Tip O'Day #436: The Discovery of Drafting

Guest blogger Kourtney Heintz on the journey to find your story.

The first fifty pages came easily to me, but then I hit a wall. I’d laid out my initial conflict, had my inciting incident, and set my characters on their path. What came next?

I didn’t know. There were several directions the book could go in. It could be about them fixing up the house. It could be about their foibles trying to adjust to country life, but I wanted it to be more. Deeper. Darker.

So I paused and pondered. Spent a few weeks playing “what if.” Kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, except I would imagine each possibility to its rightful ending inside my head.

Generally, I’m a planner and a plotter, but this book didn’t want to follow the rules. Sometimes the story is waiting to be revealed. Mine took some unexpected turns, evolving into a literary thriller.

I had no idea this would happen. No clue when I first met my characters that we would all end up where we did. That’s part of the discovery of drafting. Even when you think you know where you’re headed, sometimes the story takes you in a completely different direction.

That unexpected detour enriches the entire novel.

Kourtney Heintz resides in Connecticut with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, her supportive parents and three quirky golden retrievers. Years of working on Wall Street provided the perfect backdrop for her imagination to run amok at night, imagining a world where out-of-control telepathy and buried secrets collide.

Her debut novel, The Six Train to Wisconsin, was a 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Semifinalist, and can be purchased for Kindle here.

Tip O'Day #264 - "One Sentence Writing Tips IV"

Over the holidays, I asked folks in my online network to share one-sentence writing tips. We’ve been looking at them all week, and here’s the Final Five.

Mike Snyder – “Write characters, not caricatures.”

Linda Swink – “There is no one right way to create a story.”

Kristen Wood – “Fall in love with your characters; if you don't, no one else will.”

Mark Terry – “Omit unnecessary words.”

Claudette Walker – “Enjoy your writing or others will not.”

Dixon says: Mike and Kristen rang my bell with their comments, since I write character-driven fiction. I often start out with a flawed character in a challenging situation and then ask, “What if…?” When I see clearly what the first 3-4 chapters will look like, and have a foggy idea of the resolution, then it’s time to start putting ink on some perfectly good paper. To me, a cast of strong yet imperfect characters being forced to make difficult choices creates the plot, not the other way around.

Linda’s comment is spot on – there are many roads that will take you from page first to page last. Taking the easy path often results in writing that feels safe and familiar – and boring. Fight your way through the brambles instead of following the freeway. You’ll probably run into Linda somewhere along the way.

My first drafts are always fat, and then I put Mark’s advice to work, weeding out words and phrases that aren’t absolutely vital. I keep thinking I’ll get to the point where removing one additional word will change the entire story; however, the truth is that I eventually get sick and tired of editing.

Claudette’s tip is last for a good reason. Writing should be enjoyable. I recognize that some folks write for therapeutic reasons, to cast out the demons of a toxic upbringing or brutal relationship. All of us have moments when fighting our way through a scene is only slightly easier than battling a battalion of orks. Even so, there is satisfaction in coming up with the right words to describe a key scene, penning a character so readers everywhere will recognize the type, and arriving at long last at those magical words, “The End.”

Tip O'Day #246 - Don't You Love NaNo?

Guest blogger Eileen Hamer on that dreaded first draft.

Some writers sneer at NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) but for me it's a way to get that God-awful first draft done. Without the NaNo time constraints, I just piddle around writing when the inspiration strikes, which isn't often enough. I've written drafts of four novels in my Chicago Stories series as NaNo novels. They were all pretty awful, but serve as the framework for longer and I hope better novels. Of course, I'm one of those perverts who actually enjoy revising and editing.

My first novel, Chicago Stories: West of Western, will go up on Kindle soon (just waiting for the cover). Wounded Ex-Marine and Darkpool agent Seraphy Pelligrini has come home to Chicago to start a new life as an architect. When she finds an abandoned drapery workshop in a marginal neighborhood to rehab into a studio and loft, she doesn't know she's on the border between two street gangs. Her windows are broken, death threats painted on her garage, a dead body left on her doorstep and things only get worse.

I started West of Western as a NaNo novel, deciding the last day of October to try it. With so little time, I had to choose a location I knew well, so I wrote about the neighborhood I'd lived in for ten years. I sat down that first day and just started writing. I never knew what the next day would bring. When the month was over, I had the basis of a story I'd never have found otherwise. That was four years ago and the draft has been completely rewritten and revised since then, but nothing was as hard as getting out that first draft!