STRING OF PEARLS METHOD – PART 2 – TRAILERS

For today’s post, I will discuss how to identify pearls in media, as well as your own writing. Be sure to read part one to get started, and also my post on ‘imagery pearls,’ which this post will expand upon.

Do you have a friend like this — They say, “Ah, I read a great book,” and you ask, “What’s it about?” And they say, “Well, there’s this woman living on a farm, and she’s got two kids and her husband works for the post-office. So the husband dies, and that leaves her to raise the child alone. Oh, and this takes place in the first World War…” On they go, for ages and ages about every little scene in order and you realize five minutes in that you’ve actually read the same book. If pearls are memorable scenes, this friend is nothing but string!

When we think about our drafts, we can get stuck thinking about them as scenes that must go in a certain order. ‘ Well first, the character does such -and-such, and runs into so-and-so…’ But our stories are so much more than a series of dry events and checkboxes for us to mark. This can lead us to ‘stringy’ stories and boring info dumps. So how can we get ourselves out of this mindset, and find the pearls? Here’s a two-part exercise…

AUTHOR VOCABULARY — POPPY Z BRITE

I love Poppy Z Brite’s prose; it’s always so lush and vivid. No matter what you think about his plots, you have to admire his way with words. For today’s vocabulary list, I have used his first novel, Lost Souls. I chose words I feel are a good representative of his style, which makes use of all the senses, whether appealing or repulsive.

See my previous post about how to find your own author vocabulary lists, and what to do with them.

Aching Acrid Androgynous Bewitch Bittersweet Blackened Blossomed Brittle Cardamom Careworn Chartreuse Cloudy Colorless Corrosive Craven Creamy Deathsome Decanter Desiccated Ectoplasm Encrusted

Entrails Exquisite Fascination Fathomless Feral Flickering Gaudy Gelatinous Glistening Glittering Gluttony Greasy Greedy Grime Gutter Heady Iridescent Jangly Knobby Kudzu Languid

Lank Limned Lithe Loathsome Lurid Luxuriant Mandrake Meaty Milky Murky Musty Oozing Perverse Pleasurable Psychedelic Pulpy Sensual Shadowed Shimmering Shivery Shriveled

Shudder Silken Silvery Slippery Smeared Smudgy Sodden Soothing Sparkling Spattered Spidery Sweaty Syrupy Tangle Tracery Unsteady Velvety Watery Whirling Whorls Withered

More author vocabulary to come!

RESEARCHING CHARACTER NAMES

For today’s post, I will give a general overview of how I look for names for characters, including using the site Nameberry and Behind the Name. I have a variety of other methods, but this is a good way to find not-too exotic, but fitting names for your characters, particularly in a contemporary setting.

EMULATE AN AUTHOR… VOCABULARY SHEETS

This is a fun exercise that can give you a new appreciation for your favorite authors, teach you unique new words, and help you focus the style of your writing. To begin, choose a writer you’d like to emulate, and gather samples of their writing that you can copy and paste. You could find it in sample pages from their Amazon page, review quotes, or even just type it up yourself. A hint for searching — search for an unusual sentence in quotes.

For my example, I will use Edgar Allan Poe and I’ll include my vocabulary list for anyone hoping to capture his unfathomably spooky style.

BLOCK BREAKERS PART TWO — THE BEDROOM

Sometimes I have trouble getting comfortable with my characters when I first start writing. I’m not sure who they are yet, or I’m not sure how to introduce them. This is a simple exercise to get started, get some useful words down and learn a little more about your character.

Choose an important, personal space for your character. I usually choose their bedroom, but it could be their office, car, the bridge of a spaceship… anywhere that would be personalized and significant.

Begin by describing the space. General at first, but start going detail by detail. What’s on their desk? Is their bed made or not? What’s the lighting like? The temperature? Do they have any books and what are they? How about their clothes? Is there junk and trash all over? How does it smell? Does someone share the space, and what is their contribution?

Write way more than you ever would for a single space. Think of every piece of furniture. Look up reference photos if it helps. Once you’ve exhausted every detail, (or get sick of it!) have the character enter, and start interacting with the environment. Maybe they flop on the bed because they just had an argument with someone in the other room, maybe they sigh and get comfortable in their favorite chair. What do they normally do in this space? Then if you’d like to go further, have another character enter the space. Maybe their partner or friend, or maybe a roommate that barges in. Does your character feel happy to see them, or annoyed that their private space has been invaded?

Even if you don’t include this scene in your writing, it can be a good intro to your character, and learning a little more about them. Plus, it gets you writing and that’s the most important part! See my previous post for another block breaker to get you going.

EXPLORING YOUR SETTING WITH GOOGLE MAPS

This method of research is so fun, that I’ve done it to kill time when it’s not even for a story! This is a great way to generate story ideas, research a specific area, or just brainstorm for your own imaginary location. You should end up with lots of interesting notes, and useful reference pictures to use while you’re writing.

This is most useful for contemporary settings, but I will advise on how to use this for more historical/rustic settings as well.

This post will be very image heavy, so be forewarned.

STRING OF PEARLS WRITING METHOD – PART ONE

In a previous post I mentioned a method of plotting I call ‘the String of Pearls.’ When you ask someone the best thing about their favorite book or movie, what do they say? They might say ‘I love the part when ____’ and describe a scene. They might continue on for several other scenes, but they are usually disconnected from each other. You might get an idea of what the plot is about, but mostly it’s those cool and exciting bits that stick in our memory.

These disparate scenes could be considered ‘pearls’, and the parts in between are just the material those ‘pearls’ hang on. What if one wrote these vivid snapshots, then just strung one scene to the next as simply and efficiently as possible? When we think of our favorite stories, we don’t usually admire how one scene flows into the next, or the seamless transitions. We don’t tend to think about the overall pacing unless something’s gone wrong. (Outside of tightly-paced thrillers, perhaps.) We remember interesting characters, crazy events, funny jokes. We might remember how tense a scene made us, the suspense it created. But we will think of it as “It was so tense when ____” and then think of the situation that made us feel that way.

Here’s a simple exercise for you–

List three of your favorite narratives– movies, books, or TV shows. Then for each, think of the first ten scenes/moments that you recall. Try to find what they have in common.

Do they have strong visuals? Do they have exciting action? Do they reveal a twist, or have a hilarious punchline?

Here are some examples, that contain spoilers for the 1982 film, the Thing:

RESEARCHING – THE THREE CLICK RULE

Save your fingers!

I love learning about strange, obscure things, so I can often find myself spending hours reading about the history of court dwarves, when I’d only set out to look up the meaning of a particular name. While this can be really fun, it can waste precious writing time and lead you off track. In order to limit myself, I use the ‘three-click rule’ for research.

BLOCK BREAKERS PART ONE — DESCRIBING PICTURES

I often find I’m too distracted or demotivated to write actual plot events, or just feeling uncomfortable disturbing that pristine blank page. Here’s a simple exercise to generate some words that you can actually use for your final draft.

To begin, I look through my folder of reference photos. I try to collect images of objects, people, and locations that resemble ones from my story. (See my earlier post about mood boards to read about my technique for finding pictures!) For this example, I chose a couple location images that would feature in the first scene of my story. I dragged them straight into my Scrivener document, but you could just open the image and place it beside whatever window you’re writing in. I looked at the image, and just described what I saw.

You could make this writing fit your story, (including your character’s reaction etc,) but do whatever gets you writing. Be as blunt and obvious as you like, or be more poetic about it. Let your imagination drift, think about what the place would sound like, smell like.

In this example, I imagined that mud was from a rainy season that had just ended. If this writing leads you further into your story, go with it! The cool part is, you can copy and paste these descriptions into your draft wherever you need them. Try doing it for objects and people too, or whatever suits your story. You can tailor this writing later on, so don’t be afraid to state the obvious. I find this helps get me focused on my writing and gets some much-needed word count for NaNoWriMo season. I’ll write about more block breakers in the future!

IMAGERY ‘PEARLS’

This is just a quickie. At some point I’d like to discuss a technique I call ‘the String of Pearls’ method in further detail, but here’s a taste. The overall idea is that stories contain juicy bits — memorable scenes, potent images. The sort of thing you will remember after you’ve long forgotten the exact plot events. These bits form ‘pearls’ which one can string together. For a quick challenge — come up with a list of vivid imagery you could include in your story. It doesn’t need to be tied to plot events (yet), just whatever you can imagine.

Here’s a few I did:

I’m sure I won’t use all of these in one story, but they suggest some interesting events. More on this later!