OMG.
So.
INTERN's hippie roommate's trashier-than-thou friends from college have been visiting for the past few days, two very serious and scruffy anarchists who live in treehouses in Santa Cruz, from where they are plotting the "neo-anarchist ecorevolution".
Last night, they decided to go on a dumpster diving expedition, and hippie roommate kindly invited INTERN to tag along. And wow. Anyone concerned about enfeebled female heroines (see Rejectionist's post on this phenomenon) should write a YA book about INTERN's hippie roommate, the femme fatale of dumpters. She scaled chain-link fences three times her height, pried open locked dumpsters just widely enough to slip her (leaf-like) body inside, and hefted fifty-pound bags of rolled oats and slightly sprouting quinoa over brick walls—all while wearing a slinky red dress and blue tights which did not even get a run. (INTERN lolled along behind her in a giant black sweatshirt and tocque, looking like some kind of wannabe gangster and trying to make herself useful).
It was exhilerating and delightful and it felt so damn productive to harvest all that booty.
This morning, INTERN and Techie Boyfriend looked over said booty in the clear light of reason.
Techie Boyfriend: Those oats look good, but what are you going to do with thirty-six packets of wildberry glucose gel? Also, I think some of those artichokes are past their prime.
INTERN: Are you crazy? We're going to use all of it.
Techie Boyfriend: But those artichokes are turning...black.
INTERN: They're still good! We FOUND them!
Techie Boyfriend: What are you going to do with sixty pounds of mouldy quinoa?
INTERN: USE IT ALL! USE IT ALL! USE IT ALL!
NaNoRevisioneers, as the booty of the dumpster, so the spoils of the first draft. Yes, it is a nice, satisfying, pile of words. Yes, you did go out and harvest it yourself. No, you are not allowed to hang on to every bit of it. Frankly, every bit of it is not worth keeping. And if you stay up all night trying to make a soup that will "use it all up" nobody will eat it (at least, not Techie Boyfriend).
That being said, there are enough shots of glucose gel to keep INTERN going for a week. ALL IS NOT LOST!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
NaNoReVisMo #3: the transformers are coming
Has everyone seen one of those kids' movies about a [soccer/baseball/hockey] team made up of clumsy misfits with mouth guards and runny noses whose [bitter/resentful/hard-ass] coach reluctantly (then enthusiastically at the key moment) leads them to victory over the [snobby/evil/orc-like] rival team the Blood Jaguars? It seems to INTERN that every one of those movies has the exact same scene at the end with everybody high-fiving and the runtiest kid and the reformed bully practically make love to other through six layers of scrappy, home-made uniform. Hollywood got the memo about character transformation, and they got it big time.
INTERN sees a lot of manuscripts (particularly YA) where the high-fiving, back-slapping scene is present, and the bully hugs the runt and the hard-ass coach finally tells his son he loves him and the prissy league official takes off her librarian wig to reveal ten feet of luscious blond hair...but there hasn't been any kind of build-up to account for these transformations. Like, none whatsoever.
It's like the writer was sitting there, drinking a martini and typing away happily, when all of a sudden somebody rang a bell and said "Simon says TRANSFORM CHARACTERS!"
Then the writer was like, "Oh sh**&$S*###!" and whipped out her Transformation Bazooka and started firing at will. Bam! Mean character becomes nice. Bam! Frumpy character becomes a sex god. Bam! Bitter character stares into the sunset for two seconds and has a life-changing revelation.
The reader is left in the rubble, surrounded by unrecognizable characters who have no apparent reason for their sudden transformations.
Just like you can stick your Conflict Toothpick into your manuscript, you should be able to stick in a Transformation Toothpick to make sure your characters are really having their worldviews challenged enough to account for change.
If we stick our toothpick into the first ten minutes of a Kids' Sports Movie, we see the bully terrorizing the runt. If we test again twenty minutes later, we see the bully witnessing the runt being terrorized again by his own father. Twenty minutes later, the runt helps the bully cheat on a test. When they get caught, the bully has to make a moral decision that might see one of them thrown off the team...and yadda yadda. At several points in the movie, the bully's view of the world is challenged, and a series of crises pushes him to the point of real transformation. Transformation doesn't just splash over him like a paintball hit.
Any of the following on their own are insufficient justification for Change:
-a character staring into sunset/sunrise/great whirling cosmos and spontaneously having a Deep Thought That Changes Everything.
-a character saying any variation upon "No, Sparky. This time we're going to kick *their* asses!"
-a character doing something out of character, then accounting for it by ways of a lengthy speech explaining how, exactly, he had a change of heart (if the transformation isn't justified by showing, no amount of telling will ever be convincing).
You don't win the Regional Team Sport Championships of the soul without breaking a few bones along the way.
Techie Boyfriend just made INTERN a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso in it, so she is off to go jitter somewhere stimulating. Hurrah!
INTERN sees a lot of manuscripts (particularly YA) where the high-fiving, back-slapping scene is present, and the bully hugs the runt and the hard-ass coach finally tells his son he loves him and the prissy league official takes off her librarian wig to reveal ten feet of luscious blond hair...but there hasn't been any kind of build-up to account for these transformations. Like, none whatsoever.
It's like the writer was sitting there, drinking a martini and typing away happily, when all of a sudden somebody rang a bell and said "Simon says TRANSFORM CHARACTERS!"
Then the writer was like, "Oh sh**&$S*###!" and whipped out her Transformation Bazooka and started firing at will. Bam! Mean character becomes nice. Bam! Frumpy character becomes a sex god. Bam! Bitter character stares into the sunset for two seconds and has a life-changing revelation.
The reader is left in the rubble, surrounded by unrecognizable characters who have no apparent reason for their sudden transformations.
Just like you can stick your Conflict Toothpick into your manuscript, you should be able to stick in a Transformation Toothpick to make sure your characters are really having their worldviews challenged enough to account for change.
If we stick our toothpick into the first ten minutes of a Kids' Sports Movie, we see the bully terrorizing the runt. If we test again twenty minutes later, we see the bully witnessing the runt being terrorized again by his own father. Twenty minutes later, the runt helps the bully cheat on a test. When they get caught, the bully has to make a moral decision that might see one of them thrown off the team...and yadda yadda. At several points in the movie, the bully's view of the world is challenged, and a series of crises pushes him to the point of real transformation. Transformation doesn't just splash over him like a paintball hit.
Any of the following on their own are insufficient justification for Change:
-a character staring into sunset/sunrise/great whirling cosmos and spontaneously having a Deep Thought That Changes Everything.
-a character saying any variation upon "No, Sparky. This time we're going to kick *their* asses!"
-a character doing something out of character, then accounting for it by ways of a lengthy speech explaining how, exactly, he had a change of heart (if the transformation isn't justified by showing, no amount of telling will ever be convincing).
You don't win the Regional Team Sport Championships of the soul without breaking a few bones along the way.
Techie Boyfriend just made INTERN a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso in it, so she is off to go jitter somewhere stimulating. Hurrah!
Monday, November 9, 2009
zen and the art of self-publishing
INTERN was starting to feel a little mournful and over-serious after her last NaNoReVisMo post, so she packed herself some apples and half a loaf of bread and set off on a self-imposed Quixotic Journey. Over the course of her wanderings, she visited some kind of Zen buddhist establishment, where a kindly nun pointed her to a pile of Free Books. INTERN emerged from the temple with a cute little self-published tome called simply "CAUSE AND EFFECT," and repaired to the nearest forest to read it among the dry leaves and withering nettle.
Here's the deal with cause and effect:
"If in this life one loves and enjoys hunting, in the next one will suffer from chronic nervousness to the point of insanity."
(pencil drawing of sneering hunter with "effect" arrow pointing to foamy-mouthed madman)
"Excessive attachment to tastes will undermine the normal functions of the lungs leading to sickness there from"
(pencil drawing of vomiting man surrounded by garlic bulbs, leeks, and green onions)
"Do not simply pour hot water on the ground. This is because many small insects (cause) live in the ground. This reckless action will harm their lives and moreover it will result in us having a short life (results)."
(pencil drawing of helmeted, jackbooted soldier type sneeringly pouring water on the ground while centipedes and ladybugs twice his size writhe around him).
It goes on like that for 180 fully illustrated pages. INTERN wanted to run back to the temple and investigate the other books, but she might have splashed her coffee on the ground and was nervous about the Effect that might have on her lifespan.
Anyway, the whole experience made INTERN reconsider everything she's been hearing about the book is an antiquated form soon to be replaced by electronic readers. Had the buddhist temple offered free downloads of "CAUSE AND EFFECT" INTERN would have never bothered. As it is, the (rather spooky) little volume has wormed its way into her imagination and her shelf.
Maybe, like the cockroach, the Free Book will the last physical book scurrying around after the apocalypse, when all those weak, silly "for profit" print books are decomposing in their graves. Maybe self-published books with massive print runs will be the proverbial last man standing in the history of print. Somebody please prove INTERN wrong.
Back to regular scheduled Revismo-ing next time. INTERN is feeling refreshed, and a little paranoid about all that lion hunting and seal clubbing she used to do in the evening after interning. Four-point restraints in the next life...
Here's the deal with cause and effect:
"If in this life one loves and enjoys hunting, in the next one will suffer from chronic nervousness to the point of insanity."
(pencil drawing of sneering hunter with "effect" arrow pointing to foamy-mouthed madman)
"Excessive attachment to tastes will undermine the normal functions of the lungs leading to sickness there from"
(pencil drawing of vomiting man surrounded by garlic bulbs, leeks, and green onions)
"Do not simply pour hot water on the ground. This is because many small insects (cause) live in the ground. This reckless action will harm their lives and moreover it will result in us having a short life (results)."
(pencil drawing of helmeted, jackbooted soldier type sneeringly pouring water on the ground while centipedes and ladybugs twice his size writhe around him).
It goes on like that for 180 fully illustrated pages. INTERN wanted to run back to the temple and investigate the other books, but she might have splashed her coffee on the ground and was nervous about the Effect that might have on her lifespan.
Anyway, the whole experience made INTERN reconsider everything she's been hearing about the book is an antiquated form soon to be replaced by electronic readers. Had the buddhist temple offered free downloads of "CAUSE AND EFFECT" INTERN would have never bothered. As it is, the (rather spooky) little volume has wormed its way into her imagination and her shelf.
Maybe, like the cockroach, the Free Book will the last physical book scurrying around after the apocalypse, when all those weak, silly "for profit" print books are decomposing in their graves. Maybe self-published books with massive print runs will be the proverbial last man standing in the history of print. Somebody please prove INTERN wrong.
Back to regular scheduled Revismo-ing next time. INTERN is feeling refreshed, and a little paranoid about all that lion hunting and seal clubbing she used to do in the evening after interning. Four-point restraints in the next life...
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
NaNoReVisMo #2: two flavors of facts
The nice thing about having knowlegeable people around when you're editing or revising something is that you can enslave them as fact-checkers and constantly holler "Do drug dealers measure out weed with a scale or a ruler?" or "Would mixing baking soda with helium *really* create an anti-gravity wonder fluid?" or "Is it plausible for my character to choke on a credit card?"
Revision is a time for making sure the physics and chemistry of your world are sound, that you haven't completely botched the slang of whatever underworld you're trying to portray, and that you haven't confused hepatitis with haemophilia.
INTERN has seen some embarassing mistakes. Doctor characters who take someone's temperature to see if they have epilepsy. Fir trees whose "leaves" turn "brilliant orange" in the fall. Improper use of the word "do-rag".
This is the easy kind of fact-checking: the kind you can do on the subway, merely by polling wise-looking travelers and trying to read Wikipedia on your cell phone.
The more challenging (and painful) kind of fact-checking involves your characters' emotions.
"Would my main character really feel satisfied when her mean neighbor's house burned down, or would she feel lingering regret?" "Maybe I need to change how Ebenezer feels in that scene where he makes out with Britney, since I added that new scene before it where she reveals her base digust for him."
Too often, revision only consists of adding new scenes without adjusting existing scenes to account for the changed dynamic. It's like taking a go-kart, adding an extra wheel, and then expecting it to run the same way.
A little emotional fact checking can fix this:
In Draft 1, Ebenezer is overjoyed to be making out with Britney. In Draft 2 (now that we've added that extra scene) we realize that our Ebenezer can't possibly feel overjoyed—now he feels used or humiliated or angry-yet-lustful. If the Britney-Ebenezer makeout scene doesn't get revised, the manuscript stops making emotional sense.
INTERN suspects that the reason many emotional inconsistencies stay put in manuscripts instead of getting revised is because old scenes can start to feel like they're set in stone, and somehow "meant" to be how they are. In fact, old scenes are the ones that most need to flex, or even get cut, because the characters they portray are no longer the real characters in the book.
Now that INTERN is reading this over, it sounds kind of obvious. If this were a novel, INTERN would have to go back and revise the end of this post to reflect her authentic emotional state of fretful perfectionism. Since this is not a novel, INTERN is going to finish this post exactly how she planned to:
WOO-HOO! REVISMO!
Revision is a time for making sure the physics and chemistry of your world are sound, that you haven't completely botched the slang of whatever underworld you're trying to portray, and that you haven't confused hepatitis with haemophilia.
INTERN has seen some embarassing mistakes. Doctor characters who take someone's temperature to see if they have epilepsy. Fir trees whose "leaves" turn "brilliant orange" in the fall. Improper use of the word "do-rag".
This is the easy kind of fact-checking: the kind you can do on the subway, merely by polling wise-looking travelers and trying to read Wikipedia on your cell phone.
The more challenging (and painful) kind of fact-checking involves your characters' emotions.
"Would my main character really feel satisfied when her mean neighbor's house burned down, or would she feel lingering regret?" "Maybe I need to change how Ebenezer feels in that scene where he makes out with Britney, since I added that new scene before it where she reveals her base digust for him."
Too often, revision only consists of adding new scenes without adjusting existing scenes to account for the changed dynamic. It's like taking a go-kart, adding an extra wheel, and then expecting it to run the same way.
A little emotional fact checking can fix this:
In Draft 1, Ebenezer is overjoyed to be making out with Britney. In Draft 2 (now that we've added that extra scene) we realize that our Ebenezer can't possibly feel overjoyed—now he feels used or humiliated or angry-yet-lustful. If the Britney-Ebenezer makeout scene doesn't get revised, the manuscript stops making emotional sense.
INTERN suspects that the reason many emotional inconsistencies stay put in manuscripts instead of getting revised is because old scenes can start to feel like they're set in stone, and somehow "meant" to be how they are. In fact, old scenes are the ones that most need to flex, or even get cut, because the characters they portray are no longer the real characters in the book.
Now that INTERN is reading this over, it sounds kind of obvious. If this were a novel, INTERN would have to go back and revise the end of this post to reflect her authentic emotional state of fretful perfectionism. Since this is not a novel, INTERN is going to finish this post exactly how she planned to:
WOO-HOO! REVISMO!
Monday, November 2, 2009
NaNoReVisMo #1: the electric kool-aid conflict test
INTERN used to have a terrifying Cuban piano teacher who would stop her at random while she was playing a piece by memory, question her extensively about the reasoning behind the tonal, rhythmic, and expressive qualities of the notes she had just played and the notes she was about to play, then make her start playing again in the exact (usually awkward and off-beat) place she had stopped.
INTERN would complain that *of course* she didn't know exactly what was going in those spots—they were in the middle of difficult passages, there were too many notes for each one to have a purpose, and she relied on sheer momentum to get herself through to the sections where she *did* understand what she was doing with each note and why.
It was like trying to take a cake out of the oven, and someone really annoying comes up and stabs it with a toothpick: "But it's not cooked here!"
Lately, INTERN has been conducting a similar test on manuscripts and library books. Here's how it works:
-Open novel to a random page
-Read a couple paragraphs, or at most, a couple pages
-Can you tell what the conflict is, or what the character is yearning for? Can you explain, in just a few words, what these paragraphs are doing and why?
It can be as concrete as "she is trying to catch the rattlesnake" or as abstract as "he is struggling to understand his son's anger".
Some examples from INTERN's handy pile 'o' library books:
In a random paragraph from "Small Island" by Andrea Levy: "character is having moral qualms over what to do with an expensive brooch she finds on the ground."
In a random paragraph from "East of Eden" by Steinbeck: "character is deciding to punish two boys, even while having doubts about their guilt."
In a random paragraph from "Lullabies for Little Criminals" by Heather O'Neill: "character realizes that she's been so wrapped up in her own struggles that she hasn't noticed her father's life falling apart."
In a random paragraph from "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene: "character is frustrated at his own inability to confront a friend."
These are not carefully selected examples. These little conflict summaries are literally pulled from single paragraphs on randomly opened pages. Stab these books with a toothpick all you want—that sucker is gonna come out clean. At seemingly every moment in these books (except maybe in passages describing the scenery), there is some kind of tension or revelation going on.
If you stab your own manuscript with that toothpick and need to read an entire chapter before being able to identify some kind of internal or external conflict, you might have a problem. If you can't identify what's going in any particular spot in less than twenty words, chances are the conflict or tension is too vague (or there isn't any). [Note: obviously, all books are different, and a surrealistic alinear epic space opera needs a different barometer than a linear coming-of-age novel. But still.]
Lack 'o' identifiable conflict (especially in the first few chapters) is a major problem with first drafts. If you can't identify any conflict until Chapter 3, the book either needs to start at Chapter 3 or the first two chapters need to pony up.
Remember: Nobody taking a bite of your half-cooked cake is going to say, "That's OK, I love salmonella" and keep eating it.
That's all for today, revisioneers. Be bloody, bold and resolute!
INTERN would complain that *of course* she didn't know exactly what was going in those spots—they were in the middle of difficult passages, there were too many notes for each one to have a purpose, and she relied on sheer momentum to get herself through to the sections where she *did* understand what she was doing with each note and why.
It was like trying to take a cake out of the oven, and someone really annoying comes up and stabs it with a toothpick: "But it's not cooked here!"
Lately, INTERN has been conducting a similar test on manuscripts and library books. Here's how it works:
-Open novel to a random page
-Read a couple paragraphs, or at most, a couple pages
-Can you tell what the conflict is, or what the character is yearning for? Can you explain, in just a few words, what these paragraphs are doing and why?
It can be as concrete as "she is trying to catch the rattlesnake" or as abstract as "he is struggling to understand his son's anger".
Some examples from INTERN's handy pile 'o' library books:
In a random paragraph from "Small Island" by Andrea Levy: "character is having moral qualms over what to do with an expensive brooch she finds on the ground."
In a random paragraph from "East of Eden" by Steinbeck: "character is deciding to punish two boys, even while having doubts about their guilt."
In a random paragraph from "Lullabies for Little Criminals" by Heather O'Neill: "character realizes that she's been so wrapped up in her own struggles that she hasn't noticed her father's life falling apart."
In a random paragraph from "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene: "character is frustrated at his own inability to confront a friend."
These are not carefully selected examples. These little conflict summaries are literally pulled from single paragraphs on randomly opened pages. Stab these books with a toothpick all you want—that sucker is gonna come out clean. At seemingly every moment in these books (except maybe in passages describing the scenery), there is some kind of tension or revelation going on.
If you stab your own manuscript with that toothpick and need to read an entire chapter before being able to identify some kind of internal or external conflict, you might have a problem. If you can't identify what's going in any particular spot in less than twenty words, chances are the conflict or tension is too vague (or there isn't any). [Note: obviously, all books are different, and a surrealistic alinear epic space opera needs a different barometer than a linear coming-of-age novel. But still.]
Lack 'o' identifiable conflict (especially in the first few chapters) is a major problem with first drafts. If you can't identify any conflict until Chapter 3, the book either needs to start at Chapter 3 or the first two chapters need to pony up.
Remember: Nobody taking a bite of your half-cooked cake is going to say, "That's OK, I love salmonella" and keep eating it.
That's all for today, revisioneers. Be bloody, bold and resolute!
Friday, October 30, 2009
announcing NaNoReVisMo!
In honor of November's tank-like determination to actually happen despite INTERN's fervent wishes that it be cute, silly October forever, INTERN is announcing a new Month as an alternative to the imminent National Novel Writing Month that gets people into such a frenzy at this time of year
It's National Novel REVISION Month, baby, and it means business.
It occurs to INTERN as she types this that someone has undoubtedly already thought of the idea of NaNoReVisMo, and there are probably something like five hundred active cells of the NaNoReVisMo underworld in a thousand different cities (yes, five hundred cells in a thousand different cities. You do the math!)
But let's ignore that for a moment and forge ahead as if were a semi-new idea. Humor INTERN? Yes?
So. NaNoReVisMo.
Here's how it works:
You open a first draft from your (no doubt monstrous) desktop file of first drafts. Maybe you read it all the way through once, just to get in the mood. You start to feel daunted, overwhelmed by the task of fixing all the fix-its and rewriting all the rewrites and cutting out all the six-page speeches about the collective unconscious you wrote in because you were reading a lot of Jung at the time. You start to feel like your manuscript is hopeless—OR WORSE: fine just the way it is.
You almost close the document and walk away (OR WORSE: bang out a query letter and start submitting your first draft to agents and editors as is).
Then you notice the word written on the back of your hand in permanent marker: REVISMO!
Heartened, stoic, determined, terrified, you go back to your computer, open that file, and plunge yourself into the filthy, glorious work that is revision.
Repeat daily for a month.
End of month: you emerge with a manuscript that is more cooked (possibly all the way cooked), more beautiful (possibly really beautiful), more finished (maybe really finished), and more saleable (maybe actually saleable!)
Sounds good, right?
NaNoReVisMo is also the six-month anniversary of when INTERN first started taking on freelance manuscript critiquing and editing projects from the Hire INTERN sidebar on this page. It has been nothing but delight and extreme brain-pleasure, and she plans to continue offering her services for a long time, because it's much more fun than doing anything else. ANYWAY, to celebrate NaNoReVisMo and the whole art and delight of editing, INTERN is going to be posting about the 8-10 most common criticisms/fix-its/rewrite notes/whatnots she encounters in fiction and memoir manuscripts.
She is also going to pull out one of her own blighted first drafts and hack that sucker to pieces.
Much love to all, NaNoWrimers and NaNoReVisers alike! Godspeed!
It's National Novel REVISION Month, baby, and it means business.
It occurs to INTERN as she types this that someone has undoubtedly already thought of the idea of NaNoReVisMo, and there are probably something like five hundred active cells of the NaNoReVisMo underworld in a thousand different cities (yes, five hundred cells in a thousand different cities. You do the math!)
But let's ignore that for a moment and forge ahead as if were a semi-new idea. Humor INTERN? Yes?
So. NaNoReVisMo.
Here's how it works:
You open a first draft from your (no doubt monstrous) desktop file of first drafts. Maybe you read it all the way through once, just to get in the mood. You start to feel daunted, overwhelmed by the task of fixing all the fix-its and rewriting all the rewrites and cutting out all the six-page speeches about the collective unconscious you wrote in because you were reading a lot of Jung at the time. You start to feel like your manuscript is hopeless—OR WORSE: fine just the way it is.
You almost close the document and walk away (OR WORSE: bang out a query letter and start submitting your first draft to agents and editors as is).
Then you notice the word written on the back of your hand in permanent marker: REVISMO!
Heartened, stoic, determined, terrified, you go back to your computer, open that file, and plunge yourself into the filthy, glorious work that is revision.
Repeat daily for a month.
End of month: you emerge with a manuscript that is more cooked (possibly all the way cooked), more beautiful (possibly really beautiful), more finished (maybe really finished), and more saleable (maybe actually saleable!)
Sounds good, right?
NaNoReVisMo is also the six-month anniversary of when INTERN first started taking on freelance manuscript critiquing and editing projects from the Hire INTERN sidebar on this page. It has been nothing but delight and extreme brain-pleasure, and she plans to continue offering her services for a long time, because it's much more fun than doing anything else. ANYWAY, to celebrate NaNoReVisMo and the whole art and delight of editing, INTERN is going to be posting about the 8-10 most common criticisms/fix-its/rewrite notes/whatnots she encounters in fiction and memoir manuscripts.
She is also going to pull out one of her own blighted first drafts and hack that sucker to pieces.
Much love to all, NaNoWrimers and NaNoReVisers alike! Godspeed!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
hail the robot overlords of novel-writing
This morning INTERN was going through her soon-to-be kaput computer's hard drive when she happened across a program called Writer's Dreamkit, a used-once present from INTERN's parents circa x-mas 2003.
Has anyone used or heard of it?
It's this completely insane novel-writing software that interrogates you at length about your characters and plot, then runs your answers through a baroque and frightening Story Engine and spits out a plot outline.
The best thing about Writer's Dreamkit is that it makes absolutely no bones about being a novel-writing robot. It doesn't try to put on a soft and friendly human face or pad its cold, hard plotting engine with fuzz. Writer's Dreamkit is like, "Hell yeah I'm a robot. And if you don't select your Impact Character's chief flaw from this pull-down menu in the next fifteen seconds, I'm gonna crash your system so hard you'll feel it for days."
INTERN was playing around with WDK all morning, and came to the following question:
Select the nature of what all your characters are hoping to achieve or prevent:
The Past
How Things are Changing
The Future
The Present
Understanding
Doing
Obtaining
Gathering Information
Developing a Plan
Changing One's Nature
Conceiving an Idea
Memories
Yes, it begs the question how one's characters can Prevent the Past or Achieve their Memories, but if you grit your teeth and go through with it, WDK does a pretty solid job of forcing character motivation down your "experimental" "literary" throat. By the end of a round of Storyforming intense enough to rival a U.S customs interrogation, WDK has narrowed your story down from 30,000 possible plots to one single possible plot.
Brilliant.
It hardly needs saying that the NaNoWriMo potential of this program is endless. Actually, INTERN is more curious about whether WDK can predict the plots of real people's lives based on their current conflicts, goals, and character traits. Will INTERN's fate be determined by a Timelock or an Optionlock? In order to achieve her (story engine-determined) goals, will she need to Change her Nature or Develop a Plan?
Hail the robot overlords of novel-writing! Brothers, sisters, we are saved!
Has anyone used or heard of it?
It's this completely insane novel-writing software that interrogates you at length about your characters and plot, then runs your answers through a baroque and frightening Story Engine and spits out a plot outline.
The best thing about Writer's Dreamkit is that it makes absolutely no bones about being a novel-writing robot. It doesn't try to put on a soft and friendly human face or pad its cold, hard plotting engine with fuzz. Writer's Dreamkit is like, "Hell yeah I'm a robot. And if you don't select your Impact Character's chief flaw from this pull-down menu in the next fifteen seconds, I'm gonna crash your system so hard you'll feel it for days."
INTERN was playing around with WDK all morning, and came to the following question:
Select the nature of what all your characters are hoping to achieve or prevent:
The Past
How Things are Changing
The Future
The Present
Understanding
Doing
Obtaining
Gathering Information
Developing a Plan
Changing One's Nature
Conceiving an Idea
Memories
Yes, it begs the question how one's characters can Prevent the Past or Achieve their Memories, but if you grit your teeth and go through with it, WDK does a pretty solid job of forcing character motivation down your "experimental" "literary" throat. By the end of a round of Storyforming intense enough to rival a U.S customs interrogation, WDK has narrowed your story down from 30,000 possible plots to one single possible plot.
Brilliant.
It hardly needs saying that the NaNoWriMo potential of this program is endless. Actually, INTERN is more curious about whether WDK can predict the plots of real people's lives based on their current conflicts, goals, and character traits. Will INTERN's fate be determined by a Timelock or an Optionlock? In order to achieve her (story engine-determined) goals, will she need to Change her Nature or Develop a Plan?
Hail the robot overlords of novel-writing! Brothers, sisters, we are saved!
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