I’ve taken today’s quote from Les Edgerton’s nifty book HOOKED: Write fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go. “The best sources for significant story problems reside within yourself in the form of your personal demons. The very best writers are those who are courageous enough to go deep inside themselves to face and expose the warts and hidden and forbidden feelings most of us want to hide from or deny, at least to others. Not everyone is able to face his demons and bring them out to the light of day, but if you …
Tag: 90-Minute Novel
THE RANT!!!
When was the last time you had a really truly terrible sucky day? One of those worst days, when everything went wrong and you felt defensive and angry and backed into a corner? Maybe you really were backed into a corner–by your best friend or by the driver who cut you off in the parking lot and then waved a single digit your way. Maybe the bad stuff lasted a few hours or a few minutes; either way, by the end you were ready to blow your stack and rant! I’ve had my share of bad streaks and the rants …
SURREY INTERNATIONAL WRITERS’ CONFERENCE
From October 23 to October 27 I will be presenting at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, just a few miles outside Vancouver B.C. I hope to post while I’m there, and I look forward to sharing the highlights on this blog. Wishing you free flow and abundant creative energy.
CREDO — IN LIFE, IN FICTION
Credo (Latin for “I believe”) is traditionally a statement of religious belief. It is also a statement of personal belief, whether you subscribe to a religious tradition or not. If you’ve listened to any of the personal essays from the long-running public radio series, “This I Believe,” you’ve heard a variety of credos. For writers, credos are especially powerful. The act of penning your credo on paper will remind you of your deepest beliefs. These are the beliefs that inspire you to write. You may have done this before; if so, you might be surprised how many writers have never written …
MAKING HEADLINES!
I learned one my favorite writing “tricks” from Charles Dickens, who often published his novels in installments. He used chapter headings, or, what I call headlines. Open OLIVER TWIST to Chapter 6 and read: Oliver, Being Goaded by the Taunts of Noah, Rouses into Action, and Rather Astonishes Him. Or Chapter 32: Of the Happy Life Oliver Began to Lead with his Kind Friends. But page forward to Chapter 33: Wherein the Happiness of Oliver and his Friends, Experiences a Sudden Check. And near novel’s end: The Pursuit and Escape. When I’m writing my first draft, I aim for scene …
ACTION–OBJECTIVE–PARITY!!
My previous post focused on a character’s action-objective. Now, I want to expand the discussion and consider action-objective in terms of parity. In physics, parity may be defined as an intrinsic symmetry. In terms of narrative, parity means equality. It means that you, the writer, know and understand the motivation and objective of the viewpoint character and the important non-viewpoint characters in each scene. You know what they want and why. And if you don’t know what and why yet, you discover it. For example: Say we are writing a scene from the viewpoint of Jane, a 37-year-old singer, who is engaged …
ACTION———-OBJECTIVE!!!!!!!
Writers have much to learn from actors. Actors are trained to take action in every scene. They have a main objective–win a first date, force the bad guy to show his hand, sweet-talk the doorman, seduce a rival’s hubby–and they pull out all the stops to achieve it. The objectives in each scene build toward the big story objective. If the big story has the requisite conflict, you’ll find conflict in every scene–in the form of obstacles that stand in the way of the actor achieving her goal. Obstacles may be environmental, intrapersonal, and/or interpersonal. For now, let’s focus on …
INTENTION & COMMITMENT–YOUR CONTRACT WITH YOURSELF
This post is taken from material I use in my workshop: The 90-Minute Novel. Over the next weeks, as I prepare to teach at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference in B.C., I will continue to post exercises from the workshop. Many of them are applicable to writers of memoir as well as fiction. The Contract: When you sell your book to a publisher, you will be asked to sign a company contract. Now, wherever you are in the process of your new writing project, I am asking you to sign a contract with yourself. This contract means you will:A) Aim …
The Wild Freedom of 100 Lines
My writing friend in Mexico introduced me months ago to author CM Mayo’s generous web offering: 365 five-minute writing exercises. Somewhere among those exercises is one that suggests writing 100 lines about a story, scene, idea. I don’t remember the exact details of her exercise, but I am completely addicted to the flexibility it has inspired, and I use it all the time. These days, when I’m diving into a new scene, I begin with 100 lines of free association. These free me of fear and lead me to infinite discoveries, including: dialogue, emotionally evocative sensory details, physical descriptions, various …
THE 10-MINUTE-VENT
When it comes to encouraging and even enhancing flow in your creative writing process, the 10-Minute-Vent may become your most important tool. It’s the exercise I use to launch my writing days. Writer friends and clients who try it report immediate results: it is a powerful way to steer clear of self-sabotage, procrastination, the destructive inner critic, and creative block. All writers hear voices. We usually welcome those belonging to our characters and the narrators of our stories; but there are some we do not welcome, and, in fact, may fear. I call these internal voices my “cast of hundreds”, …