Nail Your Novel - Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish With Confidence by Morris Roz

Author:Morris, Roz [Morris, Roz]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Published: 2011-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

Block busters

block buster 1… Just write at random

The most straightforward block buster is just to write. I write anything, I try things. I let the characters yammer away like actors improvising a scene, saying nonsense and seeing what happens. Most of it is pointless, it goes round and round and gets deleted instantly. I keep going until something new has happened or been said.

Since we’re bring random, you could bring some other contributors into the mix. Tarot cards might suggest characters or events. Googling a word at random can be surprisingly productive if you can discipline yourself not to go on a four-hour browsing spree instead. Just add a new element, play with it and see where it takes you.

block buster 2… Reincorporation

Remember the discussion about plotting and reincorporation? Instead of adding new material, you solve your problem using a character, trait, event or piece of information that you casually introduced earlier.

Was one of your characters out of the house one evening, and did you randomly decide they were at choir practice? If you brought that in again in some way, would that get you out of your hole? Or if you changed the choir practice to locksmithing evening class, would that be a satisfactory way to help your trapped characters escape?

You might have to do a little retrospective editing here – in which case, remember to keep it rough.

block buster 3… Conflict

Remember the thumbnail note on characters and trouble - conflict? It’s a good way to spice up a scene that’s predictable, or to slip in a piece of information the reader needs to know.

block buster 4… Get your hands on something else

Your brain will gush with ideas as soon as you are unable to write them down. If you don’t believe me, go and make meatballs. Just when your hands are nicely slimed and in no fit state to touch a pen, you will be overwhelmed with inspiration. Less messily, some writers I know always have some knitting on the go, and when they’re stuck they pick up the needles.

There's something about taking your hands off the keyboard and doing something technical that sends the ideas flooding into your brain.

I remember one book I was ghosting where I was working on a scene that involved a lot of technical information. The characters were trekking through deep jungle with only a map and compass. I am a dunce about direction; the limits of my understanding are up and down. I don’t even do right and left. East and west were giving me a panicky feeling. And as for the compass bearings and ridge lines… Worse, I had to make the characters do exciting things while showing their mastery of this information. I was getting close to acute prostration.

Like a frustrated schoolchild, my brain kept interrupting with impure thoughts. That pair of jeans I was thinking about customising. Wouldn’t they look nice with a design drawn on them. Oh please, no more about bearings and ridge lines. Hmm, a design.

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