Lets’ see, thoughts about the two writing articles.

Character Cheat Sheets: I found a couple at the front of the “writer’s block“ and used them for one of the stories I wrote in Level 1. I really liked how easy it made my character development and how much more real the character felt to me while writing. However it took a lot of time and for a short piece the cheat sheet may need to be reduced to just the particulars needed. In many ways I thought it was like a character sheet for a role playing game (Yes I confess I am a former gamer, non-repentant and un-recovered!)

As an avid reader I agree that dialogue tells the reader much more and in a more interesting manner about what is going on. But as a writer, it’s hard. I would like to improve and feel more comfortable technically writing dialogue.

Conflict. What more is there to say? Without conflict there is no story to tell. I feel my challenge is creating more outwardly interesting conflict.

Regarding Scene and Sequel at first I was just confused. As I thought more about it I think it means cause and effect. Cause being the action. Is that correct?

As a habitual run-on-sentence writer I really like the hints given in burn the deadwood. In fact I want to print them out and pin them to the wall! But as a non-English major…. what is a compound predicate?


Plotting….. I feel I have plot problems. I really want to see where “letting the character lead the plot” will take me. The more I write here the more I find I enjoy it. I want to combine the character sheet with this idea and the Three-O’s (will comment on later) and see what I can create.

I haven’t thought much about dialect yet. I think the ideas mentioned are good, but I am still just trying to master dialogue.

OK now for the triple O’s. First I find blank pages intimidating. I find the tedium of writing a plot outline even more intimidating. Therefore I was encouraged by the concept that plot can be boiled down to three little words, Objective, Obstacles and Outcome. It is still a bit intimidating but with the help of my character leading the way I hope to overcome my fear of the blank sheet. I have always done much better at answering questions and opinion pieces than “creative” writing.

Now for the next revelation about my personality, I hate journaling. I know as a budding writer I should love it. I don’t. I have tried. Way too tedious. Maybe it’s that tableau rasa thing again but, Yech!

One of the reason’s I was attracted to the writer’s block (besides running across it while looking for good dirty stories ) is I was hoping that writing in a group like this would help me be more disciplined about writing and get me to actually do it. So far it has worked. I have been having great fun with the challenges. Besides thinking about what my characters are going to do sure makes a long commute go by a lot quicker!