What’s what

Well, haven’t posted in a long while.  No readers anyway, this is mostly just a way to chart my progress and muse.  If it comes to anything, maybe some other aspiring writer can benefit.

I did do a bit of writing through about the end of January, got up to about 30,000 words and some outline of other chapters.  But at the same time, I started to do some reading on writing.  What I found since I’m so new to writing, my style was changing as I read about how to write.  So I thought I would take a break and put in some time to gather some information and read more on  basic writing.

I went to the bookstore and acquired some more books, so that now I have the following.  I’m not saying these are the best, but they are the ones I’ve chosen:

  1. The Elements of Style, Strunk, White.  The basic rules of writing, grammar, style, etc.  Generally accepted as a ‘must have’ book.
  2. Word Painting, Rebecca McClanahan.  How to write descriptively.  A good set of tips ranging from grammar to style to descriptive passages, and more.
  3. Plot Perfect, Paula Munier.  A methodology for contemplating and capturing basic plot elements: theme, plot, subplot, scenes, pacing, etc.
  4. Make A Scene, Jordan Rosenfeld.  A guide to building scenes, one at a time.
  5. On Writing, Stephen King.  I’ve owned this for a while, but frankly haven’t gotten to it yet.  On lots of ‘must have’ book lists for writers.

I’ve read the first three (I’d read # 1 a while back).  I also outlined # 2 and # 3, and will outline # 4.  I am a bit of a list-oriented learner, so have an outline (as opposed to highlighting passages) seems to work best for me.

I read some reviews and # 2, # 3, and # 4, and there are some detractors.  Most of the detractors I read seemed to be established writers who thought the books either too basic or too formulistic.  As a novice writer, these criticisms didn’t bother me too much.  So far, I’ve found them to be informative and well structured.

I decided on individual books for certain elements: grammar, plot, scenes, descriptions – as a ‘best of breed’ approach instead of an all-in-one writing book.   I subscribe to the ‘find an expert’ approach – better to have a plumber doing plumbing and an electrician doing electrical than a general handyman doing a mediocre job.

As I outline # 4, I think I will start to do some ‘plotting’.  As for what I’ve written so far, it is just a hodgepodge of styles and subplots that I may just retain a few ideas but move on to something new.  This time, I intend on working out some of the theme and plot more formally before diving into the actual writing.