L&L Cabin thread...or something like it

[robertdguthrie]

Every year. Every. Damn. Year. I manage to get about 1/2 of my way through whatever I'm working on by the end of whatever NaNo I'm doing. Now it's twice a year. And I had aimed for a short story this time even. Obviously, I don't know what that means, nor do I have a good grasp of how to write with brevity.

Here's hoping I can slash this crap in half.

[FredInChina]

Every year. Every. Damn. Year. I manage to get about 1/2 of my way through whatever I'm working on by the end of whatever NaNo I'm doing. Now it's twice a year. And I had aimed for a short story this time even. Obviously, I don't know what that means, nor do I have a good grasp of how to write with brevity.

Here's hoping I can slash this crap in half.

Hehehe, well done Robert, please congratulate yourself.
Maybe you just learned a better calibration of your target setting
Or maybe, you just learned that you need twice the time you think you need?
Or maybe you just need another month?

---> next time you'll be spot on!

[robertdguthrie]

---> next time you'll be spot on!

You know the reductionist definition of insanity, that while doing the same thing over and over, one still expects different results? That's me. I figure this year, I'll stop trying to show every waking moment of my characters, every step of their journey, and get to the fraking story. Every year, I think that. Mostly, it's fear that if I admit I need 2000 words to tell a 1000 word story, I'll end up writing 4000.

[vic-k]

Start from th' end Bob, and work backwards.
Hope this helps.
Np need to thank me
Vic

[robertdguthrie]

.advice the for thanks But .backwards write to enough skilled really not I'm

[vic-k]

up?
bottom
the
from
writing
about
Hows
Well...

[robertdguthrie]

Robert
Thanks again,

currently beyond me.
late in life. These advanced techniques, I'm afraid, are
I am but a bumbling amateur, learning the craft of writing


=====================
In all seriousness, I may have to do this for another "short" work in the future. Working with the last scene first might very well break me of some bad habits, though I do need to also work on my plotting for such a technique to work; I "discover" so many characters and sub-plots as I write, it would make for a very strange rough draft to end up with a small cast of characters who later disappear and are never mentioned again. T'would be quite the brain-stretcher.

[vic-k]

Bob, you did notice, didn't y', that I said, "From the bottom up." and not, "From up the bottom." Thought I better make it clear, just in case.

n all seriousness,

It's a fascinating milieu to be plonkering about in, and if we use the adage, that, 'It's not the arriving that matters... but the getting there and all it entails, that counts.', then everything you do, every trial and tribulation is all grist to your mill.
Vic