Over the past two-and-a-half weeks, I have written five posts (counting this one) for UnstressedSyllables. What I’ve been writing for this blog is not fiction.
But.
Since I joined Unstressed Syllables, I have added 6,000 words to my work-in-progress, a paranormal novel entitled SHADOWS AFTER MIDNIGHT. That’s compared to the preceding six weeks of teeth-pull-writing that garnered me a measly 7,000 words. Now, I find myself putting together story scenes in my head when I’m away from my computer.
Sit down and think about what it is you want your writing to do, and then make a list — ask your readers if you’ve succeeded. Make your questions open-ended, encouraging longer and thought-out answers, but make them specific, too. Some of my favorites are, “What was your favorite scene? What’s something from the story that you’ve found yourself thinking about even when you weren’t reading? Which character did you find the most engaging, and why?”
As a new writer ready to start on revision, it’s difficult to know what’s wrong with your story, and sometimes even more difficult to know why it’s wrong. A good mark-up will reveal both of those things, but then it’s still up to you to figure out what to do with them.
Tweet Once upon a time, I started reading the epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time (WoT) by Robert Jordan. Sadly, Mr. Jordan passed away before he could complete the series; however, author Brandon Sanderson is in the process of carrying on Jordan’s work. I have yet to read anything Sanderson has written for WoT, […]
Sit down at the poker table with four of your characters — whether you make up new ones for this assignment or mix and match from your works in progress. In 300-600 words, tell us about one hand, maybe just one round of bidding, but make it intense.
Moments ago, I finished mapping out what I have left to do before I have a complete first draft of SHADOWS AFTER MIDNIGHT. Or whatever the working title is.
Writing advice can often feel a lot like that cruel little game. You might have run into that yourself, from time to time. One person tells you to use strong and varied language, but someone else exhorts you to throw your thesaurus in the trash. One person tells you to develop your unique voice, make your prose conversational, but someone else tells you to fix your comma splices and get rid of those awful sentence fragments.
Right now, I’m approximately ninety pages from finishing Koontz’s ODD HOURS, the fourth novel in a series spun around a psychic young man appropriately named Odd Thomas. Describing Odd as a character would be yet another blog post in its own right; suffice it for now to say that I find him fascinating, amusing, heart-warming, endearing, and many other positive words suffixed with -ing. What I’m currently interested in, and WILAWritWe from Mr. Koontz’s novel is something to which I myself am not adhering as I write what you are reading now, and that something is this: Simplicity.
Tweet A Sucker Born Every Minute When Aaron and I were discussing in what way I would be contributing to this blog, I told him he was allowed to give me one (1) assignment. He acknowledged this, seemed to agree to my terms–and then proceeded to give me assignments numbering two. That’s (2), if you […]
Tweet WIPs, or Works-in-Progress, are often the favorite topics of creative writers. I realize now I was a fool to wait so long to invite you to talk about yours! That’s this week’s Creative Writing exercise, though. In light of our recent discussion of the various stages of manuscript development, I want you to tell […]
