NaNoWriMo #32: Day 1… How Did It Go?

We would love to hear your Day 1 NaNoWriMo experience, especially if you’ve engaged with this series and, perhaps, are now writing from a story plan. Or not.  Whatever works for you… works for you. There are a whole bunch of us in this boat… let’s support each other and share the love. Please follow […]

NaNoWriMo #31 — Into The Abyss

It’s time.  You kick your kids out of the house before you’re certain they’re ready (or they just leave, in which case you’re absolutely sure they’re not ready), and it never feels quite right.  So it is here, for me, with this series.  Not that you’re my kids, in any way – some of you know way […]

NaNoWriMo #30: On Sub-Plots, Sub-text and Submarines

Unless you are an MFA who doesn’t get out much, you probably know a lot about plot. Plot is the primary dramatic engine of your story. The dramatic question in play. As such, plot becomes the primary dramatic engine of your story. The linear quest of your hero. The source of antagonism and heroism and […]

NaNoWriMo #29: Six Tools to Rescue — or Beef Up — Your Beat Sheet

Maybe you’re there with your beat sheet at this point.  You’re just about ready to write your novel come Tuesday. Maybe you’re struggling.  Tempted to resort to old tapes that whisper sweet poison into your ear as comfort: just wing this, it doesn’t matter. But you know it does matter. Either way, you should be […]

NaNoWriMo #28: Don’t Allow the Parts or the Process to Smother the Whole

This is complex, sticky stuff.  We’ve covered an entire year of grad school creative writing… nobody expects you to absorb it all. All of us find our path, are preferred process.  And it’s all over the map.  You now have some new tools and options to find yours. If only a percentage of this sticks, […]

NaNoWriMo #27: How to Optimize Your Scenes

Two words have filtered from the computer programming world into the lexicon of writing fiction.  Three if you count the word architecture, which the pioneering computer geeks actually borrowed to describe programming in a design context. The two words are paradigm, and optimize.  Ironically, it is architecture that programmers — and writers — seek to optimize.  […]

NoNoWriMo #26: The Panster’s Solution to Story Planning

I get asked this every time I use the term, so I’ll go there first: a “pantser” is someone who writes by the seat-of-their-pants.  That leaves a wide breadth of possible intrepretation — and is not meant to be qualitative or judgmental — but tends to lean toward an unwillingness (often couched as the inability) […]

A Radical NaNoWriMo Opportunity

Want to really slam your NaNoWriMo out of the park this year? Like to live impulsively?  Got a few hundred bucks laying around you’d be willing to throw at this? Timing is everything.  And the timing for this is… perfect. I’m doing a workshop in Oregon this coming weekend.  All day Saturday and Sunday (Oct.29/30).  […]

NaNoWriMo #25: A Strategy for Introducing Your Hero

(Click HERE to read a new Peer Review submission — Prologue/hook from a suspense thriller by Nolan Sweetwater.) Sooner or later you gotta do it.  Your protagonist, your hero, has to make an appearance.  This can happen in a variety of ways, many of them obvious and vanilla.  Better to do it strategically, in context […]

NaNoWriMo #24: Sharpen Your Hook

We’ve covered the notion of a “hook” before.  But now, after you’re down the road with your concept and (hopefully) have a functioning beat sheet underway, I’ll wager you know way more about your story than before. Which is the very best time to revisit your opening chapter, or Prologue, to make sure your hook […]