The Wednesday Writer’s Corner: Avoiding the Muddle in the Middle
Next week, I may need to put the Writer’s Corner on hiatus again
for a month or so. I’m in the
“obsessive” part of drafting the first Mist-Torn
Witches novel where I’m writing all day to get a first draft done while the
ideas are rushing around inside my head.
Late autumn and the winter months are when I get a lot of drafting
done so we have the material to work with in other regards for the remainder of
the year.
But I promised a nuts-and-bolts post this week, and I think
this topic is important, so I wanted to throw a few ideas out there.
I talk to other writers a lot, and when most writers begin actively
working on a novel, they tend to have about the first fifty pages and the last
fifty pages mentally laid out in near concrete clarity. This seems fairly typical. I know it describes me. I sometimes have the ending clear in my
mind even before the beginning.
But before I start working on a project, things have come together to the point that
I know how the story will be set up, and I know how it will end.
So, let’s say you’re got the first fifty pages outlined, and
the last fifty pages outlined.
You’re writing a short novel, maybe 320 pages. This means you have 220 pages left to outline . . . getting
from that awesome beginning you’ve planned to the exciting ending.
Mist-Torn Witches Underway!
On Friday, JC and I sent off the first draft for the next Noble Dead book, The Dog in the Dark. We took a three-day weekend off, and yesterday I began working on the first book of the Mist-Torn Witches. I've just been outlining and doing research, but I'm really excited about this project.This picture is just an image from an article I was reading, but it's very inspirational!
The Wednesday Writer’s Corner: A Siren’s Song of “Impending Success”
Next week, I’m going to do a more “nuts and bolts” post on
planning the middle of a novel, but in recent weeks, my mind and heart have
been drawn to a few tragedies I’ve seen among writers who came out on the more
painful side of “impending success”—and I sort of feel the need to offer some
thoughts.
There is a strange window in the world of a writer once
he/she has found a publisher, signed a contract, delivered a novel, and then
finds him/herself inside that misty period of time (which can last as long as a
year) just waiting for the novel to be published.
Often, the size of the advance and the attitude of the
publisher can affect expectations on the part of the writer.
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