"Even the most Fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writer can ease the way while drafting by doing what I..."

“Even the most Fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writer can ease the way while drafting by doing what I think of as “mini-synopses”. If plotting out your whole book isn’t your style, but you find yourself writing yourself into corners or staring at a blank page, try describing what’ll happen next in a stream-of-consciousness, synopsis-style paragraph or two. You can even stick in dialogue. This allows you to see the shape of the next few chapters (and possibly realize some sticking points!) before you commit to writing out everything in detail.”

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Kat Zhang is an author of books for teens and children. Her Young Adult trilogy, The Hybrid Chronicles, is published with HarperCollins, and she has two Middle Grades, The Emperor’s Riddle and The Memory of Forgotten Things, as well as two picture books, Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao and sequel Amy Wu and the Patchwork Dragon with Simon & Schuster. She wrote her first novel for NaNoWriMo a great many years ago! Follow @katzhang on Twitter.

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