I have a bad habit of waiting until evening rolls in to post my updates. Here’s how my week’s going so far:
04/04/11 – Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nien. Nyet. Nunka. Although I see I was in good company here.
05/04/11 - After returning home from my second viewing of Sucker Punch (my opinions on which, I talk about at length over here), I attacked my word processor in a fit of inspiration and knocked out a whopping 266 words! …What?
06/04/11 – 299 words (Stop judging me with your judgy eyes! I’m happy with my measly progress) and I’ve officially finished the Zero!Draft of Scene 1. Which I wrote entirely to the Sucker Punch remix of Bjorks “Army Of Me”.
“Hold up. Rewind. Zero!Draft? WTF you talkin’ ’bout S.J.?”
About that. See, I’ve been reading a lot of Chuck Wendig’s advice to writers. They mostly consist of him yelling at us writerly folk. Tough love? I’m a masochist, I guess?
Anyway, one day he wrote a blog post about how people who don’t like to outline should TOTALLY take up screenplay. Really? Really. At first I was all “yeah. ok. whatevs.” But as the week went on, I realized my two major problems have been Dialogue and Getting-To-The-Mothafrackin-Action-Already! So, actually? That whole screenplay thing? Could totally help me.
And lo, Zero!Draft was born.
Zero!Draft is not my weekly goal however. It’s just the …shall we say “blueprint?” I kinda loved Ben’s phrase, “architecting the novel”, so I’m going with it. My weekly goal is a completed FIRST drafting of a scene. Which comes after Zero!Draft.
But because I’m such visual person, the screenplay format really helps to get all the visuals flushed out. It creates like a “thumbnail/bare bones” of the scene so I don’t get bogged down with internal monologues which come TOO easy to me. I know what the characters are thinking. What their motivations are. Those aren’t my weak areas. Dialogue, though, is always going to be a weakness. But, by forcing myself to focus on it, I feel this can only help me to get sharper. At least I hope so…
We’ll just have to see how this little experiment goes.
Words for today: 299
Words in total: 565
Scenes: 1 Zero!Draft
On the ‘StarS’ front: Nada
Check out other ROW80 participants’ progress here.
April 6th, 2011 at 22:36
Writing a Zero!draft sounds like a good idea, especially if it helps to visualize your scene before you write the narrative. Good luck!
April 6th, 2011 at 23:19
So far, so good. Thanks Melissa!
April 6th, 2011 at 22:58
Thanks for dropping by. I have the same bad habit most of the time, posting late in the evening, so don’t feel bad. Folks will find you. I’ve never been to Chuck Wendigs site before. Quite an eyeful! I’ll be getting lost reading his blog for a while. Good luck with your experiment and hope it helps you write great dialogue. I have the opposite problem — too much dialogue and not enough introspection. Happy writing!
April 6th, 2011 at 23:26
No, thank you Robin!
I find it interesting how we’re all (writers, that is) different. Writing is such a personal thing from our methods straight down to our strengths and weaknesses. I LOVE reading books with snappy dialogue but I have such a problem writing it. Maybe because-offline- I’m pretty much a wallflower who spends more time over thinking than actually speaking? Who knows.
I hope reading Chuck’s blog proves insightful!
April 7th, 2011 at 05:48
First, no judgement from me, ever, on word counts. They are wilier than cats and more slippery to hold. Second, I think your Zero Draft idea is brilliant. I’m also always too tempted by wanting to write eternal soliloquies and then, maybe, get to a bit of action. If you start an official zero draft program I’ll sign up for it.
April 7th, 2011 at 22:31
Thanks Ben!
April 7th, 2011 at 06:05
Progress is progress!
Zero draft sounds really interesting. Might have to borrow that to finish figuring out Tea & Devilry – stop me getting so bogged down in the words, and figure out what happens instead!
April 7th, 2011 at 22:32
I’d be interested in seeing how doing a Zero!Draft worked for others. So if you do give it a go, let us know! (Oh God I’m rhyming…)
April 7th, 2011 at 07:15
It’s good to try different methods to find what works for you best. Best of luck for the rest of the week.
April 7th, 2011 at 22:33
Thanks Katy, same to you!
April 7th, 2011 at 11:08
Progress is progress. Never knock it.
Kudos for working to improve. I think sometimes writers loath to add a step to the process because it will take time, even if that new step is going to makes things better and easier later. (Or maybe that’s just me. Yeah, probably just me…) Anyway, there’s lots of week left to turn that Zero!Draft into a 1st draft. Good luck!
April 7th, 2011 at 22:44
Definitely feeling you on the “hate to add a new step” vibe but this feels less like an extra step and more like “play”. Where are REAL first drafts have me paralyzed with page fright. No, I don’t understand myself either.
April 7th, 2011 at 19:07
keep on going! I know how much you like the OST of Sucker Punch so that can only help you in writing out the draft. I’ve been listening to chill music (and the Queen Pandora station) while writing mine so music ALWAYS helps. It’s like the muse to writers.
You’re making good progress! No doubt you’ll make your goal!
April 7th, 2011 at 22:45
It’s odd though cause usually? I can’t listen to songs with lyrics in them while I work. I drowns out my internal thought process and yet…totally worked yesterday. What gives?
April 7th, 2011 at 21:32
haha I had to laugh at the “Stop judging me with your judgy eyes!” comment, because I’ve probably muttered the same thing to my dog at times when he sits there eyeballing me while I write (or pretend to write).
ZeroDraft does sound like an interesting program. I want to write a script of some sort, but a) I lack time, especially with my other projects, and b) for some reason, I often get bored with script ideas not long into writing, so they end up abandoned.
Anyway, good work so far
April 7th, 2011 at 22:56
Judgmental Dog judges and deems all unworthy. *hangs head*
That’s why I like the idea of this. I’ve convinced myself it’s not a ‘real’ script. (WAY too much respect for my script writing friends to every call it such) Never going to be a film. So pressure’s totally off!
I know ahead of time that some things aren’t going to translate as smoothly to whichever format I may be working on at the time, so I’m just having fun playing with the ‘visual’, ‘action’, ‘dialogue’, ‘straight to the point’ side of it.
It’s just the thumbprint. The blueprint. The bones.
Thanks for stopping by Rebecca!