LKH (Potentially) Dirty Mad Libs

[darksongtrilogy.livejournal.com]

After the last blog, I got to thinking about what LKH's "rough draft" must look like. We know that when she gets stuck she'll occasionally type insert weapons scene here or just leave blanks (seriously, she confessed this more than once) to be filled in later.

So first of all, what constitutes a rough draft? A lot of us are authors. When is the first draft really finished? If you've got insert weapons scene sprinkled throughout, plot bridges to nowhere, and contradictory plot points to be cut out, can you consider it "done?" Second, this insight really explains a lot, and I'll be willing to bet money that some of these plot points that she calls "false advertising" makes it into the plot summary on the dust jacket. That's happened two or three times already.

Third, using the very good analogy that the book must currently read like Mad Libs, is it any wonder the books are in the shape they're in? Something like this is ambiguous at best.

Edward's __________ was in my ____________. It was a great big ____________ that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else, and believe me, I'd looked. After a while I'd had to give up on my usual connections and thought about having one custom-made to fit my ______________, but Edward always came through in a pinch. His ______________ was just perfectly sized.

Well, hell, I wonder why we get sex scenes that make no sense?

But I was also wondering what other Mad Libs we might see, if we read the, ahem, completed first draft--or how we might fill those Mad Libs in.

Comments

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

I've never written a novel. That's what I'm trying to do now so I can have a pattern in my head for how it's done. I have written many many many many many short stories. To the point where my first draft, often or not gets done in my -head- as I'm shuffling around possibilities and what I want to play with and explore.

My second draft is what gets written down. And I tend to do research as I write because that can give me an angle. Then I put it aside for a day or so. Get someone else to read it. Then I read it and start editing and start deciding what's really necessary, what isn't, what's missing.

By my third draft I'm just going through for grammar, spelling and typos.

Re: The *insert string theory quantum physics here*, while that would be wise for something like string theory, I've never had it actually work for me. It feels like I'm leaving a big hole and being too lazy to fill it. I end up trying to find a way around it if an hour or three of research isn't enough to let me write it.

Because if I need to read a book to write a couple of paragraphs, then those couple of paragraphs could end up more important and detailed than my entire story. Which is -not- my point.

Anyway, I end my rambling now.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I know the feeling - I can't just leave an *insert whatever here* - if I need to know something, I'll stop what I'm doing, go look it up (at the very least Google or Wikipedia) see if that helps, or leads me to something new - and then see how that goes in the *insert whatever here* bit.

Anything less just...doesn't sit right with me. It'll irk me until I figure things out.

[thekiwiwhoflew.livejournal.com]

I'm the opposite. I don't know if its because english isn't my native tongue- But sometimes it's like I'll know what I want to say but I can't remember the word. So I'll leave a '_______', then when I print it out to edit it or type it up and print it out I'll usually either have remembered what the word was or have a better one.

Oh.

Or fight scenes.

I hate fight scenes.

I finished my chapter, but it needed a fight scene which I needed inspiration for. So I left that, wrote what I knew to write, then went on a violent movie marathon- What I call watching the USA network. Then I had some ideas and wrote that down.