Writing Tip Of The Week

[talithakalago]

UPDATES:

So far this year my own New Year’s Resolutions are going well. Weight is being lost, money is being saved and novels are being written. This year I want to get a car and I should have enough saved to buy a brand new Suzuki Alto on the 20th of April.

I plan on fully finishing/editing two novels this year: Lifesphere: Case file 2 and The

Comments

[talithakalago]

At least description is something that is reasonably easy to sit down and work in during the second draft. Sometimes, I make notes in my first draft where I want detailed descriptions of things and get back to it in the next draft.

Pacing is much more difficult, as it can dramatically change the word count of a chapter (or it does for me!). I know my pacing is affected by what I’m reading. Fasted paced books will have me writing faster scenes. :P

[annealysse]

I think I need to work on my conflict. Every time I read an article about how necessary conflict is to a plot, I become paranoid about it. Do my chapters have enough of it? Am I just wasting space with useless drabble instead of helping the plot along? Is what I write going to be even remotely interesting to a reader?

Maybe I'm just over thinking things. There's always the possibility that I'm not, though, and that I do need to watch what I put into chapters.

Anyway, thank you for the tip. I've never seen anyone take the term "conflict" THAT literally, but I can see why someone would make such a mistake. Lovely post. :)

[talithakalago]

It’s also important to remember that types of conflict vary greatly by genre. In a YA, homework could be a huge conflict, but homework probably wouldn’t rank high in a thriller story about an assassin. Conflict in romance novels is often about feelings and misunderstandings between romantically inclined couples (though while this can be done well, romance usually has a larger overall conflict, EG: land sale, war, saving whales, etc).

So sometimes huge, breathtaking conflicts are very inappropriate for your genre. However tension and interesting events are good in all genres.

[annealysse]

Very true! I'll keep that in mind when looking over my stories. Thank you. :)

[sandiabb]

I need most work in writing. I've not written anything other than a couple of poems this year. I don't count NaNo because I only wrote about 300 words.

But I do still feel inspired by my cats. I've changed the title though. Instead of The Diary of... I'm going with The Memoirs of a Crazy Cat Lady. I've got a few stories picked out that I especially want to write about, and I've begun an introduction.

[talithakalago]

Have you done any bullet point synopsises for all your story ideas?

Even when I am DYING, I always write 100 words a day. Do you think you could aim for that? 100 words, every day, come hell or high water?

[veijukka]

I have two major problems:

1). Pacing. My action scenes are first rate, but in between things can drag to the point where even I'm bored reading it later. My introductions can be this way as well, until I get things rolling. I think the point you made that every scene needs a central conflict is critical, even if the specific conflict is secondary to the story itself.

2). Confidence. Sometimes I get so paranoid that my writing isn't interesting that I psyche myself out. I need to constantly remind myself that I'm trying to write a good story that's true to my own voice. It's more than OK if my story isn't a quick read or doesn't jump from action scene to action scene with no room for character development in between.

[talithakalago]

If I’m bored reading a scene, I delete it. Honestly. I know if I don’t like it, no one will.

Sometimes you need to do less interesting scenes-though I make damn sure I find them fascinating and entertaining by the final draft. Letting yourself write boring scenes in the first draft is perfectly okay IMHO.

I know what you mean about confidence though. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who was really confident about their own writing. Even published authors. Admittedly Stephen King seems pretty content with his-though he admits to always learning and improving, even now.

The thing that always gets me over lack of confidence is just focusing on the fact that I’m ENJOYING the process of writing. And screw everyone else. Grin.

[talithakalago]

Generally, if I’m having trouble with dialogue, I analyse hard hitting, fast paced TV shows, rather than books. Because TV is 1) short (only an hour or half an hour) and 2) focused entirely on visual and audio elements, the dialogue has to be sharp and effective.

Reality TV is useless for this, as are day time talk shows, anything that isn’t scripted. When writing, you don’t want dialogue to sound like ‘regular’ people. Good written/scripted dialogue is actually quite different. The best dialogue on TV right now is on Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Some people think it’s crude, but there is pure genius in the dialogue and plot. I also like V, Criminal Minds, Two and a Half Men (for comedy writing) and the middle, which may not be a good show, but the characters have very unique ‘voices’ in terms of what they say and how they say it.