What YOU Can Create

So these last two days I’ve been shuffling pages this way and that, adding sections and rewriting my murder mystery WOLF. That means I missed yesterday and Monday’s prompts.

As the conference roars closer, I have to finalize things there.

Here are all five prompts, the last of them, before WIFYR 2017!

#50

What are the significant events in you book? Write them down, in order. Do they rise in tension, causing more at stake for your main character? Is the tension tightened with these events?

#51

Write the most important scene from the point of view of a person watching it unfold, not experiencing it. Pay particular attention to sense of place details. How does this inform your novel?

#52

Choose your five favorite novels. Break away from series and the same genre.

Using each book as an example, rewrite one page of your story, from the opening, imitating each book.

So page one will be like Harry Potter, page two will be like The Road, page three will be like THIS IS WHAT I DID etc.

What do you learn? Can you take any of this and put it in your writing?

#53

Take 15 minutes to put yourself in a scene with your main character. Make it a tough scene. Write what you talk about.

#54

If you have done all these prompts, which one has helped you the most? Why? How can you use this in more of your writing?

 

Okay, Everyone (all three of you!). I’m off.

Will see you in July!

Happy WIFYR. Happy writing. Happy life.

4 Inches More? You Never Expected This!

What is your worst writing habit?

Mine is feeling overwhelmed with my novel.

We’ve wrestled, sorta, and the pages have won.

Here’s what I figure. On a good day I can write a thousand words in an hour. That’s 5,000 a week. 5,000 words per week X 52 weeks = 260,000 words. An hour a day, 260,000 words in a year. For me, that’s almost five and a half novels. Good novels? Maybe not. But drafts.

So why not do that?

Stephen King does. 2,000 words per day. Every day. Seven days a week.

#49

Write a list of everything that gets in your way of writing, no matter how small.

Write a list why you deserve to write. Write everything, even your secret desires.

Now go through list number one. What things on this list are more important than you being happy? Cross those things off. Some stuff will be left, that’s the way it should be. There ARE things more important than writing. (Who knew?)

Last of all, pen a note to yourself saying why it’s okay to write even the hard stuff.

Now go write your dreams.

Being Your Best You

#48

The process of writing a novel:

What is the best part?

The hardest part?

The most trying part?

And

what do you hope to accomplish? Be reasonable and think through this answer.

Making True Change–For Good

Change, though I mostly hate it, is good.

Especially if we change who we are into someone better. You just quit smoking? Excellent change! You’ve read a self-help book and now love who you are, even a little bit more than yesterday? Keep going, you’re on the right track! You’re picking up your wet towels so the roaches can’t rest under them? Woot woot! BIG change!

Change is good in our books, too.

I once read a novel that was supposed to be The Next Big Thing. The main character wanted something, and she went out and got it.

The problem was what she wanted. It wasn’t something we shoot for if we want to be happy people. And that’s okay. All characters don’t have to be like me. But this girl, she never really changed going after her weird goal or when she got what she wanted. She was static. Stagnate. Boring.

BORING!

The book flopped because there was no character growth. No moral struggle. No putting herself at risk and overcoming because of her choices.

#46

How does your character change?

Why?

Is this significant? Is it enough?

Did you character get there in a way where she was stretching and growing and becoming new somehow?

Was she at odds with herself, morally, to make these changes?