Search results

Let's be honest. For most of us, the most attentive reader (and maybe the only reader) will be us. So the story needs to be interesting to US. Chapter by chapter and paragraph by paragraph, it needs to be something we would like to read - and reread. If it is, we will keep writing, and MAYBE...

I take a walk. Whatever was holding me up, it seems like three blocks later, the solution just appears. Magic. Or maybe just better blood flow. Sitting has its own challenges.

I think of deletion as another form of revision. I work on a book, come back to it months later and decide it isn't what I want. I think I have revised every one of my ebooks three or four times - even after they are published. But some books I look back at and I know I went off in a wrong...

I appreciate the help, folks. Kind words, good ideas.

Thanks to all of you. Very helpful. I have work to do, and you have given me valuable direction.

Posted one chapter a day for fifty days. Waited for reviews after the last chapter. None. So, I checked the outline. Chapter 1 - 10 readers. Chapter 2 - 8. Chapter 3 - 6. Get the point? My review is the numbers. Readers lost interest. By chapter six or seven, there were no readers. No...

I love the idea of going after 4chan. Can I suggest a fourth character? What fascinates me about conspiracy sites is who, how, and why? How do people come to believe such crazy stuff? So, what about a psychologist, or maybe a guy who was working on a psych Ph.D. and was thrown out of the...

Wow. Great responses. Thanks to all of you. I can see you really work on your characters.

Something I have been seeing in my writing lately. I create good characters and bad, always some tension. But I find I am giving my bad guys a bit of virtue. I don't just give them some backstory excuse - see why he's bad? Look at his/her childhood. Yes, things might have gone wrong for...

Of course imagination is required. Our day-to-day experience is something we review, relive, reimagine. We build off experience and make it so much more. Now, let me add a comment about research. Am I the only one blown away by all the aids we have? I imagine a character in China. Have I...

Here's a reference you won't expect - Roger Schank. Big in AI for a while (not sure what he is doing now). Anyway, he thought readers had expectations based on experience. His big book was Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. His big example was a restaurant. As readers, there was much...

I want my MC to struggle and grow. We have 80,000 words. Plenty to see a character change as the world changes around them. I want them to be better at the end. To have learned, to have fought, to have helped. Others are mentioning all characters have some connection to us. I can see that...

I think all of this is bad advice. Schedule? Break? Here's what matters - IMHO. Is the story interesting? If it is interesting, you will keep writing it. If it isn't, then why would your readers want it either? Go back to where you lost interest, find the last scene that got your...

Can I add another justification for Pantsing? Fun. Since I don't know how a novel will end, I enjoy watching it develop. I enjoy finding out what characters do and how they end up. Yes, sometimes I have to go back and change scenes, and I will change endings if things get too odd, but still...

How helpful are reviews? I find general reviews - overall statements about a book - aren't much help at all. The reviewer doesn't care for your genre or your subject. Fine. Not everyone will. But I might still have a good story to tell - just not to you. What helps me is specific...

I like the idea. But I wonder if you can condense the reunion and suicides to the first chapter. It will be a dark chapter, but just one chapter. Now you have the response. This is a good guy. He sees what he has done, and he wants to fix it. The real action of the book is his response...

The best writing advice I ever got was in a literature class. The prof had been in Paris in the 20s. He talked about Heminway and Stein and showed how each had created a style (mostly Hemingway stole from Stein). But the point was there are many ways you can tell a story. Yes, POV, but also...

I think my comment about Word is mostly a reflection of my age. I am so old I wrote my first novel on an electric typewriter. Even the simplest word processor was magic to me. Revisions? As often as I wanted, as easily as could be. Now I could write the book in any order. Stumped for a...

I'm taking a risk here, but I like Word. Yes, I have fought it many times when the formatting I wanted seemed impossible, and I have retyped sections rather than look at one more help screen that didn't help. But. I have updated to the most recent version, and it is doing something new. It...

I write to tell a story. And, like lots of others, I don't know how the story will go. I write maybe one or two chapters a day, and half the time I have no idea what comes next. Morning comes and I find another couple chapters. Sometimes they are the wrong chapters and I have to back off and...