Writing process

Follow along as I explore writing tips, techniques and methods..

An Idea Magpie: Belinda on the Inspiration Behind Cold Between Stars

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I’m an idea magpie, picking up bits of inspiration from everywhere (books, movies, songs, games, random conversations, etc), most of which find their way into my stories.  Cold Between Stars is no exception. Below are two of the books and one TV series that helped inspire the story.  Diving into the Wreck (Kristine Kathryn Rusch) … Read more

Go Write That Good Book: Advice to new writers

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"Don't give up!!!" written in chalk on a blackboard.

Years ago, I came across a brilliant article by Jennifer Crusie. It was a writerly advice type article with a simple message, stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and write your book.  It’s excellent advice. Now, quit reading this already and go write your book. No? Okay, then prepare yourself for some advice … Read more

The Worldbuilding Leviathan goes Spanish!

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I love how many people have discovered the Worldbuilding Leviathan and I’m always quite chuffed (and just a little bit amazed) whenever someone drops me a line to tell me how useful they’ve found the template. One such person was Juan de la Cruz, who asked me if he could translate it into Spanish. I said ‘of course!’ … Read more

Writing loglines

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Wizard of Oz logline – Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.
Awesome, in a wrong yet funny way.

Right under ‘title’ on Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet, there’s a little box called ‘tag line’ (but should really be called ‘logline’), which, frankly, used to scare the whatsits out of me.

What’s a logline?

A logline is your short story, novel or epic fantasy saga, summarised in a single sentence. It’s your pitch, your calling card, the line you pull out whenever you’re asked what your book is about.

Why do you need one?

Because, if you’re standing in an elevator and someone says they’ll give you a million dollars if you can tell them what your book’s about in ten seconds flat, what do you say?

It had better not be ‘umm’. 

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Phase drafting and writing faster

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Writing faster than greased lightning is one of the holy grails of writing, or, at least, it is in my world. The thought of being able to whip out a decent first draft in under two months makes me giddy, let alone one. While there are many methods that can help you do that, phase drafting is the one that works for me.

At it’s most basic, phase drafting is the step between your outline (if you have one) and your first draft. If you’re a pantser, it’s like outlining without actually outlining and if you’re a plotter, it’s a way to test drive your plot, fill in holes and follow any interesting tangents that come along. For a more comprehensive description, read ‘It’s Just a Phase’.

Note: the Self-Publishing Podcast team uses the same method, but with a different name, which they explain in episode 64 of their podcast. They’ve also provided a sample document, which is well worth the download. 

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Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet and Scrivener

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A screenshot of my novel 'Crash' plotted with a beat sheet and Scrivener.
I love the beat sheet’s word count per beat.

About the same time I revisted the BS2, Jami Gold posted an excellent article about using beat sheets with Scrivener. What I liked most about the article was the idea of using the target word count for individual chapters and scenes to lay out the beats.

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to word counts, I find big numbers like 100k pretty intimidating. One of the beauties of the beat sheet is that it breaks down these numbers into manageable chunks. For a 100k-word novel, however, some of those chunks are still 25k words, so I took the idea one step further, with Scrivener. 

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Blake Synder's Beat Sheet, with template

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Cover of Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
If you want to understand how the beat sheet works, check out this book.

Best for those outling a new work.

What’s awesome about it

  • The word count for each beat

What’s not-so-awesome

  • It’s daunting, especially when your manuscript is half-written
  • No capacity to outline subplots

The awesome

When I first came across Blake Synder’s Beat Sheet (BS2), I was half-way through the manuscript for Hero and the word count for each beat made me to blanch. The idea of trying to shoehorn my (at that point in time) pantsed story into all of those little boxes (opening image, catalyst, black moment) with their prescribed word counts, was more than my brain could take, but when I went back to the BS2, a new story in mind, they appeared as godsends. 

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A world-building template for when you're on the go

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World-building on my iPad
Just whip out the iPad and get world-building, while you wait for you morning hot chocolate.

Patricia C. Wrede’s Fantasy World-building questions are great, and the World-building Leviathan is equally awesome, but there are times when they just don’t hit the spot. Like, when you’re halfway (or more) into your novel and you need to sort out what a battle mage can do that an illusionist can’t.

Sure, you can jot down a few notes and whack them into a notebook, but if, like me, you can’t stand the thought of not being organised, something a little more structured is in order.

Normally, I’d turn to Scrivener, but, until the iPad version comes out, it doesn’t work so well on-the-go. Yes, you can sync your files to an external folder and edit them on the iPad (which works great for writing), but whatever file structure you’ve created in Scrivener is lost, and when I’m world-building I need folders, and not just any folders, but nested folders and lots of them.

And so, I set out to make myself a template in which I could make random notes, while still being organised, and that I could use just as easily from my laptop as my iPad.

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First Draft in 30 Days – The Wiesner method

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The cover of First Draft in 30 Days by Karen Wiesner
That’s one seductive title.

When a book has a title like First Draft in 30 Days, it can be hard to pass up. If it’s sitting on the shelf at your local library, passing it up is practically impossible, which is why I picked Karen Wiesner’s book.

The idea that I could write a first draft, or in Wiesner’s case, an incredibly detailed outline (which she equates to a first draft), is seductive. So far, it hasn’t happened yet (mostly, because I’m currently writing the second draft of another work) but the dream remains.

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