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Writing | Novel writing tips

Assembled from all over, but Holly lisle must get special mention for putting her writing soul on the web for me to plumb.

General

  • ignore grammar, verbiage, everything, until first draft is finished
  • tear down 'the fourth wall' - character says, 'no I can't die' - reader and character become one
  • don't stay in narrative voice, mix it up a bit: time, accents, places, first person, second person
  • play with words, invent if necessary
  • don't be afraid of sections irrelevant to the plot
  • description takes precedence over action, but allow for audience to use their imagination
  • pop in some jokes
  • pop in some cliches, "hung like a horse"
  • pop in some mixed metaphors, "do you see what I am telling you"
  • repeat the point of the story twice
  • straightforward style, write quickly, master the challenges, just do
  • write like you talk
  • say what you mean
  • write like you would tell a story to your friend
  • put reader into every page
  • synopsis goes to publisher with chapter: present tense, bare bones, one page per chapter
  • worldbuilding - build what you need, imply the rest; map the place; define the inhabitants - physicality, advantages of physicality, if you include an annoying barking dog - tie up the details by telling what happened to it

Other writers

  • Robert L. Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde was accomplished in 72 hours. He didn't even have a computer!
  • Dame Barbara Cartland produces about 1 book per week when she is writing
  • James Hilton wrote Good-bye Mr. Chips in just 4 days
  • John Irving is dyslexic
  • Holly lisle, for great advice
  • study your favorite writer
  • get all the books, put them in chronological order and study them, what made them good or bad, successful or flops, make notes and don't make the same mistakes

Starting

  • set a deadline
  • set aside time, five minute segments are best
  • at 400 words per day it will take 250 days to write a 100 000 word book
  • 3 scenes per chapter, 40 chapters, 120 scenes
  • main characters get 2 thirds of the book - 80 scenes, say 2 characters - 40 each, 40 scenes for other characters
  • index cards - assign the correct number of cards to each character, start with the secondary characters, e.g. Beth - takes her niece to Wall-Mart to buy wings, only to find that they are severely genderized. And, Beth - drives her niece up to the top of the hill and sends a stone tumbling down the cliff. No need to write them in order. Don't think about how they will fit, just do. Take a bit of floor space and lay them out in no particular order, except put the scene you like as the first one for the character. Now start moving the cards around. Once you feel settled, read the sequence twice through. Then type them in numbered. Copy and paste the scene to write from it's position to the bottom of the document, write it and number it. (long version)
  • 10 pages a day is good going
  • have a theme, and subthemes
  • have an outline, landmarks are goal posts, in 30 words, e.g. Supernatural Romantic Suspense -- Small-town Midwestern violinist (heroine) meets returning-to-his-roots bad boy (hero) when the stage on which she's performing collapses (catalyst) after she receives an eerie warning not to perform that night (conflict) by a devilishly handsome bad boy (villain).
  • have a main character, what she wants and needs (creates point of story), 2 short sentences
  • have a conflict, obstacles that are dealt with as opposed to thought about - 80% of our pages should deal with the conflict
  • have a list of why the story matters, and to whom it matters
  • outlines are tools and can be abandoned from half way through, know the end of the book, like scenes - beginning and end, then stuff in between writes itself, don't forget, you can abandon
  • ending - sketch the last couple of scenes - will inform you what elements to put in earlier
  • middle bits - create 5 or 6 'candy-bar' scenes to keep you moving
  • silence: 15 minutes, no more no less, sit cross-legged on floor
  • fiction is about working out how the world works, running imaginary people through a trial universe and seeing if the people and beliefs stand up under pressure
  • What are the themes that intrigue you (or your reader): bad things happen to good people?, why can't we live forever?
  • Three level of 'A' level success: 1. Professional & Competent 2. Excellent and Surprizing 3. Impossibly Good
  • timed writing: like morning papers, not less than 15 minutes, if you write a few things and want to give them attention - write about each for 15 minutes with breaks between
  • take a book you like and jot down the story as an outline, then change everything
  • starting points: character, world build, theme, idea
  • if character explore traits, develop motive for a scene that introduces another character for her to play off
  • rough a scene - decide beginning and end of scene, sketch many, more than you need
  • the more notes you have about these the more you will have to lean on when you are stuck
  • know your world
  • know your characters
  • know your conflict
  • know your theme, and the subthemes attached, unifies beginning and end of book
  • determine a voice - first or third person - if first person, bewware you only know what your characters know, and nothing else, and you can't kill her off because no one else knows anything
  • commit to a genre (saleability)
  • write out goals - what specifically you like about your favorite books, how many words you will write daily (and realistically, and in a logical sequence - you have to write the book before you get the Booker prize)

Writer's block

  • Anti-writers block: make dates and write down your goals, bring home flowers/books, kill character that's boring you or start a new book, do something with your writing you wouldn't usually do - write a poem or a sex scene, track aniversaries - I started on (date) and wrote chapter in (?) - becomes goals and measures productivity,
  • courage is taking one more step than you think you can
  • if your story is waffling - create conflict - what is your character's 'problem'? - 'Bob against Bob'; 'Someone against Bob'; 'Bob against Someone'
  • timed writing: like morning papers, not less than 15 minutes, if you write a few things and want to give them attention - write about each for 15 minutes with breaks between
  • take a busman's holiday (do something else, start another book one day a week)
  • don't rewrite the first chapter 10 times, keep going

Visualization

  • if you can string a sentence and coherently tell a story you can write
  • if you can visualize, you can sell
  • see it in your mind, experience it, then transfer it to your mind.

Scenes

  • defined by the moment of change

Character

  • gender, place of birth, hobby, past job, present job, past love interest, enemy, pet
  • Why is your character not working at the old job?
  • Why is your character not with the old love interest?
  • Why does your character not make the hobby a profession?
  • How did your character make the enemy?
  • How did the pet once save the character's life?
  • What is the one thing in the world your character would do anything to avoid? Why?
  • What has he already done to avoid this? What do you see him doing in the future to avoid it?
  • What is the one thing in the world your character would do anything in the world to have? Why?
  • What has he already done to try to obtain it? What does he hope to try in the future?
  • What is your character's name? What is your character's age, and physical description.
  • Write everything else you know about your character, right now.
  • don't start with a name or phicality
  • first a problem, compulsion, need, fear, hook
  • main: what's her secret, what does she, what does she have to lose, who wants to use her and what makes her worth using, who hates her, what does she fear, how is she connected to the catalyst, where does the catalyst come from, what does the catalyst want
  • villian: what's good or bad about the villian, what does the villian believe to be true or false, how does he know the main character, what does he mean to the main, what does he have to lose or gain
  • liar: is there one, who, what, where, when, how.
  • empathize with your lead character
  • make up a shopping list of characters before you start, see who wants to come in, about 4 is a good number

Description

  • People are more interesting than scenery
  • don't use the verb 'to be" (It was a warm night)
  • lead with the biggest gun you've got, dig into that detail
  • characters - not a one paragraph description, weave in with their actions
  • only describe what is different

Worldbuilding

Rollicking Rules of Ecosystems

1. Life feeds on waste.
2. Life grabs opportunities.
3. Life likes volatiles.
4. Redundancy matters.
5. There are at least five ways of doing anything and Life will try them all.
6. Microclimates demand microecologies.
7. Big predators eat a LOT.
8. Life's Big Three: Eat, Excrete, Reproduce.
9. Life is weapons escalation.
10. Specialists are more efficient.
11. Generalists live longer.

Dialogue

  • Dialogue is about demonstrating character through conflict, either internal or external:
  • What does each character want?
  • How do their desires conflict?
  • conflict situation: conflict portends change
  • Don't write it in style, just one after the other, no quotes no who
  • Don't use peculiar spelling, tags ("Really?"), no soliloquies, let them breathe, they aren't anchors, have them do something while they speak.
  • accelerate dialogue:
  • get to point, start after the introductions at the point,
  • don't put in too many details about what they are doing while they talk,
  • let characters misunderstand each other, allow interruptions
  • if one character becomes suspicious of the other, don't explain, cut to the next scene
  • slow down: dialogue meanders, add descriptions, go past the main point to hide the point

Pacing

  • speed up action: get rid of fluff, pull camera close, sentences short
  • slow down: add detail, pull camera out, sentences long
  • do two drafts of action - one fast, one slow

One-pass revision

  • hardcopy, notebook, pen
  • write theme in 15 words, write subthemes in 15 words
  • story in 25 words
  • character's purpose in one sentence
  • write the blurb on th back - main characs, story
  • provides clarity going into revision
  • start: scenes - beginning and end and point where things change, five senses, conflict (end scene where conflict is worsened or resolved), moves story forward, one point of view, addresses theme/subtheme, write changes on hardcopy, onto back if necessary
  • if you cut a scene, put an x and jot down elements you are getting rid of
  • get rid of walk-on characters
  • get rid of elements/cahracters that are in the beginning that you wanted to resolve and never did.
  • make notes about new directions you took later and find places to work in references to it near the beginning
  • mark bits where you start to skim, fix them
  • track characters to make sure time and place don't overlap impossibly in notebook
  • don't use passive voice, use strong words
  • if too short, don't pad with description, add characters or conflicts
  • cut greetings, driving and thinking descriptions, getting from point A to B, bed-time routines - no routine stuff
  • keep passion, violence, sex, struggle
  • have 3 piles of manuscript when finished: page with nothin on, one that has no writing on, and the one you are reading
  • be rough with yourself, otherwise you will be doing re-editing two or three times instead of one
  • if you have great ideas make notes and keep them for the next book.

Formatting

Here are 2 the formats, one for long and one for short stuff:

Novel

  • Page Information
  • Margins -- 1.5 inches all the way around
  • Font -- Courier, Courier New, or other clean monospace serif font from 10-12 pt. (I use 12 pt. Dark Courier.)
  • Line spacing -- Double-space
  • Paragraph indent -- first line, 5 pt.
  • Header -- right justified, contains the following information: Last name/ TITLE/ page# . A header does not belong on the cover page. Start headers on page one of the actual manuscript.
  • Cover page -- depends on whether you're agented or not.

Unagented

  • Contact information -- Name and address, phone number and e-mail address in the top left corner of the page, single spaced, left-justified
  • Title -- centered, just above the middle of the page
  • by -- centered and one double-spaced line beneath the title
  • Name or pen name -- centered and one double-spaced line beneath the word by
  • Word count -- centered and rounded to the nearest thousand, one double-spaced line beneath your name or pen name

Agented

  • Title -- centered, just above the middle of the page
  • by -- centered and one double-spaced line beneath the title
  • Name or pen name -- centered and one double-spaced line beneath the word by
  • Word count -- centered and rounded to the nearest thousand, one double-spaced line beneath your name or pen name
  • Agent's contact information -- Name, business name, mailing address, phone number (e-mail address if you have the agent's okay first), left justified, single spaced, bottom of the page
  • First page
  • Header -- should be in the upper right-hand corner of the page, and page number should be 1.
  • Chapter header -- can be anywhere from one to six double-spaced lines down from the top of the page, and can be centered or left justified. You can title your chapters, or just write Chapter One or Chapter 1.
  • Body text -- drop down two double-spaced lines to begin your story.
  • Scene breaks -- drop down two double-spaced lines, insert and center the # character, drop down two more double-spaced lines, and begin your new scene.
  • Subsequent chapters -- start each chapter on a fresh page. Keep chapter formatting and titling consistent with your first chapter.

Short work

  • Page Information
  • Margins -- 1.5 inches all the way around
  • Font -- Courier, Courier New, or other clean monospace serif font from 10-12 pt. (I use 12 pt. Dark Courier.)
  • Line spacing -- Double-space
  • Paragraph indent -- first line, 5 pt.
  • Header -- right justified, contains the following information: Last name/ TITLE/ page#. A header does not belong on the title page. Start headers on page two of the actual manuscript. First labeled page number should be 2.
  • Cover page
  • Do not use a cover page with short work, either fiction or non-fiction
  • First page
  • Contact information -- Name and address, phone number and e-mail address in the top left corner of the page, single spaced, left-justified
  • Word count -- top line, right justified (you'll have to do this with a table if you're working with a word processor), either exact count, or rounded to the nearest ten
  • Title -- drop down four double-spaced lines, centered
  • by -- centered and one double-spaced line beneath the title
  • Name or pen name -- centered and one double-spaced line beneath the word by
  • Body of the story or article -- drop down two lines and begin.
  • Scene or section breaks -- drop down two double-spaced lines, insert and center the # character, drop down two more double-spaced lines, and begin your new scene.
  • Second and subsequent pages
  • Header -- should be in the upper right-hand corner of the page, and page number should be 2.
  • Body text -- begins on the first line, doublespaced throughout

{Tanya Pretorius' Bookmarks: Writing, Novel-writing tips}


 
 

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