I've got pages and pages and pages of scenes and ideas and little jottings for my next piece and I am now at the part where I need to give it some structure. It's a piece of first person non-fiction in which I am supposed to be presenting a character profile of someone else, with myself as a subsidiary character.
I'm calling on your writerly wisdom to share with me your techniques for turning an unshaped mass of little bursts of this and that (some inspired, some not so much) into .... something ... anything ... that you might feel good enough about to turn in a submission.
TIA!
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LOL. I'm laughing because in a few days, I will be wrestling with the same challenge. Then, I will be asking for your advice, I am sure. But for now, while I don't have to actually *do* the work, I'll offer some advice of my own.
I think the way I go about this is to focus on the goal of the submission. In my case, it's usually to get some sort of complete story out of the mess I have in front of me. So I do a lot of moving things around, cutting and pasting, putting things that may not work anywhere into another Word file, writing a sentence in capital letters explaining anything that might need to be added, such as TRANSITION HERE or ADD SCENE ABOUT... That way I don't get bogged down in writing new material until I have a sense of the piece's structure.
I'm thinking that in your case the goal is to get across to the reader who the characters are, both you and the other person. Are you also hoping that the piece have a story arch of some sort? (Not that I think you have to, just asking questions to help you define your goal.) Are there other things you're hoping the piece will do, like give a sense of place? How important is it to you to show the relationship dynamic between the two people?
Hope this helps... I know writing this has helped me not be so scared about my next step, when I finish getting all my stuff down.
You might want to check out some profiles by Susan Orlean--she's a master at writing about other people, while remaining in the "background."
Here are two links: http://www.susanorlean.com/articles/i_want_this_apartment.html
and http://www.susanorlean.com/articles/orchid_fever.html
You can find more on the main Susan Orlean site.
Thanks for the suggestions, both of you. I'll see what comes of it!
I'd try writing a sentence describing each scene on an index card and laying them out on a table, moving them around & seeing what kind of shape you can come up with. I like big visual tools. Hey, at least you have pages and pages. I'm only up to about 17 & not nearly done the story. In fact, procrastinating now!
I love how the advice varies from person to person.
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