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from: NaNoWriMo.Org --> www.nanowrimo.org/node/1065561
Dear Author,
By now you're probably ready to give up. You're past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You're not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You're in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing, your family, friends and random email acquaintances have gone from being encouraging or at least accepting to now complaining that they never see you any more---and that even when they do you're preoccupied and no fun. You don't know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you're pretty sure that even if you finish it it won't have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began---a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read---it falls so painfully short that you're pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.
Welcome to the club.
That's how novels get written.
You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
A dry-stone wall is a lovely thing when you see it bordering a field in the middle of nowhere but becomes more impressive when you realise that it was built without mortar, that the builder needed to choose each interlocking stone and fit it in. Writing is like building a wall. It's a continual search for the word that will fit in the text, in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style, all these become secondary to the words. The wall-builder erects her wall one rock at a time until she reaches the far end of the field. If she doesn't build it it won't be there. So she looks down at her pile of rocks, picks the one that looks like it will best suit her purpose, and puts it in.
The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.
The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm---or even arguing with me---she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh, you're at that part of the book, are you?"
I was shocked. "You mean I've done this before?"
"You don't remember?"
"Not really."
"Oh yes," she said. "You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients."
I didn't even get to feel unique in my despair.
So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.
One word after another.
That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's the only way to do it.
So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.
Pretty soon you'll be on the downward slide, and it's not impossible that soon you'll be at the end. Good luck...
Neil Gaiman
www.neilgaiman.com/
Dear Author,
By now you're probably ready to give up. You're past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You're not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You're in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing, your family, friends and random email acquaintances have gone from being encouraging or at least accepting to now complaining that they never see you any more---and that even when they do you're preoccupied and no fun. You don't know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you're pretty sure that even if you finish it it won't have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began---a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read---it falls so painfully short that you're pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.
Welcome to the club.
That's how novels get written.
You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
A dry-stone wall is a lovely thing when you see it bordering a field in the middle of nowhere but becomes more impressive when you realise that it was built without mortar, that the builder needed to choose each interlocking stone and fit it in. Writing is like building a wall. It's a continual search for the word that will fit in the text, in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style, all these become secondary to the words. The wall-builder erects her wall one rock at a time until she reaches the far end of the field. If she doesn't build it it won't be there. So she looks down at her pile of rocks, picks the one that looks like it will best suit her purpose, and puts it in.
The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.
The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm---or even arguing with me---she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh, you're at that part of the book, are you?"
I was shocked. "You mean I've done this before?"
"You don't remember?"
"Not really."
"Oh yes," she said. "You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients."
I didn't even get to feel unique in my despair.
So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.
One word after another.
That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's the only way to do it.
So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.
Pretty soon you'll be on the downward slide, and it's not impossible that soon you'll be at the end. Good luck...
Neil Gaiman
www.neilgaiman.com/
The Curse of Run-On Dialogue
The Curse of Run-On Dialogue AKA; Narration Run Amok ----- Original Message ----- [What should I do] about splitting [dialogue] paragraphs that are [all] by the same character? I usually do it for emphasis or to show that there's a brief pause between them. Like when a character suddenly changes his/her topic. -- My Characters Won't Shut Up! -- Paragraphing IS supposed to be divided by character; their actions + their dialogue. However, sooner or later one will run across: Run-On Dialogue. Run-On Dialogue is when one character talks, and talks, and talks...for whole paragraphs --or pages-- at a time. Oddly enough, this problem isn't all that common, but it can happen to new writers who still haven't quite figured out how to break up their dialogue with actions and descriptions. Far more common is the creation of whole paragraphs of Internal Dialogue and Introspection, especially when one writes in First Person POV, or Third Person Close POV. This is known as
You ARE what you READ.
You ARE what you READ.
by Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy.
Reprinted with permission of the author.
Years ago I was talking to a fellow novelist whom I’d just met and I asked him what his Top Five favorite novels were. This is a question I ask writers a lot. I’m always looking for great books, and one place to find them is on the Top Five list of another writer.
He said, “I don’t read fiction.”
This guy’s answer just about knocked me over. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him if he meant he didn’t read much fiction.
No, he didn’t read any. He was a nonfiction kind of a guy.
He
You ARE what you READ.
You ARE what you READ.
by Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy.
Reprinted with permission of the author.
Years ago I was talking to a fellow novelist whom I’d just met and I asked him what his Top Five favorite novels were. This is a question I ask writers a lot. I’m always looking for great books, and one place to find them is on the Top Five list of another writer.
He said, “I don’t read fiction.”
This guy’s answer just about knocked me over. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him if he meant he didn’t read much fiction.
No, he didn’t read any. He was a nonfiction kind of a guy.
He
10 Second Tip - Making Titles
Do you have a tutorial on how to decide the title for your story?
When I can't decide on a title, I fall back on how the professionals do it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> No more than Three words, preferably Two. One word is considered ideal for a title.
> You can have Four if the word is 'And,' 'The,' 'A,' or something similar.
> One word for the Genre.
> Any other words should stand for:
-- the Emotion the story is trying to invoke
-- a Character
-- an Action
or
-- a Location
Examples:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Star Trek (genre + emotion)
Grimm (Genre & Emotion in one word.)
Once Upon a Time (Genre)
The Addams
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Comments58
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This whole thing has made me so happy
To the drawing boar- ehem, I mean, special notebook!
To the drawing boar- ehem, I mean, special notebook!