Monthly Archives: May 2010

After the lightning, the brainstorm.
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One of the most useful aspects of the community of Sideways writers is the ability to nudge each other into looking more deeply into an idea or problem.

Here, a writer has received an idea that she initially likes but has a bit of trouble refining into The Sentence.   Others pitch in with reminders and questions about the elements of the sentence.

Then, during part of the development of the idea the writer doubts the idea’s value.  Watch how others support her through this time of doubt.

Warning: This is a cliffhanger!  As yet, the fate of this idea is unknown.  Will it grow up to be a fine, sturdy novel?  Or will it languish for lack of an author?

Time and Time Again and Then Some
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Week 14 of How to Revise Your Novel tackles the scheduling and duration of scenes.

Huh?

When a scene happens is important.  Is it bright, hot, summer noontime or black, shivering, winter midnight?  Is your hero sweating as he dodges lunchtime crowds, or risking icy death alone against the moonless snowscape?  And how quickly can his sweaty, sticky fingers defuse the bomb?  Would it be more suspenseful if his fingers were numb, or covered in insulated mittens?

In short, when does your scene happen and how long does it take, and will all the elements of your scene finish at the same time?

Confused?  Check out the lesson and demo for Week 14, then join the discussion here.  It’s an excellent use of your writing time.

Why can’t you just call it Murphy and be done with it?
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Somehow it seems that a hundred thousand words of story aren’t quite as difficult as the few words of bold type that go on the front of the book.

Why is that?

More importantly, is there a method everyone can use to create a dynamite title?  This discussion offers several different paths to the right name for your novel.

Log in to read and add your own ideas for dubbing your darling.

I’ll see your paperclip, and raise you two curtain rings.
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Week 3 of How to Revise Your Novel brings up the delight of Scene Cards.  Maybe 50 or 100 of them.  You do not want these little darlings loose on the table when the dogs and kids run through, dragging their contrails behind them.  What to do?  Corral them, round them up, put them in order, for now, mwahahaha, and keep them in order.   (Corral the scene cards, that is.  What you do with the kids and dogs is purely a personal decision.)

Holly’s lesson calls for paperclips or perhaps a length of sturdy string.  However, the Hardy Revision students quickly spread out among office supply stores internationally.  Oy.

Log in and see what they found (shiny! colors!) and how they put their findings to work.

Happier than a cat with a full bowl of cream
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A Sideways Student writes:

I wrote the novel THICKER THAN WATER through my first time doing Holly’s Think Sideways course. When Chuck Sambucchino from the “Guide to Literary Agents”-blog announced a “Lucky Agent Contest” with the prize of a 10 page critique from an agent, I jumped at the occasion. (By the way, he’s running another one just now, genres are Fantasy and SciFi.)

AND I WON!!!

Also, THICKER THAN WATER has garnered 4 requests for full from agents, results still pending. Am I happy or what?

Happiness is contagious.  Drop by to see the live links and to offer your congratulations.

Thinking Sideways through Life.
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Students have commented that Sideways Thinking is helpful in areas of life well beyond writing.

Here is the beginning of a discussion about using Sideways techniques to enrich and simplify other aspects of daily living.  Become braver and better organized.  Leave dead-end thinking behind.

Stop by, pick up an idea and leave one behind.

That’s why they don’t call it vacuum-building.
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Lesson 7 of How to Revise Your Novel requires the writer to examine the story world in detail.  Many writers either don’t create a consistent world, or don’t notice that they’ve done so.  World affects the story and is affected by the story, and it is the place that readers enter when they experience the story.

This stuff matters.

Log on to read one student’s Eureka concerning her own worldbuilding and how it relates to her writing at large.   Join the discussion—how has your approach to world-building changed as a result of Lesson 7?

Sparkly things, small rocks, bouquets of colored pens for the Muse
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Clustering, building or adding onto our Sweet Spot Maps, is a powerful tool for the writer.

It can also be one more place in which to experience a Thinking Barrier.   Complaints vary from “I get nothing” to “What I got is dumb” and “I don’t understand what I got.”

This is where toys can come in handy for the Muse.   The Muse does love colorful objects,—with glitter, if possible.   Small pebbles for the Muse who works for a male writer might be in order.

Come see what toys you might have missed, or post some of your own favorites.