Prewriting and Rewriting

Continuing the theme of last week's entry, I am going to talk about preparedness and how my project is coming along.

Prewriting:

A lot of prewriting is simple stuff. The first rule is to set aside time for writing. You might think that the first place to begin is to come up with a great story idea or a loveable character, but you're wrong... no offense. The first step when planning to write is to set aside time to write, because otherwise it doesn't matter how interesting your world, or how deep your character, nobody will ever hear of it.

Now, I know that might seem like a no brainer, but prioritizing and setting aside time to write is the only way to make it happen. If you try to do all your writing at the end of the day; or in-between other tasks, odds are, you'll end up with a notebook full of half-sketched ideas (we've all been there). Setting aside time is important because it forces you to write even if you don't feel like it that day. From what I've read, most people take time to "get into" story writing mode. If you don't set aside enough time to forget about everything else that is on your mind - AND have time left after that to write, I don't know how you'll do it.

Rewriting:

Now that you've taken those first brave steps (and have slavishly devoted hours of your time to your craft) are you done yet? The answer is, probably not. Writing professors argue that most great writing requires a lot of revision. While this true most of the time, there are exceptions; sometimes a story idea leaps onto a page (or word document) and seems to be fairly complete. Don't cry foul, I credit this to the fact that some people only write down what they've been through mentally a million times (now that's what I call in-house editing).

However good (or bad) your writing is in the first draft, it is important not to get discouraged if you don't produce a masterpiece in one go; that's why you allot yourself  time each day for writing: it's a lengthy process. Another tip is to bring your writing to a trusted (and fair-minded) friend; if you are willing to trust them, odds are, they will be able to give you criticism and advice where you need it most in your writing - just remember not to take it too personally.

As for me:

As you might have guessed, I'm in the writing stage myself. Part of the reason I wanted to stress the amount of time required for a writing project is that I'm not the best at keeping up my writing each day. Where I have trouble is not in getting lost in my writing, that happens almost every time; rather, scheduling creative time is my weakness.

This weekend I've been good about setting aside time. So far, I've got five pages done; and have sketched out a few other scenes. Part of the writing process for me with this project has been adapting to scriptwriting software. I've been using Adobe Story for my project since I'm writing a script. Story has been a very useful aid in conforming my writing to the guidelines for scripts. Story has templates for movie scripts and will remember characters when they come up again. The ability to outline the project has also proven useful.