whether something is cliche or not, if you aren't sure you can think about what you are writing, and then think about other books that have the same general idea or scenario, if you find anywhere over two results of something that you think is very similar, then you should change your idea or add to it. Of course there is always the rare acception. (W) - Write: When your thinking your ideas you need to make sure that you write everything down with enough detail that your opinion of your idea is still recognizable to you. Also make sure that you have a place for random spurs of information. Never wait until you get there, if you have an idea for the middle of your book, or the end of your book or the beginning of you book before or after you planned it, no matter how long the context may be you need to write it down and keep it on record so that you can look back at it to see whee you want to end up, even if you decide on changing what your original idea was. (A) - Alter: Its always a good idea to write everything down first, and then revise later, but in this case, when you are writing a fantasy you should make sure that every couple of paragraphs you write or when you start slowing down with your idea, you look back and make sure that everything makes sense. Fantasy anythings are rather complex, no matter how young the audience may be there will always be background information based on where the story takes place and of the characters of your story, so you should always make sure to add, include, and revise before your done everything, so that you don't get too bored with the history lesson that you are writing, but make sure to remember that some of the background information is made for you as the author and may never be seen by the reader. (R) - Relate: Fantasy novels are as unrealistic as it can be already. So it is vital that each character is realistic and relatable when it comes to their problems, doubts and personality. Also make sure that even though you fantasy world will most likely be a fantasy world, You want to make sure that there will always be some places that are have some sense of realistic features enough so that the reader doesn't think that even though the story line may be good the rest of the book is juvenile therefore a waste of time for the audience. Here is a set of questions that you should ask yourself when you are trying to make a realistic character. Name: Family: Main character: Minor character: Important character: Age: Gender: Race: Eye color: Complexion: Build (height/weight): Style of dress: Characteristics/mannerisms: Describe his/her speaking voice and vocabulary: Strength: Critical flaw, and how it influences the story: What does the character really want: What is the character most afraid of: What is the character’s mask that lets him/her hide from the world: What would the character want to be remembered for: character journey: at the end of the story looking back, what didn’t the character know: How have you set up the story to help your audience relate to the characters in the first thirty pages of your novel: Character flaws and how they are introduced to the story: Internal conflict: External conflict: Meeting with other characters or in a scenario written in character’s P.O.V:(E) - End: The end doesn't mean just the end of the book,I also mean the end of chapter. If your planning is advanced then your planning will most likely consist of a chapter review before you write that chapter, you need to make sure that you almost always have a good and edgy ending to grip the writers attention making them feel sick when they have to put the book down for a while. You also want to make sure that every paragraph has something interesting in it,not everything written has to be over the top, but a book with constant activity and suspense/drama, is always considered a good read. if there is nothing like this, because it may not fit then it is always good to have visual detail and descriptive writing along with inner thoughts, especial with fantasy books since the reader doesn't know how a character would act since these characters are from a completely different world . . . never forget that fact as well "Your characters and story are in a completely different world" Now that you know how to be AWARE maybe you should test it out, try to make a character and write something in their P.O.V that describes their world and a bit of their conflict in the story, or you can ty to plan something and send it to me privately for feed back. Comments |
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