Category: scene

  • Friday’s Findings: My 50K Novel Week 1

    Friday’s Findings: My 50K Novel Week 1

    I’ve decided to prove that I can write fifty thousand words in thirty days on my own — without anyone or any organization giving me a deadline. Here are the parameters I set for myself: Here is how my first week went: Day 1: It’s a Thursday and in the middle of the work week.…

  • Friday’s Findings: Creating a scene palette

    Friday’s Findings: Creating a scene palette

    When creating a scene for the first time, I have a list. And I try to hit as many points on that list as possible: But before writing the rough draft of a scene, I have practiced a step I got from a thin, little book called Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces by poet…

  • Friday’s Findings: Character Viewpoint and Description

    Friday’s Findings: Character Viewpoint and Description

    I am a technical editor for an airline, and recently my department moved from one building to a new one. I love my new office. Everything is new and clean. It’s located in an airplane hangar, so I can just step away from my desk and go see the airplanes up close as the mechanics…

  • Friday’s Findings: Five things I’ve learned in five years

    Friday’s Findings: Five things I’ve learned in five years

    In my post last Friday, I talked about writers should keep learning their craft. I thought about writing practices I had learned in the last five years. I took an inventory and came up with two lists: Today, I want to show you my writing craft tips. These are writing practices I’ve discovered in the…

  • Friday’s Findings: Bullet Point Outline – Do you do it?

    Friday’s Findings: Bullet Point Outline – Do you do it?

    Want to write a rough draft of a scene like a champ? For a while now I’ve been trying this method using bullet points. It’s not my invention, but it makes sense to me. Here’s the short version: This method is pretty simple. And it actually speeds up the writing process because it puts me…

  • Friday’s Findings: The Cat and the Snowflake

    Friday’s Findings: The Cat and the Snowflake

    In my last post, I discussed using the Snowflake Method simultaneously with the Save the Cat beats to develop a story and end up with a first draft. I expanded this idea with an Excel spreadsheet that can be downloaded. Or if you prefer, right click on the graphic below to expand it. Once the image…

  • Friday’s Findings: The Recipe for Interiority

    Friday’s Findings: The Recipe for Interiority

    There’s this new term I’ve come across in the fiction craft world: interiority. I had never heard of it until last year when I took Mary Kole’s online class called Crafting Dynamic Characters. Great class. As far as using it as a writing craft term, I don’t know who coined interiority, but Kole built her…

  • Friday’s Findings: The Exact Detail

    Friday’s Findings: The Exact Detail

    “In all genres, I wait in ambush for the exact, perfect, telling detail, the thing that makes the scene or line come alive.” —Lauren Groff Friday’s Findings: Photo by veeterzy: https://www.pexels.com/photo/road-between-pine-trees-39811/

  • Friday’s Findings: Doing Whatever It Takes

    Friday’s Findings: Doing Whatever It Takes

    The title of today’s blog entry refers to an update on my writing progress. I’ve been stuck for several weeks. I’ve been having trouble finishing even one scene. I decided to take action. In my science fiction novel, my characters spend about twenty scenes on a planet called Zonvillon. I had already written a couple…