Writer' shortcuts to finishing your novel faster:
1) Getting to the deeper emotion
2) Borrowing tricks from other authors
3) Shortcut to the scene
In order to get to the deeper emotion you should make a soundtrack for each novel you write. You need to ask yourself what kind of music to choose, based on what music illustrates the emotion in the novel. If you like movies, make a note every time a song in a movie touches you or reminds you of a novel you’re writing, so that you can add it to your soundtrack.
You should always start your soundtrack with a song that reminds you the most of your novel. Make sure that none of your tracks are cut with abrupt changes (so that it flows more easily and doesn’t distract you). You also want to make sure the last song on the soundtrack ends gently, so that you can listen to it over and over without being jarred from your concentration.
Borrowing tricks from other authors is an easy way to finish your novel quickly. When you’re trying to do something tricky that you haven’t done before, refer back to a novel you’ve read that addressed the issue you’re dealing with. Then think about how they managed to achieve their goal and weave it into your story in your own way.
In order to shortcut to the scene, you need to map it out in advance, create a dialogue outline and do a heart storm, which is a brainstorm from the heart. Typing them all up on one page.
Mapping out your scene in advance helps so that you can get to the 3rd or 5th draft quality the first time through. You should write down what needs to happen in the scene, but not in great detail. Put down the essentials, leaving room to be creative. One paragraph should be fine and it works best if you type it.
Your dialogue outline helps sketch out your best guess at what is going to be said in the scene. You don’t have to have a name designated for the characters at this point, just a rough idea of what you want to be said in the scene.
For your heart storm you need to think of all the emotions of the scene, and any strange ideas that come to you. Just let it flow freely, it doesn’t have to make much sense at this point.
Once you put them all together on one page, you need to print and then put it next to your keyboard while you work on your novel. Take what you want from each area—mixing and matching things.
Exercise for home…
Write a page as fast as you can. Instead of thinking of a scene for your novel, just think about a moment with emotion and write about it. Choose something that has a lot of emotion in it (ex: fear, anger, love). Take ten things you like from the page and turn them into a poem.
Laura Whitcomb’s first novel A Certain Slant of Light (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), was a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection, a Book Sense Pick, an ALA Best Books for Young Adults selection. It was published as an audio book by Random House, is being published in six foreign languages, and was a finalist is six state teen book contests. Her writing book, Your First Novel, co-authored by literary agent Ann Rittenberg, was a Writers Digest Books featured selection for November 2006. Her new novel for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, The Fetch, was just released. http://www.laurawhitcomb.com/
0 comments:
Post a Comment