November 2011
49 posts
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Suffering Is Optional →
Writing a great story is hard.
With so many ways to make a story great, we must accept that there must also be a plethora of ways to screw one up.
The best way to avoid a hole in the road is to see the hole in the road.
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25 Questions To Ask As You Write →
Examples:
What is this about?
What do these characters want?
What’s the conflict?
What do I want the reader to feel?
Who is my audience?
Have I saved recently?
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The '10 Mistakes' List →
REPEATS Just about every writer unconsciously leans on a “crutch” word. Crutch words are usually unremarkable. Readers, however, notice them, get irked by them and are eventually distracted by them, and down goes your book, never to be opened again.
FLAT WRITING Flat writing is a sign that you’ve lost interest or are intimidated by your own narrative. It shows that...
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Stare Down Your Limiting Beliefs →
This is for NaNoWriMo preparation, but most of it works for all types of novel-writing.
Examples:
I can’t outline, it ruins the creative experience for me.
That’s exactly like someone saying, “I can’t stay on a diet,” or, “I can’t quit smoking.” … It’s naive and limiting because, even if you draft, you are, in fact, engaged in a form of outlining, which is itself just a form of the...
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15 Ways to Make the Most of Your Writing Time →
What do you do with those small chunks of time when you may or may not feel immediately in a “writing mode” but you have the sliver of time to write?
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Stuck? Borrow Techniques from Popular Authors →
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4 Ways NOT to Find Your Writing Motivation →
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3 Yoda-isms for Writers →
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How to Survive NaNoWriMo →
Establish a routine. Give yourself time for the basics: eating, sleeping, work, family time, etc. Then set aside time for yourself to write.
Don’t procrastinate. Don’t look at this as a chore or a job or something that can be put off until later. If you signed up to do this, then do it.
Burn the midnight oil. Things happen. You’ve got a life besides writing. Be prepared to...
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October 2011
6 posts
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YA Character Generator →
Generates:
a name
personality
appearance
unique trait
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