The Daily Grind: October 10, 2019 & A Writing Tip

Please enjoy this picture of me in my Halloween costume. I’m a spider. Be afraid, humans. Be very afraid!

PG&E took out the male’s workplace. The female had to attempt to coexist with the male under working conditions. Shenanigans ensued.

The female was very relieved when the male of the species learned power had been restored to his workplace.

Her attempt to flee to Barnes & Noble to work for a while died a terrible death due to everyone else trying to flee to Barnes & Noble for internet access, and even when she got a seat, it was noisy and there were many distractions. She returned home after writing maybe fifty words.

Poor female.

Yesterday, despite everything, the female wrote 4,308 words. Good job, female! You deserve a cookie.

Well, I guess you deserved the piece of blueberry cheesecake AND the pistachio mousse you devoured at Barnes & Noble, you glutton.

On the writing front, the female purchased a bunch of white boards, as she was tired of churning through paper at alarming rates. She could have purchased $10 in paper and been set for a while, but no. She decided to spend $120 on white boards and markers. While giggling.

Crazy female.

Today, she continues working on Double Trouble. it’s much longer than it should be, and that’s okay. We think. Kinda. Mostly. Sigh.

Poor female.

Writing Tip of the Day: Don’t be like the female. Avoid the internet’s lurid temptations. Also, possibly stay the hell out of controversial subject discussions.

They take up a lot of time and go nowhere fast.

Okay, being serious, here’s a decent plotting/outlining tip for those struggling to make sure every scene has a purpose in the story.

While it’s tempting to write whatever whenever, every scene should serve several purposes in the story.

1: It should always, somehow, move characters. (It can be forward. It can be back. It can be in any direction you want–but the characters should not remain stagnant.) Character development isn’t giving them a good backstory. Character development is the process of characters changing.

Some changes are good. Some changes are bad. But if you have a stagnant character, it’s an undeveloped character. Developed characters are best thought of as developing characters. They’re always on the move.

2: There should be something, be it a hint, a clue, or an event that moves the plot forward. Information can be important, but it should be delivered in an engaging, interesting way. You can count a scene as a breather as something that moves the plot forward, because characters and readers sometimes need a few minutes to digest something. Use this space for information if needed, but controlling the pacing of a story through a deliberately slower paced scene can add a lot of flavor–if you do it right.

3: If you can cut the scene out without having to do a lot of extensive reworking of the book (both before and after,) the scene may not be strong enough. Try to keep this in the back of your head while you’re writing.

If you can snip the scene without consequence, the scene wasn’t pulling its weight.