Weekend Writing Warriors 9/01/13

Street Glass is my novel-in-progress. My tagline: Underprivileged 18-yr-old Latino leaves street gang and befriends white, over-privileged musicians.

While some of the plot is subject to change (draft two is a pretty early draft, after all) the basic elements will stay, as will the character "voices." So these excerpts will still give you a good idea of how the plot plays out and what the characters are like. The year is 1986, in Los Angeles, California.

Moving ahead a little, Neal has begun the drug rehab program that Sandy threatened him with promised him. About a week into the 4-week program, he runs into his old friend Dario, who managed to escape the street gang and live to talk about it (how he dodged the rule of “if you leave, we kill you” is explained in the story J) Dario says he’s being released in two days. Neal devises a plan.

This section has been condensed to fit the rules so it reads a bit choppy here.

He and Dario followed the nurse to the front door where a middle-aged Latina gave Dario a hug.

The nurse wished Dario luck, told Neal morning therapy sessions would be starting soon, and walked off.

“Hey,” Dario said, “you remember mi madre, Mercedes?”

She chattered about how good it was to see Neal again so he must’ve met her before. Making sure that the nurses still weren’t watching, he shouldered Dario closer to the door.

Outside, Mercedes turned to look at Neal with a question on her face.

“He’s coming with us,” Dario told her, “and he’s gonna stay with me.”

“How nice that both of you finish treatment at the same time,” she said with a smile.

Dario shook his head but didn’t answer.

Aaack! September? Say it ain't so!

Tag along at Weekend Writing Warriors as we blog hop all over the world, reading fabulous snippets from works in progress, works just published and some just about to be. You'll find various genres and blends of genres. Believe me, our participating writers have full and active imaginations!

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Comments gratefully accepted :-D

The pants have it

Image by branox/stock.xchng

The kind people who stop my blog for my Weekend Writing Warriors posts often say that my excerpts feel real, authentic. I think I've figured out why, and it has to do with pantsing vs plotting.

My draft 1 was "pantsed" 100%. A tiny bit of scene occurred to me, sounded great, wanted to see what would happen, so I wrote it out. That's basically how the whole draft got written. Some scenes are based on the one written immediately prior, and some (most of the early ones, speaking of when they fall in the storyline) are only loosely connected to other scenes. I didn't even know what "plotting" meant back then.

So when I sat down to make a coherent STORY out of all that in draft 2 (by figuring out connections between all the scenes and plotting the story), I had serious work waiting for me. Recently, I struggled with a passage in which I kept deleting and rewriting dialog because I kept missing the point of the scene. I deleted and rewrote and deleted so much that I finally asked myself what the heck the real problem was.

The characters told me I needed to stop trying to put words in their mouths, and just let them do the talking! ;-)

I'd usually copy scenes from draft 1 into draft 2 and rewrite, delete, add, tweak until it all fit the emerging storyline. I realized I'd been saying "I like that dialog, it's succinct, it's emotional, it really fits the character, I'm keeping it" pretty often. By trying to change it to fit a more plotted draft 2, I was effectively trying to force a round peg into an oval hole. It almost fit, but if I was honest with myself, it was forcing.

What keeps attracting me in draft 1 is the raw emotion in the dialog. It needs some shining up before letting other people read it, but it's exactly that spontaneity that makes it feel so real. That came from pantsing.

Now I'm not implying that plotting out a story will ruin the feel and flavor. Not at all. I've sworn on everything holy I can think of that the next thing I write will have at least a rough outline before I sit down to do any actual scenes. For me, a 100% pansted thing is not a coherent story. Readers like coherent books, you see :-D

However, for dialog that immediately grips readers, I have to let my characters just talk. When it springs right out of their souls, readers will connect with it.

If you're having a hard time with dialog that isn't getting the reaction you want from readers, take the gags off your peeps. Let 'em say anything they want, no holds barred. You can clean it up later. I learned some great Spanish swearing that way!

Weekend Writing Warriors 8/25/13

Street Glass is my novel-in-progress. My tagline: Underprivileged 18-yr-old Latino leaves street gang and befriends white, over-privileged musicians.

While some of the plot is subject to change (draft two is a pretty early draft, after all) the basic elements will stay, as will the character "voices." So these excerpts will still give you a good idea of how the plot plays out and what the characters are like. The year is 1986, in Los Angeles, California.

Last week, a drive-by shooting resulted in a picture window being blown out at the band's mansion. Nobody was hurt but Lennie, band manager as well as keyboard player, is pretty angry. He leaves the room to answer the phone, knowing it’s the security company, then we pick up in Neal's POV:

(Coyote is the gang’s leader)

Len leaned in from the doorway and pointed at Neal. “You said we were safe in the hills, how the hell did they find you?”

Neal rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Coyote got Sandy’s wallet. He musta seen the address.”

“Are you serious?” Len looked about to hit the roof. “Neither of you jerks thought of that?”

“Judging is easy from a distance,” Sandy said. “If you’d been in the middle of all that shit, you might not have been able to think straight either.”

Sandy’s referring to being held hostage at the gang’s hideout and being chased by them. Next week I’ll skip ahead further.

Tag along at Weekend Writing Warriors as we blog hop all over the world, reading fabulous snippets from works in progress, works just published and some just about to be. You'll find various genres and blends of genres. Believe me, our participating writers have full and active imaginations!

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Comments gratefully accepted :-D

Weekend Writing Warriors 8/18/13

Street Glass is my novel-in-progress. My tagline: Underprivileged 18-yr-old Latino leaves street gang and befriends white, over-privileged musicians.

While some of the plot is subject to change (draft two is a pretty early draft, after all) the basic elements will stay, as will the character "voices." So these excerpts will still give you a good idea of how the plot plays out and what the characters are like. The year is 1986, in Los Angeles, California.

Skipping ahead a little. For this excerpt, Neal and Lennie have gone out for a while and return to the band’s mansion after nightfall. They come into the room Sandy’s been watching TV in. Sandy is the first speaker here, and the snippet is in his POV.

“Neal, you look pissed, what’s up?”

“Saw a car behind us a couple times. Don’t trust it.” Neal started toward the picture window.

Before he got there, a series of rapid cracks sounded from outside, almost like a sped-up roll on a snare drum but at a lower pitch.

The entire window exploded and Neal hit the floor with hands covering his head.

Glass flew everywhere.

Tag along at Weekend Writing Warriors as we blog hop all over the world, reading fabulous snippets from works in progress, works just published and some just about to be. You'll find various genres and blends of genres. Believe me, our participating writers have full and active imaginations!

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Comments gratefully accepted :-D

Weekend Writing Warriors 8/11/13

Street Glass is my novel-in-progress. My tagline: Underprivileged 18-yr-old Latino leaves street gang and befriends white, over-privileged musicians.

While some of the plot is subject to change (draft two is a pretty early draft, after all) the basic elements will stay, as will the character "voices." So these excerpts will still give you a good idea of how the plot plays out and what the characters are like. The year is 1986, in Los Angeles, California.

All the previous excerpts are collected here. This snippet takes place in the same scene as last week’s snippet. Sandy speaks first: 

“Did you mean it when you said you killed fourteen people?”

Neal grinned and said, “No, but it scares Anglos a lot.”

Sandy shifted his weight, looked around the room, cleared his throat, and asked quietly, “Have you killed anybody?”

“You tol’ me to leave all that in my past, so don’t ask.”

Funny Anglo, he looked like he stopped breathing.  Neal asked, “The band ain’t got AKs or nine mils in the house, right?”

“If you mean guns, of course not.”

“Then you’re all safe,” Neal said with another grin.

Sandy didn’t look convinced.

Neal refers to all white people as Anglos.

Tag along at Weekend Writing Warriors as we blog hop all over the world, reading fabulous snippets from works in progress, works just published and some just about to be. You'll find various genres and blends of genres. Believe me, our participating writers have full and active imaginations!

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Comments gratefully accepted :-D

Dream until your dream comes true

Today I was let go from my temp job. They have very high standards for accuracy and the short story is, I understand why they let me go, though I do not understand why they waited until I’d left the office to call me and tell me. Being outdoors, I didn’t hear my phone ring inside my purse, and consequently didn’t know about it until about an hour and a half later.

I don’t have another job ready and have no clue if any temp agency will have something for me while I’m once again combing online job ads.

But don’t feel too sorry for me. The Universe has prodded me again. See, my rock novel follows me around like a shy puppy. It pops out unexpectedly from around corners, waves, grins a silly ear-to-ear grin, then disappears. I used to think this was the Universe reminding me that if I was going to write a novel, It had already given me the plot idea and now it was up to me to actually write it.

I think it’s stronger than that, in fact. I think the Universe is reminding me that writing is my singular purpose in life. Every time I hear about musicians who “made it”, I hear echoes of my own life. I fell in love with writing at a pretty young age, I didn’t miss doing other things if I could read and/or write, I got so obsessed with words that one year in high school, I spent my free periods reading the unabridged dictionary. No, really--*reading* it.

I don’t have the tenacity (or talent!) to do anything musically, though that’s a love that comes in a close second to writing. I have this funky twosome going on. Writing . . . that’s what makes me tick, that’s what fills my soul and pours out, just like musicians who never gave up because their music is what they need to live.

Kind of too bad I’m not independently wealthy, so I could devote more time to the dream. Still, it’s the only thing that feels *real* to me. I’m going to take Santana’s advice: don’t listen to the loud voices in your head that say you aren’t good enough, listen to the quiet one that says “this is what you are, go out there and do it.”

Gonna do that, peeps. Am gonna write every day, am gonna slay this bad boy of a novel! I may not make it to superstar status, but the important thing is to write it and set it free in the world. Hope to have you along, I’ve been very much enjoying getting to know some of you :-D

Weekend Writing Warriors 8/4/13

Street Glass is my novel-in-progress. My tagline: Underprivileged 18-yr-old Latino leaves street gang and
befriends white, over-privileged musicians.

While some of the plot is subject to change (draft two is a pretty early draft, after all) the basic elements will stay, as will the character "voices." So these excerpts will still give you a good idea of how the plot plays out and what the characters are like. The year is 1986, in Los Angeles, California.

All the previous excerpts are collected here.

I’m skipping several paragraphs where Sandy takes Neal to a suite of rooms in the mansion that he can use now that he’s going to live there. Faced with the imminent prospect of starting rehab, Neal tries to tell Sandy that he can’t do it. There’s some back and forth about that. Neal slides the baggie out of his back pocket and holds it behind his back. Sandy notices:

[This excerpt has been modified to fit your screen--er, the 8sunday format J]

“Hey—you’ve got something, haven’t you? Let’s have it, all of it.”

Neal backed away but Sandy marched over to him. “I want whatever you’re holding, now—there is zero tolerance in this house.”

Neal kept it crunched in his hand as he said with a dry throat, “If I give it up, gimme one more day before I go in.”

"It’s better to go today, I don’t want you hitting withdrawal here.”

Neal looked at the baggie and turned it over…it was all the stuff he had in the world…he hadn’t even brought any weed with him.

Sandy snatched it, strode toward the hall, and said over his shoulder, “This is getting flushed and you’re going to rehab first thing in the morning.”

There went good stuff and good money; damn Anglo.

Neal refers to all white people as Anglos.

Tag along at Weekend Writing Warriors as we blog hop all over the world, reading fabulous snippets from works in progress, works just published and some just about to be. You'll find various genres and blends of genres. Believe me, our participating writers have full and active imaginations!

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Comments gratefully accepted :-D