You might have noticed…no blog from me last week. (okay, maybe you didn’t, but…) That’s because we were doing THIS. That would be ripping apart our upstairs (thank you to …
One Tip When You’re Stuck With Your Story
by Jeanne Takenaka, @JeanneTakenaka When the calendar rolled over to 2018, I had grand plans for my next book. I was going to complete the fast draft by March 31st. …
Two Things To Do When Your Story Has Stalled Out
I love fast drafting — falling in love with my characters and my story as I write my manuscript without stopping to edit or going back to rewrite. Yes, I love …
Writer’s Math: Prep a Scene with 5+5+1
As a novelist, I thought I’d escaped all things numerical. Fine with me, as the mention of numbers is reason to cue the white noise in my brain. Through the …
Keep on writing, keep on writing
I wrote a novella last week. 31, 160 words. That’s over 5K a day. Now, here’s what we all have to keep in mind – many of these words will have to be rewritten or deleted. I will have to go scene by scene and make sure I’ve inserted storyworld, and the 5 Ws to anchor the scene. I’ll have to ask what the main emotion of the scene is, and how to strengthen it. I’ll have to tighten my writing, make it clearer, make sure I’m not overwriting.
I’ll have to make sure I am telling the story between the quotes, and that I am wrapping up my dialogue with the right meaningful action and body language, adding zingers.
And, I’ll have to make sure I all the ingredients of the Scene Tension Equation.
All these things are in my brain as I’m writing, trust me. But, if I want to forget ahead and give myself something to work with, then I have to be like Dori in Finding Nemo.
Don’t look back. Forget everything but my goal….reaching the end. (or, P Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way)
But how do we keep that focus? I know it can be hard, because even in the middle of a scene you suddenly think: WAIT! I just came up with something BRILLIANT and I need to add it into chapter 3!