Welcome to May!
Since it begins on a weekend this year, we will do a bit more practice writing with the prompts. I am still pondering a new theme week, but there is much more I need to write about first.
Tomorrow I will cover the new Amazon Kindle Vella situation and help you decide if that is right for you and your stories.
For today, though, let’s focus on a little writing exercise to help you stay in the groove and working on your current project.
One of the things that many writers face (especially new writers) is a sense of boredom. We get excited about a new project, the planning phase goes well and we start the rough draft.
Eventually, though, we reach a spot in the story that just falls flat. Perhaps it is needed (most are) but it is boring to write, or we just aren’t as excited about it as the rest of the story.
Some writers think it is the story itself, or that they aren’t good enough. The project goes to the way side, gets put away in a drawer, or worse, in the trash.
The ones that don’t push through, knowing it will get better, but still drag their feet. It takes forever to write, editing is a big chore and sometimes you just feel like giving up.
Let’s fix that, shall we?
May 01
Grab a stack of index cards or sticky notes. Pick a scene or chapter you are having trouble with, stuck on or are hating writing. Change all the characters to animals with crazy names, make notes about their back stories, and write 20 or more tiny scene descriptions that would fit your story.
The trick here is to make the scene more fun. A name change and a character type change is easy enough to fix later (ctrl + H, for example will find and replace all).
So, you want to be a little crazy with it. If you are writing a scene about a husband and wife, for example. And they have to do some boring shit to keep the story going, you can make them armadillos. One is named Beaucephus and the other is named Broomhilda. Or whatever.
If they need to go to the store, you can write about the difficulties an armadillo would have while shopping. Or you can make then dinosaurs, or teddy bears… whatever.
It Needs to be Fun
The point is, what ever the situation that needs to be written, you can make it fun for you. On your cards or notes, write out little situations, issues or problems these new characters would get into.
Then pick one or two or 7 and write them into your WiP. Just like it was meant to be there. The more outlandish you are, the more fun you can have with it.
Suddenly, that scene or chapter is done. Of course, you will need to edit it, but at this point, once you change teh names back and remove the armadillo aspect, your story still holds up.
And, as we all know, it is much easier to edit a chapter when it is complete, than when it is blank.
So focus on getting it complete with these fun little changes. Then go back and edit it later.
You might even surprise yourself with some of the outlandish things you have them do and decide to keep a few of them in the real story. It’s happened before!
When you are done, let me know in the comment section how it worked out for you. And share a few of the crazy ideas you had with it so we can all get in on the fun.
