Writers Helping Writers: Starting and Finishing the First Draft

Ok, you’ve got your characters, you’ve got your plot, you’ve got an outline. You are finally ready to start writing!

It’s going to go amazingly well for, oh, say the first chapter or two. You will marvel at how quickly and easily everything is coming to you. Your characters are sticking to the outline, there haven’t been any plot bunnies discovered, and the words are flowing like lava from a volcano.

Then it happens. Suddenly, one of your characters takes an abrupt left turn and refuses to stick to the script. Along with that, you realize that the whole pace of the story is floundering. Somewhere along the way, what had been going so well is all of a sudden the worst thing ever put to paper. The doubts trickle in. The words grind to a halt and you are stuck there, staring at the blank page before you with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. The truth rears its ugly head; writing is freaking hard.

We’ve all been there. Getting the first draft on paper is one of the MOST challenging things you will experience as a writer. This is the make or break moment. Only 3% of writers actually complete a novel. If you want to be in that 3%, try some of the following techniques to get yourself out of the first draft rut.

1.      Keep putting words on the page. One method to dealing with a block is to keep writing. If you are at a loss of what to write next, start describing things in the scene. Go in depth with a character’s inner monologue to explain from their point of view what is happening. Explore the senses and paint the picture of what the scene is supposed to be. Remember, any of this can be edited out, but you can’t edit a blank page.

2.      Give yourself some time away from the project. Work on something else. Sometimes we get too close to the story and it’s hard to distinguish the good from the bad. If the story is all we are thinking about, it’s easy to lose sight of where you are. So, take a break. Go for a walk, read a short story, write something else, and then go back to it with fresh eyes.

3.      Resist the urge to edit or start over. Once you get into that mindset that everything is horrible, it’s mighty tempting to erase it all and start over. DON’T DO IT! Keep moving forward. If you fall into the trap of going back and editing things, the first draft will never be completed and you will effectively get yourself stuck in a never ending loop of revisions. Trust me, keep moving forward.

4.      Don’t give up. Writing is hard, but remember that adage; nothing worth doing was ever easy. Keep yourself motivated and moving forward. Whatever that means for you. Perhaps it’s a shopping reward for hitting the word count goal for the day. Maybe it’s promising yourself a free evening if you finish at least 30 minutes of writing. However you motivate yourself, do so.

A few other things to keep in mind: first drafts are supposed to be terrible. You are not going to write your masterpiece on the first go. That is OK! First drafts are getting it all out on paper and strung together. The polishing and fine-tuning comes later on. Writing is a process and first drafts is just one of the initial steps to a completed, published book. You do have what it takes to be a writer. Believe in yourself. I promise that the excitement and ease that the first chapter or so had will come back. You just have to have a little patience.

Keep Writing!

Kira

Indie Book Review: Without Benefits by Nicole Tone

I have a confession to make. Well, a couple of confessions.

First, the illustrious Nicole Tone is my cousin. I did buy my copy of Without Benefits, though, because I am a staunch believer in supporting authors I know by contributing to their sales.

Second, Without Benefits is definitely not my typical read. Women’s Fiction, is not really something I am all that familiar with. I am more of a fantasy, science fiction, horror chick, so as a result, I am not confident that I fully ‘get’ this story.

Alright, confessions are done and so without further ado, here is my review of Without Benefits.

Emma is living a life she doesn’t quite fit in with. She has a job that she’s good at, a boyfriend, Connor, who seems to dote on her and a comfortable apartment in a posh neighborhood in Seattle. She’s convinced herself that this is the life she wants, but there’s still something just at the edges of her dream come true that haunts her. After 9/11, Emma moved from NYC to Seattle to attend school at the Conservatory. Her real passion is playing music, something that she hasn’t touched since graduating ten years previously. Her decisions in life are all thrown up in the air with the sudden re-emergence of her college crush, Owen, and his request for her to play with him in the Symphony.

Now, I stated before that this was not my typical read. There were some things that I didn’t quite understand as far as Emma being in the upper reaches of middle class. The feel of the story was different than what I am used to and I liked it. It was an intriguing window into a society that I am not at all familiar with. It was a page turner because Nicole did a good job at generating a sense of investment in her characters. There were some things I hoped she’d go into more detail with like the interactions of Emma and her friends, the decision to partner with one of her friends on a project, and so on.

One of the downfalls of this story is that I don’t quite understand why the main character made the decisions that she did. I can safely say that I would not have made those same choices, but that is also the beauty of getting into another person’s point of view; it makes you re-examine yourself and your own reactions. The character of Emma had some interesting thought processes to hook the reader, but some of her reactions to other characters caused a few great moments of built up tension to fizzle. These moments left me feeling a little unsatisfied. At the same time, some of the lack of a reaction was what drove me to keep turning the page; there had to be a bigger reaction to all of the drama at some point. As a fellow writer, I further confess that there were some plot points that felt a little forced to me, still this may be a result in a differences in story-development styles.

I have conflicting emotions about the ending of this story, but in the spirit of not giving away too many spoilers, I will not address them here. Get your copy of Without Benefits on Amazon and tell me what you think of it! We can have a book discussion! Also, check out my cousin’s website at www.nicoleatone.com.

Smiles,

Kira