Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

I’m jazzed! Yesterday, I challenged my loyal blog readers to critique Laura’s one-sentence summary of her novel. We’ve been obsessing on one-sentence summaries for two full weeks now. (If you’re going to obsess on something, it might as well be important, and this topic is.)

To refresh your memory, here is Laura’s first cut at a one-sentence summary:

A savy businesswoman dumps it all for aspirations to be a groom on a dude ranch.

The sentence is a fine start, but it needs fine-tuning. Here are the points that many of you picked up on:

1) “Savvy” is spelled with two “v”s.

2) “Groom” makes you think she’s a guy getting married.

3) “aspirations” is really a needless word here.

4) The story as given lacks conflict. We don’t know what problem she faces at the dude ranch that makes her life worse than it was before.

5) “A savvy businesswoman” is good, but it could be sharpened into something with more intrinsic conflict that explains the flight from Fortune Five-hundred in favor of feisty fillies. It would be very helpful to know our heroine’s reason for leaving, but it’s even more important to know what genre we’re working with. The one-sentence summary should always tell you what the genre is, some way or another.

So let’s consider some options. Here are some possible genres, and some possible ways to tweak Laura’s sentence. These are a bit wordy, because I’m whipping them out quickly without taking time to really sharpen them up.

Comedy: A corporate bigwig dumps her job to work on a dude ranch, but discovers she’s allergic to horses.

Romance: A love-starved CFO leaves her Fortune 500 company to pursue a John Wayne lookalike on his dude ranch.

Suspense: After a deal with the Mafia goes awry, a female CEO goes incognito at a dude ranch.

Horror Spoof: After attempting suicide at corporate headquarters, a zombie woman cannot be released until she mucks out 1000 stalls on a dude ranch.

Spiritual: A newly widowed businesswoman seeks meaning by leaving corporate America for the simple life on a dude ranch.

Laura, the ball’s in your court. I think we have more work to do, but we’ll need you to fill us in on the story a little bit more. What’s the genre and what is our heroine’s conflict once she starts mucking those stalls out?

We have time for one more today. I’ll take Gerhi’s comment/question, since he contributed significantly to critiquing Laura. Gerhi wrote his latest one-sentence summary here:

A disengaged father steal back his three year old son from a mirror dimension.

My question: How do I put into that one line a sense that I hope a lot of the book will be humorous even though the concept is serious? In other words, when do you indicate the style of writing?

Randy sez: Put in some humor, absolutely! That proves you can, which is something you have to show the editor. You can’t just tell the editor, “I’m so funny, people fall on the floor laughing when they hear my jokes.” So if your story is humorous, it really would be a fine idea to make the one-sentence summary funny. This isn’t always easy, since there are different types of humor. If you are good at one-liners, then your one-sentence summary is a great place to show it off. If your humor is more the “build the joke slowly, get it rolling, and milk the audience for laugh after laugh,” then that’s VERY hard to show in a one-sentence summary.

I happen to be pretty decent at one-liners. However, I won’t contribute one here, for two reasons:
1) I don’t know the story well enough.
2) The humor in a one-sentence summary is an advertisement for what you can do, and so it might be considered deceptive if an editor found out that your hilarious sentence came from me.

So Gerhi, I would challenge you to write a one-sentence summary that tells your essential conflict and has a humorous kicker at the end. I have no idea how best to do that, but if you can pull it off, you’ll likely have a winner. Let us know if you come up with one. I think we’ll all be interested to hear it.

Due to popular demand, we’ll continue critiquing the one-sentence summaries that many of you have posted here over the last couple of weeks.

Here’s one from Gary:

“You are me, and must kill you.”

Randy sez: I think this is a record for brevity. 7 words, 1 character, 1 plot. Only 22 letters!

The only problem is that I don’t understand the story. So I would say this one needs to be expanded a bit. There are two issues to be expanded. What does “you are me” mean? I could make some guesses, but in a one-sentence summary, you don’t want the reader guessing–you want them to KNOW. Secondly, why must you kill you? There needs to be a reason, some motivation for it. Killing is never interesting in isolation. There has to be a reason. The reason the Jackal wants to kill Charlie DeGaulle in THE DAY OF THE JACKAL is that half a million dollars (in big, fat, juicy 1962 dollars) was waiting for him if he succeeded. And he came THAT close to succeeding.

Robert posted this one:

A swordsmith’s son must save the kingdom of Britain from a mysterious black stone’s enchantment.

Randy sez: This is a good strong one-sentence summary. Can it be stronger? Yes, possibly, on a couple of points:

Point one: I’m going to guess that a swordsmith’s son would also likely be a swordsmith himself. (If not, what is he?) So could we replace “swordsmith’s son” with “_______ swordsmith”? I don’t know what goes in the blank–that depends on what his inner conflict. But there’s no doubt that if he was a one-armed swordsmith (or fibromyalgic or dislexic or WHATEVER), he’d be a more interesting guy.

Point two: What is that black stone’s enchantment doing, exactly? This might be hard to answer, but it seems it could be more specific. Is that stone playing bagpipe music that enslaves those pesky Brits? Does it exude the odor of frying bacon, driving them mad with hunger? Does it emit microwave mind-control messages from Merlin? I’m being a little goofy here, but the question is whether you can be more specfic. Abstraction is great for mathematical physics, but in fiction, concreteness is good.

Jeffrey wrote:

A research engineer and a Hopewell shaman, separated in time by 1800 years, work together to fight an ancient evil entity.

Randy sez: This sounds quite promising. What kind of “research engineer”? Does it matter which field he’s in? If not, then does it even matter that he’s an engineer? What skills does he bring to this battle with the evil entity? Why must he be an engineer in order for this story to work?

The Hopewell shaman is pretty specific. I’m going to guess he or she is the one who’s living 1800 years ago. I don’t know if it’s possible to say what year the shaman lives in, but it might be worthwhile trying to figure out if the sentence could be rewritten to tell us.

The big questions I have are about the nature of that ancient evil entity. Who is it and what are its powers? What is the nature of the battle? In what way could an engineer help? What is Mr. Evil Entity trying to achieve?

Laura posted this one:

A savy businesswoman dumps it all for aspirations to be a groom on a dude ranch.

Randy sez: OK, maybe it’s time to see what my loyal blog readers have learned in the last couple of weeks. I’ll critique this one tomorrow, but first I’d like to see what you all have to say about it. What would you tell Laura if she came to you with this one-sentence summary?

I’m working through the one-sentence summaries that my loyal blog readers have posted here over the last couple of weeks. I’m trying to go in order, so those who posted first get theirs critiqued first.

The next on the list is Karla, but she recently posted a revision, so I’m going to look at both of them.

Karla wrote:

Okay, I am going to go ahead and edit the one sentence summary I originally submitted. Is this better or just different?

Original: A pastor’s wife joins a girl biker club and encounters new adventures that startle and shake up her husband’s church.

Revised: When a burned-out pastor’s wife becomes a biker chick, her new adventures startle and shake up her husband’s church.

Randy sez: I like the original better, but it still needs work. The original has a pastor’s wife joining a girl biker club. To me, that implies a fair bit of conflict and definitely an interesting character. The new version adds in the descriptor “burned-out”. The problem I see with this is that this description has been way overused and is now verging on a cliche. It can still be done, of course. Burnout continues to exist. But calling it “burnout” is the cliche. In any event, I think we’ve got enough to describe this lady without the burnout. In fact, I think it works even better to strip down the revised version just a little:

“When a pastor’s wife becomes a biker chick…” I think that sets up the story nicely.

Now for the second half, things suddenly get vague. This biker chick has “adventures”. She “startles” folks. She even “shakes them up.” All of these are fine for a first cut, but specific is always better than vague. If you tell us the adventure, we’ll be able to guess that the church folks are both shaken and stirred.

What adventures could our biker lady get into? An infinite number! Tell us one, Karla, in three or four words, and we’ll guess the rest.

Karla, when you pitch this to editors and agents, if they seem interested, you should also let them know pretty quickly that you’re a biker babe yourself, not to mention one of those minister’s wives. I’m sure you already know to do that, but many of my loyal blog readers probably aren’t aware that you’re writing what you know here. Now they do.

Next question: Shall we continue on One-Sentence Summaries or is it time to move on? We have many dozens more posted here, but I don’t want to keep flogging a dead horse. If you all think you’ve got it, we can find a new topic.

It’s been quite a while since we talked about one-sentence summaries of a novel. In recent weeks, several folks have emailed me to ask when I was going to blog about this again.

If it’s been too long since you thought about one-sentence summaries, you can find the full scoop on my Snowflake page.

Let’s remember why a one-sentence summary is so valuable. By the way, this is sometimes called an “elevator pitch.” The theory is that if you’re at a conference and you meet an editor or agent in the elevator and they ask what you’re writing, you have time to say maybe fifteen words before the elevator dings open. This could happen, although it really is taking the small picture. There are SO many other uses for the one-sentence summary.

Let’s review those now. Remember that you need to sell your novel 7 times in order for it to be a commercial success:
1) You sell the idea to your editor.
2) Your editor sells the idea to the publishing committee.
3) Your editor later sells the idea to the sales team.
4) The sales team sells the idea to the buyers for the bookstores.
5) The buyers sell idea to the staff in the bookstores.
6) The staff sell the actual book to customers who come to the store.
7) Your readers sell the idea to their friends (this is called “word of mouth”)

The important point is that your book simply won’t do very well if ANY of those links in the chain don’t work (unless you get massively lucky). And please notice that only one of those links (#6) actually involves selling the BOOK. All the other links involve selling the IDEA of the book.

And you sell an IDEA with one sentence of just a few words. Trust me, your readers are not going to memorize a 200 word pitch when they tell their friends about this great book they just read. The typical reader will give a rambling account of the book UNLESS you give them something short and pithy and brilliant that they can use instead. Most often, that “something” is a one-sentence summary, although it can in principle be a title. Your readers are not marketing geniuses. They will not spend hours to figure out the perfect marketing hook for your story. You need to give that to them.

You do that by giving it to your editor, who can take it from there. Before you give it to your editor, you need to figure it out yourself.

At the most recent conference I went to, in Mount Hermon, California, I spent 8 hours mentoring a really lively group of 10 writers. I also spent half an hour with each writer in private appointments. Some of these appointments, we spent the whole half hour brainstorming up one-sentence summaries for their novels. I had required all of them to submit a one-sentence summary before the conference. With few exceptions, their sentences weren’t all that good. So it was fun to brainstorm up some improved versions. Thirty minutes thinking about a one-sentence summary may be one of the most productive half-hours you’ll ever spend. You may even find that you actually understand your book better when you have a great one-sentence summary.

So here’s my question for today: What’s your one-sentence summary?

If you’re bold, post it here. I’ll read all of them, and I’ll critique those that I think will be most educational to my loyal blog readers.

This is always a fun exercise for everybody, so go ahead and think hard about it, even if you don’t want to put up a comment here. You may be surprised at what you learn about your story.

We’ve now wrapped up a long series with Cindy Martinusen Coloma on her “Puzzle Method” of writing a novel. I’ve gotten permission from Cindy to put all those together into one long article, which I will post on this site soon. That’ll give us all a permanent record of what she said, and of course it’ll give me a chance to put my imprint on it, because I’ll insert some comments and structure.

A few of you had comments today:

Gerhi wrote:

And now a question (and possibly an idea for what to cover next Randy - hint): In my novel I have scene that takes place in the toilets of a Mall.

But I’m not sure toilets are the right thing to call them. Loo’s doesn’t seem right, lavatory is worse. Is it Men’s and Ladies or what.
We used to talk about the little boys room and the little girls room.

So, the question in two parts: what do you call a public loo in America, and how do you deal with these regional language anomalies?

Randy sez: These are usually called either bathrooms or restrooms in America, although there are rarely baths in them, and anyone who tried to rest there would likely be arrested.

Regional language anomalies happen all the time. A classic example is this one: What do you a carbonated drink? Some people call it “soda”. Some call it “pop”. Others call it “coke” (even if it isn’t Coca Cola). It really depends on where you’re from. Different regions call it different things. You can find a map showing the regional variations here.

What do you call it? I’m particularly interested to hear what it’s called outside the US.

Robert asked (regarding the two domains I posted yesterday):

Those are fun web addresses! Technical question on this … what method do you use to forward them to your www.advancedfictionwriting.com site?

I’ve been confused on whether you do it “temporary” or “permanent”, and if permanent, what method. I’ve heard you can be dinged by the search engines because they think you are posting duplicate content when you actually are not.

Randy sez: I bought both domain on GoDaddy and pointed them at this site. I don’t remember if they’re permanent or temporary. I don’t know exactly what the method is. I don’t think I’m being hurt much by search engines for duplicate content, because this site has at least 42 keyphrases that rank in the top ten on Google. (I learned this by fiddling around with the very cool site at www.SpyFU.com.)

In other news, the parachute of the famous hijacker D.B. Cooper may have been found recently, and it’s only a few miles from where I now live. Some of the money he had when he parachuted out of an airliner in 1971 was found in 1980, also a few miles from where I live, but in a different location from the newly found parachute. So who knows?–he may have survived. Now if only the rest of the money were sitting somewhere on my property . . .

We’ll begin a new topic tomorrow. I haven’t decided what it will be yet. Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Today, we’re wrapping up a long series of guest blogs by Cindy Martinusen Coloma on her “Puzzle Method” of writing a novel.

Cindy writes:

BLOG 8:

We’ve reached the last step in the puzzle method. It’s pretty much the same for any method of writing - the final polish.

Step 9: PUZZLE COMPLETION

* Set the book aside for 1 or 2 weeks if possible.

* Print & Read (aloud if possible) - reading it in hard copy will allow you to see more mistakes and

* Give another polish.

* You have a completed novel now. Now CELEBRATE your accomplishment - treat yourself to something great. You deserve it, and no one but you and other writers will understand the accomplishment fully (so don’t be disappointed, but DO treat yourself!).

* Now share the book ONLY with readers you trust to tell the truth: a critique group, professional reviewer, or take it to a writer’s conference. Read the editing books (Self-editing for Fiction Writers is one of many) and work hard.

* And remember you may be polishing and revising till the end of your life - just kidding, sort of.

And there it is! You have a novel!

I hope this helps those of you who have been struggling to fit into other methods.

I struggled for many years until finally I trusted what worked best, then I started analyzing it. Keep experimenting with your writing, always push yourself to something a little harder than you think you can do, and keep breathing life into words. Because really, every time you write a sentence, you’re gathering word puzzle pieces and creating something of wonder.

Thanks for this opportunity Randy. It’s been quite an honor and a wonderful experience!

Randy sez: Thanks, Cindy, for sharing your method with us all. Let me note a recent comment:

Camille wrote:

When this course is finished, I really want to go over it as a whole. I’ve been too busy on other stuff to focus on it all and only got bits and pieces, and I can see now what part of the process I can use now as I near the end of my novel. Your archives are supernaturally backed up, right Randy??

Unless there is another way to pull these together as a whole, I want to copy/paste these posts all together into a neat, formatted file, if that’s okay with Randy and Cindy. I won’t charge much for it (kidding!). And if it’s okay with you guys, I’d be glad to share it with anyone else who also wants it all in one file. Is that okay? Would homemade cinnamon rolls tempt you to say yes?

Randy sez: I’ll ask Cindy about that, since she owns the rights to the Puzzle Method.

By the way, check out a couple of domains that might be of interest to you all.

Wonder who owns www.SupremeDictatorForLife.com? Can you guess?

Also, look who grabbed www.SnowflakeMethod.com. Doesn’t that make you mad?

Today we’ll pick up another installment in the “Puzzle Method” by Cindy Martinusen Coloma. This is installment #7 in the series she’s doing with us.

Yielding the floor to Cindy:

BLOG 7

Time frame - week to a month

As you read this, I’m in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains about to begin 5 days where the subject will be writing. There’s something rare and amazing about Mount Hermon, and it’s been 6 years since I’ve been here. My husband of less than a year is here for the first time, so I’m excited to share this with him and to be on faculty for the first time.  Okay, back to the Puzzle.

Reminder - this method is for “Advanced Fiction Writers” - those who have read a lot, know story, and have worked at the craft. Otherwise, the structure of a story will not be understood and so all those pieces will be like when you first open a puzzle box. But with this group, “advanced” seemed a given.

Step 7: FINAL CONSTRUCTION

* NOW start with chapter 1 and go from beginning to end. Some parts will be sent to the cut file (but don’t just delete them) and other sections will surprise you with a vivid way to raise the stakes. But now you’ll smooth it out.

* This is when you can compare your story to The Writer’s Journey, or other structures if you wish.

* Be sure to check EACH scene to make sure it PROGRESSES the story. If it doesn’t, move it to the cut file.

* I mentioned this earlier, it’s amazing how much easier it is for me to connect and add needed scenes when I create this way.

Step 8: EDITING STAGE

* From Chapter 1 to End - Edit and rewrite

* Again, check each scene for story progression

* Within each scene check paragraphs and sentences - tighten and cut unnecessary interior monologues, descriptions, etc.

* Check for development of characters  - each should evolve and be changed from the beginning to the end (unless your story is about a character who fails and doesn’t change)

* Check balance of narrative and dialogue, action and raising of stakes against development of character, setting and plot.

* Finish editing, revising, & polishing

Randy sez: LOL, the Puzzle Method is starting to look a lot like REAL WORK. The truth is that you have to do the hard work of analysis sometime. You can either do it up front or on the back end. Let me emphasize that there is no “best method” that works for everyone. There are “best methods” that are best for certain people and are not so great for other people.

Your mission (and you have no choice but to accept it) is to find the “best method” which works best for you. When you do that, writing will be a joy and a delight. If it’s not, then look around for somebody else’s “best method.”

We’ll conclude next week with Day 8 of Cindy’s Puzzle Method.

Today, we’ll do another installment from Cindy Martinusen Coloma on her “Puzzle Method.”

But first, a wrap-up on the book I’ve been reading, DEAD MAN’S RULE, by Rick Acker. I finished reading it today and it was AWESOME. I don’t use that word lightly. I’ve been reading thrillers for a long time and have read many of the masters in legal thrillers, spy novels, international intrigue, etc. DEAD MAN’S RULE is one of the best I’ve read. You can get it on Amazon here.

I’ll now yield the floor to Cindy for another installment in her Puzzle Method:

BLOG 6

Onward we create! Depending on your goals and progress, getting to this stage could take 1-6 months. Make attainable, but tough goals for yourself.

Step 5: CONTINUED PIECES FOR HALF TO 2/3RDS THE NOVEL

* There comes a time to start putting it all together, connecting the pieces and filling in what’s missing. For me, this is after 50,000 words at least, maybe as much as 75,000 words.

* Print the mess out - a rare few people may work better on the computer at this stage, but I highly recommend printing it out.

Step 6: RE-ORGANIZATION & STRUCTURE

* Cut out the scenes, paragraphs, sentences. Organize what belongs in each of the three sections - beginning, middle, or ending.

* Now organize each of the three sections by putting your everything in an order, keeping in mind plot progression, development, and rising plot toward climax

* Note: This may seem a backwards way to create structure since so much has been written. But this method is for writers who already have a strong handle on structure and find they write with more passion and flow by creating piece after piece until the story and characters comes forth. (Don’t forget TRUST)

* What doesn’t fit - save in a file (on computer or hard copy)

* If needed, create a solid plotline or outline now (go to the Snowflake if you’d like).

* Note: At this point, I often change from daily work count deadlines to PAGE DEADLINES. It’s more important to start connecting and making a cleaner story at this stage instead of just creating more scenes. Even if you still skip around in the writing, you should know how many rough pages

Now you should have a clear structure of your story usually from beginning to end with holes in between - you’ll see missing elements. Often a few surprises come to me about this point as well that raises the stakes of the novel significantly (yep, I want to dance on the car again).  By the way, I just watched portions of Sly Stalone’s bio. I didn’t know he’s written Rocky and that he had offers for the screenplay, but they didn’t want him to act in it. He held out and won that fight - can you imagine someone else as Rocky. But he said about writing that a writer just KNOWS when he’s got it right.

Randy sez: I’ll second that. When it’s not right, you wonder, but when you nailed it, you usually know. We’ll do another installment of the Puzzle Method tomorrow. Stay tuned!

We’re in the middle of a series of guest blogs with Cindy Martinusen Coloma. Cindy emailed me today with a comment to go before her next blog entry:

I’d love to comment on so many of your great comments. It is quite fascinating how different writers write - I mean we’re already an odd breed of people.

My writer’s group discussed the puzzle and the snowflake last night, and someone said, “No one cares what method you use to create the novel. All that matters is the final manuscript.” And that’s absolutely correct.

Anyway, I’m leaving a day early before being on faculty with Randy at a writer’s conference (we’ll both be there Thursday). We’ll get to chat about this in person, and I’m looking forward to meeting some of you there as well. During the next few days we’ll finish up the last few steps of the Puzzle Method. But let me just say what a pleasure it’s been to be a guest blogger here.

Randy sez: I agree. The cinnamon rolls taste just as good, whether you planned it all out in advance or just flung it together. I’ll now yield the floor to Cindy for her next blog entry:

BLOG 5:

Hello, I’m your guest blogger, here to help those of you who start an outline and find yourself writing a great sentence, or launching into a scene two-thirds into the book, or creating a dialogue between characters that you don’t quite know yet. We’re calling it the Puzzle Method until a better title presents itself.

Step 4: STORY PIECES CONTINUED

* You get to return to the story fully now! With decisions made, the story and characters will guide the way. So continue writing in pieces, or sections - whatever part of writing works best for you. Always leave room for the story to surprise you. (Once I discovered a great new subplot near the end of the book and the deadline. I had to go back and weave it throughout the entire novel - but it added such tension! Be sure not to ignore these).

* IF you find yourself lost, read over your scenes and scene-pieces and find a place where the creativity flows. If inspiration doesn’t come, start at the beginning. Some days, work really is just that!

* DISCIPLINE HERE - Create daily work count or hour goals. At the start of a project, I might set a goal for 500 words a day or 2500 a week (for the first week or two). By the end of a project, it might be 3,000 words or more a day (that might also be because I’m behind and deadline is coming). Please remember, it’s exactly like starting an exercise program, you work up to it! And it’s better to meet your goal and surpass it, than continually fall short. So be realistic. My usual goal is 2,000 words when other projects and life aren’t at a competing stage with writing. Sometimes other things are more important. Set a 500 word a day or 2500 a week goal during such times and when at the start of a writing project.

* Put HEADINGS at the top of each scene or scene-portion or even an idea. Here are some examples from Orchid House:

MANALO WITH REBEL GROUP MUST GO TO MANILA (Idea)

-one of his men wants to watch Die Hard II, he’s a fan of Bruce Willis. Quotes Die Hard lines

FIRST NIGHT - EMMAN (Sentence with idea of what will happen)

From his place in the tree Emman dropped the yo-yo, let it “sleep,” then flicked his wrist to bring it back.

Emman on guard duty watching Hacienda Esperanza, plays with father’s yo-yo, and knows he’ll do a good job protecting the American woman who has just arrived. He’s angry at Bok who arrives because the younger, annoying tag-along was brave enough to greet the American woman, even touch her hands.

These headings will help you find them again, you know, when you rush out of the shower in your towel and want to add something to that scene with Emman.

* Put aside every bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder and make a writing mess in ONE document (I’ll let you use 3 at the most if you are very good - as in breaking it into three sections though this should actually come later on. But I know some of you super-organizers may not be able to go further if I don’t give some room here).

* REMEMBER THIS: trust yourself, trust the story being created, trust the twists and turns, trust the rabbit trails, and trust “What if?”

Oops, Randy might shut me down with these looong examples. I’ll try to simplify it tomorrow!

Randy sez: Nope, I don’t mind if you go a bit long. Thanks, Cindy! I need to go finish packing tonight because I’m flying out tomorrow. I’ll TRY to blog at the conference, but it can be tricky to do that, because it’s so much fun to be AT a conference that I forget to do my email and blog. Writers are the coolest people on the planet. That’s the real reason I love writing conferences.

Today we’ll have another installment from guest blogger Cindy Martinusen Coloma. She’s been describing her “Puzzle Method” for the last several days.

I now yield the floor to Cindy:

BLOG 4 -

Week 2, Days 1-3 (7 days max if you want a strong schedule)

Now that you’ve had a week of fun, it’s time to start reigning in some of those ideas. It’s time to make some decisions before I set you free writing once again. BUT while you work on this, be sure to write any portion of the novel that arises from this step.

Step 3: DECISIONS

* What POV (s) - multiple points of view or singular?

* Who is (are) the focal character(s)? Who can best tell this story? More than one? Be creative in seeking the eyes and voice the story will be told through. Remember this may change later, and give yourself room for that change. Note: In Orchid House, I have 3 POVs that are very different from each other: an American woman, a Filipino Communist guerrilla fighter, a pre-teen Filipino boy soldier. So for each scene, I’d ask myself which view did I want the story told from? At times, I wrote it from several viewpoints and then chose who gave the best perspective, or could offer the story the best view. For some of the intense scenes, I wrote from all their POVs, but this can only occur if you keep the story progressing as well. (But now I’m getting into different writing territory).

* What tense do you want to use? (In my novel The Salt Garden, I wrote 3 POVs with 2 of those in PRESENT tense and one was from a memoir so it was PAST tense. I loved how it turned out, though it was initially a writing experiment that I wasn’t sure would work.)

* What is your realistic schedule for this book? Set it up and get accountability from someone who will be tough on you or pay for a mentor/coach (I recommend www.CoachingTheWriter.com or I do this as well www.method3AM.com ). Do whatever it takes to make yourself write! When you fail, try again.

Note: All through this, KEEP WRITING and allow yourself to play with the story, the characters, and to think outside what is normal in writing and normal for your writing. So see, you still get to have fun here. The discipline is coming!

Randy sez: Thanks, Cindy! I’d like to respond to a few comments from today:

Christophe described his problems with both the Seat-of-the-Pants approach and the Snowflake and then concluded:

So I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. The more I read about this puzzle method, the more I get the impression that it’s the method I’ve been using all along (just didn’t know it), but my story wasn’t up to par. So what do I go with?

Is there such a thing as a mix between Snowflake and Puzzle? A Puzzleflake? Or a Snowpuzzle? The two methods are so much the opposite of each other, I can hardly imagine such a thing to exist.

Randy sez: I would go with the Puzzleflake, Christophe. My hunch is that you need freedom first, then discipline later. So start with the Puzzle, let it run until you start losing steam, and then do a few steps of the Snowflake (but not the whole thing). You do not want to chew all the sugar out of the gum. Different people have different levels of tolerance for structure. The Snowflake is less structure than many writers use (those who outline the whole thing six times before ever writing a word). But it is still more structure than many writers need. Use only as much as you can tolerate! Cate left a comment right after yours that shows how she solves the problem by Puzzling first, then Snowflaking a bit.

Andie wrote:

I’m trying an experiment today by taking the different parts of a scene: description, involuntary reactions, dialog, internal monologue and nonverbal communication and write these each separately then go back and layer them.

Randy sez: It sounds like you’ve been reading Margie Lawson’s course on Creating Character Emotions, right? Tell us how you like it! I’ve never tried your experiment, but it sounds interesting. I’m linear enough that I want to just unfold the whole scene in one shot, but I’ll bet there are people who would love your approach.

Barbara wrote:

I generally use the snowflake method to map out my story. But somewhere along the way, the characters take over and the story deviates (sometimes sharply) from the intended track. I still know the ending, but how do I get there? I tend to vere well of track from the original intent, and sometimes don’t know how to make it back. Any suggestions? Sometimes the only thing I can think of doing is to ignore some of what I’ve written and go back tothe original outline. But this doesn’t feel right to me. Is there a way to use my inspiration and still head in the direction of the outline?

Randy sez: The solution is simple. When the characters start veering the story off track, let them. They have come alive and are doing what characters are supposed to do. When you start feeling out of control, re-do your Snowflake spreadsheet to plot out the new story that is emerging. It won’t take more than a day or two. I do this all the time. My characters always want to change my story, so I never feel like the original story is “the way it should be.” If necessary, I may go back and re-do the one-sentence summary to fit the new story.

We’ll continue tomorrow with Day 5 of Cindy’s Puzzle Method.