Category: setting
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What to do if you’re having trouble starting a scene
Photo by Landiva Weber
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Friday’s Findings: My 50K Novel Week 2
As an alternate to NaNoWriMo, I’m doing a 50K word rough draft of a novel in 30 days. Here’s how the second week went: Day 8: My city has the best coffee shops. I’m sitting in one before I go to work and I’m going to outline some unfinished scenes. I swore I wouldn’t do…
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Friday’s Findings: An Experiment in Screenplay Writing
Warning: possible spoilers for the novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay follow. Let me start off by saying I do not intend to become a screenplay writer. What I did yesterday was for fun. It started when I began re-reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. I had forgotten…
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Friday’s Findings: The Perfect Story?
This week, I came across some articles that go over the basics of fiction: story elements, types of characters and the three act story structure. I also came across Writer’s Digest’s 50 best websites for writers in 2023. Elements of Fiction: A Quick Guide to Writing the Perfect Story – Kotobee Blog A refresher on…
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Friday’s Findings: Storytelling Tips and Techniques
Got an extra Audible credit you want to use? Looking to take a creative writing class? Then I recommend Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques. This is part of The Great Courses Series on Audible. James Hynes, a writing professor and novelist, narrates this 24 lecture course on writing novels and short stories. I…
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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…
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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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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…
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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…