Whether or not you edit as you go really isn’t the bazillion-dollar question. The real questions you should be asking yourself are “What’s the 50-page edit?” and “Why am I not taking advantage of it yet?” Okay, so it wouldn’t take a genius to answer that the first question. The 50-page edit is pretty obviously […]
December 12, 2010 by 43 Comments Writing Life8 Reasons to Let Your Stories Ripen
Whenever you come up with a wonderful new story idea, it can be tempting to immediately sit down at the keyboard and start bringing it to life on the page. But that’s not always the best way to turn that sparkling new idea into a worthwhile and enduring story. In his book How to Write […]
August 29, 2010 by 76 Comments Editing Your NovelShould You Edit As You Go?
Authors are passionately divided on the subject of editing as you go. Should you write your first draft as fast as possible, dumping your creativity on the page while it’s still smoking hot, never stopping to tweak so much as a misspelled word until you’ve got it all safely down on paper? Or should you […]
January 17, 2009 by 36 Comments Outlining Your NovelOutline Your Novel: The 5-Step Game Plan
Generally speaking, writers fall into two different categories: outliners and non-outliners (or, as my critique partner Linda Yezak has dubbed them, “seat-of-the-pantsters”). I’m an outliner. Mostly, I outline because I’m lazy. I hate rewriting; I hate watching my burst of pride and relief at the end of a novel dissipate in a realization of a hole-riddled […]
