Sharepoint for advice and tips

[Jay]

So, you're writing a novel and are not too sure if you've really nailed what you want to say in the way you want to say it. Or you've written your book and then have to learn how to publish it. Where do you go? Who do you turn to to point you in the right direction? How do you learn how to make so much hard work easier and more enjoyable?

I'm betting I'm not alone in coming across neat tricks of the trade by accident, and for the rest relying on good friends who have been there before me to save a lot of the grunt work of what is a huge learning process.

If you have any tips, advice or funny stories about where it went wrong, how about sharing them with us all?

[Jay]

This thread was inspired by Mona's comment that she was 'trying desperately to understand Scrivener' and Kathy's reply:
I use Scrivener and really like it. I use the corkboard feature a lot and separate chapters by file - it allows me to lay them out side-by-side & move sections from one to the other, etc. Eventually you will export it to a single file for final editing, but it's good for the original set-up and construction.

Has anyone else used Scrivener? Have you any tips for the initial learning process for Mona?

[Mona]

This may seem counter intuitive but I've learned a lot from judging contests. What I don't see in my own books I'll see in someone else's. I try to be brutally honest with myself (learned in the dog show world!) and admit that I'm sensitive in other books to what I know mine lack.
Being in a critique group is a huge help even if you don't agree with what "they" say about your book. If six people can't figure out where your characters are standing, that's your problem. If one person can't figure it out, that might be their problem.

[Mona]

Any Scrivener tips gladly absorbed!!!

[Jay]

Good point, Mona. I was a member of YouWriteOn for quite a while and it was definitely learning how to critique work that got my own writing on course.

[K.A.]

I can't say I have any tips for Scrivener, though - I kind of just dived in and started using it. I'm sure I'm missing a lot of features. It is weird not saving anything (it saves automatically).

[Alexes]

I'd like to second, or third, the comment on the value of belonging to a critique group--either a face-to-face or online. Not only do you get to hear what others think about your work, but, of more importance I think, you learn to think critically about writing--what works, what doesn't work, why punctuation and grammar matter, the difference between writing out what happened and storytelling, etc. etc. (Can you tell that I love my crit group?)

[Jay]

Have you ever got really stuck in the middle of a novel? You know where it ought to be heading, but somehow you just can't make progress...

I faced that with my last novel, and as time was tight I thought I'd use what I had to at least write the last chapter. I was certain about that chapter and wrote it in just a few hours. Then I realised that to get there, I knew what must have happened in the previous chapter... and the one before that... and I kept going, backwards, until I met the middle.

I must admit, though, I was worried I'd end up writing in a parallel universe, never meeting the existing half way point, and have to write my way all the way to a different beginning. It worked out OK in the end. In fact, I realised why I had got stuck. I saw where I needed 2 extra chapters and where I needed to modify earlier sections of the book.

It's certainly a technique I'll remember, and more than likely use again at some point.

[K.A.]

That's a great technique, Jay. Law enforcement officers use it when interviewing witnesses to get them to remember things they think they've forgotten - rather than walk them through from the beginning, they start at the end, the event, and figure out where they were just before that, and just before that, etc. (works on suspects, too - it's much harder to fake stuff when you're working backwards!).

Okay, /derail.

[Jay]

It would also work in exams - here's the answer, work your way back to the question lol!

[K.A.]

Jeopardy!