Putting Learning to Work

I just completed a children's story: Scaffold Cat Versus Bell Tower Pigeon.

It's the first story I've written all the way through using a lot of the new plotting tools I've been learning. Here are some of them:

* I tend to go off in all sorts of interesting directions when I write, which is a lot of fun. However, by itself, this method doesn't produce a clear story. This time, after all the fun writing, I prepared a "root story" which defines the either-or conflict of the story. The protagonist will either get what she wants OR she won't, and the antagonist wins. It's been a big help for focusing the story in one specific direction.

* I really like stories to come full circle; to have an ending that relates back to the beginning. With this story, I "planted" an item at the beginning that would give the reader, at the end, a sense of satisfaction and of completion.

* After the story was basically written, I did several very specific re-writes: one for the "villain" only, to make sure that character was well defined; one for the heroine; one for tension; and finally one for spelling and grammar. By the time I finished these focused re-writes, I felt that I had worked on making the story better and better.

This time, the tools and techniques felt time consuming. I'm hoping that with each new story, the use of tools will get easier, that my stumbling baby steps will become more confident and my stride more relaxed.