by B.D. Lawrence @BDLawrence3 Some writers are plotters. They write a detailed outline of the entire story before writing a scene. Some writers are pantsers. They write with no outline and no idea where they are going. I started as a plotter. I wrote a wonderful ten-chapter outline for my first book. But when the book ended up being thirty …
Do You Outline, or Do You Write into the Dark?
By Glynn Young @ gyoung9751 A problem developed while I was writing my fifth novel. The problem had to do with what I conceived as a minor character – a four-year-old boy who would grow to adulthood during the story. But he wasn’t the main character; far from it, in fact. He was supposed to have a bit role. Unfortunately, …
Plotter or “Pantser” – Is One Better than the Other?
By Lori Domingo @LoriDomingo22 If someone had asked me that question a year ago, I would have proudly declared, “I’m a pantser. I never write from a plot outline. It’s too confining.” I had managed to complete one manuscript without it, and was hard-pressed when I was required to write one for one of my MA classes. It was something …
The Smell, Taste, Sound, and Feel of Christmas
By Lisa Schnedler My novel, Bentonsport: A Christmas Story, is about two people, from two eras, who meet two weeks before Christmas. When I sat down to write this novel, I did not plan for it to involve time travel. I intended the story to reflect the emotions I had experienced when I moved from the city I had lived …
The Puzzle Method
By Kristi Holl Starting a new novel can be overwhelming. Our minds jump around as we fill dozens of colored sticky notes with snippets of ideas. Eventually we end up with hundreds of bits of information. Where do we start to make sense of it all? One summer I found a solution when putting together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with …
Tips for Fighting the Dreaded Writer’s Block
By Amy Clipston Through the years I’ve found that my book projects fall into two categories—they either write themselves or writing them feels like having my teeth drilled. In other words, the characters either tell me the story or I push them through the story as if they were dead weight. My book Room on the Porch Swing, which releases …
Creative Outlines
by Donna K. Rice Several years ago, while browsing an airport bookshop, I spotted Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast. Intrigued, I picked it up and took it along on my journey. The book explores the process of taking ideas, speeches, business concepts, or whatever project you might think of and mapping it out on one page using bubbles, connecting arrows, …