A Six Word Story
Writing » Hook, Plot, Tips, Writer's BlockNovember 4th, 2008
This month, I’m doing a series of short exercises, one a week, to help those of you who are stuck with your WIP. Maybe you’re doing NaNoWriMo, maybe not. In any case, it helps to have an exercise to spark your imagination.
This week’s exercise is a challenge in brevity. The goal of NaNoWriMo, for instance, is to write 50k words in a month. A 50k word work is about the length of a short novel, similar to an Avon or Harlequin romance. This can be a challenge in and of itself… how do you write a novel with developed characters and an interesting plot in 50k words? Some writers, who are cheating themselves, will litter their WIP with adverbs, adjectives, and unnecessary description just to make that word count goal.
Explode Your Ideas
Writing » Character Development, PlotOctober 14th, 2008
“When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.”
- Ernest Hemingway
This quote describes my idea process fairly well. Many of my ideas come from that liminal state of mind between sleep and wakefulness. This can get frustrating, because who remembers to grab a pencil and paper when half-asleep? I’ve trained myself, thankfully, to keep a pad of paper within flailing distance of my bed.
But that’s the end result of an involved idea process. How do ideas begin? I’m a people-watcher, for one. I often will sit in a crowded place with my headphones on, and my music turned down really low so I can hear the conversations around me. This isn’t to spy on people, but rather to grab impressions.
Break the Seas
Writing » Character Development, Plot, Suspense, TensionSeptember 30th, 2008
A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.
- Franz Kafka
We all know that a story in which nothing bad happens to the character isn’t much of a story. The character needs something to fight against, so the reader has a reason to root for the character. This can be for heroes and villains, believe it or not.
That being said, when you write, who do you keep in mind as you write? The characters? Your overarching plot? Your theme? Your reader? Or all of the above?
Mark Twain’s Tips on Writing Well
Writing » Craft, Dialogue, Editing, Plot, TipsMarch 13th, 2008
We all know Mark Twain for Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, etc. In literary circles he is known for his lambasting essay, The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper, where he writes his Nineteen Most Important Rules of Literature. The essay claims that James Fenimore Cooper, another well-known American author, broke eighteen of them. How do you make out?
Plot Snafus and Hasty Research
Writing » Plot, Work-in-ProgressJanuary 15th, 2008
Do you know how hard it is to look up 120 year-old weather patterns for a relatively obscure location? I stretched my Google-fu to the limits, searching everything from “UK weather archive” to “Swindon almanac feb 1887.” (My location is actually a small community relatively near Swindon, but that community is so small you might as well say it doesn’t exist on the internet.) After searching for an hour, I found two sources saying there was a December 1886 snowstorm in southern England so fierce that school was canceled, overhead telegraph lines and trees around London were felled, and Kent received 30cm snow (11.8 inches). My community would have experienced that snowstorm, then. But what about February 1887? What happened then?
Article: Hold on to Your Plot Part 3
Writing » Craft, PlotOctober 13th, 2007
And now, the finale for the article on how to hold on to your plot!
Article: Hold on to Your Plot Part 2
Writing » Craft, PlotOctober 5th, 2007
A continuation from the article I posted here, read about how you can hold onto your plot by working with your characters, etc.
Article: Hold On to Your Plot Part 1
Writing » Craft, Plot, Synopsis, TipsSeptember 30th, 2007
When we begin writing, we have this core idea, this main plot that keeps the story together. But as we get deeper into subplots and secondary/tertiary characters, sometimes we lose our main idea. We obsess over the little things. We forget the forest for the trees. We see the colors but not the rainbow. I could go on, but I won’t, for your sake. The following series of three entries will focus on Mike Phillips’s essay showing how he keeps his plot in line, with his hints on how to help you stay focused.
Quote: Tight Plot
Writing » Plot, QuotesSeptember 25th, 2007
Boiled down to its basic elements, a plot is comprised of people with motives which meet resistance, creating conflict and leading to consequences. Scenes must either advance the plot or develop one or more of your characters so avoid waffling on if it isn’t relevant. If when re-reading you do find a section which is a touch on the flabby side, rewrite so that it works with the plot and characters, or steel yourself and press the delete key.
- Mike Philips
Storyboarding
Writing » Outlines, Plot, Work-in-ProgressSeptember 11th, 2007
I am an alpha personality: I live by lists, I like things ordered a certain way, I like to be in charge, I like to be on time. So you would think I use storyboarding to plot my novels, right?
Wrong! This past weekend was the first time I ever attempted a storyboard. And let me tell you: It was wonderful. I started out by drawing a line across an 11 x 24 sheet of paper for a timeline. I’ve always loved timelines, so it made sense for me to do it this way. Plus, my story has a backstory spanning ten years.
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