Rani Divine's Blog, page 6

You Need an Editor: Choppy talking

Hey everybody, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. This month, as you know, we’re talking about editing. It’s something I talk about a lot, I know, but that should only tell you just how important it is, in the long run. Editing is something you need, whether you think you do or not. And yes; I know some of us are on a tight budget, and that editing is one of those things many of us think we can skip on, just because it’s so expensive. I know that. I understand that. But I’m hoping, this month, to help you see just how badly you need an editor.
You Need an Editor: Choppy talking
This might come as a shock to some of you, but if I’m being completely honest, your dialogue needs some work. It’s not as smooth as it could be. It’s choppy. There’s not enough action going on within it (nobody stands completely still while they talk!). It’s just not as realistic as it should be. But I’m sure you know who could make it better, and show you how to make it better in the process.
See, dialogue is a thing that draws the eye, a thing that your readers’ eyes will snap to, on a page—and for that reason, it needs to be written as realistically as possible. And believe me, I know how difficult that can be to do. I’m a writer too, you know. I also write a lot of dialogue. And sure, my editor tells me that I’m pretty darn good at writing dialogue, but that doesn’t mean that she never touches my dialogue. She still edits it. She still makes changes in it. And I just have to be okay with it. (you do, too)
I know from experience, how hard it is to let someone tweak your dialogue. I know that. Especially because I’ve been told since very early on in my writing career, that I’m good at writing dialogue. That went to my little writer head, if you know what I mean. I’m good at dialogue, so I shouldn’t need it to be edited. And yet… I do. I can’t catch everything. I know that, at this point. I’ve written enough books and edited enough books that I know I can’t catch everything on my own.
And that’s why I hire an editor. That’s why I work with someone who will go through my writing, line by line, to make sure my dialogue reads as smoothly as I intended it to. That’s why I have someone to help me, someone to read through my work and ensure it’s written well.
That’s what editors want to do, for you. We want to look at your manuscript and make sure your characters all stay in character, that nobody’s slipping from one personality to another, that everyone is talking in their own voice, with their own words, and that it all sounds perfectly understandable and realistic. We want to teach you how to write better dialogue. We want to show you how to interject action into your dialogue, so your readers can see your characters talking, and not just read the words they’re saying. That’s what we want to do. But you have to let us.
Talking takes up a good portion of your book, if you’re a fiction or creative nonfiction writer. There’s a lot of conversation. Conversation just so happens to be the thing many readers will fixate on, and remember long past their initial reading of your book.
What kind of taste do you want to leave in your readers’ mouths? Hire an editor, and we’ll do our very best to make it a good one.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

You Need an Editor: Extraneous everythings

Hi everybody! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you joined us today. All month long, we’ve been talking about editing, and discussing why it’s important to be edited—why you need an editor, whether you think you do or not. I’ve been discussing the reasons why your writing isn’t perfect, and telling you a little bit of what an editor will do, once they get their hands on your manuscript. And don’t worry; I’m being nice about it. I know how hard it can be, to let someone else work on your manuscript. I know how hard it can be, to let go.
You Need an Editor: Extraneous everythings
As a writer who writes really long books, I honestly have a really hard time with this one, myself. I like my scenes. I like everything I’ve included in my story. And by the time I get through my last round of editing, before my manuscript goes to my editor, I’m entirely happy with every scene I’ve included, and I don’t think anything should ever have to be cut. Ever. Which is why I wanted to talk about this, today. Because if you’re anything like me… you’ll have a hard time with this one, too.
You’ve written things that don’t need to be included in your manuscript. Worse still, you probably have no idea what those things are. If you’re anything like me, you love everything in your book and don’t want anyone to go around cutting scenes out of your beautiful story. But that’s just what you need to do. See, editors have this uncanny ability to tell what scenes actually belong in a novel, and what scenes don’t. (interestingly, there are times when I only happen to have this ability while editing someone else’s work). We can read through a manuscript and know, without a second thought, what scenes are simply stagnant, neither moving the story forward nor holding it back, but are simply there, and don’t need to be.
Most writers have little to no ability to do that, especially within their own work.
You need an editor, because your editor will look through your manuscript and know what needs to be there and what doesn’t. They’ll look through your manuscript with that dreaded red pen and delete all the things that don’t need to be there—and don’t worry, they’ll also be able to explain to you, exactly why these things need to be cut. If ever I need to cut something out of a client’s work, I know why it needs to be cut, and I’m more than happy to tell you, to explain it to you, so you’re less likely to write extra scenes and unnecessary information, later on down the line.
My ultimate goal, really, is to make your manuscript better and to make you a better writer, in the long run. One of the best ways to do that, in my opinion, is to show you, my dear writer, what you’ve written that you didn’t need to write.
We’re working together, in a sense, when I start editing your manuscript. We’re working together, you and I, to make your manuscript into something amazing and wonderful. We’re working together, to better both your writing and the writing you’ve already done.
So I implore you once more, dear writer: get an editor. Your readers will thank you.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

You Need an Editor: Grammarian fails

Hi everybody, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. All month long, we’re talking about editing. Yeah, I know it’s something that we talk about a lot, but that doesn’t make it any less important. In fact, I think the amount of time I spend talking about editing should show you just how important it really is. Editing is one of those things every single writer needs to know about, inside and out, and that’s what we’re doing today. We’re talking editing, for all those who haven’t been edited yet. And for those of you who have, I think you might just learn something about the editing process, in general.
You Need an Editor: Grammarian fails
We writers like to think of ourselves as the best grammarians in the world. I know we do, because I’m one of us. *wink wink* We like to think that we’ve gone over our manuscript enough times that we don’t have any errors, that there couldn’t possibly be any errors, because we’re such grammarians that we know what we’re doing every step of the way, every moment of the day, every word we type. And we would be wrong. If you haven’t come to that revelation yet, I’m sorry to burst your bubble.
I know you’ve spent a lot of time in editing your manuscript. I know you did. Especially if you’ve been reading my blog over time, and you’ve followed my advice. You know that you need to have edited your manuscript several times, before you decide how you want to publish your book. You know that. And I know you’ve put in all the time and effort to make it as good as you can. But I also know you’ve missed something.
There’s a really good suggestion out there on the interwebs, for writers who are editing their manuscripts. It’s to get a program that’ll read your manuscript aloud to you, so you can see how it flows, how it reads, and potentially catch some of those grammar issues. But even this method won’t guarantee that you’ve caught every grammar issue, by the time you go to print.
How do I know all this? How do I know that you’ve missed something along the way, and need someone else to edit your book?
Because I’m a writer andan editor, and I know this world from both sides. But that’s the cheating answer, isn’t it? I know because I’ve found a million grammar errors in self-published books (and several in books from Penguin Random House, too), books that make me cringe to the point that I’ve great difficulty reading self-published indie authors, because I’m afraid I’ll sit down to read and find my brain working to edit the book rather than enjoy the story—and that, my dear authors, is the very last thing you want your readers to deal with.
You need an editor, because you want your readers to enjoy your story, and not be distracted by the grammar issues you’ve missed. You need an editor, because one mind on their own can’t possibly catch every spelling error, missed comma, incorrect punctuation, and incorrect word use in a single manuscript. It’s just not possible, especially for the mind who wrote it, the mind who knows how it’s supposed to read (and so, automatically reads it as it should be read). You need an editor, because you’re not perfect.
At the very least, I implore you to hire a proofreader. If you can’t afford full-on editing yet, that’s fine. I know how budgets go. But at least save up to have a proofreader or copyeditor go through your manuscript to make sure you’ve removed as many grammar issues as possible. Please. Do it for me. Do it for you. Do it for everyone who will ever read your book.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

You Need an Editor: Hidden plot holes

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you decided to join us again, as we continue our series on why we all need editors. It’s something I feel quite strongly about, if you didn’t already know, and this month I want to do my best to show you why you need an editor, especially if you’re just starting out—and show you a little bit of what editors do, in case you never fully understood.
I honestly feel like editing is one of those things many writers just don’t understand, especially if they’ve never been professionally edited before. So let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?
You Need an Editor: Hidden plot holes
This is one of the biggest reasons why everyone needs an editor, which is why I thought it’d be a good place to start. Is it where your editor will start? No, probably not. But that’s neither here nor there.
You, my dear writer, have a plot hole in your manuscript. How do I know this? Because statistically, it’s true. I’ve never read a manuscript that didn’t have a plot hole in it, and I’ve read a lot of manuscripts. I’ve even read a few published novels that have plot holes in them… and that always makes me feel bad, if I’m being honest. I found that hole, and I could’ve fixed it!
Thing is, that only goes to show that everyone has plot holes. The problem with plot holes is that they’re really hard to find, if you’re the one who wrote them. They’re sneaky and they like to hide in plain sight, to the point that most writers have no idea the holes are there at all.
It’s one of the many things editors excel at, one of the things we actually pride ourselves on finding. When we find one, we give ourselves a pat on the back. When we mend it without a second thought, without even pausing to consider how to mend it, we think we ought to celebrate. Why? Because we just did the thing we love: we just took an author’s manuscript and made it better, in a way that’s very simple, to our eyes.
See, as editors (and this is probably something you’ll hear a lot this month), we love manuscripts. We love working with words and stories, shaping them into exactly what the author meant them to be, because we know no one has the capacity to do the whole thing on their own. We love helping authors show the world these beautiful stories—and no, most of the time we don’t take any credit for it. We don’t want any. We just want the author’s appreciation, that we found and fixed their plot holes.
Isn’t that what you’d want too, if you were us?
You know by now that your writing isn’t perfect. You know that. We know that. We also know very well that it will never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do everything in our power to remove every single plot hole in sight and make your manuscript as close to perfect as we possibly can. You deserve that, after all.
Your story deserves that.
Your story deserves an editor.
How else will those plot holes ever get fixed?
[love]
{Rani Divine}

You Need an Editor: Perfection isn’t perfect

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. It’s September already, which means it’s suddenly time for us to start a new series… and I was just getting used to the last one. We’d been getting outside our comfort zones, you know, working on stretching ourselves and growing beyond what we already knew. And this month, as I’m so fond of logic, I wanted to take a little bit of a logical progression.
Now that August got us all outside our comfort zones and taught us to write things we wouldn’t normally write, let’s get those things edited, shall we?
You Need an Editor: Perfection isn’t perfect
I know how wrong that sounds. I even know some of you serious grammarians out there will be bothered by it, because by definition, perfection is, in fact, perfect. But hear me out. I have something very serious to say, and I know some of you won’t want to hear it.
I know writers. I know writers, because I am a writer. And I started Too Many Books to Countbecause I wanted to connect with writers, to teach writers some of the things I know and help them not make the mistakes I made along the way. Which is why I really wanted to talk about editing this month, to begin with. Because when I started out, I didn’t realize how much I really needed an editor. I didn’t even know what I was missing, if I’m being honest.
Truth be told, I have no idea what you write. I don’t know if you write fantasy or romance or children’s books or even thrillers—and it doesn’t matter, because the fact remains, all the same.
You need an editor.
For some of you, this is already abundantly clear. You know you have errors in your manuscript and you know you can’t possibly hope to find them all yourself. And to you, I send a high five. You’re awesome. You’re the smart ones. You know what you’re doing, at least a little bit. But for the rest of you, those of you who are like I was when I started out, I need you to hear me. I know that you think your work is amazing. I know that you think it’s the bees knees, the best thing since sliced bread, a story every human on the planet needs to read if they’re going to survive the next twenty years—but if you haven’t been edited yet, you’re wrong.
And I don’t mean just you running through your manuscript and fixing any errors you see. I mean hiring someone to edit for you, hiring someone to look through your manuscript and point out the errors they see, because their eyes are different from your eyes and they’re almost guaranteed to find something you didn’t see.
You need an editor, because that work that you think is perfect… isn’t.
That perfect manuscript you’ve been working on for so many years? It’s much farther from perfection than you’re willing to admit. I’m almost sorry to tell you that, if I’m being honest. I don’t want to be the one to burst your bubble. But at the same time… at the same time, I want to save you from something that I went through, from publishing an unedited manuscript that I now look back on and cringe.
And for the rest of the month, I’ll be explaining, in detail, why you need an editor—and what an editor really does, if you’ve ever wanted to know.
How do I know all this? Because I’m an editor too, you know. ;-)
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Writing what you don’t want to write

Hey everybody! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by, especially as we’ve finally come to the end of our series on getting outside our comfort zones. It’s been a challenging month, hasn’t it? There’ve been a lot of things I’ve forced myself to do, if only so I’d’ve tried them out before passing the idea along to you. I did a lot of stuff this month, to push myself outside my comfort zone—and I hope that you did, too!
We’ve discussed everything from collaborating to genre swapping, from poetry to changing your point of view, and now it’s time that we talk about something that’s going to be really difficult, for a lot of us. Even for me.
Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Writing what you don’t want to write
Yeah, I went there. I said it. And yes, I’m working on this one, too. I’m not just going to tell you to do it and then not do it myself. I’m not that kind of person. I just couldn’t do that to you. If I’m going to suggest it, then I’m going to do it, too.
So yes, I’ve started writing something that I didn’t want to write. And yes, I don’t like it. But yes, I’m doing it. And there’s a reason for it.
Sometimes, the thing we need to write isn’t the thing we want to write. And sometimes the thing we want to write isn’t the thing we should be writing, right now. But we writers, in our infinite procrastination, tend to write whatever thing we want to write at the moment, rather than writing the thing we don’t want to write right now. And I’m not necessarily saying that it’s a bad thing. No, in fact I’ll be one of the first people to tell you that your writing will probably be better if you’re writing what you want to write, because it’ll flow out of you so much smoother and cleaner than if you were to sit down and write the thing you don’t want to write. But that’s part of why I chose this topic, to end out our series.
Why? Because we all need to know how to write the things we need to write, whether we want to write them or not. Because we all need to know it’s okay to write crap, as long as you know how to go back and edit it later. Because we all need to write, whether that writing is what we want to write or not. And because I want you to stop procrastinating, just like I want me to stop it, too. Essentially, I’m challenging you to stop that. Stop procrastinating. Write the things you need to write, and write them now. Write the things you want to write, too, but focus on the things you need to write. Take a day a week, maybe, and just focus on the writing that needs to get done. Then you can spend the rest of the week on the fun stuff.
Point is, you need to know how to do both, and you need to be okay doing both. You need to be comfortable in your writing, whether you’re writing what you want to write or not.
I’m getting there, myself. It’s a struggle. It’s not something I want to be working on, or something I like working on even in the slightest. But it’s something I am working on, and something I’ll continue working on until I get it right. And I’m challenging you, today, to do the same.
Let’s be writers, shall we? No matter what.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Join a writers’ group

Hi guys! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. We’ve reached the last week in our series on getting outside our comfort zones, which means we’ve reached the end of August… which is really confusing, because didn’t June just start a couple days ago?
In any case, we’ve been having a lot of fun this month, pushing ourselves outside our comfort zones, getting ourselves to step outside those lovely little boxes we made to keep ourselves safe and warm and comfy, knowing that we know what we’re doing and that we’re good at it. And you know what? I think we’ve grown a lot, this month. At the very least, I know I have. I’ve discovered a lot of things about myself, while writing this series. And that’s pretty darn cool, you know?
Today, I’m going to talk to you about something that I’ve recently delved into. I honestly didn’t know it was a thing, until pretty recently… but I’ve gotten a lot out of it, and I think you will, too.
Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Join a writers’ group
How is this getting outside your comfort zone, you ask? Well, it involves interacting with people you don’t know, and interacting with them fairly frequently. And for someone as introverted as I am, that’s not a very easy thing to do. In fact, I just really don’t like doing it. Which is why I wanted to talk to you about this.
Personally, I joined a group on Facebook, called Flinch Free Fiction (until recently, it’d been called Clean Indie Reads—I like the new name much better). It’s a group of authors who write clean fiction, fiction that doesn’t involve cursing or swearing or gratuitous sexual encounters, and if you know me and my writing, then you know that’s right up my alley. I write clean fiction. I write fiction that won’t make you flinch. So this group made sense for me to join. You might need to find a different one, for yourself, but the point is to go out and find one. There’s this lovely tool called Google, that should help you with that. ;-)
This group, for me, is a way to get myself to think differently. It’s a constant reminder that I need to be growing and learning. It’s a way for me to share my triumphs and failures with others, a way for me to help others who might just be learning how to get into this thing called writing—and it’s also a great place to get advice, if I’m feeling stuck at any point. For me, this group is something I didn’t know I needed, until I joined it and I realized how much I needed this thing.
So today, I’m challenging you to try it.
But I’m not challenging you to try it, for yourself. See, most of us at least have an inkling of what we’re doing, when it comes to writing. We have an idea of what we like and what we don’t like. We know what we like to read and what we don’t like to read. We know what sentences sound good and what ones don’t. We know a little bit, which means we know more than someone else. So I’m challenging you, not just to join a group so you’ll have a community to be a part of, but to join a group so you can be the one there helping people, giving out advice or answering a question when you know the answer. I’m challenging you to be social, even if it’s only online—because you’ll grow, both as a writer and as a person, when you do.
Trust me, it’s something that I’m learning to do, every day. I’m not amazing at it, yet. I comment on posts when I know the answer or when I’ve something to say that I think might be helpful, but that’s not always as often as I know it should be. I need to be more involved. I know it. But it’s something I’m working on, and something I’m growing in. Something that’s (you guessed it) pulling me outside my comfort zone.
And it will for you too, once you give it a try.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Getting Outside Your Comfort Zone: Get poetic

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. If you’ve been hanging out with us this month, then you know this month we’ve been talking about those comfort zones, and ways to get ourselves out of them. Why? Because it’s important for us to grow in our writing abilities, and we can’t do that if we stay forever cooped up in these little boxes we’ve set up for ourselves. We all know that, even if we don’t like to admit it.
If you haven’t read the rest of the series yet, I honestly encourage you to go back and check out the other posts! I’ve learned a lot about myself and my own writing, by working on these exercises—and I really believe you’ll get a lot out of them as well, if you’ll put them to the test.
For today, I want to talk about something I know one of my dear friends will adore.
Getting Outside Your Comfort Zone: Get poetic
Yeah, there it is. I said it. Most of us here are novelists and short story writers, and because of that, I made poetry its own separate topic. Why? Because poetry tends to be the dreaded literary form, for those of us who only write stories. And because of that, I believe it’s also one of the better exercises for us to do, at the very least from time to time.
Now, I’m not saying that you need to write something with a perfect iambic pentameter. Nor am I saying that you must write a beautifully rhymed and metered poem. I’m saying that you should sit down and write a poem. Write a poem in whatever style you see fit, whatever style you think suits you best. Whatever style you like to read.
Why do I think you should do this? Because poetry, in some ways, is the opposite of writing a novel. Instead of having hundreds of pages in which to tell your story, in which to get to know a protagonist and see the world through their eyes, poetry forces you to tell a story in a short number of lines, often restricted to a single page of print space.
Yeah, I’ll be honest: I’m not even sure how to do that. But I do try, from time to time. In fact, this is one of the exercises that I’ve done almost since I started writing, because I know how important poetry can be, to writers.
See, poetry is all about word choice. Poetry is specific, it’s designed to evoke emotion and imagery through a small number of very choice words. Which means that in order to write amazing poetry, you need to have a good handle on your words. You need to know what you’re trying to say, and have a few handfuls of uncommon or fluid words, to help you say it. Knowing those words will come in handy, when you come back to doing the thing you love to do. When next you sit down to write a scene in your novel, or to work on your latest short story, you now have a handful of extra wordy words, to sprinkle throughout your writing. To make your readers think. To help them imagine the exact thing you’re picturing in your head, while you’re writing this story.
That’s the good poetry does for us. And that’s why we should always look to it, when we feel as though we’re stuck in a rut.
And don’t worry—no one ever has to know you dabble in poetry. You don’t ever have to tell anyone. You can encrypt your files if you want to, so no one will ever see them but you. It’ll all be okay, I promise.
But sharing it, eventually, can also be a really fun way to show readers your writing process, later on down the line. Not that I've ever done that. But I've heard it's a good thing to do, eventually. Eventually.
[love]
{Rani Divine}
P.S. If you wondered, I have lots of poetry. And it’s all encrypted. And no, I probably won’t be letting you read it, anytime soon.

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Unordinary inspiration

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. This month, we’ve been talking about getting outside our comfort zones. I know it’s not something we all want to do, something we like to do, or something we remotely look forward to the majority of the time, but you know what? If we’re ever going to grow in our writing career, we need to stretch ourselves, we need to get outside those comfort zones and explore something new. So that’s what we’re doing, this month.
Thus far, we’ve talked about everything from genre swapping to playing with new points of view—and if you haven’t been around all month, I’d encourage you to go back and read the rest of the series. I really believe there’s a lot to be gained from this month.
For today, let’s talk about something a bit more abstract:
Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Unordinary inspiration
See what I mean? Unlike just changing your genre or finding someone to collaborate with, this one is much more abstract—but still just as important, if I’m being perfectly honest. How’s that? Because we all have that set list of things we generally get inspiration from, those banks of things we know inspire us, the list of things that we know we can always fall back on, when we’re feeling a little short on inspiration. And it’s important that we allow ourselves to be inspired by other things, too. Things that we wouldn’t normally allow to inspire us at all.
I’ll use myself as an example, because, hey, I know me pretty darn well. And I know the things that I like to get inspiration from, the things that I love to go back to whenever I’m struggling to find exactly what I want to write. And the thing I’m going to use, as an example, is music.
If you know me at all, if you’ve been following me or reading TMBTC for more than a few months, then you know one of the biggest things I get inspiration from is music. And you’ll also know that I’m extremely picky about that music. I never listen to music with lyrics, and allow those lyrics to inspire me. I just don’t.
But you know what? That’s what I’ve been doing lately, to get outside that darned comfort zone. I’ve been listening to whatever music I have, whatever music YouTube recommends, and allowing that music to inspire the things I write. I’ve been listening to suggestions from my friends, listening to music from more genres than I care to admit, and letting the words flow into something I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to achieve.
Know what else? I don’t generally like what I write, when I use this method. But! I know that I can do it, and I know that it’s a useful exercise for me. I know I need to be able to write with any music on, whether that be music that actually inspires me or music that annoys me. Why? Because sometimes I just need to write, and I need to be able to do it no matter what’s going on around me. We all have those moments, you know?
It’s something I’ve been trying, because I knew if I was going to write this month's series, I needed to actually try out the things I was recommending. I needed to actually do these things, and make myself get outside my comfort zone. Besides, I also felt like I’d been in a rut for a little bit, and some of these exercises have really helped me get out of it.
So try it. I challenge you. If I can do it, so can you. And it doesn’t even have to be music. It can be whatever thing you never allow to inspire you. Try to find a way to be inspired by it. Let it flow into the words you write, and see what happens. Sure, you might hate what comes out of it. But you never know—you might also find something really cool, that you’ll be able to use from here on out.
Have any of you done this exercise before? What were your results? Let me know in the comments, or message me on Facebook!
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Collaboration

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. This month, as you know, we’re talking about the many ways to get outside your comfort zone as a writer, and hone those amazing writing skills along the way. We all have that little box we’ve built around our writing career, that list of things we know, things we’re good at, and things we’re comfortable doing—and this month we’re breaking down those walls, so we can grow in our writing experience and expertise, and become even better writers than we already were. We all know you’re already a pretty amazing writer, don’t we?
So far in our series, we’ve talked about things like switching from your favorite POV, changing up your genre, and even writing something completely different from what you’re used to… and today, I have a doozy for you.
Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Collaboration
For most writers, this is something you wouldn’t even dream of doing. Why? Because we tend toward being introverted and mild control freaks, and sharing creative control means that we have to let someone else in on everything. We have to share. We have to work with someone, to be social when we’d rather sit in our jammies and write.
But you know what? Collaboration is one of the best ways I know, to make you think in an all new way, as a writer.
I am actually collaborating on a novel, as I write this. It’s on my list of things to do today, to write a couple scenes in the novel I’m working on with a friend of mine. So I know a bit of what it’s like, working with someone to write a story. I also know, at this point, that it’s extremely helpful having someone to work with, especially when you’re creating a world map and need opinions along the way.
Don’t worry though; I’m not saying you should write a novel with someone. Not unless you really, really want to. I’m saying that you should try it, that you should try working with someone to write something you’ve always wanted to write. Maybe there’s a story inside you that you need to get out, but you feel like it’s missing something. Find someone you think might be able to fill that gap, and work with them to get your vision down on paper. Whatever it is, whether it’s a poem, a short story, or a full-fledged novel. Just collaborate. Work with someone. Share thoughts and ideas and goals for your characters.
There are, of course, a few ways to go about finding someone to collaborate with. Hopefully, you know a few writers, or have a few friends who also write, maybe not as extensively as you do. I’m sure you know their work, and you know what they’re good at writing. That should give you an idea of who might be a good fit, for the story you want to write. You could also go to your friends, people who aren’twriters, but who you know have a story inside them. In that case, in many ways, you get to take the lead on the writing process, and show a bit about how it’s done. Whatever the case, you’d be working with someone, to write a story with a vision from both of you.
For me, it means working with a friend of mine, who actually knows a lot more about the genre than I do. He’s a close friend of mine though, so I already knew we got along and guessed that we would work well together. So far, it’s going well. I’m very far ahead of him in my writing, but since he’s not a writer by trade, that’s to be expected. In any case, we’re having a lot of fun, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I feel like I’ve learned more about myself as a writer since starting this collaboration, than I learned in the entire year prior.
That’s how powerful it can be, to start working with someone else. And that’s why I challenge you to try it.
[love]
{Rani Divine}