Jellybean, Licorice, Vonnegut, Line

Time for the next installment of the Visual Storyboarding series! 

(Previous entries have been bookmarked for you at the end of this post.)

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KINDS OF TIMELINES: 

JELLYBEAN, LICORICE, VONNEGUT, LINE

Now that we’ve discussed (a) why we storyboard and not merely “plot”, (b) how to visualize our hooks, and (c) how to pull together the factual AND visual details for our respective novels --- the next step, then, is to craft a timeline of events that your characters must endure for the sake of the story.

The good news? 

Timelines don’t need to be ultra-specific - only enough to keep you on track with where your tale needs to go.

The challenge? 

Since this is visual storyboarding, you'll likely need at least two different kinds of timelines, and possibly all four.

Which four kinds of timelines do I mean? The ones mentioned in the blog title, of course: Jellybean, Licorice, Vonnegut, Line.

But in true Angela fashion, I’ve given you the list of timeline forms in reverse order. Let’s start with the last one, shall we?

LINE TIMELINE:

This is the form of timeline that every schoolchild knows. A basic, straightforward timeline that gives the general idea of which event happened first – you know, to show that Napoleon lived before Ronald Reagan, or that the sinking of the Titanic did NOT happen during the Third Crusade.

A basic line timeline looks something like this:

photo source

Simple enough, yes?

So when you first sit down to work the timelines for your novel, this is usually your first step. Go ahead and get the obvious out on paper – not in paragraph form, but in this simple line form, so that you can have a quick reference to make sure your novel doesn’t jump the tracks and diverge into the opium fields somewhere.

You may have already done this part, of course. If you have, you’re ready for the next kind of timeline:

VONNEGUT TIMELINE:

This is the timeline idea that revolutionized the way I plot my stories – and, as you might have guessed from the name, the idea was given to me by the old wisecracking surrealist writer, Kurt Vonnegut himself.

More specifically, I learned about this style of time-line-ing when I first sat down to read Vonnegut’s best-known novel, Slaughterhouse Five.

I refer, of course, to the first chapter of that book, which explains how he came up with his hypnotically fractured story about time-sliding Billy Pilgrim. More specifically, he explains what aliens and a disillusioned middle-aged man have to do with Vonnegut’s own experiences during the bombing of Dresden (WWII), which he and his comrades narrowly survived by hiding out in a concrete slaughterhouse (from which the book derives its name). 

The part that changed the way I saw story-plotting was Vonnegut’s own confession on how he started to draw out the idea for Slaughterhouse Five:

I had outlined the Dresden story many times. The best outline I ever made, or anyway, the prettiest one, was on the back of a roll of wallpaper. I used my daughter’s crayons, a different color for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle. And the blue line met the red line and then the yellow line, and yellow line stopped because the character represented by the yellow line was dead. And so on. The destruction of Dresden was represented by a vertical band of orange cross-hatching, and all the lines that were still alive passed through it, came out the other side.

Now – I don’t know if that description makes any sense to you, but it sent off massive amounts of light bulbs in my head. Holy crow, I thought. That makes so much sense! I could see at one whack where all the major characters are, where they fall in and out of the story, who crosses into the climactic conflicts, and so on. I could totally do this.

And when I did the serious storyboarding for Castle 8, that’s just what I did. I taped together several sheets of typing paper end to end – fourteen feet of it – and spent five solid days during a January ice storm laying out my Dresdens and colored lines and battlefields.

The result looked like this:

"The beginning of the story." First half of the behemoth 14 foot timeline, spread across 

my desperately-needs-vacuuming floor. This is how I spent the five days I was stuck 

at home during the ice storm of early 2011.

"All that middle part, which was the middle." What you see here has 

changed somewhat now; I’ve dropped some characters and shifted the timeline. 

That happens when you write, at least to a point. 

"And the other end was the end." The other end of the 14 foot timeline. The broad yellow stripe 

indicates the huge climactic scene of the series. I gave myself another foot 

or so of space afterward, to allow for adequately handling the denouement of the tale.

Some of the timeline has changed, but most of it is still structurally sound. I refer to it frequently, because this shows me at one glance where each character is in relation to the major events happening in my tale. Moreover, because my series will become increasingly complex in the overlap of characters’ lives, I will refer to it still more as the tale progresses. My fourteen foot timeline may look like overkill, but for me – it’s a lifesaver.

LICORICE TIMELINE

So you’ve got your Vonnegut Timeline ready (or we’re pretending that you have). Now you realize that even within the overall harp of colored lifelines, there are some finer points that need their own timeline. Maybe there is a very busy three month period in your tale where a lot is going on – OR maybe your story doesn’t cross years (like mine), but a series of weeks, and a narrower range of time-line-ing is in order.

That’s where laying out a licorice timeline will help.

An incomplete licorice timeline. With very short, squat licorice strips. 

(But not quite a jellybean timeline, even so.)

I call it a “licorice” timeline because it looks like someone’s laid out those long, thin rectangular strands of Twizzlers and given them funny labels, and took away the color. I did a licorice timeline for a nine month stretch of Castle 8, and while it’s not completely finished (or accurate), the current format still helps me understand the necessary structure of those nine important months in my characters' lives.

JELLYBEAN TIMELINE

But what if you need to break events down even further? What if there are a few days in your narrative where everything is happening at once, and in several different places?

That’s where a jellybean timeline will help. It works essentially like the licorice timeline, but with shorter, fatter dollops of information on a Vonnegut trajectory. I recently had to create a jellybean timeline to get a better grasp of the opening five days of my story, and the result was this:

 See the cute little jellybean shapes? Or maybe they're more like gumdrops. 

But "gumdrop" doesn't quite catch the rhythm of the "jellybean, licorice, Vonnegut, line" jingle. 

OTHER THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT STORY TIMELINES:

·      I am severely OCD when it comes to timelines. Yours doesn’t need to be so neat, or so anal-retentive.

·      Not all of these timeline types will apply to your story. Most of you will need only one or two, and which ones you need may vary, depending on the project.

·      It’s always advisable to do the standard line timeline at least, just so you know where your major events fall, and what those major events are.

·      EXPERIMENT. I’m sure there’s another way of handing the timing aspect of things that I haven’t covered here. Use what works right for you.

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If you missed the earlier Visual Storyboarding episodes, you can follow the following links to catch up:

     PART ONE: Storyboarding vs Mere Plotting

     PART TWO: Building on Your Hook

     PART THREE: Chasing Down the Details

Questions? Comments? Let me know in the comment section below!

Writing Lessons Painfully Learned

Photo Source

So....about that merged manuscript.

You know the one - two different manuscripts, merged together at a whopping 246,100 words, that I have spent the past month trying to whittle down to a reasonable size so I could...er....finish it? Maybe even begin querying this summer?

Yeah. Impossible idea. Absolutely insane. But I'm still working on that.

As of today, the merged manuscript - newly renamed Taproot - is sitting at a much more docile 107,619 words. My understanding is that your average fantasy work is between 120,000 - 150,000 words. So by paring this critter down by more than half, I've given myself ample wiggle room for this beast to grow a bit more once the rewrites begin.

Which is now, actually. Specifically on Tuesday, while my students are taking their final exams. Yay for laptops!

As for the manuscript itself, I've learned a LOT about the higher aspects of writing a novel through this entire experience - and am still learning, to be honest, and will be learning for some time.

Lessons Learned

1.  No writing is so good that it can't be cut, especially if it does nothing to further to story.

2. Nepotism = BAD. If I'm too much in love with my writing in a particular place - it's probably needs to go. Cut it.

3. Don't be a hoarder. Eliminating unnecessary characters is the literary equivalent to taking out the trash. It's a chore to do, but everything smells so much better once it's gone.

4. Switching POVs can be magic. Writing a certain scene from the point of view of a different character can infuse all sorts of life into what might otherwise be a clunky moment.

5. Lose the love handles. When you merge ideas and cut out unnecessary fluff, your tale becomes SO MUCH MORE watertight. As in, you won't believe it until you do it.

6. Less really IS more. When you lose the love handles (see #5), you find that you actually have to explain a lot LESS than you originally thought. (That's true for me, at least.)

7. Be a berserker. Sometimes a bit of #stabbylove requires a battle-axe. (Thank you, Andrew Kincaid.)

8. Don't take too many breaks. If you "lay off" for more than a day or two, getting back into the daily routine of editing and writing is HARD. Too many things claw for our attention any more.

9. Put all your characters to work - so you don't have to. Since I'm notoriously long-winded, I've found that changing POVs now and then not only perks things up (see #4) but also eliminates the need for a lot of expository. If I can show it better through character C's POV rather than letting A and B lecture each other to death - I need to do so.

10. Utilizing #4 and #9 doesn't mean the mystery will be ruined. In fact, if I can manage to utilize my various character POVs wisely, I should be able to ramp up the mystery in unexpected ways.

Have I learned all my lessons well? Tuesday will tell.....

What about you? What lessons have you learned from your writing endeavors?

Let me know in the comments!

Visual Dare 1: Surreal

OK. Here's a little something that I would like to make a weekly event, if there's enough interest. My intention is to help my fellow writers jumpstart their writing, wherever they are - because of course we all get stuck. All. The. Time. (Especially if you're like me.)

Below is a visual dare, such as I've given in the past. You can use this photo in one of two ways:

     * incorporate it into your current Work In Progress - literally, or figuratively
     * use it as a 100 word flash fiction to get the brain going in a different creative direction.

Either way - it should thwart the writer's block doldrums, at least a little bit.

Give it a try! Feel free to post your creative responses to the prompt in the comments below (if it's 100 words or less, plus personal comments, of course!).

Here's your dare:

Photo by: Tommy Nease


Where does this take your writing - even for a short burst?
Let me know in the comments - in summary or 100 word excerpts!


Looking forward to hearing from you!

Evolution of a (Shakespearean) Jackass

I mentioned in an earlier post that my school is putting on a spring production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, by ye olde bard Willie Shakespeare. I am in charge of the set/prop construction class, and our biggest project this semester has been, without question, the donkey's head/mask needed for Nick Bottom's transformation.

 Prepping the styrofoam "helmet"for the donkey's skull.

This was fitted specifically to the actor's head.

We are a small academy, so the set/prop class is only a half dozen students, two of which have taken on Bottom's transformation as their own personal project. Since we have an incredibly small budget - and most of that going to costumes - we made a point of "upcycling" as many raw materials as possible for everything we do.

 Trying the eyes on for size.

So far, we've spent almost nothing on Bottom's head, except for some Elmer's glue for the adhesive mixture, and a roll of screen mesh from Home Depot. The mesh allowed us to better refashion the packing styrofoam from a refrigerator box into something more reminiscent of a donkey's muzzle. The duct tape was instrumental for holding the mesh in place so we could apply the paper mache in as natural a donkey-ish approximation as possible.

Styrofoam, duct tape and screen door mesh - the art supplies of champions.

Egg cartons and odd corners of hard, squared styrofoam were used to create the molars and big buck teeth (nicely askew, since Bottom is a jackass, even before he is transformed). In the above photo, you can see the crooked buck tooth dangling from the bottom right corner of the skull.

Bottom also needs some seriously big donkey ears. These were made separately, in jigsaw fashion so they would fit neatly against the skull before being affixed - first with duct tape, then reinforced with paper mache.

Bottom's ears don't look very ear-ish at this stage, but that was soon remedied.

Bottom's head isn't the only prop needing some serious glue-and-paper treatment, as several of my other students have been making paper mache toadstools as part of our fairy forest decoration. But the jackass takes a good deal more planning, a solid know-how of geometry, and persistence (not to mention a light touch and a willingness to get very messy).

"You see an ass, do you??" - Nick Bottom

Attaching the ears. Get a load of those buck teeth...!

 Our set/prop class doesn't meet every day, and paper mache must dry completely between layers, so it has taken us a couple weeks even to get this far - and it will take us a few weeks more before it is complete. But we were finally able to attach the ears and do a refitting with the actor playing Bottom.

You can't tell from the photo, but the mask enables full sightline from beneath the nose, and between his oversized teeth.

This turned out to be a very good idea,  since the additional paper, glue, tin cans (for the eyes) and styrofoam had added significant weight to the mask. It also shifted most of that weight to the rear of the mask. Our next step, then, is to offset the discrepancy with some carefully modified counterbalances inside the nose, as well as some foam padding in the dome of the skull so it better fits the actor's head (fortunately, we left room for both those adjustments).

So now you've seen what I've been up to lately....or rather, what I've been instigating lately, as my students have done all the hard work. Nor is this the limit of the creative mayhem we've been plotting. More updates forthcoming - especially as the mask nears completion!

I should also do a post about how the mushrooms are coming along...they have been so quirky to make, but o so much fun!

And I haven't even mentioned Oberon's crown...but that is a whole other post unto itself.

Did I mention that I love teaching?

Seriously. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Questions? Comments? Snide remarks? Let me know in the comments below!

While You've Been Napping...

.....we've been busy.

By "we" I mean my set/prop students and I. Our school is putting on a spring performance of Midsummer Night's Dream by ye olde wordsmith Billy Shakespeare, and we're having a BLAST pulling together all the props and backdrops, and even some of the costumery involved.

Working on the donkey skull for Nick Bottom's transformation.

Right now, we're in the throes of some serious paper mache projects. Nick Bottom's transformation into a half-donkey is our main focus right now, as our actor playing Bottom needs to be able to practice with the oversized head and fine-tune his "transformation." Also on the agenda: making oversized mushrooms and toadstools with which to pepper the woodland side of the stage.

Trying some googly eyes for Nick Bottom. 

Last week we worked with some oddly shaped packing styrofoam to create the base or "skull" for Bottom's head, and made sure the interior was fitted for the specific actor, with attention to any padding or sizing that was needed to ensure the donkey's head does not go flying from the actor's noggin in the midst of their performance. (Our Nick Bottom is a very exuberant actor.)

Gathering supplies for tomorrow's class.

One of the great things about this class is that most of the materials we're using are old discarded items and recyclable items. A big plus for us was raiding the treasure trove of recyclable art materials at SCRAP Bin, where all sorts of "creative reuse" items are sold at amazingly cheap prices. We loaded our drama closets with a ton of goodies that have equipped us to bring our creative projects to life.

As my spring gets busier and busier with more creative projects - artistic, writing and otherwise - you can expect some more bragging from this proud teacher about the amazing things her students are doing. It's a small class, but all of are them well-suited for the task at hand, and I am always amazed at the sorts of things they can come out with. (I haven't even told you about their grandiose designs for the stage.)

So stay tuned....more creative mayhem on the way.....!

Plot Problems & Quick (Temporary) Fixes

Hello there! I am enjoying an extended Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family, and am not near my computer today. So please enjoy this reprint of a guest blog I did for the wonderful WriMosFTW! website earlier this week. 

Welcome to the third week of NaNoWriMo! We've indulged in wild, literary abandonment! Hedonistic word abuse! Tangents that turn into plot development!!

It's great, isn't it? Only right now maybe it ISN'T so great. Maybe you are stuck. The how-the-heck-did-I-get-HERE??? kind of stuck.

Yep. Know that feeling well.

The problem with getting stuck in the middle of NaNo is that you're crunched for time. The whole point of NaNo is, after all, to give starry-eyed dreamers a kick in the pants so we will push on, even when we want to spin our wheels and edit, re-edit, polish and tweak Every. Single. Line.  So you barrel on, reminding yourself of that glorious finish line of 50,000 words, and that you can edit to your heart’s content come December. But sometimes you turn a corner and find yourself in a plot tangle that only gets worse the more you write.

Frustrated? Sure you are. Want to fix it? Absolutely. But since this is NaNo, the big, glossy edits come later. But take heart - there is a way to move on ---- even if you have to leave a mental "bookmark" or two for the editing process.

Below I've listed three common plot problems that make ME stop in my tracks, especially now, when I’m so focused on my word count. I've also given my "quick fixes" that allow me to press to the end of NaNo and THEN do the hard edit.

Problem #1: Too Many Characters, or Too Few: These are opposite problems, and neither of them can be fixed mid-NaNo. But you can still pause long enough to see if this is the root of your problem. Don’t be afraid to do it either – determining if you’ve got a problem in this arena will save you a world of hurt later.

Quick Fix: Too few? Add in the new people as you press on, but make some kind of notation to indicate you've introduced a character that wasn't there before, but ought to have been. (I manage this by putting that character's first appearance in bright red font.)

     Too many characters? Figure out which are your weaker characters, and mentally cut them loose. This will leave your stronger characters to pick up the slack, and they will be even more dynamic and engaging because of it. But don't try to fix your earlier pages now. Wherever you are in the manuscript, hit the enter key a few times to indicate a break from previous plot details, and keep going - but with the revised set of characters. You may even need to leave yourself a clear note about who got axed. Everything up to that point will need adjusting post-NaNo.

Problem #2: Murky Plot Points: For me, a "murky plot point" is something that I haven't thought through very well, that is now turning out to be a bigger deal than I thought. In my current project, I knew I needed an underground train. I had no idea it would become so central to the story. Now I realize I need to study up on trains come December. I can’t become a Train Expert just now; but I will.

Quick Fix: When I realize I need technical jargon I just don't have yet, I'll insert some notes in parenthesis and in red (or bold, or all caps) that reminds me of what I need: For example: "Then Finn looked under the train (((and detected some serious problem that stalls the train out for the next two chapters))). Then he turned to..." etc. Since I already have a basic understanding of trains, I'll know that Finn at least needs to go for some parts, which would be conveniently located in a troublesome part of town. Plot moves on. 

Problem #3: Not Thinking Wide Enough? This is a different sort of problem. It doesn't create so much of a writer's block as a moment of realization amounting to: "Oh, CRAP I should have done this four chapters ago! Now what?" If you've hit that sort of snag, you've realized there is some key character, scene, or whole chapter that is missing from your earlier writing, and without it you don't have enough internal scaffolding to bear the weight of your story. But this is NaNo, and you want to press on to where you NOW know the story ought to go.

Quick Fix: Print out the pages you have so far, and quickly scan what you’ve written. In the margins, make plain but simple notes: “Put Anne in this scene.” Or “Needs more cowbell.” Or “’Add chapter about Marv’s POV from the Inner Sanctum”, etc. If you do this while it's fresh on your mind, you’ll not only thank yourself later, but sometimes you’ll pick up on other things that need to be added to the margin notes. (I usually sacrifice a whole evening of NaNo-ing to do this step anyway, even if I feel I’m doing well.) The trick is to not bog down here, and forget to type. Make your notes and move on.

It’s been said that “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.” As writers, that is what we ought to remember as we pursue our craft. Your first pass at a rough draft – whether hastily written or no - is going to be just that: ROUGH. But if your tale is worth telling, then it’s worth telling badly - at least during the first pass.

But you’ll get to the ultimate finish line. Of course you will! Because we’re writers, and we know that rough beginnings are always the first step – but never the last.

Da Vinci's Grocery List

Living in the greater Atlanta area definitely has its perks. Shopping, restaurants and entertainment go without saying; but I also adore its museums. Coupled with my own artistic background, I guess it's not surprising that The High Museum of Art is one of my favorite haunts. I am always amazed, not only at the rich spectrum of works they get on loan, but also what they keep on permanent display.

About ten years ago I was privileged to go see the DaVinci exhibit at the High Museum. I was taking a drawing class at a local university at the time - just for kicks - and the professor arranged for us all to go as a class and check out the exhibit. He was excited because it was a collection of Da Vinci's rough works - sketches and mock-ups and small models. Nothing huge or polished or anywhere near complete - only a collection of hastily noted ideas cast in plaster, or scrawled out on oddments of soiled paper.

I say "only a collection..." when really it was anything but an afterthought.  It was a wonderful exhibit, with a rare and privileged glimpse into the mind of one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived. I soaked up every yellowed paper, each lumpy plaster model, and all the explanatory texts that went with them.

For me, however, the highlight of the exhibit was not the sketches that mapped out his original ideas for the Sistine Chapel, or the plaster mock-ups for his sculptures. The crowning jewel was - for me - a grocery list.

Just that. A grocery list.

Allow me to put that comment in context. Da Vinci had a servant who managed his household for him, and did all manner of errands on his behalf; but those duties apparently did not usually include the grocery shopping. Going down to market, and selecting ingredients for himself, was something that Da Vinci evidently liked to do. But one day he found himself in a bit of a bind. Perhaps he was working under deadline with his latest project; or was simply focused on whatever idea he was working on at the moment. Perhaps he was on his way to meet someone. There's no telling. But in the middle of all his rushing about, Da Vinci stopped to jot down a list of items he needed from the market, and handed it off to his servant.

It was at this point that DaVinci made a timely discovery: his servant could not read.

If it had been me, I would have told the servant to not worry about it, and gone later myself. But DaVinci must have really been in a pinch for time (or groceries - perhaps he was expecting company?), because he did nothing of the sort. Instead he took back the list and carefully, dexterously, sketched out each item on the list beside its Italian name. He had asked for six eggs -- so he drew six little eggs, their rounded forms casting little shadows on each other in the right places. He needed three tomatoes --- so he drew three little tomatoes, each with their own stem and scratchy leaves on its indented forehead. He wanted fish and eggplant, and so their distinctive shapes were added to the margin of the list. Every thing that he needed he sketched out, quickly but neatly, in his own masterful hand.

It was this grocery list, scribbled on the backside of an odd scrap of drawing paper, that held my attention far longer than anything else in that exhibit. I loved it because it not only showed that Da Vinci was human, but that his attention to details cascaded into every aspect of life. He drew and painted and sculpted masterfully; his workshop was full of masterpieces, all in progress; and yet he took the time to illustrate his grocery list so his servant could go down to market and not be embarrassed because he didn't know what was expected of him.

That's the kind of artist, teacher and author that I want to be - a person who not only knows the intricate details of the task at hand, but who pauses to appreciate the details of the everyday: of tomato stems and egg-shadows, of the treasures of my local market, and most importantly of the people around me. That, I am sure, is a mark of greatness - whether it is ever remembered by anyone, or not.

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What do you think? What are the details of thinking and living that sets someone apart?