I tried to focus on the choices you make before you write a novel. The main character and the most important character are not always the same person — you have to know the difference. The first-person voice and the third-person voice each come with advantages and disadvantages; it helps me to know what the story is, and who the characters are, before I choose the point-of-view voice for the storytelling.
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
Do you excel at creating tension? Unpredictable plot complications? Sympathetic characters? Suspense? Romance? Historical detail?... relish the satisfaction of leaving a particular, distinguishing mark.
If first impressions are important in real life, they are absolutely vital in fiction. A character’s initial appearance on the scene will leave an indelible mark in the reader’s mind. Flub it, and you’ll spend the rest of the book trying to make up for the mistake you made in characterization. Nail it, and the character may later perform all manner of transgressions, because the reader will know, deep down, who the person truly is.
“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….”
as we create fictional characters, it’s easy to focus only on one character and forget about who that character knows, and who their acquaintances know and how they know each other.
George R.R. Martin... introduces his exposition when it causes more conflict...
old information that causes conflict is all of the sudden fresh.http://www.speculatesf.com/2012/05/23/episode-45-of-speculate-brent-weeks-author-interview/
two friction-causing, conflict-creating, mutually exclusive needs.
in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane’s primary need is to marry and live with her soul mate, Rochester.
... Jane’s need to remain true to her moral duty, as well as her need to grow into the strength to truly stand as Rochester’s equal, impedes her from remaining with Rochester after she learns of his insane wife.
I have a very simple definition... A story arc is created when something in your writing gets repeated three times.http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/three-points-make-story-arc.html
who is {your protagonist}? Is he the brilliant young doctor that he imagines that he could be, or is he the pond scum that past evidence shows him to be? Well, that’s what the story is about.http://www.davidfarland.net/writing_tips/?a=81
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
theoretically I knew that chapters don’t all have to be about the same length. Eric {Flint} made it real to me... Five hundred word scenes became chapters. A single telegram became a chapter... I discovered this was a technique that would make a particular scene or elements in that scene stand out and be more memorable than they would have been had they been buried in longer chapters.
Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey aren’t novels, per se, they are 400 solid pages of feelings (longing, in the same of Twilight, desire/curiosity/revulsion in the case of Shades). For me, both of them sunk their hooks into me (and about 40 million other people) so deep that I would constantly look up from the books, thinking, “This is such crap…and I can’t stop reading it!” Why? Feelings.
plot is... a narrative that starts with “guess what I saw today” and ends with “a real-live elephant on a downtown shopping spree.” Plot is a promise made and fulfilled. Plot is a character with a need. Plot is choices and actions.
For the sake of pacing, you usually want to drag out the description of {a simple but important action} so that it reflects the actual time that the action takes... to give it more prominence in the reader’s mind.
how do you do this? You add more words to extend the time that the reader spends reading... padding that adds to the reader’s experience
if you look at a tale as being about a character moving from one phase of life to another, you can immediately begin to see some of the conflicts you might want to establish, and you’ll get ideas for what needs to happen.
Gladiator... our protagonist moves from being “Most trusted general and family man,” to “accused traitor,” “to widower/bereft of family” to “slave” to “gladiator” to “arena champion” to “avenger” to “gaining heavenly reward.”http://www.davidfarland.com/writing_tips/?a=79
Poetry and science do not seem that different. They are both a way of looking at the world without preconceptions and trying to catch something vital about it as simply as possible.
The voice is what beckons the reader to curl up with a book and whispers, “Pay attention. I’m going to tell you a story.”
I literally skim through the work... {to} create an outline of all the major plot points by chapter for the novel... It really does force you to ignore character, dialogue, description and boil the story down to its plot skeleton core... pacing and story arc.
Most genres carry a target audience with them like a parade float... there’s an ambiance that readers expect when they enter that world. As a novelist, you violate that expectation at your own peril.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl who always wore a red riding hood. . . .”
{T}ell it as a spy thriller... as a historical romance... as a deep-space science fiction.
IDENTIFY THE SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE YOU WANT TO EVOKE IN YOUR READER – AND THEN MAKE SURE YOU’RE EVOKING IT.
I cannot possibly stress this enough. We read novels to have an EXPERIENCE.
A good story should always be raising questions — not asking them directly, but instead forcing the reader to ask them. “Wait, what’s that weird symbol they keep seeing on the walls? What was that sound? Something’s up with that top hat-wearing fox that keeps following them, too. Where the crap are they going?” This is why too much exposition is a story-squasher
http://www.sfwa.org/2011/06/key-conditions-for-suspense-part-27-patterns-for-resolution-element-4-6-the-series-wrap-up/
it’s important to know what the ultimate obstacle to victory is. Is it cowardice, knowledge, power? Once we know this, it’s easier to write the resolution because this time... the hero removes that last obstacle and vanquishes the opposition.
{Or}... Does it feel right to test your hero in the ending? Is that the type of story you’re writing?
Adding a love interest is an easy way to add a bit of extra suspense, drama & conflict, to darken the dark point and sweeten the resolution of the main plot.
Readers love it when some early, trivial detail plays a part in the finale.
The carefully-constructed goals you have concocted for your character are, sadly, meaningless… UNLESS they are paired with a compelling antagonist...
goal + obstacle => empathy
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
At the beginning of your novel, how does your protagonist understand himself? What defines him? What rules or code guide him? What assumptions are givens? What’s home base? Who’s on his side? In whose love is he secure? ...
At the end of your novel, how has the answer changed to any of the questions above? What happens to change that opinion? Add it.
We’re biologically geared to take notice of things in motion. Anything that moves of its own volition is either potential food or a potential threat... So instead of having your character “sitting” in a perfectly still forest, describe the trees swaying in a soft breeze... or show the squirrels racing up the boles of pine trees, or tell of the sound of a branch snapping, which might portend danger.
One writing exercise that I find that works well for the opening of tale is to describe the scene using only active verbs (no was, or were, or anything that shows a static setting.)
