![]() ![]() And it has an even more astounding capacity to focus your attention on every possible danger that it can imagine. ![]() It has an astounding capacity to imagine dangers. It wants nothing more than to keep you safe. Of course, your critical voice may simply raise the bar, but that's a whole other issue.Ĭritical Voice. With deliberate practice, you'll get better and faster at the things that are slowing you down. Find a story that you couldn't put down, and analyze how the writer did that. ![]() Then practice those things.ĭo your scene endings not compel readers to turn the page? There are books and articles about that. Find a story that you loved, that pulled you in, and analyze how the writer did that. Pick one trigger, identify what element of craft it is about, and practice it.ĭo your scene openings not draw readers in? There are books and articles about that. If you notice patterns in the kinds of things that trigger you to fiddle rather than moving on, and if you could get better at those things, you would spend less time fiddling and more time writing the rest of the story. ![]() That was the reason I asked (in my comment) what triggers you to edit. If you could more quickly get the words to the point where you are satisfied with them, you would spend less time fiddling with them. Or I write a line that jumps out at me and tells me what direction the story is going. Often, without knowing it at the time, I put in some seemingly throwaway detail that turns out later to be significant. The thing is, I'm almost always pleasantly surprised (either right then or later) by what I wrote. If it doesn't work out, I can always come back to it later, once I see where the story is going. Things go better when I dive right in and write the thing, rather than leaving a placeholder. I'm not sure whether that affects what I write, but it sure does affect how I feel when I'm writing. Instead, it's me as writer, from outside the story, trying to control it.Īnd when I come back later to fill in the placeholders, I always feel as if I'm more in authorial or editorial mode than in creative voice. That impulse means that I've lost contact with the story and with the character. (I'm explicitly focusing on my own reaction on this first point, because what I'm saying is very much a matter of personal taste.) I shudder at the idea of leaving placeholders in a manuscript. Once you get to the end of the book, then you can go back and flesh out these holes. in my head, while I'm on the treadmill), go back and jot them down in the same half-assed fashion. As you're working on the rest of the book, if lines of dialogue come to you (I tend to write pages and pages of it. You can go back later and actually write the scene out. Beth counters that she waited tables briefly in HS. Remember: Alanna should mention her sister in Nevada who's a waitress. End result is that waiter gets a tip somewhere between big and insane, so neither B nor A is quite satisfied. Show how Alanna is generous/impulsive, Beth more cautious. Alanna wants to give the biggest tip she can afford Beth thinks a large but not insane tip is enough. They discuss if they should give him a big tip to make sure the boss doesn't dock him. Write the notes of what you want to accomplish.īeth: Wow, that was really nice of the waiter.Īlanna: Do you think the boss will punish him for that? ![]()
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