Taking My Own Advice
Wow, it's been awhile. Sorry about that. I've been deep into flailing about on Book III of From the Ashes of Victory, a book that's been harder than the other two, until now. Partly because this one, in my mind, is the beginning of Act II of the series, and Act II is the hardest.
For a while, I found it hard to write, the ideas weren't coming and I was feeling overwhelmed. I had forgotten a lot of what I had learned writing Remember, November, and was missing the forest for the trees. So I went back to my own Q&A here on Goodreads to remind myself what I was supposed to be doing.
And it helped! I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, or say that I have all the answers, but going back to basics, and reminding yourself of why you're writing this story... remember what it's about. Not what happens. I was all plot, plot, plot, not why. The ending is why, and you work backwards from there. How? With because.
One of the pieces of advice that has stuck in my head is 'the most important word in fiction is 'because.'' Why is a question, because is the answer, and to write a story you need answers if it's going to be effective. It's a chain of becauses from the end back that makes a story coherent and satisfying. It has to all lock together and make sense.
Well, I've gone back to the end, and things have turned around. Book III is humming along nicely now. I'm hitting my word count every day and have actually had to start a second notebook for ideas, which is another first for this series! It has a tentative title, which I'm not ready to reveal yet, but it's far enough along that I have one, which I don't do until I really know what a story is. And the theme, which is a subject for another time.
Thank you for reading this far, and for your continued support of my books and the characters within them. They'll be back soon!
"I object to the notion I am made of magical soup."
-Katya Gurevich, The Fires of Winter
For a while, I found it hard to write, the ideas weren't coming and I was feeling overwhelmed. I had forgotten a lot of what I had learned writing Remember, November, and was missing the forest for the trees. So I went back to my own Q&A here on Goodreads to remind myself what I was supposed to be doing.
And it helped! I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, or say that I have all the answers, but going back to basics, and reminding yourself of why you're writing this story... remember what it's about. Not what happens. I was all plot, plot, plot, not why. The ending is why, and you work backwards from there. How? With because.
One of the pieces of advice that has stuck in my head is 'the most important word in fiction is 'because.'' Why is a question, because is the answer, and to write a story you need answers if it's going to be effective. It's a chain of becauses from the end back that makes a story coherent and satisfying. It has to all lock together and make sense.
Well, I've gone back to the end, and things have turned around. Book III is humming along nicely now. I'm hitting my word count every day and have actually had to start a second notebook for ideas, which is another first for this series! It has a tentative title, which I'm not ready to reveal yet, but it's far enough along that I have one, which I don't do until I really know what a story is. And the theme, which is a subject for another time.
Thank you for reading this far, and for your continued support of my books and the characters within them. They'll be back soon!
"I object to the notion I am made of magical soup."
-Katya Gurevich, The Fires of Winter
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