I'm trying to refine my "Writer Wednesday" comment chat idea. (Or should it be "Writer's Wednesday"?) I came up with something called a Featured Writer, and I just invited someone to be that writer for our first week. My only problem . . . what should a Featured Writer do? At first, I thought it should be someone agented or published, but I'm not sure if I want to go that far because then I'd have to define "published" and what a pain that could be. So I'm just thinking about letting the concept evolve however it wants. For now, I'll just invite people who 1) I think will participate and 2) who I think have something to offer.
A. Gray thought of a good first subject--a story where the main character is not necessarily of sterling moral fiber. She also expanded it to include bad guys in general. I love my bad guys so I think that's a great topic.
Any other thoughts?
I think it's a cool idea, whatever direction it goes.
ReplyDeleteI also like writing about characters with moral ambiguity (or just plain amoral characters).
Love the idea of a Featured Writer. The 'published' thing could get tricky, but we could just go with someone volunteering to mediate, maybe use their own works as examples to start things, like a roundtable discussion. I'll be leading one in Vail at Sirens, and I could use the practice, and the experience of observing others. I'm not volunteering for first go or anything, just throwing it out as an idea.
ReplyDeleteI love hearing what different people's favorite books are, especially writers' favorite books. Maybe that could be a fun topic for Writer Wednesday too.
ReplyDeleteIt does sound like a really fun idea, Tia. (Plus, I agree--the topic of villains and anti-heroes is awesome fun!)
ReplyDeleteI'm always interested in hearing how people deal with various aspects of writing--anything from developing ideas to figuring out what to keep and what to toss to revisions to... well, you get the idea. :)
I also like the idea of a roundtable discussion--maybe each of the featured writers, picking a topic, offer examples of their work or snippets from published novels to get things moving?
ETA: AH! I see A. Grey already mentioned that. ;)
Definitely this sounds like a fun (I know, I'm overusing the word, but it's late and I'm tired :P) concept here... I definitely am looking forward to seeing how it evolves.
Some topic ideas I had:
ReplyDeleteoutlining
critiquing
structure
dialogue
Not very creative, I know. I did have a good idea, but it was while I was without a pen and paper, so the thought was gone almost as soon as I had it.
Wow; thanks for all the ideas. Maybe I ought to find some sort of chat software that I can either install on this blog or redirect everyone to.
ReplyDeleteBig drawback to that: we would have to set up a specific time for the chat. We'll have way too many time zones to deal with. So scratch that idea unless someone can think of a way to make it work worldwide.
I like the idea of Writer Wednesday. Any writerly topic is fair game for me. I especially like to hear about the things writers do to build a plot, heighten suspense or deal with story middles. And series! How do you turn one novel into a series.
ReplyDeleteRef: chats
Oh, noes! My internet connection is outright hostile with chat rooms. I get kicked out all the time and have to reenter. It becomes a major hassle. And as you said, there's the time difference for some folks.
Time difference problems are why I like conversing in the comments. The conversations are distinctly slower, but I can throw in an observation after most folks on North America are in bed asleep. Like I'm doing now. {SMILE}
ReplyDeleteAnne Elizabeth Baldwin
It's settled then. We'll keep it a comment chat.
ReplyDelete