Creative Endurance & More

• Creative Endurance. David Yoon suggests creative endurance can be cultivated. “Grit is not a personality trait or a special skill. It’s not even all that special. Anyone can have grit because grit is simply a set of good habits.” Some excellent suggestions here. 

• Getting Unstuck. Love these tips from Janice Hardy for how to get your story moving again (if you’re stuck, that is). Here. “Getting stuck is your writer’s subconscious telling you there’s a problem, and keeping you from making it worse.”

• High-Stakes. These “clever tricks” to increase the stakes in your scenes (from Zena Dell Lowe) really hit home because I’m reading a new “thriller” from a good publisher and literally very little happened in the first 100 pages besides lots of great work setting the atmosphere.  “Instead of allowing your character to calm her nerves by resorting to one of the many habits she’s developed, take away her toys until she’s got nothing left but her own wits. Or throw her off her game by taking her by surprise. Or, add pressure by making her race against the clock. In all of it, make sure that the outcome matters. This transforms the scene from an innocuous one into a high-pressure, high-stakes scenario, and that’s when things really get interesting.” Link here. By the way, the “thriller” got better once the stakes were cranked up. Also by the way, every novel needs suspense.

• Secondary Characters. Josh Stallings wrote this excellent blog on not overlooking the value of your “secondary” characters. (Because there should be no such thing.). “Two early lessons in theater school were, ‘Know where your character was before they walk on stage.’ And ‘Write your character’s biography.’ Even if you only have a one line walk on, doesn’t matter. The audience will never see this work but if you do it, they’ll feel the truth.” Amen, brother.

• Dialogue & Outcomes. Great tips on subterfuge in dialogue here from Becca Puglisi. “Information is always currency; in dialogue, it should be doled out carefully and thoughtfully.”

• Editing. On a personal note, last week I finished the editing process for The Fireballer. (New pub date: Jan. 1, 2023.). There were three rounds of developing editing.  Yes, three. Those rounds took up all of January and half of February.  There were also three rounds of copyedits. Yes, three. Those rounds ate up March, April, and May. Up until last week, as the “final” deadline approached, we were all still catching little stuff. Little, but important. Edits, tweaks, wrong words. Typos. I know for a fact that the publisher (Lake Union) used different editors for each round of copyedits. And the development editor had caught typos, too, of course. So, four professional editors had combed through the manuscript but, still, issues. Recently, I helped a friend with his self-publishing project. I handled the e-book formatting, etc. Many people helped with the editing. Then he worked with a narrator to produce and audio book, who caught a bunch of typos, mistakes, and inconsistences. Then a reader found yet another mistake. Bottom line: don’t shine off the editing process. Don’t. Just don’t. 

NOTE: Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash