My new mystery novel, The Birnbaum Case, will be released on 3 – 21 – 20. It is available on Amazon for preorder.
Getting into the writing zone is when you are steeped in the story. It’s one of the most satisfying and rewarding aspects about writing. Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, it’s that experience when all the ideas flow and integrate seamlessly. It feels like the words just roll off your fingertips.
For a novel, I often plan out the scenes and events before I begin writing. I’ll make an outline of the plot (though tentative) so that I know where the story is headed. This helps me to frame the plot so that I know how to tie in various elements and ideas so that they remain consistent throughout the story. But as the story evolves, I discover new things to add (or subtract), new ideas or characters that are necessary for the narrative.
I’m building the world. It’s taking shape–having a life of its own. Writing in the zone gets easier, and I find that I know what the characters are supposed to say, how they’re supposed to react, and what decisions they should make.
For me, it’s important to sketch the plot first, to know what’s ahead. But as the story evolves, I find that the outline was just a guide, not a rule. It becomes a road map, but along the way, I discover new things I couldn’t have known at the start.
And as the path becomes clearer, I find that I am often writing in the zone.
There was a time when I’d read nonfiction books voraciously, especially history, science, and mathematics. It was during a time when I felt I needed to learn as much as I possible.
One trend I noticed about all the nonfiction books I enjoyed was that I learned the most when they were told in the form of a narrative. The subject of history lends itself to this because each major event builds upon a chain of events . . . a series of decisions, actions, or inactions.
Science can be engrossing if written in the same way. To read about the struggles of scientists, the experiments they developed to test their ideas, the challenges they faced, this is much more fascinating and fun to read than to just have the facts given to you.
When we approach a work of nonfiction, we can have the facts, dates, and names given to us, or we can read how ideas or people shaped the events that have happened. I find I learn a lot more this way rather than just remembering the facts.
There are so many ways to approach reading nonfiction. You could read it educate yourself, to catch up on the news, or to simply digest information that’s useful.
The best nonfiction books I’ve read not only educate me on a subject matter, but inspire me to think about the world. They address ideas I haven’t considered, and even if I don’t agree with them, I find that in the process of questioning those ideas, I refine my own.
Giveaway ends March 01, 2020.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway
Rogue Experiment will be available on 2-28-20. Make sure you get yourself a copy. Thank you for the support. Enjoy the novel.
Writing is a process that takes multiple revisions to improve the quality of the draft. The first draft often looks basic and rudimentary, but with revisions, it becomes clearer, polished, and solid. But it all begins with the first draft. Sometimes it’s starting that is the most difficult part. But once we put words down, we can revise and elevate our original ideas into something more.
One of the things I love about short stories is that they hook you immediately and take you deep into the premise within a short period of time. Short stories establish the setting and characters quickly, whereas a novel might take you through a couple chapters of exposition before you’re fully immersed in it.
Short stories also have the power of communicating an idea or a conflict in just a single scene or in a few brief pages. As a writer, it takes practice and skill to write them effectively to communicate so much in just a few pages. But a short story can be just as powerful as a novel. The experience of course, is shorter, but the impact can leave you thinking about the story for days.
When I go to the library, I would find a book cover or title that I like, take it from the shelf, read a sentence or two in the first chapter, and if it really grabbed me, continue reading it. If it didn’t grab me, I would put it back, keep browsing, and then flip through another book that caught my attention. The process would repeat until I found something I’d be happy to check out.
It’s kind of finding a treasure chest that’s meant for you. I’m sure there are tons of books I’ve glanced at that didn’t interest me but would interest other people. But when you find a book that speaks to you, it’s like meeting a new friend. You’ve just got to search.
When I revise a story, I’m going line by line and analyzing what should stay or what should go. I’m deciding what I like about what I wrote and what can be worded better. It’s one of those things where I feel like I have so many options of saying a particular thing.
Take for example: “He closed the door.” I could add an adverb such as: “He closed the door abruptly.” Or I could say: “He slammed the door.” It all depends on context, of course, and each has a different effect.
Overall, I’m revising based on flow. I also look at consistency, but if the wording is not causing me to stop or slow down due to being awkward or disjointed, I know I’m going in the right direction.
Fallton Havenstonne 