Andrew M. Friday

Category: novel planning

  • Fiction Writing Workshop: Action Scenes

    He extends his sword and then utters these words: “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.” The most memorable part of this fight scene are these words. But why? To find the answer, I wanted to know more about writing effective fight and action scenes. My novel has several of…

  • The Final Quarter

    I am down to the last 25% of the current draft of my novel which I’m now calling Ziggurat Reach. Whether that is a working title or a final title, I don’t know. I know what is happening in the last part of my novel. I am building up to the story’s climax and all…

  • Books on writing I read in 2015

    Every year I try and read a couple of books on the writing craft. I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but,  honestly, I love reading stuff on how to write fiction. Here is what I read in 2015: Planning a Novel, Script or Memoir by Hank Quense Quense offers practical tips on how…

  • Quense tells how he writes his books and doesn’t apologize for it

    Here is my review of Hank Quense’s Planning a Novel, Script or Memoir as it appears in Goodreads and Amazon: I’ve read many books on writing fiction and after a while I see the same theories and best practices over and over. This is not necessarily a bad thing because a reminder is always helpful. However,…

  • Those Extra Chunks of Time

    Don’t wait for just the big chunks of time to write. Use little chunks of time throughout the day: 15 minute breaks; 20 minutes here; even thinking about your story while you drive home from work counts. Those little chunks of time add up. When the big chunks of time arrive –say a whole Saturday…

  • What I’m learning as I write my novel, part 2

    In my previous blog entry, I began listing some things I’m learning as I write my current novel. Here are some more: Let the story unfold like a snowflake. When writing the discovery draft of a novel, I like to use the snowflake method. This is a method created by writer Randy Ingermanson. I mentioned…

  • What I’m learning as I write my novel

    When I say I’ve written six novels, this is what I really mean: I’ve written the rough draft of six novels. Sure I like to say “I’ve written six novels” to try to impress people, but if anyone would read these “novels”, he would read for five minutes, stick out his tongue, squinch up his…

  • Fiction writing workshop: story structure

    When planning a novel, the most helpful tool I’ve found is a thousands-year-old recipe called the three-act structure. It’s helped me plan out my novels more effectively than any fiction writing software. What is the three-act structure? Greek philosopher, Aristotle, came up with this structure. He said a good story has three acts: a beginning,…

  • Periodic table of storytelling

    Let this periodic table of storytelling destroy your writer’s block.