Plot

Conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot: November 5, 1605

Guy Fawkes Day: Remember, Remember

In Britain, today is Guy Fawkes Day. You might recognize him better as the face of Anonymous or that fellow in V for Vendetta. There’s a reason for that. This post was originally published here on 11/5/2010, but I think it bears repeating in the current political and economic climates. People are unhappy and they’re…

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What’s Your Self-Editing Process?

I’m trying to develop/discover my self-editing process and this week in my accountability group How I Write series was asked, “Do you have an editing process? If so, what?” This is one of the things that I’m honestly struggling with as a writer. I do not currently have what I would term a self-editing “process”…

Writing Plan: Summer Edition

This week for our How I Write series, my accountability group’s topic is Summer Writing Plan. We were asked, “What adjustments will you make to get through the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer?” We have 4 more days of school this year. Our son will be moving up from middle school to high school….

Plot Bunnies: Proper Care and Feeding

Before we get to plot bunnies, let’s talk about creative insecurities for a minute. Many people worry to the point of paranoia about having their ideas stolen. This notion isn’t specific to any one industry either. Movies, music, writing, game design, car makers, electronics, everyone’s got something they’re afraid someone is going to overhear and…

7 Creative Ways to Create Character Depth

My accountability group talked a bit before in our How I Write series in the posts on Building Character, but I wanted to take a closer look at some ways to create character depth, to make them unique, not just in your book, but in the market place. WHY do we want to read about…

Plotting via Spreadsheets – Don’t Be Trapped in the Box

Last week, we talked about How We’d Spend A Day With One of Our Characters, but this week’s entry in our How I Write series, takes a closer look at our planning process. So, since we’re all writers, we’re focusing on plotting, which inevitably leads to the question: Plotter vs Pantser or some weird mix?…

Coming Up With Ideas

This week my accountability group is blogging about where we got the idea for our current WIP as a follow up to last week’s more general discussion of Inspiration. Coming up with ideas is the easy part. Executing them is the part that gives me trouble. Generating ideas is something we can train ourselves to…

Drafting or Drifting?

In my last post, I talked about how my writing style seems to be rather Cyclic in Nature, either full-on or drifting between bouts of inspiration. The good news is that I’ve finished a very rough draft of Beneath His Touch and I’m looking ahead to 2011 and starting to build my goals list. While…

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Cyclic in Nature

In the past three years (Gosh, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long!), I’ve come to realize that my writing process is quite cyclic in nature. This isn’t so much tied to the time of year when I may or may not have more free time, but feels more like one of those buckets…

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Structure

Just like we need a bit of structure in our lives in order to thrive and stretch our selves to reach our goals, our writing needs a bit of structure to it. This helps keep the story coherent and cohesive and helps it resonate with the reader. I’m sure there are experimental constructions out there…