Sunday Craft: Reuse Rethink it with Yarn

I took a few hours off from working on my wip this weekend to help reorganize my kid's rooms. Both my daughter and my son need shelf space. Who doesn't, right?! 

Since I wasn't real excited about going shopping for something new, I thought about rethinking/reusing stuff we already had. I poked around the garage and saw this old wicker set of drawers collecting dust and rust. It wasn't being used very well so, I emptied it out, dusted it off, and thought the drawers would make great box shelves for my son's room. All it needed was some wooden backboards that I cut out and painted and--that was it! 

I cut out wooden backboards mainly to make
it easier to nail into the drywall in my son's room.

Pretty easy and I really like the result.

 Weaving using leftover twine I
had in the garage.

But then, I was left with this metal frame and a daughter who still needed shelf space. I thought about cutting more wood panels but my ribbon saw won't cut wide enough to fit the frame and you really don't want me anywhere near a hand saw! So, I picked up some twine and tried weaving it into the frame to see how it would turn out. Well, I liked the result and if I had had more twine, I would have woven the rest of it the same way. But, I didn't. I did however, have a bag full of brightly colored leftover yarn my mother had given to me a while back...humm...I tried the yarn and ended up using that for the rest of the shelves. The neat thing is, it really didn't take that long to weave. One shelf took me about 30 minutes to finish and that included the countless times I dropped the ball of yarn and had to stop to rewind what had unraveled.  Grrrrr!

Anyway, here it is finished! 
I liked it so much, that I spent 10 minutes 
trying to convince my daughter she really 
didn't need it.  Yeah, that didn't work.

Here it is set up in my daughter's room before she
put her books in it. The only other thing I added, was 
some plastic laminated sheets on top of the yarn to give it a little more rigidity.

And Voilà! (:

Now, back to my WIP. *crack!*

And Happy Father's Day to all you great dads out there.

Have a wonderful day!

(((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))

Graphing Out Your Plot

Generating a plot graph is a great way to visualize your overall story. It's relatively quick and easy to do and can reveal problem areas in your story that feel flat or stagnant. You can later go back and decide if these areas could use a bit more action or emotion to avoid the "sagging in the middle" syndrome. 

For my graph, I decided to plot intensity over time, but I've seen graphs that use other labels like misery over time. Use what ever makes sense to you and your story. Before starting with my wip, I thought it'd be good practice to plot a story we all know and love, Cinderella. This is what I came up with:

:

It's pretty basic, but all the major plot points that matter to me are there. Remember, this is my interpretation and your graph of Cinderella (should you choose to do one) would look slightly different than mine. So what we see is a nice build of events (rising action) over the course of the story until we reach the climax in Act III followed by the dénouement (fancy word for outcome or settlement).  

Next, I tried the same technique on my wip. The monster  I've been working on for almost 3 years now. The one that's finally in the editing phase but that's still over 100K...  : /

Here is my result. 

My first reaction was, "Looks spiky." Act I seems pretty crazy yet by Act III, things seem to slow down with the exception of two huge spikes. But how does it compare with Cinderella?  Well, my dear Watson, lets find out:

Wow. 

Okay, let's analyze this real quick. 

The first thing I realized: I'm not writing no damn Cinderella story. (; 

Second, I may need to tone down some of my spikes (intense scenes) or at least spread them out a little better. Another thing I see is my need for more romantic elements, not just action points. The other huge difference is the dénouement.  I don't have one. But I already knew that. Is that okay? I don't know. The dénouement actually comes in book two. But as a first time author, this will probably make it harder to get published.  

So after thinking about this I naturally became pretty insecure about my writing and my story, again. On the one hand you have Cindy's blond hair and a perfect body plot with a nice crescendo we all know and love, and on the other hand, you have my wip. The one that looks like you'd get electrocuted if you try to read it. 





Have you ever done this kind of mapping? Has it helped? How do you visualize your story structure/plot?