Sunday, October 28, 2007

Parfait

I write in layers. Not onions like an ogre but more like Donkey's parfait. Dialogue comes first, the nuts and protein of the parfait. Then I drizzle on some tag lines with a dash of stage direction. One scoop of plot action. Another scoop of emotional reaction. A sprinkle of more dialogue followed by a smattering of description. A dollop of the five senses and then it's topped off with a kiss.

Alex wants more emotion, Nea wants more plot and I can see that the whole thing needs a heck of a lot more description. Not to mention the need for stage direction that helps the plot move along. And the lips line up.

I always knew I wrote this way but trying to keep track of my word count for the 70 Days of Sweat challenge has made it interesting. I was trying to change the way I work to accommodate Sven. In the end I decided to stick with my parfait. It's effective, and tastes good.

Oh yeah, I wrote a plot outline yesterday for Bracken and Kellie. There's one element about which I am uncertain but I'll deal with that when I start writing.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:58 AM

    Keziah, babe...

    I just gained a pound reading your parfait! Don't do that. I never knew you started with dialog. The question isn't whether or not you can bench press a word count for Sven twice a week; the question is whether or not Sven is helping you to move ahead with your story. Are you getting more done? Forget the pounds and inches, show Sven your muscle mass! Go Keziah!

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  2. Anonymous10:18 AM

    Sounds like a workable recipe to me. ;-)

    Do it in whatever way works best for you. There's no 'formula'.

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  3. Your parfait method sounds fantastic! I often find myself layering up a scene around the basis of the dialogue.

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