Category: dialogue

  • NaNoWriMo Day 6: the 4th step

    NaNoWriMo Day 6: the 4th step

    My writing process for NaNoWriMo 2022: I am working on two novellas for NaNoWriMo 2022, but to be honest, I will only get through one of them. I will reach 50,000 words by the end of November, but I will probably only end up with a rough draft of one of them which is called…

  • NaNoWriMo Day 4: the 2nd step

    NaNoWriMo Day 4: the 2nd step

    I’m done with steps 1 and 2 of my writing process. I’ll be spending the next week marching through step 3 which is expanding my scene paragraph summaries into 5 paragraphs. These 5 paragraphs are a brain dump of details I may or may not include down the road: scraps of descriptions, dialogue, interior monologues…

  • NaNoWriMo Day 2: My four-steps

    NaNoWriMo Day 2: My four-steps

    Was my first day of NaNoWriMo 2022 was a huge success? I wrote over 1700 words. The story is coming along wonderfully and I’ve come up with some ideas as I’ve composed.  During Preptober, I made a list of phrases describing scenes. I also compiled a list of characters for the two novellas I’m writing…

  • Friday’s Findings: July 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo Update #3

    Friday’s Findings: July 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo Update #3

    Since last November’s NaNoWriMo, I’ve been using what I call the scratchpad method for my writing process. Ever since, I’ve been honing and improving it for my way of writing. Each month, I start a new document and almost every day, I write whatever for that day. That could be a scene for two for…

  • Friday’s Findings: Doing a Scene Audit

    Friday’s Findings: Doing a Scene Audit

    I’ve been on vacation this week and while I haven’t gotten as much reading done as I would have liked, I have gotten a LOT done on my novella, Traption. I’ve spent this week going through each scene, one by one and asking myself the following questions: Does this scene have a goal?What are the…

  • Avoid Infodumps: Dole Out Information

    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,…

  • Camp NaNoWriMo Update #5

    Camp NaNoWriMo Update #5

    Camp NaNoWriMo for April 2022 is over. Did I reach my goals? Yes and no. No, I did not reach my word goal of 15,000 words. I got to 11,600 words. And I’m happy with that. I had a blast discovering more about my story (a better goal than word count). I learned more about…

  • Camp NanoWriMo Update #4

    Camp NanoWriMo Update #4

    I passed up 10,000 words. Only 5,000 to go. I’m fleshing out the last ten or so scenes of my WIP I did for my 2019 NaNoWriMo project by just writing dialogue. I’m using what I call “layering” in the narrative elements: Dialogue Action Reaction/Internal Thought Emotions/voice cues, facial expressions, body language, visceral reactions Senses/Description…

  • Friday’s Findings: Doing Voice Journals

    Friday’s Findings: Doing Voice Journals

    This week I’ve been doing voice journals for my characters as I reach the midpoint of Camp NaNoWriMo. I first read about this practice in James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers. This week I’ve read a few online articles on the subject. I’ve capsulated the main concepts of doing voice journals for…