Over the course of writing Gunslinger to the Stars, I’ve learned some interesting new things about my writing process, as well as being reminded of some of the basic lessons I learned back when I was getting started. These lessons have helped me to have some fantastic writing days, like today, where I hit 2200 WPH… Continue reading Four-part structure and the writing process
Tag: three act structure
Novella woes and farmers markets
Today I wrote about 2.6 words in my current WIP (Sons of the Starfarers), which didn’t really feel like it because I was constantly getting distracted. Still, 2.6 words is pretty solid–it’s about mid-range for me. If I can hit that every day from here on out (which is doubtful, but hey), the rough draft… Continue reading Novella woes and farmers markets
Trope Tuesday: The Call to Adventure
One of the first (and most important) stages of the hero’s journey is the call to adventure. It happens when the hero first confronts something outside the experience of his ordinary world that beacons him to leave it. It overlaps closely with the inciting incident, and marks the point at which the hero’s journey begins. However,… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: The Call to Adventure
plot vs. PLOT and an interesting serial publishing idea
Back in English 318 at BYU, Brandon Sanderson used to tell us that there was a big difference between “little-p plot” and “big-p Plot.” The first applies mostly to chapters and scenes, which he said he could teach us. The second refers to the overall story structure, which he couldn’t teach in a classroom setting… Continue reading plot vs. PLOT and an interesting serial publishing idea
13,837 words in a day?
Yeah, that’s right. Believe it or not, I barreled through about 13,837 words today. That’s thirteen THOUSAND, not thirteen hundred. Now, only about a thousand of that was new stuff that I was writing. Most of the rest of it was rearranging scenes that I’d already written, touching them up only a tiny bit. I… Continue reading 13,837 words in a day?
New directions
This past week, I’ve been going through Bringing Stella Home at quite a good clip. I’m going through the rough draft as I had it at the end of April, making some major revisions that hopefully are going to make it easier to write the middle section. I’ve been going along at a good clip,… Continue reading New directions
Ugghhhhh…
Man, I am sick. It sucks. I’m also at a low spot in writing this novel. That sucks too. When you get towards the last third of the book you’re writing, you start to have doubts about the whole project. Is this really any go0d? Is the story really holding out? Things slow down a… Continue reading Ugghhhhh…
Almost at part 3
Wow, writing this novel is going a lot faster than I had thought. At the same time, though, I sometimes worry that I’m not going fast enough. I broke the 50k mark this week, and I haven’t even gotten to any of the major climaxes yet. This thing could easily go to 90k words before… Continue reading Almost at part 3
Worldbuilding
This is what I was doing the other day. The FLSR (Foreign Language Student Residence) at BYU has chalkboards in the common rooms, and I just discovered that those can be WAY useful for diagramming your story. On this occasion, I drew out a couple of space battles, according to how they’d play out with… Continue reading Worldbuilding