Tag: love these

carrieonwriting:

some highlights from my writing seminar with honestly one of my favourite authors of all time who shall remain nameless bc i dont want her to know i was spilling her secrets online

  • The first trick is to detach yourself from your idea. You don’t have just one novel inside you, and it’s not a big deal if you don’t finish this novel.
  • She was skeptical of the common advice “just write!!1!” – she talked about how long ideas for her most popular novels were marinating inside her before she properly wrote them
  • As a continuation of that, she was a big believer in knowing what you want to write before you write it. Not what you’re going to write, what you want to write. 
  • The first thing she decides about a novel is what the mood is going to be, and this informs every other decision (e.g. the mood for Shiver was bittersweet)
  • Ideas should be personal, specific, exciting and they should exclude secondary sources. A personal idea isn’t necessarily autobiographical (which should be avoided), but it speaks to your emotional truth. 
  • She said she had been read Ronsey fanfiction and she couldn’t view her car in the same way since. 
  • Story is the thing that seems most important to reader but is most changeable to the author – story is subservient to your mood and your message. Change what you like in the plot as long as your book retains its sense of self.
  • Story is conflict, exploration and change. A good story has active tension -the characters want something, instead of just wanting something not to happen (e.g. wanting to kill an enemy instead of simply defending a stronghold against an enemy) 
  • A story needs to have a concrete end, something to be done. 
  • Satisfaction is important – deliver what you promise to the reader. The other shoe has to drop. Ronan Lynch doesn’t ever talk about his feelings, so its rewarding when he does. 
  • Earn your emotional moments (she threw shade at Fantastic Beasts lmao)
  • Forcing a character to be passive is dissatisfying to the reader. 
  • Characters are products of their environments, consistent/predictable, nuanced and specific, moving the plot, and subservient to other story elements. 
  • She always starts with tropes for ensemble casts like sitcoms. Helpful for building good character dynamics.
  • Write scenes with characters saying explicitly what they’re thinking and then go back and make them talk like real people in the edit. 
  • An action can also prove what they’re thinking, instead of making them say it or another character guess it (e.g. Ronan punching a wall). 
  • Move the reader’s emotional furniture around without them noticing. 
  • All her books follow the three act structure. Established normal -> inciting incident -> character makes an Active Decision -> fun and games -> escalation -> darkest moment -> climax. 
  • Promise what you’re going to do in the first five pages. 
  • Read your book out loud. Record yourself reading it. 
  • If you have writer’s block, it’s because you’ve stopped writing the book you want to write. She likes to delete everything she’s written until she gets back to a point where she knew she was writing what she wanted to write, and then carrying on from there.