W3: Storyboards

Writing can be the most frustrating thing in the world, especially if you want minute details in a fast-paced situation. Details like the color of someone's shirt or whether the right or left hand is holding something can be a bane.

A couple days ago I reached a point in my WIP where one of my characters is in a combat scene. Back in grade school I had no difficulties whatsoever coming up with details for fights. The inspiration came, snap-snap-snap!

Long story short, I miss those days, haha. I'm not sure what's so different about how I write now that makes it hard for me to keep those details in place. Today my fights seem a lot of "he did this, she did that, he did this, she did that, okay-let's-finish-this-I'm bored." 

Normally my remedy for this kind of situation is to act it out while I'm home alone. Talking, choreographing, music optional. Since I've been juggling around work, school (even in the summer!), and Tae Kwon Do classes, my alone-time has reasonably shrunk. 

My storyboard. How did I differentiate
the fighters, you ask? Well, one
stayed on the right and one of the left.
...Genius, I know. 

I tried something new one day at work while it was slow. I grabbed a piece of paper, drew a big grid on it, and created a storyboard. Nothing fancy at all - just stick figures and arrows with sketched 'special effects.' It served its purpose, though. I now have a detailed, recorded idea of how I want this fight to go.

Point being that storyboards are the type of thing you only see for movies, cartoons, or other media. Not a lot of people apply it to writing. I suggest giving it a try the next time you're stuck on small details/events. Events are also a little easier to X out prior to the actual writing. 

It's easier to get creative with the storyboards if you have the right resources too. Something I want to try next time I do this, if I have to, is color-coding characters (since stick figures are much easier to work with). It'll allow more flexibility than I had with my board.

Just a thought for you all who might be having some writer's block!

The Insecure Writer's Support Group: High on Insecurity

This is my first IWSG...yay! *Throws confetti, hangs streamers*Hosted by the wonderful Alex Cavanaugh, go take a look at his stuff if you haven’t before!

Now for the insecurities LOL.

Wow, uh, where to begin...

On a low note, I’ve always felt really inferior when I write. I always feel like I’m not as good as I like to think I am, that I’m kidding myself when I finish something and wonder how in the world something like this could ever get an agent’s interest. That this may be just a hobby and something that’s never going to make it farther than that. I also feel like I’m not good enough to tell others what I think too—when my critique partners send me their stuff sometimes I feel like I don’t have any right to tell them what’s right or wrong with their stuff. Really, what do I know? And then I feel really self-centered for asking people to help me with things after they've already done so much.

On another hand I also just feel really inexperienced. I’ve come SUCH a long way from when I began, but I still have so many things to learn. I expect that, but it seems like the amount of things there are to learn just keeps going on and on, ranging from horrifically simple things I feel like I should’ve known to things I haven’t even heard of. I love learning more and I love being able to continuously improve my manuscript, but I feel bad for the critique partners who are teaching me these things because ... lol read paragraph one.

Uhh... Oh. Here’s a DEFINITE one... My main series, the Flame Cycle, has been in a MAJOR first-drafting slump. I’m drafting book 3/4 but I haven’t done any decent writing for it since March, I think. It’s awful, but I don’t know what to write. My characters aren’t holding my interest like they used to but only in THAT book. I can work on the first one just fine, I can be revising the second one just fine, but at the third it’s like hitting a brick wall. I hate it.

I think those are the only big things that have been bothering me lately. I’ve been having a MAJOR inferiority complex lately. I’m really hoping I get over it soon enough because senior year is going to start soon and I can’t guarantee how much time for writing I’m going to have then. ._.

With that I’ll close...if you read through this entire thing, kudos to you! Have an imaginary cookie! *Offers*

I feel like this post needs something uplifting so here have a pretty and inspirational picture.