Thursday, December 15, 2011

Something I've Learned That Does Work For Me

I went to a writers workshop lead by a member of my awesome writers group (livingwriterscollective.blogspot). Tricia Petty, of Cellphane Ministries and Antibellum Productions,  has worked in the movie industry as well as writing novels and mentioned that working with screenplays gave her the idea to break a story down into scenes rather than chapters.
I don't know why this works, but it was a lifesaver for fixing my problem with my first book, where I scrambled the plot and the subplots, and in my second book where I tired to cobble together seperate bits and pieces of the story into a cohesive narrative. By breaking the story up into scenes, I am able to write each scene on an index card and shuffle them around until I had events in the best order. I know this will be a method I use with every book I write.
When established authors answer the common question from beginning writers "How do you write?", most  describe thier own writing process and stress that it is what works for them.  The only way to know if it can be an effective part of your own process is to try it. Different things work for different writers and few authors work exactly the same way. As my friend Karen says (mywritingloft.blogspot) your writing process has to be yours.

www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com

No comments:

Post a Comment