Category: description
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Friday’s Findings: July 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo Update #4
Working on more than one WIP at once Well, Camp NaNoWriMo will be over Sunday night. So far, I’ve written 25,7000 words out of my 25,000 goal. But one of my less tangible goals was to successfully navigate three WIPs simultaneously. I’ve definitely learned some things about writing three WIP at once. Good things. For…
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Friday’s Findings: A Little Off the Top
Currently, I am working on my novella, Traption. I practice taking a little off the top at the beginning of each scene. I learned this concept from Jessica Brody’s Writing Mastery Academy course on revision. She recommends going through each scene to determine whether or not the scene begins at the “correct” place. She recommends…
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Silas House and Where He Finds Inspiration
In a post from last week, I discussed weaving in backstory to avoid infodumps. Coincidentally, the day I posted it on this blog, I attended the Speed Art Museum that evening where Kentucky author Silas House spoke on the subject. One thing he said stuck out to me: “I believe there’s a very thing veil…
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Friday’s Findings: Balancing Descriptions
Not too much, not too little. Not talking about the ranch seasoning powder I add to my tuna casserole recipe. I’m talking about description in fiction writing. I keep reading over and over: description isn’t about quantity, it’s about quality. Whether it’s describing a character, a room, or a car, one or two descriptors go…
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Avoid Infodumps: Dole Out Information
As I write my current draft for my WIP called Traption, I am trying to avoid infodumps. One way to avoid heaping a mound of story-stopping background details is to weave the information throughout the story. Use dialogue. Use a short flashback. Use inner monologue. Doling out the information a little here, a little there,…
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What a Mess!
After thirty days of writing over fifty thousand words, what do I have to show? An incoherent mess of scraps of conversations, descriptions and exposition. It’s a mess. And that’s what makes my 2021 NaNoWriMo a success. The story is there, told all the way through. I just have to rework it and rework it.…
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NaNo Update
Just a quick update on my NaNoWriMo project. Over the weekend I reached 30k words, which was my goal. I’m pleased with how it’s going, but, of course, NaNo is about just getting it down on paper (or on the computer). Some things going well: I’ve written something for every scene in the story. Sometimes…
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Friday’s Findings
I’m reading James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers. I’m not even finished, but I’ve already collected a bunch of writing tips and exercises to apply to my own WIPs. Here’s one–and it’s useful for the upcoming NaNoWriMo: “Say you want to describe someone’s wild hair. Write for five minutes without stopping. Describe…
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She Narrowed Her Eyes: Emotions into Body Language
One thing I look for when writing a characters emotions is body language. How does anger translate in a person’s expression, posture and movement? How does shock? How should a writer transcribe what their characters feel into tangible body language? Let’s break it down. First, I want to thank author K. M. Weiland for introducing…
Andrew M. Friday 