Anyhow! Tuesdays will be dedicated to the the hows and whys of technique--sentence, structure, word choice, because I believe that finding a conscious voice is the discovery of your own unique methodology.
What do I mean?
Voice is how you structure your style. But style is not an unconscious thing, it is honed through craft. Which, generally, requires years of revising and adjusting.
Like anything in our lives, we have to know why we write as we do. What do we consider affective and why? I want to exploit the thought processes that lead to the common "young writer" issues with sentence structure, plot and character composition by determining how we confuse poor writing for good writing and why.
Then through rethinking, re-approaching and rewriting we can fix drafts without wholly abandoning them. But then, I'm stubborn, and my methodology will likely be apparent in these posts.
My order:
Write--have reader/writer group examine the "big stuff" plot, character, etc...
Make changes when draft is complete and has sat for a month.
Take adjusted version to critique group for more thorough analysis, and let the critiques sit till 2nd draft is complete.
Let 2nd draft sit for a month-ish, and then apply adjustments identified by critique group members.
Send 3rd draft to final readers, who look for grammar, punctuation, etc. Fix that stuff last, and prepare to submit!
My methodology allows me to process what my critique group says into a manageable form. Some critiques are so detailed, I find it hard to know where to start implementing the changes. But I don't want to use everything. So concentrating big-to-small issues will help me know what I'm doing.
That will be the structure of these entries, too. I will start with plot, character, setting, and so forth then work down to sentence structure and word choice.
It might be a little too much of an insight to my thoughts :P And that *could* be scary, but let's go with it!
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