The difference between ideas and plot

I've been away for a while - mostly because I found this awesome site called AW (Absolute Writer). Well worth the visit if you have time.

But back on topic :)

I've been writing stories since I was 12 - one story in particular, which is finally reaching completion. Now, I know this story, inside and out. I would be irritated if I didn't after all the work I put into it.

Now I'm having to face up to the fact that I might actually finish this story. This means coming up with something new to write about. Which, if you knew how many ideas I come up with a day, wouldn't seem all that difficult.

But there is a huge difference between ideas and plot. I'd just forgotten how much. Take Varrick for example. I started off with an idea, one that I liked. I created a plot, using three act structure as a basis. I wrote the first twenty pages. They weren't bad - I liked the characters, ect.

But what they did was stale. Incredibly so. Because what was happening to them (and while active protags make do their way and some of their problems, obstacles are often not of their creating) was not boring, but had been done. So many times. I'd read books like this more than once. And while plot points can be archetypal, this wasn't archetypal - it was crap.

I think the main problem is that before hand, when I sat down and plotted my other books (namely THE MANDA) - I had already written the entire thing out twice with no plan. So lots of random and wonderful things had to be tied together, and that created something new. I already had the originality, I just had to figure a way of getting it under control.

But I can't write 6 drafts every time I want to write a book. I just won't have the time - university will eat it up like nothing on earth.

So I have to figure out a way to plot that allows for random ideas. And what I've been doing so far (following three act structure) obviously isn't working. It needs to be part of it, but not all of it.

If that's all I use from scratch, all I end up with is staleness.
T
*sigh* back to the drawing board.

Practicalities

Well, here we are. After a couple of hours of procrastination, I finally rewrote what I needed to, and have one last section to tackle. Admittedly, it’s a big one, but I should be done with it by tomorrow.
And then that's it. No more continuity errors, no more decisions that don't make sense. Kira's meeting with Marik is still slightly coincidental, but nowhere as near as coincidental as it was last time.
So I have a complete and utter manuscript, with only one small coincidence, and the rest of it relying on the decisions of the characters, even if at times we can't see them making the decisions.
Four drafts, each one written from scratch, and finally the thing makes sense.
And then we come to the practical side of things. I want to sell this. If I can't, so be it, but I want to try. If it doesn't work, then I'll just move on to the next book "Varrick" and if that doesn't work, onto "NKFH". Eventually something will work. Even if it's ten books into the future, something will work.
But a certain amount of coldness is needed if I'm ever going to get this thing published. There are certain actions that have to be taken.
1. I have to read the entire things through on the computer, from start to finish, and not any irregularities
2. I have to print the entire thing out double space, with no overlapping chapters. Then I have to put them in plastic pockets, pick a chapter at random, and edit my little heart out
3. I'm going to make the series four books, not five. It will mean getting rid of some subplots, but it'll be a hell of lot easier to sell: this is the first in a four book series.
4. Plan out the other four books
5. Write a synopsis and query letter.
6. Put the entire thing away/get others to look at it.
7. Write something else
8. Edit my little heart out all over again.
9. Send it out.
10. Hope and pray
Should be fun… yay. Sarcasm intended. :P

No Knack for Happiness

Well, Book Three is no longer book three anymore. I even know what the ending might be like. Not the scene or anything, but defiantly the feel. Been quite a weekend for things coming together. I had a quick look over the first six chapters of The Manda, and came to the realisation that I may not be finished line-editing wise, but I am sick to death of looking at it. I don't think the prose is terrible by any means. Is it the best it could be? Probably not, but because my idea of what is good prose and what is not is influenced by whether I yawn or not, all I know is that it holds my interest.
Also, it's a fantasy book, for crying out loud. Not a literary one either. I might as well make sure the bloody thing is readable, and then give it to other people to read. They will have different perspectives and tell me if it's shit or not.
Five times I've rewritten that thing, four times from scratch. There are still three chapters, I think, that need fixing. I came up with a solution to a major plot problem, where the character gets on a ship because the plot needs her too, not for any other reason.
Now I have her stowing away, being found by the man who in the original draft took her in because it was implied that he recognised the same terrible things from his life, in hers. What a load of crock.
Anyway, after she's found, he needs a messenger and filer, so he uses her.
Why that took me five drafts to think of, I have no idea.
So, the Book Three, the one that is going to need a hell of a lot of research, now has a name. No Knack for Happiness. Got a nice ring to it I think.
I've also realised something strange. The books that I'm writing (at the moment, The Manda and Varrick) and the books I'm planning (No Knack for Happiness and a thrillery thing) follow a strange pattern.
The Manda was the book I wanted to read. Varrick is also I book I enjoy reading and writing, but I imagine it being the book my father would give me after he'd read it.
No Knack for Happiness is not something my father would ever read, but my mother defiantly would. Then the thriller (it does actually have more plot in my head then "No Knack for Happiness" at the moment. I didn’t say: oh, thriller is the next genre I should try out. I just think "No Knack for Happiness" will be harder to write for me, so it's coming first, before I go to Med school, while I still have time on my hands）
The thriller is something I hope my brother would like.
So, I have subconsciously been working my way through my family in the ideas that materialise and take form in my head. I enjoy all the things and idea I have, but each one is slanted slightly more to one family member than another.
Uncanny, huh. Well. The next thing I get to do is make up spaceships. I'm writing the Varrick book so fast that I'm trying to describe things that are not only imaginary, but I have no idea what they look like.
Amazing fun. Bloody hard work.

Varrick Plan

Well, I finished plans for one book. The Sci-fi one that I was talking about earlier. It's very brief, not much in the way of how things are going to go or how anyone is going to solve a problem, but it's better than what I started with. It has a start, a middle and an end. It's going to be rather long. I also have a faint and not very happy feeling that after I write it once, I will have to add a heap of detail and thoughts. Then I get to edit and cut things out.
Going to take a while, I think.
This is good though. It's nice to think about something else other than: The Manda, and Varrick had a nice way of coming into my head. No plot, but characters pretty much full formed.
I also realised something else. A lot is going to happen, but the overarching story won't have any hidden mechanisms behind it - no grand conspiracies or anything like that.
However, I have characters that all have substantial things to hide, which should provide more than enough in the way of plot variation.
Now, I just get to write the thing. And edit my way through The Manda. I split it into four sections today - I plan on editing the four sections, one a week, and then send it round to whoever will look at it, and ask them to comment on where they think it's weird.
Then, I might as well send it to someone who, if they're insane enough, will publish it. One can only hope.
I have been slightly more productive, but I keep twaddling off to uselessly browse the internet or sleep, or do something else. I like the fact that I have two things going on at the moment. If I line edit for more than an hour, I start screaming. Being able to switch to the more creative side of things will be nice.
Tomorrow, before I go out, I will write. Some would argue that I should be studying Chinese, but I get a fair amount of study out of it simply by living here. And Chinese is not my favourite language in the world. It's just a language of necessity.
So, I plan to do something productive with my remaining two and a half weeks. Must concentrate...

Plans, plans, plans

Well. I get home in three weeks. Kind of weird, actually. My parents probably think I've forgotten about them, simply because there isn't that much to write emails about, and I keep thinking "well, I'll see them in 3 weeks."
I will write to them tommorow. That's plan number 1
Plan number two - stop swearing. It's a habit that is easy to pick up when no one understands you.
And then what to do with the next six months.
If I don't force myself, I will just waste all that time.
I have people reading: The Manda. I will get more people to read it.
Then I have tow other books. One is Sci-fi, pure and simple, but more the sort of Sci-fi I like than what my father reads, which involves lots of figthing and spaceships.
My book still involves a fair amount of fighting and spaceships, but focases on the relationship between three key people. That's what I'm most interested in. The fighting plays a large part in that, so I'm going to have to figure out how to write a space battle. Good luck to me. Hugo award winners, here I come.
Then there is another book. This one won't be plotted, not in the way the scifi one has already been. I'm not even sure how it's going to go.
All I have at the moment is a aborigional girl of 18 meeting a white australian boy by the sides of the river. What happened to get them there - has something to do with a book. His brother is somehow going to be involved with the girl. She doesn't even have a name yet.
I can write this book from the boys perspective. I would fall flat on my face from the girls perspectibve. As it is, I'm going to have enough trouble getting her right.
Something tells me I have to get her right. And the boy. I make him a stereotype and the whole point of it all will be lost.
Weird, isn't it, that I can go from young adult speculative to something that is firmly sci-fi, to something that has no magic, and what seems already to be a lot of themes.
That's what I want to do, in the next six months. I want to edit and finsh the Manda, so I can send it to someone. I want to write my sci-fi book (after reading a ton of sci-fi fiction. Not that I haven't before, but being 18, it's been decidely more young then what I'm aiming for)
And I want to finish the research for this book. at the moment all I have is a scene. I hope something grows from that, because I really want it to.
Motivation is what I lack. That or structure. So I have to do two things - come up with a structure, and then get motivation.
Sound simple. I will obviously also work. Not as much as I did previously - 40 hrs was too much when I was working at a nothing job. I admire those who put in the hours for their family's - maybe one day I'll do similar. But not while I have other options. 30 hrs sounds good, especially for a checkout chick job.
Please let this work. I want to achive something this year - something more than : I went to china.
Please