poll: chocolate bars

I don't usually create detailed outlines for my books, which is one reason I'm purposely doing so this time around, as an experiment for NaNoWriMo. I've never liked writing detailed outlines because I find them too restrictive, but with one month to write 50,000 words, I can't afford to go off on tangents and plot dead ends ("Holy cow, what was I thinking, killing off the main character?").

I'm also being more diligent about writing out character descriptions and motivations. Don't want one of the lead character's hair to change from brown to orange 2/3 way through the book, after all. Characterization is always a priority for me when I'm writing fiction. If a character doesn't seem to take on his or her own personality while I'm writing, the story isn't worth writing.

My experience co-writing the short story with Michelle was educational that way. We sketched out a rough (very rough) plot outline before we started writing, so I tried to stick with it, but started having tremendous difficulty with one spot because one of the lead characters kept wanting to veer off from our established plotline during one of my contribution turns.

"Let her," Michelle told me.

"But...but...I thought we agreed that she'd do XXXX at that point in the story!" I said, horrified.

"I know, but why don't we let her do what she wants, and we'll see what happens?"

So I did, and we adjusted the rest of the story accordingly, and it worked.

Sometimes, however, my characters need reigning in with a firm hand. They go power-mad otherwise, wreaking havoc with my carefully constructed character dynamics, or turning into people I know. I always have to be careful about the latter, because that's a whole other kind of restriction I want to avoid for lots of reasons.

Suppose character X starts turning into Jeff, for example. There's no way Jeff is going to read through my story and NOT recognize himself. And then how will he feel when he finds out I have him doing and saying all kinds of horrible things? Also, I don't want to be restricted when I'm writing the story ("The real Jeff wouldn't do that, so I can't have character X/pseudo-Jeff do that either").

But I do admit that nearly all my story characters almost always have a bit of someone I know inside them, even if it's a really nasty sort of character you wouldn't want to run across in real life. I don't do it on purpose; it just happens.




Many thanks to Jeff and Parki for getting rid of the bugs in my Blatherings RSS feed. You should be able to subscribe to:

http://www.electricpenguin.com/blatherings/index.rdf

or click on the nifty RSS badge/link in the footer of this page. I just have to remember to include full paths instead of relative paths for my images so that they show up in the feed, and I'm also going to start including brief entry descriptions for those who do the RSS thing.

Jeff and I went to look at two more houses yesterday. Both were nice, but the locations weren't ideal. The second house offered chocolate bars and sandwiches which was nice, but not enough to make us put in an offer.

Which brings us to today's poll: chocolate bars.

What are your favourite and least favourite chocolate bars? Dark or light? Do you consider yourself a chocolate snob?

My favourites include: any pure chocolate (NOT CAROB) bar, Black & White (I think that's the company, it's from the UK?) chocolate bars, Caramilk, Mars, Milky Way, Skor, Hershey's Cookies'n'Creme, Fusion, chocolate bars with crispy rice bits mixed in. I tend to prefer chocolate bars without nuts. As for dark or milk or white, I like them all. Having to choose one type as my favourite would be like asking a parent to choose which of her children is her favourite.

Least favourite: Crispy Crunch.

Answer in Blatherchat





Links/News:

One year ago, I posted a photo of airport security soon after 9/11.

Four years ago, I talked about the pros and cons of working at home.

Five years ago, Scott Snyder did a Guest Blathering.

Today's Blatherpic:

	Pumpkins in the Byward Market, Ottawa.
	Display in the gift shop at the Canadian Mint, promotion for the Lord of the Rings collector coin set. Frodo is wearing a Canadian Mint cap.
	An indoor mall in Byward Market.