To say that Twitterive has been painful would be an understatement. Don’t get me wrong, I like torture and self-doubt as much as the next writer, but this has been over the top. It took weeks for me to decide on how I wanted to present this project. Unfortunately for me, the soul of the project requires a little soul-baring, not exactly my strong suit. So, I wrote down a bunch of adjectives and adverbs that described my feelings about my life over the last three years. Instead of writing that horror story, I decided to write a fictional story and use my character as the object of my frustrations; Mae Marino – poor girl doesn’t stand a chance (or does she?). That presented a whole new set of issues – direction. Fiction writing isn’t exactly my thing, so this is pushing my envelope.
The project began with a whimper – I was not happy about my progress when I presented my ideas during the workshop. I knew the catalyst scene for the entire piece needed major revisions, so I re-wrote the scene. It was the first major revision I made to the project, and it helped me to gain perspective and direction for the rest. When I presented, I was told that I could heighten the language to romance novel cliché, to use the inherent cliché in the story line. I was also concerned about the narrator’s tone, and was told to ramp that up as well. Those two suggestions freed me. I was holding back because I was concerned that the narrator’s sarcasm towards the main character would disengage the reader, and it would have, because I didn’t make the narrator’s purpose clear. I had to “go too far” so the reader would understand the narrator’s role. I also added elements that further develop the main character’s personality, as well as her husband’s.
In most of the workshops our class focused on arrangement. I played around with arrangement of scenes and elements. I broke-up the photo essay and added a song to play while viewing the photos. I thought about the stages of loss/grief, and how they would manifest themselves in the situation I created for my main character. In my first draft, I had all the photos grouped together, as if to show a smooth transition from one emotion to the next. This doesn’t happen in “real” life. People go through stages, but often those stages overlap and move back and forth within each other. I also moved the “divorce” scene from occurring prior to Mae’s foray into the dating world to afterwards. The storyline will flow better and have more depth if Mae is focusing on “getting her man back.” Her goal will help the “rising action” – no pun intended – of the story.
The third major change I’ve made is adding song lyrics/titles to the story as my repetend. It’s not exactly a traditional repetend because I’m using different words; however, each new scene/heading/sub-heading now begins with song lyrics or titles. I realized how important music was to my life and my story after Allison presented. In a way, it was just as much as an “aha moment” for me as it was for her. It was so easy to see that music was Allison’s place. I know that music is an important element in my life. Most of my tweets were song lyrics or tweets about listening to music. I use music for many purposes; to lift my spirits, to enhance my enjoyment, to keep my mind busy, to enhance my emotional state, to calm me down, to pump me up, and to dance!! If I’m with friends, music makes the evening better, if I’m sad or depressed, music can either lift my spirits or allow me to wallow in self-pity if I so choose. It has always been an important part of my life, so it’s an important part of Mae’s story. I am using the music and song lyrics to further create mood and help the reader connect to Mae.
I’ve also added a new scene to the story. I introduced a new character (Kate), Mae’s best friend and business partner. Kate serves several purposes; to build Mae’s character into a three-dimensional “real” person, to provide Mae the opportunity to “show” how she is dealing with her crisis, to put Mae in situations she would never put herself in, to further the action in the story, and to serve as the replacement narrator – Kate’s character takes on the sarcastic tone of the narrator. Kate will be Mae’s Jiminy Cricket - a dark, devilish cricket with horns – leading her astray of her otherwise “good girl” values. My revisions are focusing upon building a three-dimensional character for Mae.
I’m still writing and editing Mae’s date scenes and a chat room scene. Now, that I’ve learned a little more about my characters, it has become easier to write. The biggest challenge is putting the new material on the website. I'm working with Camtasia (movie maker) to "film" the chatroom scene. I'd like it to play-out in "real" time - as Mae interacts with others in the chatroom. This is taking a lot of editing time because typing is slow - I'm trying to balance the time needed to read the text with allowing the "chat" to unfold. It may not work out, and I may resort to putting a screen shot of the final chat - I don't know yet. I hope I can figure it out.
Just want to say, thank you Lia for posting the "how to" on the MP3's, which I added to my twitterive.