Kaye Dacus's Blog, page 46

#FirstDraft60 Day 24 — Do You Know Enough About Your Setting?

Sometimes, the geographic location of a story is an integral part of the premise. Other times, we have to figure out where the best setting for our story will be. And this is something you need to know before you get into the planning stage. Placing your story in the right location is just as […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 23 — Do You Know Enough About Your Setting?

Sometimes, the geographic location of a story is an integral part of the premise. Other times, we have to figure out where the best setting for our story will be. And this is something you need to know before you get into the planning stage. Placing your story in the right location is just as […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 23 — Write One-Sentence and One-Paragraph Story Summaries

The one-sentence summary. The Quick Pitch. The Elevator Pitch. The Slug Line. It doesn’t matter what it’s called, if you’re a writer, you need at least one one-sentence and one one-paragraph summary that you can recite at the drop of a hat (or the drop of an important editor/agent’s name) that clearly conveys the tone, […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 22 — Mapping and Outlining Your Story

When it comes to planning your story before you start writing it, there are two directions you can go: plotting (outlining) and road mapping. Both will get you where you want to go. In fact, road mapping is a great kick-off point to get to plotting. So we’re going to look at both today as […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 21 — Writing and Testing Your Story’s Premise

Now that we’ve had a few weeks to work on developing our characters, their external attributes, and their internal motivations and goals, it’s time to broaden our focus to the overview of our stories: the premise. It may sound absurd that we’ve put it off this long, because premise—or what your story is about—is one […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 20 — Sunday Reflections: Responsibilities, Priorities, and Writing Time

On Sundays, we’re going to take a moment to step back and think about our writing from a wider view. In order to do that, I’ll post some guided questions—feel free to answer them here with as much or little detail as you’d like; or answer them on your own blog or on Facebook. Or […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 19 — Review and Catch-Up Day

Saturdays throughout this challenge are going to be our days to review what we’ve covered during the week, and to catch up on anything we fell behind with. When doing any kind of a challenge like this in which the goals are cumulative, it’s always good to build in a day (or two) to be […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 18 — Planning for Challenges and Obstacles

One of the kids gets a stomach bug that ends up getting passed around the whole family. You’re nursing them and/or in bed yourself for five days. Your college girlfriend’s fiancé walked out on her at the altar and she needs you to go to Cancun with her so that she doesn’t lose the money […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 17 — Inspiration vs. Perspiration (Setting a Writing Schedule)

The origin of the word inspiration is the same as the word for breathe (inspire). But what does that really mean when it comes to the creative process? One day, God got a picture in His mind of a creature made in His own image. This sparked His creativity, so He constructed something that resembled […]

#FirstDraft60 Day 16 — Setting Goals and Tracking More than Just Word-Count

There’s not much that can be said about setting writing goals that hasn’t already been said. In fact, I did a series on it, which you can read/re-read here. Part 1: Setting Word-Count Goals In order to figure out how long your manuscript needs to be, you need to know what type of manuscript you’re […]