Andrew M. Friday

Category: fiction writing

  • 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…

  • CampNaNoWriMo Update #1

    CampNaNoWriMo Update #1

    Reached one of my goals for Camp NaNoWriMo: completed a draft of my novella; spending the rest of the month working on my novel, or one of them at least. I’m going to do voice journals for my characters and write a few summaries of unfinished scenes. All this goes toward my word count. I’m…

  • Good Scene, Bad Scene

    Good Scene, Bad Scene

    Scenes are the building blocks of fiction writing. I came across this great infographic on evaluating a scene’s worthiness. Editor Ellen Brock created this wonderful chart and talks about it in this video. Check out her YouTube and her website for more great writing advice. Photo by Francesco Ungaro

  • First Weekend of Camp NaNoWriMo

    First Weekend of Camp NaNoWriMo

    Enjoyed my first full weekend of Camp NaNoWriMo for April 2022. I completed a scene from my novella called Traption. As I mentioned in a recent blog posting, I’m using a writing process I’m calling the “scratchpad” method. I use a single text document–mine happens to be in Google Docs– and will just add on…

  • Friday’s Findings: The Scratchpad Method

    Friday’s Findings: The Scratchpad Method

    Today is the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo–it’s my first Camp NaNoWriMo!– and I’m using something called “The Scratchpad Method.” You see, I have a writing situation. Is it a good or bad situation? It’s good in the sense I have an abundance of WIPs to work on. It’s bad in the sense I don’t…

  • Still Deciding What To Do for Camp NaNoWriMo

    Still Deciding What To Do for Camp NaNoWriMo

    Camp NaNoWriMo starts April 1st and I’m not sure what to do. It’s not a lack of ideas; it’s too many WIPs to choose from. I have a draft for my novella Traption and I was going to edit it. Then I decided to work on a rough draft for my novella Normous. But now…

  • Is the level-down revision method helpful?

    Is the level-down revision method helpful?

    A couple years ago, I took an online course called Write a Bestselling Novel in 15 Steps by Jessica Brody. It was free through my local public library’s website and in it, Brody talks about her book Save the Cat Writes a Novel. She uses examples and exercises to ensure a vivid understanding for each…

  • Friday’s Findings: Fictionary

    Friday’s Findings: Fictionary

    I bit the bullet and purchased a subscription to Fictionary. Being a word-processing program and outliner for authors, it falls into the same category as Scrivener, but they have some differences. Here’s how I feel about Fictionary: Character tracking: Fictionary has a great feature for keeping track of characters in each scene. Character tracking is…

  • What I Read in 2021

    What I Read in 2021

    I’m proud of how many books I read this year: 42. Not many by some people’s standards and way more than a lot of people. I read a lot of novellas this year, so that helped me reach my goal of reading at least 40 books. What shouldI have read more of this year? Poetry,…