Andrew M. Friday

Category: writing tips

  • Help. I’m addicted to grammar

    Ten years ago, when I started teaching as an adjunct English teacher at a local college, I brushed up on my grammar. I fell in love with the basics of writing all over again: the parts of speech; verbals;  clauses–both dependent and independent; appositives; and so on . . . I had forgotten so much…

  • I’m four-fifths done so I might as well finish it

    Yesterday afternoon I passed 40,000 words on my manuscript for NaNoWriMo. Only 10,000 words to go and I have until midnight next Friday. So I’m feeling pretty good.  One thing though: my story won’t be finished. Yeah, I’ll have 50,0000 words but I haven’t even gotten to the part that I thought I would be…

  • Some things I’m learning from this year’s NaNoWriMo

    When I finished working on NaNoWriMo last night, I had finally completed a word count ahead of schedule for the first time this NaNo year. By the end of the day November 11, I should have had 18, 337 words and last night around 9:30pm, I had 18,597. I’m also learning some new things along…

  • He gripped her hand in an even tighter grip. Whaaaaat?

    That was the second line in my NaNoWriMo manuscript. I don’t remember using a form of “grip” twice in one sentence, but, hey, isn’t that what National Novel Writing Month is all about? Writing a story that humiliates you upon review? Writing prose that makes you dash to the bathroom and vomit in the toilet?…

  • Toolkit for writing fiction

    Toolkit for writing fiction

    It’s midnight on November 1st and, even though it’s in the middle of the week and you have to go to work tomorrow, you stayed up to write your first sixteen hundred word quota for NaNoWriMo. You’ve thought out a dozen characters in your mind and you have a protagonist who is a thinly-veined version…

  • Making a scene

    Making a scene

    One thing I find helpful for NaNoWriMo is making an informal list of scenes. The key is to not get married to this list; just use it as a jumping point. I usually end up moving the order of the scenes around. Here are some things to keep in mind when thinking of scenes: Think…

  • What I’m doing to get ready for NaNoWriMo, part deux

    I thought of a few more items aspiring NaNoWriMo participants can do to prepare for November: Go to your local NaNoWriMo group get-togethers. Of course, writing is a solitary practice, but you can maybe sit in a coffee shop with others pounding away on their stories. Regions also have before and after parties.  Just go…

  • What I’m doing to get ready for NaNoWriMo

    Tell me if I’m wrong, but getting ready for National Novel Writing Month can include anything except the actual writing itself. I admit that I am itching to get started, so in the meantime, I am doing the following before November 1st: Creating characters: I have an Excel spreadsheet with columns for their names, goals,…

  • The murdering of perfectionism in planning your novel

    Are you the kind of writer who just starts writing and sees where it goes? Or, are you the kind of writer who plans every detail in an outline before writing the first draft? I use to fall into the latter category. I didn’t want to tumble into the trap where the more spontaneous writers…