no matter what you do with your life someone will criticize you. Cashier? Waiter? Truck driver? Someone isn't going to like something that you did. Some people were born to be d***s.
So fuhgeddaboutit. Write, be criticized, and keep writing. If you're going to be criticized, be criticized for telling your own stories/doing your own thing.
We know that if you experience the same thing over and over again, you get diminishing results. We have to constantly switch things up. That could be with story, characters, environment, or it could be with this "set-piece moment"
Try imagining the book that would light your heart and mind on fire if you came across it in a bookstore—the one that would quicken your pulse and keep you up all night reading. What would it be? Details, details: when, where, what, who? Think it up, imagine it fully, then bring it forth. That’s the book you should be writing.
Nothing worth doing is easy... Writing is a LOT of work. Breaking into the industry is a torment worthy of the fifth or sixth circle of Hell. Face that. Expect it. Deal with it... It's difficult from the get go
...
The true reward of breaking into the industry against all the odds isn't money. It isn't fame. It it isn't respect.
It's you.
It's confidence. It's satisfaction. It's well-deserved pride. Suddenly, the other challenges in your life are going to dwindle as well, because you know you'll be able to handle them.
Added link to the great articles webpage.
How To Move From IDEA to CONCEPT to PREMISE
1. IDEA asks no questions and presents no action or character
2. CONCEPT asks a question (‘what if’) and the answer to that question is your story *
3. PREMISE is a concept that brings character into the mix; it defines hero’s quest.
* Use as many ‘what if’ sequences as necessary to reach your concept
you can really mess with the reader by choosing the right point of view... some peoples' perceptions are really off.
When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.http://io9.com/5916970/the-22-rules-of-storytelling-according-to-pixar
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.http://io9.com/5916970/the-22-rules-of-storytelling-according-to-pixar
“Who’s your reader?”...http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/who-is-your-target-reader
When an editor or agent asks... they aren’t just looking for a demographic – they’re looking for your motivation.. the implied question...“why are you the right writer to tell this story?”
See this question as an opportunity to show both the businesslike and passionate sides of yourself – i.e., why this is a marketable book and why you alone of all the souls on earth were born to write it... {to e}xplain where your ideas come from and how they develop over time.
“Who’s your target reader?” ... “9-13 year old girls. It really bothers me how they’re pressured to grow up too fast. Last Christmas I was talking to my niece and it hit me that her childhood is so different from mine, that….”
if you know something doesn't work, you're right... don't give up and say "this is good enough"... keep going until you're happy with it
*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?
What do you fear most in your writing life? Take a moment to evaluate if it truly is likely to do you serious harm. If the answer is no, then I invite you to make a point of doing this very thing
when I get seriously stuck, I... map out exactly what the villains are doing, that alone is often enough to snap the plot back into place.
while I was writing out my little description of what I was going to write... I would play the scene through in my mind and try to get excited about it. I'd look for all the cool little hooks, the parts that interested me most, and focus on those since they were obviously what made the scene cool. If I couldn't find anything to get excited over, then I would change the scene, or get rid of it entirely.
I want to remind writers to not only learn craft and polish skills and to plot and plan their stories.
I want to remind them to bring passion to those stories. I want to encourage them to write with abandon and pleasure and giddiness. To write without restraint.
To write with fire.
when... you suddenly have all of these new tools... they're tools you have to think about conciously because you've just learned them.... {W}riting becomes difficult - because it is suddenly a concious process. And it takes a while to internalise these tools to the point that they become unconcious. What frequently happens to people is that they mistake the "this is difficult because I'm thinking about it" for "I can't write".
Revision... is actually re-vision...you have to re-see the work, see it as an outsider sees it, see it the way you wanted it to be, and then do what's necessary so that the reader, the outsider, sees what you wanted them to see in the first place.
{Give} the brain a problem to work on—a question or other unknown. Don’t think about it actively. Just put it out there, write it down, leave it around where the eyes can fall on it occasionally… and see what happens.
story ideas... lose their punch over time in your own mind. It’s not until you get them in front of fresh eyes, or pitch them to new ears, that you realize, remember, or understand for the first time in a lightning-strike epiphany that, yes, you’ve really got something.http://davidanaxagoras.com/2011/03/14/the-joke-is-still-funny/
