by Holly on June 23, 2009
marti-v says:
I’m applying Holly’s lessons to my WIP, which is almost 60K words (headed for about 110K), so the index cards for the Sentence Light was tedious and took hours of work. I actually wrote one for every scene in the book so far, and the result shocked me!
Far better to do this as part of the planning process, rather than after so much has been written! Nevertheless, this is an amazing diagnostic tool, as well as planning tool. Using it at the beginning can avoid the problems I found.
I was stunned to learn how passive my protag is in many scenes, how many chapters are devoted to him learning about the new world he’s just stepped into, and how many scenes are very short and relatively meaningless. I have a LOT of beefing up to do!
At the same time, I’m excited and can hardly wait to start on that work. Finally, I can see why some of my work is flat, and recognizing the problem is the first part of fixing it.
Looks like I’m going to be spending a lot of time with my Muse, looking for ways to strengthen the work.
From the Eureka Board
You can read the full thread here, and if you’re not a student, can comment here on the weblog.
by Holly on June 22, 2009
Via Twitter, a guy named Michael Pokocky sent me a link to an article titled 1000 True Fans (use your Back button after each link to return here), which lays out a model by which a creator (that would be you) can make a decent living AS a creator by connecting directly with your fans. Not millions of fans. Just a few fans.
Having read it, I realized that my business model for Rebel Tales was designed from the beginning to help create True Fans for the writers whom I publish—to offer more of these writers than just their writing to the folks who love their stories, and to permit the people who love their work to reward them directly.
But the article also offers immediate, useful advice for you as the novelist or short story writer who is looking toward publication, and who has taken my long list of personal ‘write or starve, then write AND starve’ anecdotes to heart.
This is incredible advice, an eye-opening way to look at your writing and at your career, and a way to consider working pro publishing in with other publishing.
So my question to you is, how are you going to use this? Brainstorm this, and we’ll figure out ways you can make this happen, and how Thinking Sideways can help you. This is the publishing model of the future, already in progress.
Students and Grads—Discuss this post.
