When you set out to write a novel, you quickly learn that it takes a lot of drafts. There’s the first draft, which is laying down the story. The second works out what the story is missing, and every draft after is refining until it becomes the finished book. How many drafts that takes depends …
Continue reading Motivational Tricks To Keep You Working On Your Manuscript
By the time you're at the tail-end of the writing process, you are so sick of your words you'll do anything to not read them again. This usually happens right around the time you have to read them, though, because you're getting your MS ready to query or publish. But instead of begrudgingly wading through …
The real truth of writing is that you will spend a lot of time editing. A. Lot. Of. Time. Hours, weeks, months, sometimes even years (or at least, what feels like years). When the rush of new ideas is gone. When the thrill of filling in plot holes and working out twists is over. When …
You know that meme where writers name their files "Final Draft", "Final Draft 2", "Final Draft 3", "Really Final Draft", "Really, Really Final Draft", "Seriously Final Draft" etc. I get that. I'm currently working on the sixth draft of an MS I literally named "Final Draft" three drafts ago. Past-Me probably thought it would be. Present-Me …
There are a few writer-world problems you can have. The muse taking an extended break. Losing a month's worth of progress to backup failure. Realizing the "unique" book idea you've been working on for five years was just published by someone else. Then there's writer-problems you can fix. Learning how to show and not tell, …
You've got to be a lot of things when you're a writer. Not only do you need to craft characters and worlds from nothing, bring together a cohesive story, and take hundreds of random words and arrange them into sentences that make sense, you also need to check those sentences for mistakes. But when you've …
Every writer has either a desk drawer or a folder on their computer with a manuscript they started but never quite completed. It might be because the idea was only good for two chapters, they could never dig their way out of a major plot hole, or life became more important than writing the final …
Continue reading Signs You’re Afraid of Finishing Your Manuscript
There’s a reason it’s a good idea to not show anyone early drafts, and that’s because it’s usually full of writing that should be cut. And these cuts aren’t darlings—writing that’s good but doesn’t fit with the story—they’re the parts of your MS that will make it stronger once you’ve removed them. They are the weak …
Continue reading 8 Early Draft Cuts For A Stronger Manuscript
As mentioned in last week’s blog post, I’ve spent most of this year in editing hell, working through an MS that has been through re-writes, new beta readers, and a total show, don’t tell overhaul. As my edits for that MS wound down, I returned to the next MS in the series (book two), which …
