is it time to call Dr. Phil, or revel in a writing breakthrough?
This student’s Muse handed her some awesomely icky things that the bad guys could do to the good guys, and it freaked her out just a little. But being just a little freaked, well, isn’t it a good thing for a writer?
Interesting question. Read, consider, add your thoughts, leave the lights on tonight. Mwahaha!
This student has written a character with an important tattoo. Only one problem: she’s never experienced tattooing. So she goes out to her classmates for information. How does it feel to get a tattoo? What kind of care does it need as it heals? What about wall flash or custom art? Is a tattoo sunburn proof? And which part of the body would be most appropriate space on which to display an evil monkey?
Even for lurkers, this is a must read.
A student of How To Revise Your Novel reports:
Today I moved on to Lesson 5 and after writing the first conflict on the first note card, the beginning of the story – the opening concept I had been struggling with since I began writing this book back in November – fell into place. At that point, the clouds parted, rays of sunshine came down, and I heard ethereal singing because I finally, finally, found THE STORY I wanted to write all along.
See the full report and add your own congratulations and personal experiences with Happy Writing Weather.
Some heroines labor to choose just the right high-fashion shoes.
But really, nothing says Alpha Heroine quite like the perfect sidearm, in this case, the perfect sword. Right style, length, fighting stance.
No fair just yanking it out of a boulder, okay?
Log in to read and join the discussion of a girl’s best friend, circa 1200 CE.
Protagonists can be easy and fun to write. They’re the driving force of the story, and they’re usually good guys–heroes, even–and they’re probably going to survive and prevail.
This Sideways student was happy with her protagonist, but felt her antagonist was a bit blah. So, she threw her question to her Sideways compadres, who had plenty to say.
Still, she doesn’t seem satisfied with the answers. Can you bring something to the discussion?
As promised, I’m continuing to add to and upgrade the HTTS course. This week, in Lesson 22, I’ve added an excerpt from Lesson 10 of the How To Revise Your Novel course that gives the long-promised steps to my REVISED One-Pass Revision. If you’re at Lesson 22 of the course or later, you can pick it up right now.
If you’re not, it will be waiting for you when you get there.
IF YOU ARE ALSO AN HTRYN STUDENT, I strongly suggest that you don’t download this now. Rather, wait until it appears in your HTRYN course, when you’ll be much better equipped to deal with it.
Log in now to download your copy.
Cheerfully,
Holly
Here’s a better way to sort through the carnival parade also known as First Draft.
Week 4 of How to Revise Your Novel teaches how to find those scenes that are part of the plot or part of the subplot or–Oh! the Pain!–part of the notplot.
Here students discuss the downside and the upside of this process of discovery.
This thoughtful Sideways Student admits:
I had no intention of killing off anyone major in the story, yet I wasn’t surprised by which character came to mind first when I considered it as a possibility. She’s a great character and an important minor antagonist, but I dreaded having to continue her as a story thread into the ending of the novel; it felt tedious and cumbersome. Considering the consequence of killing her off solved this problem, and then a truly amazing thing happened.
Find out what amazing thing happened and join the discussion on Thinking Middles.
It’s been an intense month for the How to Revise Your Novel students, but every lesson has been worth the effort. Week 5 is about finding and understanding the conflict that’s already in the first draft. Many of the surprises have been sweet. One student expresses the joy of her discovery:
For the first time I can see there’s something worthwhile in there. Something more than just a silly story I wrote to entertain myself, and which my husband enjoyed. Something that could make this great. And I am going to dig it out. I just don’t know how yet. But that’s what the rest of this course is for. Once we’ve diagnosed the problems, we’ll learn how to discover the solutions.
Week One of How to Revise Your Novel requires the writer to compare the novel he meant to write with the novel he did write. Students reported everything from cautious delight with a draft that turned out to be better than expected to the stout determination to dig out and build on the good things in an otherwise messy manuscript.
Log in to share your experiences with the first week of this course.