The Gift of Experience In Writing

So right now I’m reading Misty Black book one again to get reacquainted with the story.

My goal was to get a feel for the writing style I used, which was third person omniscient/past tense.

(She sighs BIG)

Okay….

So at the moment I’m at page 51 and I’ve noticed something, four books later (well 5 books later really), which lands me to today, I’m just a better writer of prose.

I started Misty Black as a screenwriter. See, I started out in prose in 1999 and then in 2004, I branched off into screenwriting to fix the problem I had with plotting.  I started screenwriting believing the art of it was WAAAY easier than writing prose, and learned that it was WAAAY harder.

Why?

Because in prose, you can write a story with great characterization, dialog, setting and description and never really have to connect the dots (the string of rising and falling action).  In screenwriting that isn’t so…  If you journey off track just once, you run the risk of losing your audience (because a person consumes a visual story different than a written one). It’s a long discussion and this post isn’t about the difference between writing prose and writing scripts. The fact is, I can see a lot of screenwriting bleeding into Misty Black book one, a lot more than a prose writer. If that makes sense…

I read The Great Gatsby two more times after I finished Misty Black, plus Summer Sisters by Judy Blume and The Catcher In the Rye to  really get a feel for prose again. I also, picked up my old Zoetrope All Story lit mags and read through a number of those stories.

However, I get bored easily. I have what they call Reading ADD–and Writing ADD. When reading someone’s book, if at any point the author decides to go on and on about how a character’s eyes ache, feet hurt, and so forth and then they’re remembering how the sun makes them feel in this moment, and on and on and all they’re doing is looking over a fence, which they’ve been doing for the last two to three, now going on four paragraphs, then I’m done. (I mean, I just read The Lipstick Jungle and oh my gosh, that was terrible! Sorry to say it but it was). If I’m reading my book and I’m bored with stagnate details, I get rid of them. I like to keep the story moving forward. I really think that comes from the screenwriter in me.  Also, and I’m going to blog about it soon, I don’t like to waste the denouement. The denouement is the last part of the story that occurs after the climax and falling action has occurred. It’s the part of the book where we show are character(s), who’ve started at point A and have finally gotten to point C, living in their new normal.  Some writers use it to give readers that happy ending they’re looking for. But in Parched, I don’t use it in that way. I use the denouement to lead the characters into the next book. In Parched, it was the ending between Clarity and Baron, but the climax was finding the book and learning she needs it to change the world… In Quenched, it’s using the book to take that journey and deliver the **** to the land of  Jari.  Now the **** is there and things are happening in that realm but at the end of book three, things are happening in the earth realm too. I mean, dude….    Anyway… It’s a technique. I really need to blog about it soon so readers who can’t take the denouement being used to lead them into the next book can decide whether or not this series is for them. I mean, it’s just the denouement, gosh; I’ve already given them a complete story, (except The 7th Sister, my intention was to introduce Zillael and the backstory she’s bringing into the main plot), do they want me to write two books! LOL! However, I do wish I could write The 7th Sister again. It’s too late now because I’ve hooked them into book 3, Quenched, at the point where book 2 ends. So…. But with book 4, I’ve written a full length novel with it’s own complete plot, and in the denouement, I hook this book up completely into the main story line.

Anyway, I’ve SOOOOO DIGRESSED.

HAD TO DELETE ALL OF THAT!

Because I’m almost at the end of Misty Black book one and even as the writer, I’m drawn into the story and terribly invested in Misty and Dutton, and Misty and Max, and the future of this world.

However, I’m grateful for the experience of having written 4 books for Parched. I think I’ve effectively merged the screenwriter with the author and the 6 year journey I took into the world of the scripts has paid off!