Fictional Worlds

Here are a couple more links I hope help you with your editing:

~Reworking Infodumps Workshop this is an article/exercise by Lazette Gifford talking about the perils of infodumping when introducing your novel's world and story. It also has an exercise designed to help you tackle infodumps and make them into readable prose.

~Junkfoodmonkey's Editing Recipe is one writer's process for editing. This article is on the Nanoedmo website.

~Good Parts and Other Parts is a great article talking about what you need to focus on when rewriting your novel-finding the good parts and the 'other parts' and making every part a good part.

I hope that you enjoy these links-and that we all have very productive weekends.

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Writing Exercises

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Falling Behind

March 11th 2010 13:09

Unfortunately life has gotten in the way of my editing this month. I've begun the second draft of my novel, writing a new first chapter-but life has stalled me. Between a crippled grandmother, old friends coming back into the picture, and my general exhaustion, my started second draft is sitting on my USB key gathering dust.

Luckily, being a student in Toronto (I don't know about this in other places) I've got next week off of school, freeing up several hours of five days of my week. Some of this time will be devoted to catching up on school-my editing isn't the only thing I've fallen behind on-but I'm hoping to get most of my second draft done during this time period.

Hopefully you've come further with your work than I have; if not, don't give up hope. If you're participating in Nanoedmo, don't fret too much about your hours. Focus on how much of your manuscript you get rewritten. Don't think about how much time to do it; your goal is to finish a second draft of your novel, and even if it only takes you 40 hours, or you only make it most of the way to the end, it's still a huge accomplishment starting with a first draft and having a second draft in a month.

How are you coping with life and editing your novel?

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Writing Exercises

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Book Review: George R. R. Martin's A Game Of Thrones

March 10th 2010 12:03

Instead of today's update, I've decided to write a book review of the book I finished last night, George R. R. Martin's a Game of Thrones.

The first thing I'll say about this book is that if you aren't prepared to commit yourself to a lot of reading, don't even start it. It's the first book in a series, and this book alone is eight hundred and seven pages.

From the moment you start reading until the moment the book is over, the story of the Stark family, one of the seven great houses, will pull you in and keep you there. It starts with the discovery of a litter of direwolf pups, a litter without a mother. The direwolf is the symbol of house Stark, and after some debate about bad omens, Ned Stark decides to give each of the wolves to one of his children.

King Robert, who Ned was once close friends with, comes to visit and asks Ned to become his Hand, his most powerful advisor. Ned doesn't want to go, but a letter that is convinced the Queen murdered the last Hand convinces him to leave, to try and discover the truth behind Jon Arryn's death.

The moment Ned Stark heads south, everything changes for the Stark family. The family is separated by thousands of miles, politics, and eventually death. The story is dark but it's realistic, set in an extremely well developed world and revolving around a set of fascinating characters, all of whom grow throughout the novel.

Putting down this book to get off the subway-I spend an hour traveling and that's my prime reading time when I'm too busy to find other time-is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I plan on starting the second book tomorrow morning on my way to school, and I hope that you'll decide to start reading these books too. If you love fantasy and don't mind blood and guts, this is a great series, not only to read for the joy of reading, but to read to see what works in his writing that you can experiment with in your own.

You can buy the book below:

A Game Of Thrones on Amazon.com

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts

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Prompt One

March 9th 2010 12:20

Your goal for this month might be all about editing, but it's always good to keep the writing juices flowing. To help you keep writing, each week there will be a writing prompt. These are designed to be 500-1, 500 word writing exercises. They don't have to be full stories, as long as they sort of make sense.

This week, take a character from a different project than the one you're currently editing, someone who you are somewhat familiar with but who isn't quite a close friend yet. You will be writing from their point of view

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Writing Exercises

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Week One Pep Talk&Short Exercise

March 8th 2010 12:21

The first few days of March have passed, and the first full week of March is about to begin. You may not be where you wanted to be, but remember that there's still most of a month left.

You might also be frustrated with the big picture problems of your first draft. If you find yourself dreading the words and dreading the work, while you look through the badly written parts that you've figured out, try to find things that you like. Great scenes, great description, real emotion, realistic characterization. Underline those parts or at least make a note of them. You'll find yourself liking your work more, and you'll find that rewriting what you don't like will come to you more easily

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Writing Exercises

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Three Editing Links To Help Out

March 5th 2010 12:38

Every week for the rest of this month, I'm going to post either three or five links to good articles about editing fiction, in the hopes that you'll find the information useful or at least interesting. I still haven't made a final list of websites, so if you have a link you think should be listed in one of the posts this month, please send me an email at diannalgunn@gmail.com.

On to the links for this week

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Writing Exercises

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Editing Exercise One: Overused Words

March 4th 2010 12:20

Based on what you've read and worked on so far, make a list of five words you think you overuse. You'll probably-especially in a Nanovel-find an overuse of words like 'was', 'have', 'bloody' if you have a lot of gore, 'beautiful' if your character's exploring a new world. 'Moments' is a big one for me as I've struggled to find new ways of judging time for my world.

Beside each one, when you do your work for the day, do a tally of how many times that word has been used. After you've read your chapters for the day, find a thesaurus and look up similar words. List three similar words that you are comfortable using beside each word that you overuse, and then replace each word you overuse at least once in your chapters for the day. Keep this list close to you when you're editing the rest of your novel

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Writing Exercises

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A Prompt To Distract Yourself

March 2nd 2010 12:39

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Short Fiction, Writing Exercises

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Introduction To An Editing Workshop

March 1st 2010 12:12

Today is the first day of March. It is also the first day of Nanoedmo, a month during which many writers work on editing and some reach for the goal of 50 hours of editing. In honour of these events, and considering the fact that I am also editing my novel this month, I decided at the beginning of this year that I would be doing an editing workshop in March.

Most writers experience some difficulties while writing their books, but for most of us, when we get past that point, we discover that writing is the easy part: rewriting is the hard part

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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Updates on Novels, Articles/Ideas/Prompts, Writing Exercises

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5 Great Blog Posts

February 26th 2010 12:34

Nanoedmo is almost upon us, and come Monday I will be posting the beginning of my March editing workshop. In the meantime, here are five great blog posts for you to read:

~The Definitive Guide To Choosing A Topic For Your New Blog is a post over at Skelliewag talking about what to do before you create a new blog. It's the first in a series and I suggest you read them all if you're looking into creating a new blog, or your first blog. I hope this helps you

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