Greg Strandberg's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing-tips"
The Hump
I don't write my books in order.
I mean I start at the beginning usually, but halfway through that might become the middle.
I like to get that ending out of the way, oh, maybe 20,000 words in or so.
But that leaves me with the same problem every time, and that's getting over that Hump.
Usually this is right in the middle or end of Act II or so and it's just like a black hole where your thoughts go and never return from.
I'm there right now with my book The Hirelings. I only need about 7,000 words to finish this story, but a good portion of those are right there in the Hump.
Maybe I should just leave those words out. That seems like cheating, but often the reader doesn't want those anyway. They can be boring.
So I'm sitting here at 3:43 AM trying to let the story work itself out. That never works.
Only tackling the Hump does.
I mean I start at the beginning usually, but halfway through that might become the middle.
I like to get that ending out of the way, oh, maybe 20,000 words in or so.
But that leaves me with the same problem every time, and that's getting over that Hump.
Usually this is right in the middle or end of Act II or so and it's just like a black hole where your thoughts go and never return from.
I'm there right now with my book The Hirelings. I only need about 7,000 words to finish this story, but a good portion of those are right there in the Hump.
Maybe I should just leave those words out. That seems like cheating, but often the reader doesn't want those anyway. They can be boring.
So I'm sitting here at 3:43 AM trying to let the story work itself out. That never works.
Only tackling the Hump does.
