I once spent a year learning the art of chopping in China.
Why you ask? Why not! Actually it was a cultural misunderstanding as I was under the impression I’d be learning to make Chinese food. You can imagine my disappointment and horror when my teacher brought in a live duck and slit its throat it in front of us the first week of school. This was not what I signed up for.
How long does a movie’s intense action scene last? It’s not just “Bang, pow; kick, punch, roll, jump,” without pause; movies throw in little “breathers” of comedy or surprise so that the audience can take a breath or laugh to relieve the build-up of tension. Then they go back to building it up again. This way the audience’s excitement doesn’t peak and then fall, but rather is built up in smaller increments, like an up-hill hike. You might want to run the whole distance, but you’d end up burning out without breaks. However, if you time your breaks strategically, you can build up your momentum and finish with a feeling of accomplishment, rather than collapsing in relief that you’re done. So how do you do this in fiction?
If you’ve consumed any form of story, you’ve likely run into characters that didn’t seem quite right. Dragons, pantheons, acrobatic Chinese boy bands– you can suspend your disbelief for all of these things, yet somehow you can’t bring yourself to fully believe in a character.
Why?
Being sick in reality stinks, as I’ve often had opportunity to learn while living overseas. And since the last few days were spent recalling just why being sick is the worst, sickness is a good place to start on a new section of writing tips: keeping the annoyances of real life in your writing (Part 1) for the sake of authenticity, plot, characterization… you get the idea.
“What if?”
Kids are great at coming up with explanations. No, computer cords don’t actually work because little people sprint through them carrying bits of energy reminiscent of gumballs, but that’s a much more engaging thought than the reality, don’t you think? Continue reading
Writers are a special breed of human. To help your writer grow, please put them
immediately in (large or small, mainly clean) pens with other writers. (i.e. writers partners
or groups, conferences, book fests, libraries.) Give them hours talking about imaginary scenarios and people and places.
They’ll need some kind food and drink. Coffee and tea have been proven to stimulate growth in
terms of word count and their behavior will stabilize enough to focus on plot. Feed them books regularly. If you find they like a certain kind, add more to the diet.
What comes to mind when you think about the editing process? If the mere word “Editing” makes you want to hide under your comforters, or find a boat and sail off the face of the earth, I understand. Or maybe you’re a super planner and love the editing process and have all sorts of handy excel charts mapping your progress.
No matter what your feelings are regarding the editing process, there are tools and tips that can help.
Continue reading
If you’re anything like me, then you’ll know that the closer you get to a story the harder it is to objectively question it. You’ve spent so much time there and it works so well in your brain that it’s hard to take that mental step back and look for problems.
I’ve already talked about the importance of stress testing a world (see my first article on world building) but we haven’t covered the best ways to start questioning your world and finding the breaking points. Continue reading
Amidst the transition from finishing my manuscript to the start of the publication cycle, something shifted in me. “Writing” (that is, doing whatever was necessary to get my manuscript published) became another thing to do on an ever-increasing to-do list. I need to re-write that first scene, build a platform, research agents, and the motivation that has always pushed me through my story has dried up.
And now I know why.
My novel has been under the knife since February. The goal? 20-30k words, slashed, slaughtered, eliminated forever.
What does that feel like? A bit like this: Princess Bride: To the Pain Continue reading
The Spinning Pen 