I’ve surprised myself by returning so
soon and am wondering if this blogging may become addictive.
CHARACTERS
So what do we want in our main
character? Do we want them to be strong and punch through every obstacle
despite their inner angst or do we prefer them to start vulnerable and then
reveal an inner strength they didn’t know they had?
It actually doesn’t matter but we do
need readers to be able to identify with their struggle, irrespective of whether
they’re combating many limbed aliens in another galaxy or dealing with heatstroke while holidaying on a Greek
island. And we do this through our character's emotional journey.
This is what I’ve been working on today
as I’m trying to describe a believable emotional journey in a life like manner
- like life being the key words as after all this is fiction not a documentary.
I’m reading sections written about 5 months ago and some parts seem fine and in
others, I’m thinking, this definitely needs work. After I’ve been working for a
while and I can no longer hold life off, I’ll stop. I may come back later in
the day or not.
What I do in the time in between leaving off writing and coming back is a sort of
meditation on how to deal with the section that needs work. I’ll just circle
back to it again and again in my mind, not making any decisions or plans and at
some point, an idea of how to solve it appears. I’ll then keep coming back to
this new idea and if it makes sense when I next sit down, I flesh it out,
sorting out any glitches as I insert the new writing into and around that which
was previously there.
And yes, I do delete, kill my darlings
as it’s said, from the current version I’m working on, but I also save them in
another file called ‘extra bits’. I’ll probably never delete that file!
I love writing haikus as I can’t always
work on the novel when I’m out and about but a haiku...
SKY
Strands of angel cloud
spread their wide serrated wings
across the blue sky.
My blog research tells me it is best
practice to give links to other sites so here goes.
Here are three websites about
writing whose advice (they all have free newsletters) is just good to hear;
And if you haven’t read Stephen King’s
book ‘On Writing’, I would suggest
you do.
For all book lovers out there, I wish
you good reading and for those of you who write, good writing.
