A meta question on process

[Biskit]

No, the Prince is in fact his own sister that was thought to be killed by wolves in the Prologue. She turns out to be the Weir Wolf who'd been looking to kill her father since she was turned, because he left her to die (he wanted a son - Prince) in the forest. The hero is the Queens dowager mother who retired to a quaint cottage where she "entertains" woodsmen with large axes. The neighbouring dwarfs have been having a boundary dispute with her since she and her now "living dead" husband the Old King annexed the mine they use to traffic young virgins to the local slave trader, the Prince's uncle. The new Kings wife is evil old hag (older than his grandmother in fact). She has an unsavory relationship with a "mirror" spirit who's ultimate ambition is to open a hairdressing salon in the town square. The girl/daughter/weir wolf/son forms a friendship with three bears and together they kill the dwarfs because they stole poisoned apples from their orchard and so begins the Woodland Poridge Oat company who become one of the richest food store chains in fairyland.

But....

True to the formula, the Daughter marries herself the price and the woodsmen and trafficed virgins set up together in an ice bound valley where the sing the old classic musical songs., but most of all, they all live happily together forever after.

That's a relief. I was starting to think that I was making it complicated.

 

[DLCroix]

Guys, @Valnus told us about his concern because he needs advice; not see our disputes or displays of ego. For the same reason, @Valnus, I think it is still good that you try to make a slight outline of the story, and if you find it impossible an indirect way to obtain it is by making files or notes of the characters. That solves two things: first, that the characters carry out the actions that determine the aspects of your story, not that things happen to them, they must be active characters, not passive (that is why it is recommended that the important reflections are not from the narrator , except that it is in the first person, the characters are the ones who express them in their dialogues); but the second is that when you reflect, you of course, on the relationship between MC and antagonist or between those two and the secondary ones, that's it, you won't even notice and you already have an approximate plot.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

@DLCroix

In fact my example above wasn't just a facile exercise.

I was also making a point.

If you don't have some formal way of keeping track of who's who, what's what and where's where then you end up having your characters marrying themselves,people appearing out of the blue and your story crossing genres willy nilly making it all very confusing to the reader.

More importantly anyone you approach with your story with a hope of publication will give you that funny 'Spock' eyebrow look and call the men with the white van.

In fact here they are, knocking on my door.

I.E. With fictional writing, especially in a novel, you can't just wing it.

 

[JohnM]

I have to agree. Although it's actually a bit less frightful than that. Imagination is important but storytelling has a structure.

I've read a lot of manuscripts and most are not suitable for publication. I still encourage everyone to try.

 

[Steve Harrison]

Did you read what I wrote? I know nothing about your dealings with Fox. I was referring to my own.

I've been offline for a few days, so just saw this. You're right, sorry, I misread the Fox comment.

And sorry you had a weird experience. I found Fox relatively sane compared to most producers I dealt with

 

[Valnus]

Hmmm ok, Thank you for the comments and the time you took to write even in debate.

I think the nice thing to do is replay shortly on each directly.

 

[Valnus]

It’s just a different way of writing the story and equally valid - but will need editing later.

I am already editing after the fact and changing as i go. I have been toying with the idea of just writing a draft 1 and then doing redrafts to correct what i dont like or makes me cringe when i listen to it read.

Thank you for the reply.