Andrew from my novel "Green Success" he is known for his disabled right hand, which is why he never fights back in a fight, but also because he used to be right handed, he is now left handed and ever since, his drawings and writings have never been quite as artistic as they used to be... this is an important factor to the story because every time he get's into a fight he will never fight back, and the past event pertaining to the disablement of his right hand is a key element which will drive the story to the ending... - Andrew T. (c) 2009 Green SuccessI've been watching CLANNAD, one of my most favorite anime's of all time... and it really got me doing some major changes to my story...
as I re-read it I realized some important things. The biggest: Everything in my story, every even and every conversation could easily be summarized in a few paragraphs... WHICH IS NOT GOOD!!!
I realized my entire novel was the equivalent to about three anime episodes, just stretched out to about 25 chapters... and that wasn't good, I wanted to maximize the density of my story, have so much things happen that the reader would be forced to re-read it again just to capture everything. I also wanted to generalize my imagery to I'm not hand feeding the reader every bit of detail. I only left the major details like the scar on Andrew's RIGHT hand, and during the emotional scenes, I always make sure to mention that the sky is blazing orange!
Basically if I made a line where the straighter the line the less events and things are going on, my old version of the story would be almost completely straight, while this new version is completely tangled.
I only fixed up the first few chapters though, so I still have a long way, but luckily I am sticking to the original main story line, I"m just adding side stories and events and turning the plot line in many directions but in the end it will lead to the same ending as the original... just in a more fun and exciting way!
I've improved my sentences as well, by using "proper grammar" stuff, I've added many different sentence types and words and things to keep the reader interested, so every adjective isn't just "the" and every time a character talks, it isn't just "He said" , it would be more like, "He yelled, 'Thief!'" or "She yawned, 'why does the moon have to hide tonight?'"
So that's what I've been doing for the past few weeks... and also since it is the beginning of summer I"ve been partying a whole bunch! But now that every thing's finally settled down I can get back to work... which is a bad thing, DON't TAKE HUGE BREAKS FROM YOUR STORIES!!!! I've increased the density of my story so much and I've taken such long breaks that I completely forget where I am or what's happening in the story so I have to re-read and it may take a day or two just to absorb all the info before I"m ready to continue....
Here's just some inspirational links to songs that I listen to when I work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yAritJDKDs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QguA_qEEpkw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G1Pl1kmnh4
So good luck to anyone writing a story out there... I"ve completely dropped the idea of ever getting popular.... when I first started writing that was my goal... but now I realize two things:
1, I will most likely never get popular
and 2
My story has to be something I will pour my heart out to, not some cheezy lame American entertainment where all they want is profit... I'm going to write about what my heart truly feels and I will pour out all my emotions and feelings into this one story and if it becomes popular then "YES!" but if it doesn't , then for the few who read it, all I ask is that they are moved, changed and even inspired by it....
I'll be blogging whenevr I feel like it... good day! and God Bless!
