Yesterday was my first day of school! Well, my first day of the Creative Writing class I signed up for at North Shore Community College. It was online, of course (via zoom), and I was all excited to start. I got my notebook and a pen and sat down to start the class, but my wireless internet just would NOT work. I went from being excited to being super frustrated. I missed the whole first half hour of class before I was finally able to get things working better. (Totally made me empathize with the difficulties of online schooling). After the technical difficulties, I was able to actually enjoy the class. Our teacher started with some advice from famous authors-- the biggest takeaway was just to write, just sit down and write and get it all on paper, from start to finish. We also went over the draft process:
Draft 2: focus on fixing story/plot
Draft 3: focus on characters, characterization, and dialogue
Draft 4: focus on language, edit out clichés
Draft 5: the "dental" draft, every nitty gritty detail, confirm that every single word belongs there. He recommends printing out the manuscript and retyping it word for word
Lastly, we went over Basic Story Structure, which actually isn't so basic. He outlined three different acts, with several steps.
A. Set the direction of the story with a mood/tone, introduce main characters and villain, the theme, and the serious problem/goal.
B. Hook/catalyst/inciting incident
C. Turning point
Act II: Development
A. Problem Intensifies with barriers, complications, situations, and a temporary triumph
B. The Reversal - then the problem worsens, dark moment, turning point
A. Final Obstacle
B. Face to face with villain, problem is solved.
We then went over the story in the Wizard of Oz to outline its basic story structure. I've learned about story structure before, but never outline in this exact way. It's a little bit complicated, but I think I get the idea. I am excited to try to write a story using this structure and see how it goes. We didn't really get homework assigned but our teacher did recommend we try writing with writing prompts every day. I delighted to start writing more creatively every day, so I have started another blog to record my daily creative writing. If you wanna check it out, visit promptedvoice.blogspot.com
With delight,
♥Jamie
PS: Here's the solution to yesterday's blog puzzle: Linen does not belong. The other words have Roman numerals featured inside each word (every other letter) in numerical order.
TIN
MINIM
MILITIA
SIEVELINEN
EVE
AVOID
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