That last one is a question I’d like your help in answering. Use the comment section below to tell me what you’d like to see here next. I’m thinking another series that does a deep dive into a critical facet of the novel writing proposition… much like the 19-part series I did in May on the groundwork and criteria for your story premise (all of it here for the taking, if you haven’t seen these posts yet; see below). Tell me where you’d like to go next.
A few updates from this end:
My new writing book, Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves, just won its category (Writing and Publishing) in the 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Co-won, actually, just ahead of six other finalists and a flock of other entrants. This is my fourth book to win in its category, including two of my novels.
Also, this website was named in the May issue of Writers Digest Magazine to their 100 Best Websites for Writers list. Thanks for the nominations, if that’s you. This is the sixth appearance on that list in the last ten years… I am very grateful for my readers and your feedback.
Happily… that same May issue of Writers Digest Magazine has another peice with my name on it (my third this year), in the Workbook section shown on Page 57. This article is an exerpt from my previous book, Story Fix, on how to revise your story by hitting the sweet spots. There’s also an ad (on page 53) for my new book, Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves.
All in all, with three seats in the May issue, a good month for me.
But it all gets even better in the July/August issue.
The cover article in that edition is an extensive interview with author Robert Dugoni. This was the result of my pitch to the magazine, boosted by the fact (read: access) that Robert wrote the Foreword for my new writing book.
Pardon if you feel this is a little too “me”- oriented… I just wanted to share the good news with my Storyfix regulars, and with anyone else who happens along here.
More good stuff is in the pipeline. Anxious to field your suggestions for what you’d like to cover next. Thanks for sticking around!
9 Responses
Not too many educators know to teach through the venue of a popular paperback book, but @Larry is definitely one.
Hey Mike…good to see you. How are thing going?
Busy as always … thanks.
First of all, congrats, Larry—you deserve it. So glad to hear SF is making headlines. As far as suggestions/needs for newer writers…both, on my channel and the YouTube writing community, writers are going through a tough time over the past couple of months in trying to find ways to stay motivated. Fortunately, things are changing up in terms of craft being taken more seriously and the “All rules are bad rules” notion is fading out among many. I’ve recommended Story Engineering to several people and called it out in a video as one of the top 3 essential books if you were stranded on a deserted island with only those three books to learn craft from.
Self publishing is definitely growing. And there’s a lot of people selling services at premium prices and attempting to take advantage of newer writers. That’s one big issue—how to recognize credible people and not just those who take their cash and don’t deliver. I’ve suggested your services several times. But could a lot of these writers benefit from a series walking them through everything from concept to completion? Most definitely. Especially characterization. There’s a lot of people who love story structure in my neck of the community, but they haven’t looked at very much beyond Save The Cat…a fine book, but gives them very little on characterization. Which is lacking in finer points in much of the writing I’ve seen. If people are seriously going to grow as independent authors, they need To learn how to network and find resources and connections outside of their community. The one great flaw of social media is people often get stuck where they land and find a tribe. That’s totally a part of our psychological make up, but not good if you’re hoping to actually create a business around your work.
There’s also a lot of Nanowrimo fans. We are currently halfway through July’s Camp Nano, but November is still the big one, which is always huge for prepping novels and tips for getting that first draft down quickly. And that starts during October (or Preptober) and stays heavily hyped throughout November. So your fall schedule would definitely get some traction from those subjects.
Hope this helps,
Robert
You know, Robert, I picked up on: “getting that first draft done quickly.”
In my ongoing project, which by the way was inspired by @Larry’s suggestion of creating a(nother) story about a crime that occurs in a bathroom – of course, how can we ever forget “Witness?” – I haven’t even started to write “a first draft.” Instead, I dream that my first draft will also be my last.
“Story planning” works. You actually CAN develop scenes in outline form, and save them (always, always “save” them!) even if you haven’t yet dreamed-up a way to connect them – and even if it turns out that they “wind up on the cutting-room floor.” You can develop “plot point” =ideas= without knowing how they’re connected … and then decide that some of them are good enough to prompt you to dream up a way to connect them.
Really – all it takes is the acceptance that “fumbling around in the dark” is actually, maybe, NORMAL! (As you’re signing books, you can then =lie= about the process as well as the rest of them. Maybe books ARE like “laws and sausages” after all …)
The notion that anyone is actually “good enough” (sic) to – say – “make a completely-finished professional-grade movie sequentially with their iPhone” is completely a myth. (Yes: spoken by someone who’s old enough to have suffered through 8mm ‘home movies.’) This is what “pantsers” hope for, but it’s a myth.
My story =plan= continues to evolve … “efficiently,” I think … and by now I think that the outcome is going to be “pretty good.” But I still haven’t written a single “draft,” and I’m still not to the point where I plan to.
Just to be clear: “I consider it a complete waste of time to ‘write words’ as a means of discovering what ‘those words “ought” to be.'” Instead, I want to concoct as many possibilities as I can – as cheaply and as efficiently as I can – so that I can experiment(!) with ways to connect them.
The Gentle Reader – I of course hope, “millions of them” – will never see anything of the process that I used. But, then again, they really don’t want to know that it’s hard or uncertain. (Steven King, once again, knew what he was doing … and, in an entirely(!) different way, so did @Larry. And, you.)
@MikeR…I’ve changed up my planning and drafting process quite a bit since last we talked. I’ve written a lot more and stockpiled books for two separate series’ since I plan on self publishing at this point. Which means the first year is going to be pretty important with follow ups and multiple books in the series to get going. And the only way I can logically do that and meet the criteria without putting out total crap is to stock pile books.
Back when we were all regulars here on SF, my life was going through several changes and my writing schedule was pretty sporadic. So I ended up dictating a lot on my phone…which i was not used to and never would have done if not for the necessity of getting something down to feel good about myself. This required some pretty meticulous planning because I knew the words were going to be crap so I needed to make sure the story was there.
A lot of it can from Larry’s teachings and methods of structure. Which are so much easier to follow than Save The Cat Writes a Novel—affine book in it’s own right, but I kept coming back to SE. The dictation helped me to let go and just give myself permission to get a base draft done more quickly. My planning of scenes and designing a structure around them was what helped those dictated draft actually become a more feasible story than some of my earlier draft that I spend more time with. I have a couple of videos discussing the overview of the four essential elements found in most scenes, or stretching them out over several in a sequence, on my YouTube channel.
So my planning essentially became an overview of what each scene conveyed, listing the four basic elements, and I had complete scenes without rambling or getting lost, using the key plot points of structure as destinations for each quarter, and I have produced a body of work I am not starting to edit. Having gone through all of this taught me something else as well, the age old lesson of just he more you do it, the easier it becomes.
Probably the best advice I can give anyone is to experiment and try different things until you find what works for you. But lie yourself, i had that one big story that was taking years in the making. Hence, my second series. I knew the first was not going to happen right away and I needed to give myself a practice canvas to just throw words at, try a variety of techniques, and play without worrying too much about messing thins up, or perfecting a lot. I picked a simple, fun story, a bit comic book related in terms of a dark sort of super-powered individual. That’s been my life and past career, so a lot less prep or research needed, just plotting it out. Turns out there’s a pretty good story there. Little refining needed in terms of world building, but characters and emotional core are there. Playing around netted me a four part arc story of 50K words each. And yes, this process also confirmed that Stephen King has to know This stuff 🙂
Hey Larry,
Sorry been moving to a new house so it’s more chaos on top of all the hysteria out there.
If it were me, I’d create a conceptual direction as in how to write actual real-life stories and scenes.
Most people are not living a “real life” but a biological life of consumption and working a job, or not. That’s it.
The difference between a biological life and a life with meaning is the STORY. A biological life has NO story. You wake up, you eat, wash, consume, shop, go to sleep. That’s it.
A life of MEANING is a quest, a story, a journey to a goal that matters, whether it’s to solve a problem or discover a mystery. It is NOT a shopping trip.
Thus most people will have to change their ENTIRE mindset of life, thus actual scenes, in a life with meaning, vs just “hanging out” consumption of stuff.
Also, I would advertise somehow, that your teaching IS for those who want to live a life with meaning, hence write about a story that has meaning. All of the people against what you and I talk about with story, psychology, are people on a canoe without paddles, floating down a stream of someone else’s machination. Hence they are bit players, passengers in someone else’s story.
If you want more on this…hit me up.
Take care my friend,
Kerry
Congratulations, Larry, on the recent successes! Well-deserved!