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Why You Should Plan your #NaNoWriMo Story in Advance #writetip
Over the years I’ve discovered the hard way that planning a story is the difference between a smooth writing experience and one where I’m pulling my hair, digging into a tub of Ben & Jerry’s, or deciding to watch re-runs of Law & Order instead of staring at a blank page. Even worse, the pressure of needing to get a certain word count each day made it all even worse. “I’m never going to finish this,” I used to tell myself, and if you say that enough, you will start to believe it. But the key to winning is having something to...
read moreHow to be a #NaNo Winner
Are you going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year? National Novel Writing Month, if you’re not familiar with the nickname, is a huge international event where writers attempt to finish a 50,000-word novel between November 1 and 30. The rule: you can only write during the month of November. I first did NaNo back in 2007 and have “won” all but once in the 6 times I participated since then. The very first year I banged out about 55,000 words and spent the next six months revising the story to fill in all the missing scenes I skimmed...
read moreRewriting vs. Editing
I recently took a class on rewriting that gave me deeper insights into some of the things I’m already doing, and suggestions to improve others. The first thing discussed was the definition of rewriting. How is it different from editing? Typically, a writer gets a first draft on paper, then reads what she’s written and rewords some things, rewrites a few scenes, and possibly rearranges some of the action. How many of you rethink the main conflict or characterization, or the basic plot at this point? Probably not many. But those are most...
read moreWelcome to Smooth Draft
Smooth Draft can write, edit, or proofread your fiction or non-fiction. We’ll take your rough draft and smooth it out. Whether you’re a published author, a self-published author, aspiring to have your first work published, or an academic, we have the skills and experience to help you. Run by EM Lynley, a published novelist, with over ten years of experience writing and editing financial reports and fiction, and previous experience editing both financial and technical documents in Japan, Smooth Draft can handle a wide variety...
read moreLessons Learned: Speech tags speak louder than words
That should probably be “more loudly,” (assuming speech tags could speak) but I’ll stick with the well-known phrase even though it’s got some grammatical issues, anthropomorphizing aside. The Basics Speech tags. We’ve all seen them, even if we didn’t know what they were called: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” Rhett said. The red is the speech tag. Its most important use is to let the reader know who’s speaking. If you have a scene with two characters, you don’t always...
read moreHow Setting Affects Character #writetip #writing from @emlynley
We’ve talked a lot about developing layers for your characters, building the character arc and using supporting characters to increase the conflict in a story. Today I’ll discuss how setting can bring in yet another layer to your characters. Setting encompasses time period, geographic location and even social status, but most of the time it describes physical locations. All people have places that mean something to them, good or bad. You may remember where you made your first home run, had your first kiss or the swing set where...
read moreBuilding a Character Web: Leverage your supporting characters
All writers know that you need conflict and tension to drive to story forward, and to engage readers so they want to keep reading. In a thriller, writers can rely more on plot because the reader is anxious to see what happens next. In romance the reader wants to know what happens to the characters and how it will affect their relationship. It’s important to keep the level of conflict high, but readers will tune out if all you do is throw a new bump in the road to love. Build a character web, and you won’t have to always rely on...
read moreBuilding Characters: Why Weaknesses Matter More Than Strengths
In a previous post I discussed the concept of starting out with a character with issues and how the plot action affects the character, creating the character arc. Character x Plot = Ending Let’s rewrite that a little bit Starting Character x Plot = Ending Character Today’s post will explore how to create both the weaknesses and the relevant plot points to bring the character to a new set of values, behaviors and attitudes. It draws on John Truby’s techniques in The Anatomy of Story. You want your characters to change over...
read moreA fun and useful tool for writing more #writing #amwriting #writingtips
I’m not sure who first told me about Write or Die, but I didn’t pay any attention to them. It took two or three other people mentioning it before I took a look at the website, and I have to say I’m very glad I did. [Time for a disclaimer: I am not associated in any way with the company, developers, etc., just a happy user.] It’s a free web app (with a desktop edition you can buy if you like it) that gives you some discipline in terms of writing. It comes in three levels, from mild encouragement to outright punishment...
read moreWriters’ Biggest Issues
On the recent giveaway, I asked what each entrant considered his biggest problem. Here’s a list of the responses, no names attached. In the coming weeks I’ll write blog posts to cover these topics and hopefully offer some suggestions to overcome your challenges. If you didn’t enter the contest, feel free to comment with your own biggest problem with writing or revising your work. Do any of these sound familiar? My first language isn’t English. Creating believable/interesting conflict Grammar, punctuation and grammar...
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