Chapter Three - Assignment Three of Writing for Children Course - Nina Milton (Tutor)
I moved onto the next Chapter in the course and worked through the exercises. The chapter is about plotting and I thought I understood what plotting was; or at least I had an idea of what I thought it would be as far as my writing.
I think about the assignment and then work with what occurs to me. It's organic, unforced or a flash of interconnected inspirations - if I get stuck I wait and the idea will present itself or inspiration will arrive. What's wrong with that? Gives me an excuse to waste time and think - which is working right?
Mmmm. Every time I think I have a handle on my process, on how I work, something comes along and pushes me this way or that or hits hard and leaves me changed in my outlook.
"Journey by Night" is the title for the 2500-3000 word story. Pretty simple - sit down - see what jumps to mind and write the points down and create a story...
We NO, not really - this assignment gets you to write the plot down, play with it and have an ending before you start writing. This sounds so simple and I am sure that many will see this as ordinary; but not for me. I have never done this. I never know the ending. Never! I have a visual image occur to me that fits the title or ideas expressed in the chapter and I work with the characters moving in that image. I write and find the story runs/gallops or crawls it's way to the end that seems to fit or is logical. Or at least the one that feels right to me before a lightning bolt of a suggestion from the tutor changes everything and makes it better/tighter or more realistic. Which is always good and always annoying - but in a good way, because you are learning from a person of such great experience and openness.
So - back to the assignment brief. I hated the idea immediately of writing about a child traveling on a train, boat, bus etc. I wanted the child to travel on foot....at ground level, in the dark which would make any landscape scary.
Didn't think this plotting thing would work for me. So I thought about moving through a landscape - it would have to be familiar during the day and then contrast it with the night. This is my way of working with the plotting thing by approaching it sideways. This would mean the child would walk through with a parent the first time and without the second - or else why would she be scared? She - okay so it's a girl...(unexpected)...then something strange happened. I opened my work book, wrote the title and began writing a point by point breakdown of each step. The scene, settings as they appear through the story, the transgression which will lead to the night time journey and the ending - resolution. One sitting, an hour and a half of jotting, notes scribbles and post-its added with more detail or ideas...I closed the book and felt unsettled!
I am not saying it's ready. I am not saying I can start writing now. What I am saying it that I thought it would be hard, it would break with my formula and leave me struggling. But it challenged me and instead the story, in a note form, seemed to flow. I have put it aside now to allow it to mellow and I have added one post-it which came about because of the word "causality" used by Nina Milton in my last assessment.
I suddenly saw the final scene - the finding of the girl, in a place she shouldn't be, by a distraught parent who has followed her to that point because of a note left by the child.
I think I now have a little bit more understanding how Derek Landy can produce a plot layout of 80k plus words before he starts writing. Mine is 3000 words and I put together four pages of notes - a novel would create much much more - the thought almost makes my head spin.
Now all I have to do is work through the notes as I go, stay true to the causality of the story and stick to the plot idea. I feel like I have been stretched - in a good way - and this could become the template for my future work.
Who would have guessed that this organic, dreamy, "wait for it to come along" wannabe writer would find plotting quite such a comfortable revelation!
No comments:
Post a Comment