Tamur’s questions: lesson 8

Which method worked the easiest for you?

“I found it is far easiest for me to go backwards, spending time filling out the history of a person and place, but that doesn’t do much to advance the plot. So, for me, doing the exercise that pushes the plot forward 3 steps was most effective in actually producing a plot. Although it felt like running uphill on sand dunes.”

Did your core event seem pre-disposed to flow more easily one way than another?

“I had more problems keeping the time periods tighter on the backstory. It seemed to skip decades each time I put down a new sentence. Going foreward was always more immediate. Maybe because I myself don’t look very far ahead in life, but often puzzle over the twists and turns of the past.”

What advantages and disadvantages did you find in the different methods?

“Advantage: using the “what next” out three steps. It pushes me to think of intersting consequences. Disadvantage: going in both directions at the same time. It made me disoriented, like I was trying to focus on two characters at once – because a person can be so changed after one event if it is the climax of the story.”

What annoys you about one method, or did they all seem helpful?

Actually what was very helpful in this activity was the phrase “boil down to the core why something is intriguing to you”. I missed the find-a-seed-of-a-story-lesson apparently since I joined up late. Doing that, and then projecting a certain number of steps broke the plot up into a manageable progression. Previously I would just have a nebulous idea of possibilities as far as how a story could progress.