Wednesday Check-in
Posted: October 6, 2010 Filed under: Wednesday Check-in, Writers Write | Tags: Donald Maass Workshop, heroes, news, walking, writers, Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook Leave a comment »Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook: Still working on Lesson 14: Making Complications Active.
Still Walking.
I’m busy, so I’m leaving you with the three best things I read in the news this week.
- You don’t have to make a huge salary to make a huge difference. This school teacher left $22 million to a local university. She’s inspiration for a character in my novel.
- Thanks to a good Samaritan, this bad story has a happy ending.
- I really wish this guy would write a novel.
Wednesday Check-in
Posted: September 28, 2010 Filed under: Wednesday Check-in, Writers Write | Tags: Donald Maass Workshop, writers, writing, Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook Leave a comment »I took a break from the workbook to read the entire manuscript. Working on a tiny chunk each day makes it hard to remember the whole story. I’m happy with the book’s structure, but I saw subplots that needed expansion and characters, who could be more. When I started, this story was a romance. At the Breakout Novel Intensive, it became satire–tougher, sharper, not so precious. The beginning of the book needs editing to make it match.
Wednesday Check-in
Posted: September 22, 2010 Filed under: Wednesday Check-in, Writers Write | Tags: Donald Maass Workshop, writers, writing, Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook Leave a comment »Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook: 84 tasks completed of 591. 5 since 9/15.
Lesson 12: Enriching your cast. Make a list of all the characters in the novel. Mark off two names. Combine. The purpose is to make the characters in the book–more. Give them more to do. More purpose. My story is set in a school. A teacher deals with more individuals in one day than many professions do in a year. Yet, it’s hard for a reader to keep up with so many names. It’s a good exercise.
Lesson 13: Raising Public Stakes. One of the first things I did after the BONI workshop was raise the stakes. I did it again while working on the antagonist. My original structure included four-part structure with turning points. So, I answered the questions for this lesson and made a chart to check during revisions.
I’m good to go. On to Lesson 14.
