How To Think Sideways: Career Survival School For Writers

First Draft vs. Revision

February 6, 2010

Quite a few HTRYN students are also HtTS students.  This makes for interesting thought convergences.  Here some students discuss their wish lists of elements  for first drafts and their plans for revision.
Log in and share your thoughts.

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Homage? Theft? Or something else?

February 3, 2010

This student loves a story written by someone else, and has felt inspired to try something similar to it.  But there’s a troublesome doubt  putting a hitch in his happy dance of creativity: is his story truly a new story or is it too much like the inspiration piece?
Hmm.
Sounds like a great topic for discussion.

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When the Muse takes a walk on the dark side–

January 31, 2010

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.  [...]

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Inklings of Inkings

January 28, 2010

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 [...]

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The Happy Writer’s Weather Report

January 25, 2010

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 [...]

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Ladies should accessorize their outfits appropriately.

January 22, 2010

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.

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Who can stop a hero? Who, indeed?

January 19, 2010

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 [...]

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New Technique – Revised One-Pass Revision – Added

January 15, 2010

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 [...]

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Leave the petals on the daisy–

January 13, 2010

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 [...]

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Cutting out the middle man.

January 9, 2010

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 [...]

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