Method To The Madness

Writing and editing are two different things. It’s important that you allow yourself to write a rough draft by writing all the way through to the end without editing heavily. A little bit of tweaking here and there is alright, but if you stop the momentum, well, you’ve stopped the momentum. It may never pick up again, or could be disjointed or discordant.

Whether you’re a pantser (write by the seat of your pants) or a plotter, there must be a method to your madness, a routine that you follow to help you reach the end.

While editing it’s even more important that you have a structured system of your own design to follow. Yep pantsers, that means you too. Having a system for editing makes it faster, easier, and much more thorough. Chances are, even if you’re a pantser, you probably have an editing routine that you follow. I have a five step editing process that helps me polish to a shine that keeps my editor happy with me.

Your editing method should be tailored to what works for you. Maybe five steps is too many, maybe it’s not enough. It all depends on how you want to do it. Some authors I know print out their manuscript and lay it out on their floor with sticky notes on each page (so cool, I’d love to try this method!), others use editing software that allows them to list things out and rearrange, and even other print out and do a red pen edit. The important thing is to try different methods, ask other writers, and find what works for you.

So what is your editing method?

~Heather

Three Elements Every Novel Needs

As many of you are diving into #NaNoWriMo there are a few important elements to your novel that you need to keep in mind.  If you're missing one of them, you don't have a story. Figuring them out early on will help you focus and keep your story on track. But don't worry, if you didn't do an outline for NaNo, just keeping these in mind will help. I'll share bits of one of my latest novels for an example.

Problem: Invaders are doubling their efforts to take over my main character's homeland. At the same time she is struggling to understand a power that is nothing like it should be, and is a disappointment to her parents. This shows both the inner problems she is struggling with and the exterior one she is forced to deal with going on around her.

Stakes: Invaders are not only driving her people from their land and taking over, they are wiping out her kind because they believe they are evil. If she can't figure out her errant power and discover a way to control it and use it, she may have to fear for not only her family's land, but her life. Again this shows the inner and outer stakes.

Solution: She must find a way to harness her power so she can use it to help her people fight back the invaders. In the solution the two combine, but this isn't always the case.

Once you know these three elements, you know the core of your plot. These are also the three elements that are found in a good one sentence log line. I've found that in knowing these elements, and writing my one sentence log line ahead of time, it helps me hone in on my story from page one and not lose focus on it. How do you make sure your story has the necessary elements? 

These elements are taken from my historical YA fantasy that is due out by Compass Press in early 2013.

~Heather