Everything comes together in the Capstone. You will draft a complete story, narrative essay, or memoir of 8–15 pages. With the advice of your peer readers, you will revise, rewrite, and complete it. The skills you’ve learned of plotting, setting, physical description, characterization, and stylistic clarity and innovation will culminate in an original work of art all your own. We’ll discuss the steps that professional writers take to bring their work into the public world. Along the way you’ll learn the patient habits of revision that make up the writer’s life.
Becky Albertalli
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From the course by Wesleyan University
Capstone: Your Story
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From the lesson
Finishing the First Draft
Compose, compose, compose. This week is devoted completely to pushing through that crucial deadline: finishing your first draft by the end of the week. As you compose, you’ll get some advice from successful Wesleyan alumni writers who have gone from where you are to published books out there in the world.
Meet the Instructors
Salvatore ScibonaFrank B. Weeks Visiting Professor of English
Hi, my name is Becky Albertalli and I graduated from Wesleyan in 2005.
I'm an author of young adult fiction and my first book, Simon vs.
the Homo Sapiens Agenda, came out in April of 2015, from Harper Collins.
I want to talk to you guys a little bit today about writing and
my process writing this book.
And also my process in writing the follow up to this book which is scheduled to
release in 2017 also from Harper Collins.
I drafted Simon in about four months, and I actually used the program Scribner for
most of my drafting process, which you may be familiar with.
And what I did is I created a loose outline, which I
followed until I didn't, so basically every time it felt like the characters
wanted to move the story in a different direction, I would just follow them there.
And what I found is, for me, a lot of the most important moments in the book
happened when I kind of gave the reigns to my characters,
and let them take the story in a different direction than I had originally planned.
So I've learned to just go with it.
That is not the case for every author.
There are some authors who do a lot better with the structure of a really good
outline.
There is some authors who can't outline at all.
I'm like kind of in the middle.
Writing the scripts but in some ways is kind of a charm experience and
then writing the second book, I feel like maybe I have been paying
my dues a little bit because I have written seven versions of it so far.
I'm currently revising my seventh draft and
most of the previous drafts have been rewrites.
It has been a really long road.
Once again I outlined loosely and
I did try to follow my characters wherever they took me.
It has been a long and frustrating process with this one.
I think we're finally getting close some books,
I think just come together more quickly than others and so
one of the things that I've been working on is
just trying to be okay with the fact that the process my change from book to book.
And I think that's the most important thing that I would want you to remember
while you're working is that, every author's process and
learning is going to be a little bit different.
And that's okay but also every book that you work on may feel a little
bit different from other books that you've worked on in the past.
And that's cool.
I wish I knew the answer to this, like I wish I knew the thing that fix writers
blog reliably every single time, I don't think there is a thing,
I have a couple of things that I tried to do that worked for me sometimes.
But not all the time.
Sometimes I'm able to just kind of right through it and that is something that I
particularly do when I'm on deadline I guess because we have to.
But now, I'm in a completely contradict myself and
say that there are times when they found.
I just have not been able to right through it and I need to step back, so
that's another thing I give myself permission to do sometimes.
If I just can't make a scene work or
if I just feel like the book is driving me nuts and
I can not productively move forward with it in a given moment,
I will step back for a little bit and just try to give myself some space from it.
It helps to be kind of thinking about it in the back of my mind I found.
So I will do things like create a playlist that I associate with my book.
And I don't listen to music while I write, personally.
But I find it helpful to listen to music, especially in the car for
me just to get me kind of like daydreaming about my characters and
my mind making connections unconsciously then.
And a lot of times it's really productive.
Like all of a sudden, something will come together for
me that seems really obvious in hindsight but just as something that I could not
piece together when I was sitting there in the trenches with my word document open.
Another thing that I do is I like to create secret Pinterest
boards associated with my books.
Just full of images that I associate with different scenes or people.
People who look like different characters in my head.
And that's something that I've found will keep me in that head space for
my book, but it's also a way to let my mind relax a little bit.
And then, my last piece of advice is just to get really good critique partners,
other writers who can really help you identify places where the story may not be
working or just some of these little repetitive writing ticks that we all do.
I have a lot of them, and luckily I have really good critique partners.
And another thing too, is if you are writing a book featuring a character from
a marginalized community that you don't belong to.
So for example, my book Simon is about a gay 16 year old boy.
Sorry. It's helpful too to have readers who
are from that group who can kind of vet your book and make sure that it doesn't
include any harmful stereotypes, in that the representation of that group feels
authentic to people who have actually lived through those experiences.
And other than that, just try to have fun with it.
It is really difficult sometimes, especially during those
moments when you're feeling stuck and when you're dealing with writer's block.
But if you can get over the hump and push through it, it is so worth it.
It is such a gift to be able to tell stories as my job.
I love it.
And I wish you all the best of luck with your writing.
And thank you so much for letting me be a part of this process with you.
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