doug-lewars

[doug-lewars]

Opportunity

In the United States, the incoming administration is still talking about banning TikTok. This service is used by a LOT of young people. This being the case, there is a remarkable opportunity here for some entrepreneur with digital skills to turn a tidy profit by creating a new platform which is essentially a clone of the existing service.

[doug-lewars]

How To

Always be a little cautious when reading how-to-write books or listening to experts regarding writing. These people mean well and will offer reasonable advice, but this advice is slanted towards what they believe will produce excellent written work and it's possible their assessment of what is good may differ from yours. Creative writing courses at the university level are geared towards directing authors towards creating award-winning books. This is all very well but if you hope to earn a living from your books you may want to aim for a broader base if readers than those who read the most literary of literary works. It might be nice to win the Man Booker Prize but it may not drive the kind of financial success you need to survive. One good source of reader interest is the public library. Some libraries provide stats on what is being checked out and if you can obtain such information you'll have a pretty good idea of what readers want.

[doug-lewars]

Holiday Greetings

Merry Christmas to any and all who might stumble across this post. I hope you have a great holiday season and the very best in the coming year.

[doug-lewars]

Ending

When plotting a story, I find about half way through things start getting complicated. At this point what works for me is to decide on what my climax is going to be and then figure out what the various characters and groups of characters need to do, to get from where they are to where I need them to be both physically and motive wise.

[doug-lewars]

Cookies

I started my Christmas baking with some cookies and I experimented with the recipe so was prepared for the worst. I figured they might turn out too hard in which case I would make a second batch for friends and set these aside to eat at leisure. I took them from the oven, left them to cool and them sampled a couple. Man they were delicious! Now the trick will be to refrain from eating them before Christmas.

[doug-lewars]

Small Grammar Point

I was called on a small grammar point and when I looked it up, my critic was absolutely correct. Here's what I learned:

"May' should be used to high probability possibilities and 'might' for lower one. For example, "It may snow in January but it might even snow in late April."

[doug-lewars]

Rattling

I think this afternoon Toronto may have experienced a very small earthquake ... that or a poltergeist dropped by to say 'hi'. In any event some rather delicate Christmas ornaments started rattling for no apparent reason. I mention this because the basic idea of some sort of otherwise undetectable earth tremor, rattling something, might be a useful idea when composing a scene in a plot.

[doug-lewars]

Humour

I like to write humour and I try out what I write on the two groups I meet with. It's interesting to see what gets laughs and what doesn't. Recently I received considerable chuckles over a part of a story I didn't think was funny at all. To me it seemed just something connecting one incident to the next but those in the group quite liked it. On another occasion I didn't receive a single laugh from a passage I thought would have them on the floor. Humour is strange and I think the only way you can find what works is to try it out and node the feedback for future use.

[doug-lewars]

Time Span

Filling in gaps can be tricky. If you don't want to simply write something like, "several months passed and ..." you need to find something of interest to insert. While I don't generally suffer from writers' block, these little in-between fillers can pose difficulties.

[doug-lewars]

Fragments

While teachers deplore sentence fragments, they can be remarkably useful to drive a frenetic pace during an action scene.

[doug-lewars]

POV and Tense

Lately I've been noticing a majority of new book (identified as new by the library catalog) are first-person present-tense. I'm not sure why that is. Personally I prefer third-person past-tense. Detective books are an exception. There I think first-person past-tense works particularly well.

[doug-lewars]

Material to Cut

If, while editing, you feel you want to finish the scene you're working on quickly so as to get to the next, stop right there. Either delete or completely rewrite the scene because if it doesn't interest you, it won't interest your readers either.

[doug-lewars]

Next Steps

Today I finished another manuscript and will leave it to age along with the rest before editing. There were times when I was writing it I thought I was wasting my time, but I quite liked the ending and I feel pretty good about pursuing this series. Right, so that's out of the way. Now to outline like mad so I can get back to writing.

[doug-lewars]

On The Horizon

You wouldn't think the ending of your WIP would sneak up on you but I thought it would take at least another week. I'll finish this one tomorrow and then have to put together an outline for the next. I expect to be very slightly over 100K words despite targeting for 80K but that happens. Now, I guess I need to get creative and decide what will happen next.

[doug-lewars]

Oops.

It's easy to forget a detail. One of my characters is not where I need her to be for the final climactic battle. It seems I'll need two battles.

[doug-lewars]

'Tis the Season

As we come into the Christmas season, I intend to cut back on my actual writing and use the time for new plot development, editing and research. I'm nearing the end of my WIP and will need to get serious about putting together an outline for the next.

[doug-lewars]

Sub Plots

It sometimes helps to develop your subplot(s) separately from your main plot. Then it's just a matter of inserting the various pieces where they need to go rather than shuffling everything around.