I’m working on a new project and I’m just trying to have fun with it. It’s a young adult novel, not in verse, sort of an urban fantasy thing, I think. And it is fun, except sometimes I spend the longest time on the stupidest little things.
Here is a list of things I struggle with ALL the time. Please, tell me I’m not the only one!
~ Getting my character from one place to another. I don’t know why I struggle with this, but I do. I seem to use – “I headed toward” a lot for some reason, maybe because I get tired of saying “I went” all the time?
~ Figuring out where to put in little bits of background information. I think my problem with this is that I just want the story to keep going forward. I don’t want to take time to explain something that’s happened in the past. But it is necessary sometimes, I know!
~ Putting in just the right number of beats and actions during dialogue, so you see the characters there, doing whatever they’re doing while they’re talking, but not so much that the dialogue doesn’t flow well. What’s too much? What’s not enough? I don’t know!!!
If you have any helpful tips, let me have them!
~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career
5 comments:
I also do the "went toward" thing. It's easier to cut in revisions. Just go with it for now. :)
For the first one, I just skip the transit and use a scene break, if nothing interesting happens in transit.
I hate exposition too. I love it best when I can hint at something--when the dialogue, for example, lets the reader figure out what must have happened in the past, instead of having to tell the reader directly.
I walk toward a bunch of stuff too. But at least I'm walking toward it now. I use to always walk towards things. lol!
I wish I could help with these Lisa, but they are weaknesses I have as well. It's funny how we all seem to have similar weaknesses. It must be common speech invading our writing.
This is really a good idea. And for the most part I do this. But isn't there something about a chunk of time just getting into your story and that world? Maybe it's me having wishful thinking.
Can you guess what I want for Christmas next year? 3 hours of uninterrupted writing time when it's light out.
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