Yesterday's blog -- First Draft Twitters -- was in response to a writer who has written one very successful book and is now slogging her way through draft one of book two.I've found that for most writers Book Two is at least as difficult to get written, if not more, than Book One. Doubts about ability, luck, the depth of the creative well crop up more in draft one of book two.Same advice applies for draft one of any book -- just get it down. Can't finesse that which isn't written. …
First Draft Twitters
In my Twitter today I chose the wrong words.To be sure there is absolutely no confusion = when I say "Keep going back to the key scenes", I do NOT mean go back to rewrite the key scenes. NEVER GO BACK AND REWRITE YOUR FIRST DRAFT UNTIL YOU WRITE ALL THE WAY THROUGH TO THE END. (I apologize for the caps -- my zeal to make my point sort of looks like I'm yelling. Not my intention. I apologize.)What I meant to Twitter (or is it Tweet??), is that as you make your way through your first draft keep …
Backstory / Flashbacks
Watch your delivery of backstory ~ the story of what (in the past) made the characters who they are today (in story time). Writers want to cram everything right up front. "I know all their history, why would I want to withhold it from the reader?" "I wrote it that way." "It's the good part." Writers spend lots of time imagining and writing every little detail about a character's past, be it for a child or an adult. So, of course, writers would want to tell everything right away. Perhaps, in the …
Where the Wild Things Are
Used Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak with a group of 15 8 - 10 year old kids. 7 kids opted for private secretaries made up of teen volunteers and other Friends of the Library board members. One of the seven needed brainstorming support only. The other six benefitted from someone else performing the fine motor skills necessary to actually write the story down on paper. Whether they wrote the story themselves or used the help of another, all the kids finished stories in 2 1/2 hours …
Universal Story Form and Plot
About a half an hour into her first plot consultation, the writer at the other end of the telephone settles into the process. I know something of her initial nervousness ~ the fear of not being good enough, not having done enough prep work, not being smart enough to grasp what is required. In anticipation of this, I jump right in, pulling the writer along with me. My immediate impression? She is drowning in ideas and plot lines. Her story incorporates suspense and romance, some mystery and lots …
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