How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day When I started writing The Spirit War (Eli novel #4), I had a bit of a problem. I had a brand new baby and my life (like every new mother's life) was constantly on the verge of shambles. I paid for a sitter four times a week so I could get some writing time, and I guarded these hours like a mama bear guards her cubs - with ferocity and hiker-mauling violence. To keep my schedule and make my deadlines, I needed to write 4000 words during each of these carefully arranged sessions. But (of course), things didn't work out like that. Needless to say, I felt like a failure. When I told people at ConCarolinas that I'd gone from writing 2k to 10k per day, I got a huge response. So, once and for all, here's the story of how I went from writing 500 words an hour to over 1500, and (hopefully) how you can too: A quick note: There are many fine, successful writers out there who equate writing quickly with being a hack. Update! Side 1: Knowledge, or Know What You're Writing Before You Write It
Stephen King's Top 20 Rules for Writers Image by the USO, via Flickr Commons In one of my favorite Stephen King interviews, for The Atlantic, he talks at length about the vital importance of a good opening line. “There are all sorts of theories,” he says, “it’s a tricky thing.” “But there’s one thing” he’s sure about: “An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. We’ve talked so much about the reader, but you can’t forget that the opening line is important to the writer, too. This is excellent advice. Revision in the second draft, “one of them, anyway,” may “necessitate some big changes” says King in his 2000 memoir slash writing guide On Writing. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. See a fuller exposition of King’s writing wisdom at Barnes & Noble’s blog. Related Content: Stephen King Creates a List of 96 Books for Aspiring Writers to Read Stephen King Writes A Letter to His 16-Year-Old Self: “Stay Away from Recreational Drugs”
20 Tips For Writing a Captivating Short Story (Part 1) by Mindy Halleck Today, as I edit, trim, cut, and otherwise obliterate a short story I wrote that ended up to be 8,000 words, but needs to be 5,000 words, I am reminded of this quote: “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” -Henry David Thoreau Wise man. I thought I’d share some editing tips this morning, not so much for you as for me. I will share these tips in three concurring post over the next two weeks. Anyway . . . drum roll . . . . Writing short stories is a great way to investigate diverse genres, characters, settings, and voices. Here are some editing tips that hopefully will keep you from banging your head on the editing desk. Watch your word count. Check out part 2 for the rest of the tips! Mindy Halleck is an award winning author who lives in the Pacific Northwest. Like this: Like Loading...
Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling--Visualized Note: This article is included in our year-end storytelling advice round-up. A while back, now-former Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats tweeted a series of pearls of narrative wisdom she had gleaned from working at the studio. This list of 22 rules of storytelling was widely embraced as it was applicable to any writer or anyone who was in the business of communicating (which is pretty much everyone, including software developers). Last week, Dino Ignacio, a UX Director at a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, created a series of image macros of the 22 rules, posting them to Imgur. Have a look through more of them in the slides above.
Truths About Fiction The following essay was previewed in the class that Stephen Graham Jones taught for LitReactor, Your Life Story Is Five Pages Long. 1. The reader should never have to work to figure out the basics of your story. Who’s whose wife or husband, what the time period is if that matters, why these people have broken into this house, and on and on, just the basic, ground-level facts about your story. 2. Meaning you don’t have to lay every last detail of every last thing out. The best writers are the ones who can cover the most distance with the fewest words. 3. It can be as simple as if the story opens with what feels like a dramatic frame—two people sitting by a fireplace, talking over brandy—then we already expect the story to circle back to that fireplace. 4. You open with a hook, of course—the title—then you hook with the first line, then, usually at the end of the first paragraph, you set that hook. 5. They’re not reading so you can render for them their already quotidian lives. 6. 7. 8. 9.
The Neurobiology of Writing The PHD Movie Sequel! - Help us make a sequel to the PHD Movie! Click here! If you haven't seen the first one, you can watch it for FREE all this month at: phdmovie.com. Tell your friends! Doctor (of Philosophy) Shirts - are back in stock! (More Doctor Mugs coming June 5th) UK Lectures! New shirt! Order it here Need a last minute gift? Click Here! THESIS FUEL MUG BACK IN STOCK! Now shipping! 2014 PHD Calendar - is here! The Best of PHD - I'm happy to announce that we'll be publishing a run of the "Best PHD Comics" on Tapastic! The feed will be curated by me (Jorge), and will feature behind-the-scene commentary on why each comic is special to me. Tapastic is a pretty cool platform for webcomics. PHD Lectures - I'll be speaking at Penn State and Washington College this Tuesday and Wednesday (9/17, 9/18)! GOOGLE+ - Hey, PHD Comics is now on Google+!
Fictional Culture The way I build worlds is by collecting cool stuff from the history, myth and people around me. I blend these details with my own imagination, and create my own cultures. Culture is a vital part to realistic worldbuilding. Normally there are a few particular cultures that interest me at a given time. I read whatever I can find about them, their environment, their traditions and their myths. The interesting details filter into the new world I’m creating (example: at one time, Venetian widows could only remarry on the stroke of midnight). In the long term, there is nothing more inspiring and challenging than visiting foreign cultures yourself (especially if you can get far beyond your comfort zone to do it). But reading (non-fiction, myth/legend/fairytales, as well as the classics like Dune and Lord of the Rings) and watching documentaries/films can get you a long way toward filling up on your inspiration tank. What is the most important ideal to this culture as a whole? Like this:
Publish Books Instantly From Evernote It’s never been easier to be an author. Evernote is an especially popular tool for many writers. It serves as the place to collect, find, and organize source material, archival information, and photographs. For many authors, Evernote is the place where ideas are assembled into words and manufactured into stories. The white canvas of a note is a comfortable place to pour out prose and organize the elements of a publication into place. Now, with an integration by FastPencil, authors have a full-fledged tool to create and distribute a book in Evernote, from start to publish. Here’s all you need to know to turn your Evernote notes into published content with FastPencil: Create. Review. Publish. Distribute. Evernote is a great resource to capture ideas and write, but with this integration from FastPencil, it’s a powerful new tool to format, structure and print your content and share it with the world. What will you write and publish with Evernote?
MASTER LIST of Physical Descriptions! | Bryn Donovan Sometimes it can be hard to find the right words to describe individual facial features, faces in general, bodies, and even hair. I’m hoping this post will be a good resource for describing the looks of characters in your story. Before I get to the long list, I have a couple of notes and words of advice: When you’re in a character’s POV, their attitude toward another character’s appearance may change over the course of the story as their relationship to that character changes. A classic case in point: Mr. Don’t rely too much on attractiveness or ugliness to make me as a reader like or dislike a character. Some of these phrases are more expected than others, and whether you care is up to you. Okay, here we go! Eyes – General I’m focusing here on physical descriptions rather than emotional expressions, though there’s a little crossover. large small narrow sharp squinty round wide-set close-set deep-set sunken bulging protruding wide hooded heavy-lidded bedroom bright sparkling glittering flecked dull bleary rheumy
J.K. Rowling's Plot Spreadsheet (Click to enlarge) When you're writing a book (actually, a series of books) with a bunch of plot lines, you need a way to keep track of what's going on. How can you structure the book so that everything fits, and moves, and you don't leave out any of those zillions of characters and subplots? How do you figure out what goes in each chapter? Well, apparently J.K. Rowling made a spreadsheet -- the old-school way, using a piece of paper. One sample sheet popped up on the blog état omnipotent in 2010, though apparently this page had been floating around for years (I've read some comments suggesting that Rowling herself released it on her website for fans). A spreadsheet plot written out by J.K. This one is from Order of the Phoenix, although it's just one page and it's an early version (you'll note "Elvira Umbridge" mentioned rather than Dolores; Grawp is apparently a cousin at this stage; and the D.A. and the Order of the Phoenix appear to have swapped names). Spot anything interesting?
Practical Creative Writing for inspiration, tips and information This Note-Taking System Turns You Into An Efficiency Expert Note-taking is a skill not easily acquired. In the hands of an artist, designer, or Hollywood serial killer (à la Seven’s John Doe), an idea-crammed notebook can even become a rarified, and in the case of the latter, creepy, object all on its own. Too often, however, the ability to take comprehensive, ruminative, or even attractive notes and sketches is conflated with simply buying a stylish book of paper, say from Moleskine or Field Notes. Wrong. The most important step to keeping a great notebook is organization. No one knows that better than web designer Ryder Carroll. The first thing you notice about the Bullet Journal notebook is...no physical notebook. Carroll outlines the simple how-to in the video above, and emphasizes that the ease of his system lies in its familiarity. The Bullet Journal, Carroll says, was motivate by and has helped him overcome some personal hurdles, like childhood learning disabilities, that prevented him from properly organizing his life and work.