#i tried writing out a new outline for act ii but i got overwhelmed with all the changes and plot holes that still need working out

[pekoeboo]

man. I've been reworking a lot of content involving Act II of Home Is Where You Are and like. ugh. it'd work so freaking well in novel form but I just Do Not have the dedication or the drive to start from scratch and rewrite everything that happens.

idk how else to share the updated version of that part of the story with y'all tho, considering that Khalan's journal is insanely outdated now and isn't entirely canon anymore, so I'll probably just have to accept that I likely won't ever be able to update the story for y'all in the way I wish I could. >n<;;

[aion-rsa]

Poe Dameron Returns in The Rise of Skywalker Tie-In Book

https://ift.tt/2IRdoUl

Author Rebecca Roanhorse talks Poe Dameron and writing the galaxy far, far away.

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Resistance Reborn has a unique place in Star Wars novels: situated between The Rise of Skywalker and The Last Jedi, it’s one of the closest moments the canon has come so far to telling new stories set in the thick of the Sequel Trilogy.

With about a year between Episodes VIII and IX and no time at all between VII and VIII, the novel is a chance to see what the Resistance heroes are up to—especially Poe, who gets top billing in this story of a mission to find more allies for General Leia’s bedraggled freedom fighters. It’s the first Star Wars novel from acclaimed writer Rebecca Roanhorse, who sat down with Den of Geek to talk about the book, especially Poe Dameron’s starring role. 

Resistance Reborn will be available Nov. 5 from Del Rey. 

Den of Geek: You’ve been on a meteoric rise, from a Nebula win in 2017 to a series of award-winning novels. How do you feel?

Rebecca Roanhorse: It’s pretty exciting. It’s a little bit exhausting. But it’s all good! I’m fulfilling dreams I didn’t even know I could dream, so I’m feeling pretty great.

What was your history with Star Wars before working on this novel? 

Star Wars has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I used to sneak into my brother’s room and steal his action figures and take them on adventures. I would put them on leaves and float them down the gutters on adventures, and have them fight earth worms. And of course, I loved the movies. But I was not a dedicated fan until now. Getting to explore and know the expanded universe and the novels in that universe, the games and the comics and everything, allowed me to fall in love with the franchise all over again. 

What is at the heart of the way you write Poe?

Poe is a guy with a supreme arrogance because he’s good at what he does. But he totally misjudged a situation that got a lot of people killed. He messed up! He has to deal with that. He has to struggle with coming to terms with who he was in the beginning of The Last Jedi when he’s flying in and talking smack to the First Order.

He thinks he has this incredible idea that’s going to bring everybody down. While he successfully destroys the First Order ship, he gets everybody killed. And later on when he leads the mutiny, he gets so many people killed again. So who is he? And how is he going to rise to be a leader again that the Resistance needs, carrying this sort of shame? Carrying this sort of humbling moment? 

They need leadership. There’s no space for Poe to sit in a corner and feel sorry for himself. Yes he messed up, but he’s got to get his act together and help keep everybody alive.

The excerpts have focused on Leia and Poe. Talk a bit about the heart of that relationship.

Leia’s job, particularly in this book, is to help the people around her rise. I wrote Leia as a woman who is burdened with grief. She’s been through so much, even in just the last couple of movies. She’s lost so many of her old friends. She’s lost her brother. She’s lost Han. It’s war for her, and she’s living through this generational war.

And of course her son is compromised as well. What that must feel like! What you must carry! But she’s not the kind of person to wallow in her sorrow. She needs to rise. She is a hero. She knows what’s at stake, and she’s fought her whole life for it. So now it’s her job to help people like Poe get over his problems and deal with it. She’s going to do it in the way Leia would do it. She’s going to put him in situations where he is going to rise to the occasion.

And I think it’s the same with Rey as well. She is probably going to have a gentler hand with Rey, but certainly she is always an inspiration, she is always the model of how to keep moving forward, how to not let your losses, your sorrow, your grief, and your PTSD destroy you.

What do you think is at the heart of Rey’s characterization?

I write her as a young woman with a sense of longing, a sense of desire to be part of a community, a family. These are things that come up in my fiction in general, so Rey was a perfect fit for that. She’s thrown in over her head, but also has the innate ability to rise to the occasion, and I think that’s what makes her such a great character. 

Is Rey progressing in her Force powers in this book? Where does it fit in her Jedi journey?

Most of Rey’s journey is going to happen in the movie. That’s not really what the book is about. While Rey is certainly a part of the book, the book is focused on Poe and what’s going on with him after his disastrous actions in The Last Jedi, and how he needs to make amends for that and how he’s going to come back into the fold. 

You brought in some characters from around the Star Wars world, such as Zay Versio and Shriv from Battlefront II. Was that your idea or developed in concert with other Star Wars story experts?

I think that’s my idea. The folks at Del Rey and Lucasfilm had an idea for what they wanted for the book. They give you a paragraph or two of the themes we want to focus on and where they want the book to go. And then it was up to me to take that and interpret that the way I want. Now that I think about it, I think they said they wanted a mention of Zay and Shriv in the book. But I took that and ran with it, as people will see. I watched all the Battlefront II narrative footage and fell in love with it, particularly with Shriv. I really wanted to bring him into the book very strongly. 

I also read the Poe comic books and loved Black Squadron, and wanted them in the book as well. 

This book really is the Resistance being reborn. We’re going to bring all these threads together from different properties, different characters that may seem obscure to people who have only seen the movies, but are really beloved by people who are into the larger franchise. And they all have to come together and first the First Order. 

A recent excerpt of Resistance Reborn introduces Teza Nasz, an ex-Imperial turned warlord. Is this a brand new character? What was on your mind as you were developing her?

This is a brand new character! In my mind, she’s a black woman. I wanted someone who was a badass. Part of bringing this world together is to — one of the controversial moves someone can make is to bring in some ex-Imperials. Because the Resistance has been devastated, and they need leadership.

There are a lot of Imperials floating around out there who maybe never bought into the First Order for one reason or another and have gone off the map, particularly after the battle of Jakku, which is something that Teza is. Of course there’s going to be conflict when you bring in an ex-Imperial. There’s going to be old grudges. There’s going to be a really interesting dynamic to that.

One of the larger themes of the book, particularly when you talk about Poe, is everyone is capable of redemption. You shouldn’t give up on anyone. No one is there to be thrown in the bin. You can prove yourself and you can come back from some of the things you’ve done. 

I’m excited for people to meet Teza. She’s got a bit of an attitude. She’s going to challenge the patience of a lot of the Resistance folks, and I hope she becomes a character a lot of people love. 

What is your writing process? Do you outline or write a certain number of pages a day?

This was a pretty short process actually. They gave me about four months to write the novel. In comparison I think I took three years to write Storm of Lightning [editor’s note: her first published novel] but that’s a bit different. It took maybe nine to ten months to write Storm of Locusts. So four months, and I was on tour for Storm of Locusts while writing this. So it was a very truncated time frame, so I had to be very disciplined.

I wrote a very extensive outline, because you have the folks at Del Rey and at Lucasfilm giving you feedback. Probably a 5,000 word outline, then it had to make the rounds and everybody had to buy into it. Then you try to stick to your outline as much as possible. Which as writers often we veer off! There’s the original idea and once you get into it you go “What about this?” And go that way. But I tried not to do that, because that would all have to get approved. 

I had word count goals every single day. I would give myself days off when I was traveling but then I would have word count goals every week. And you have to hit them. Or else; you don’t want to put yourself in a position where you’re so far behind that you’re completely overwhelmed. And this is not a project that you can turn in late. 

It was quite a process! I learned a lot about myself and about writing and about the Star Wars universe. 

What did you learn about writing?

Ironically I did all my doubting at the beginning. I was like, the universe is so huge, it’s so beloved by fans, I’m going to get it wrong! That sort of thing. I was doing a massive amount of research, reading expanded universe books, watching the games, reading the comics. I re-watched all the movies. I think I was so afraid of getting it wrong. I wanted to get the voices right; Leia’s, Poe’s, Rey’s, all those voices matter.

People are attached to those characters. I wanted to do them justice. But then once I started writing, all the doubt went away. Once you give yourself permission to do it it just sort of became real and they followed the path they are meant to follow. So maybe I learned about get your doubts and insecurities out of the way first, and trust yourself that you can write the story.

Megan Crouse writes about Star Wars and pop culture for StarWars.com, Star Wars Insider, and Den of Geek. Read more of her work here. Find her on Twitter @blogfullofwords.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Interview

Books

Megan Crouse

Oct 14, 2019

Star Wars

Del Rey

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[yellowumbrellawriting]

Plotting, Prepping, and Planning Your Story

We all want to be the kind of author who can just sit down and start writing, no outline or planning necessary - most of us aren’t. If you can, good for you, that’s a rare talent, and I envy you.

But I just can’t do it. I’m a planner. Whether it’s a screenplay, short story, or a novel, I need to give myself some kind of roadmap to follow, even knowing that it will, inevitably, change. Drastically. I don’t know about you, but very rarely does my final story look the same, or even distantly related, to the original idea.

There are countless ways to plot your story, and I don’t presume to tell you how to do it. All I can presume is that I am capable of providing you with a few strategies.

So grab your pen, pencil, laptop, or reality-warping powers, and let’s go.

(*Admin’s personal favorites)

The Outline

It’s basic and, shall I say, beginner, but it’s tried and true. You might remember our old friend the outline from high school English, and maybe you hated it or maybe you loved it, but there’s a reason they teach it.

Numbers, Roman numerals, letters - pick your poison. It’s the skeleton of your story, leaving you free to pack on the meat however you see fit from there.

Bottom’s Up

Who says you have to start at the beginning? Maybe you have no idea how you want the story to start, but you know how it’s going to end.

So start writing there! Write down the ending, and work your way backwards. Figure out how you get there.

One, Two, Three Acts

Beginning, middle, end. Act I, Act II, Act III. They are the fundamentals of any good story. Write three paragraphs (roughly) detailing the three acts, including: the inciting incident and outcome of the beginning (Act I), the escalation and conflict in the middle (Act II), and the climax and culmination of events, and the wind down into the resolution and denouement (Act III). You can add more if you’d like, but as long as you have these basic points, you’ve got a solid place to start.

Tentpole Moments

Stories have key moments that are necessary to the fabric of the plot. THIS must happen because it causes THIS, which in turn leads Character A to do THIS.

You need these. Without them, your story falls apart like a tent without poles to support it. Figure out what these are, write them down, and build the plot around them.

Special Snowflakes*

The Snowflake Method goes a little like this:

Start with a one-sentence description of your novel.

Now turn this sentence into a paragraph.

Expand this paragraph into a one-page summary. Then into four pages.

You can keep expanding on this, or you can start your writing. The goal here is to make the story more and more complex as you add information, radiating out from your one-sentence description - like a snowflake as it forms!

The Beat Sheet*

This is very much a screenwriting strategy, but it works so well for other types of story-telling too. If an outline is putting down the skeleton of the story, this is putting down every individual bone.

You write the entire plot out, just without the dialogue or description - don’t even use full sentences. This is a way to sequence the story with bullet points, and without pesky things like sentences or paragraphs. Just BAM. BAM. BAM. like drum beats.

You can find Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet here, from the Save The Cat! book I used in my screenwriting class. I highly recommend it to any writer, whether you write scripts or not.

Chapter by Chapter

This pretty much only works for novels, but you may find it useful anyway. List ten to twenty chapters (remember, you’ll almost definitely add or take away from this list anyway), give each one a working title, and a brief description of what happens. Then go back and break down each chapter further, into a few events that need to happen, like your tentpoles from earlier. Maybe you list an example of dialogue, scenarios, the outcome of the scene, etc.

Mind-Maps*

Word of warning, if this matters to you, this method works best if done by hand, like on paper or a whiteboard, rather than on a computer.

Write down your concept. Just a few words, not a whole paragraph or even a full sentence. Now draw a circle around it.

Now expand from there.

Write down your main character(s), draw circles around their name(s), and connect them back to the concept, AKA the hub. Expand on the characters with traits, their backgrounds, what they bring to the story, their arc, etc.

Write down major scenes or plot points, the sequence of events, how each one connects to the others, and to the hub.

Explore your theme, jot down all your ideas, and find out how to connect it all. EVERYTHING. A mind-map can be used for basically anything, and in my experience, it’s hugely beneficial. Your creative brain makes these connections you didn’t get before. You can visualize how Point A connects to Point C using Character Z, a pastafarian archaeologist who is afraid of crickets, which brings conflict to your story because your Big Bad is a radioactive mutant cricket.

I do not recommend using the mind-map method while under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or sleep deprivation. That can be very bad.

On The Go

Outline as you go, one scene at a time. Write a scene, or even a chapter. Roughly outline the next one. Write it. And so on and so forth until you’ve got an actual story.

Storyboard

Take a page from movie makers and screenwriters everywhere, and put your story into pictures. Sketch it yourself, find an artist (just remember to pay them!), create a Pinterest board from images around the Internet. Microsoft OneNote is actually really great for this one.

Sometimes, you just really need to see your story to develop it.

Let ‘Em Talk

Don’t worry about descriptions and prose - just let your characters talk. Write all the dialogue down, with a few notes so you know what’s happening. Partially, you’ll want to do this so you get an understanding of each character’s individual voices, but also because dialogue moves fast and it takes the story along for the ride.

Free Writing

Don’t worry about rules or format, or any sense of cohesion. Just start writing, everything you can think of. Characters, places, goals, items, journeys, themes, symbolisms, good things, bad things, the bad guys, clothing, bits of dialogue, aesthetic. You can even put down pictures and images. Everything! Just keep going. Just freely explore this idea until you think you’ve found a viable plot you can run with.

The Vomit Draft*

Fuck planning. Puke up your story. Don’t worry about structure, cohesion, or even a basic understanding of plot. This is just you getting everything onto the page, so it’s out of your head and you’e got something to work with.

So go on! Stick your fingers down your creative throat (not your actual throat, that’s very bad, and if you do that, you should see someone about it).

Index Cards

All hail the powerful index card. These things are awesome! You can do just about anything with them - characters, scenes, chapters, etc. You can identify emotional shifts, rearrange them to find a good order that works. Rearrange them again. Lay them on a table, pin them to the wall. Stick ‘em on a dart board, grab a blindfold, and start throwing!

Synopsis First

Write you summary, query letter, or synopsis first, rather than last. It’s not bullet-proof or etched in stone, but it gives you a good idea of what your story will look like, and you never know what you might uncover along the way.

The Whiteboard*

Hailing from the grand world of academia, whiteboards are great spaces for thinking and planning. Jot down ideas, mind-maps, connect the dots between scenes, draw character sketches. Color code your notes with different colored markers. Erase and start over. The only limits here are you imagination and artistic ability, the dimensions of the whiteboard, and your willingness to summon a demon and break the rules of reality.

Just make sure to have a camera handy!

The Story Bible*

When I say everything goes into the story bible, I mean EVERYTHING goes into the story bible. Outlining. Character descriptions. Worldbuilding. Plot. Theme. Sketches. Sticky notes. Pictures. A list of songs you think fit the story. Bits and pieces you’ve written but don’t know where to put them yet. Your last will and testament. Questionable stains.

Everything.

The Wall of Crazy*

If it’s good enough for serial killers and time travelers, it’s good enough for us. 

If you expand off one wall, it becomes the Room of Crazy.

Story bible + blank wall + string = the Wall of Crazy

Whew! I know it’s a lot. It’s easy to be overwhelmed. That’s how writing works. And everyone’s process is different. Some writers need as much detail as they can muster, some just need a basic plot to loosely follow and build on, others just start writing and figure out the rest later in editing.

The trick is, don’t worry about it. Take a deep breath. Go for a walk. Don’t let your planning stretch into procrastination, as it is wont to do. No one can tell you how to write your story, but at some point, you’ll realize it’s time to stop outlining and planning, and it’s time to start writing.

Remember, your story will change. No matter what you put down in planning, as you do the actual writing, everything will change. You’ll uncover depths to your characters you didn’t know before. You’ll get new ideas, better ideas. The point of planning is just to be as prepared as possible for when that happens.

So find your process.

Good luck. Now get writing.

Further Resources

This is also an excellent list. While I covered some of the methods on it, I highly recommend you read it in full.

terribleminds is a blog run by author Chuck Wendig, and it has some truly great entries on writing, including one on planning your story. He also has a hilarious way of explaining everything, so reading it is always a great time.