Hi fellow writers!
I thought I would share some writing advice that author Paula R C Readman shared on Facebook. It is borrowed from another author W.C.Stroby.
Not much is known about W.C. Stroby and the only author on the Google search came up as Wallace Stroby. Is this the same person? If anyone knows put details in the comments.
Paula R C Readman is an author friend of mine on Facebook and writes gothic and sci-fi stories. She is also the main person behind the online writers group For Writers Only Clubhouse. She has a few novellas out including Stone Angels and The Phoenix Hour.
The first rule: You must write.
The second rule: you must finish what you write.
Plus five other questions a writer must ask themselves.
Taken from ‘Handbook of novel writing’ an article by W.C. Stroby,
Am I ready for this?
For a book of any size, from start to finish, plan to spend at least 2000 hours working on it.
What’s my story about?
In one sentence or two at the most, if you cannot say what you novel is about then you are already running into trouble. There are no new ideas just a new ways of telling it. Outline your story briefly, just to keep yourself moving in the right direction.
Do I know who my characters are?
Bring them to life with your writing within the story, but don’t go to the length of locating every mole on their body or even what they had for breakfast.
Do I know the Genre?
It is one thing to know what is good or bad writing, but you must know what genre you are writing in. You need to be familiar with your chosen genre so you don’t write one of the many hoariest of clichés. Don’t subvert your own writing styles to something you think may be more ‘Marketable’. There is genre within a genre. Stay within the genre, but you do something different with it.
Am I excited by the story I’m going to tell?
Write a story that will keep you awake at night, that challenges you, gets you longing for your keyboard when you are suppose to be keeping an appointment somewhere else. If you can’t get fired up, who else will?
Don’t forget.... What if? What next? What now?
How to turn a short story into a novel, remember Longer is shorter. Detailed exposition of what your characters’ thoughts, said, did and what in their past made them act in that way.
Don’t get fool into to thinking that the plot is longer too, it isn’t.
A novel isn’t a series of short stories linked together by the same characters. A novel must have integrity, no matter how wide-ranging it might be, must have a single cumulative effect to please the reader. Every minor climax must point towards the book’s final climax, must promise still better things to come. Tell your novel in a series of scenes.
Characters:
When bringing your characters on stage, write at least 100 to 150 words about them. What they look like etc to indicate how important they are as a character in your story.
Each scene:
Setting
Time/ place
Temperature/season
Lighting/ sound/ smells
Symbols/ images
Characters/ relationships
Dialogue/ subjects
Sub plot
Action
Point of view
Climax
Exit line
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