Created by Randy Ingermanson - "the Snowflake Guy"
America's Mad Professor of Fiction Writing

Recovering the Joy of Writing

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in Fiction Writing Tagged:

Have you lost your joy of writing? Are you wishing that writing fiction were fun again? You’re not alone.

Willian posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

Hello Randy,

As someone who deal with and help writers, you probably have a tip or two to overcome what I’m current facing.

I have been writing my whole life, since I was a little and learned to do it. Now, I find myself unable to do so. 

For the past two three years, I have started books just throw them later on, I have thought about a hundreds stories that I would love to write, only to find I dislike them later on. I don’t know the reason for this, but right now I can’t feel the joy of writing that I felt years ago. 

I thought it may be the genre or style and changed it, but it didn’t help. I thought it was because I was a pantser but outline didn’t help it.

Right now I’m at a loss, and don’t know how to overcome this. Any thoughts?

Thank you in advance and I loved your snowflake book =)

Randy sez: Wow, that’s a tough question. I suspect different writers write for different reasons, and so the joy of writing is different for different writers. I don’t know why you write or what motivates you.

What Works for Me

But I can tell you what I do when I feel the joy of writing fading. 

When I start feeling that writing isn’t fun anymore, I go find a novel and read it. A good novel. One that’s fun to read. One that makes me believe I’m the protagonist of the story. One that takes me on an adventure.

Somewhere in the middle of the story, the author will make a decision I don’t like. And I’ll think, “I could have done that better.” 

Maybe I really could have written it better. Maybe I’m just delusional. Doesn’t matter.

What matters is that I’m reading a good story and feeling the desire to do it better myself. That’s what got me started writing fiction in the first place. That’s what gets me rolling again when I’m in a rut. 

I can’t promise this will help you, Willian. All I can say is that it works for me.

What Do My Loyal Blog Readers Think?

Now I’ll throw this question out to my Loyal Blog Readers. How do you recover the joy of writing when you’ve lost it?

Got a Question for My Blog?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

Postscript

As a postscript, it’s worth noting that the audiobook version of my latest book, How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method, is available on all the usual places–Audible, Amazon, and Apple’s iTunes Store. In all the fuss over the new GDPR a few weeks ago, I got a bit off track in my blogging, and so I haven’t taken note of it here on my blog yet. So now I am.

Here are links to all the places you can now buy the book, whether in e-book, paper, or audiobook format:

How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Apple iTunes

Coming, May 18—How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method

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in Books, Craft, Fiction Writing Tagged: ,

My new book will release in e-book format on May 18. The regular, everyday e-book price will be $4.99, but I’ve currently got it set up for preorder at a special reduced price of only $2.99.

Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Apple iTunes

The reason I’ve reduced the e-book price during the preorder period is so all my fans can get a price break. That’s good for you and it’s good for me, because it moves a lot of copies during the crucial launch period. And it’s working.

As I write this post, the e-book is #1 in three categories on Amazon:

  • Fiction Writing
  • Writing Skills
  • Screenwriting 

A paper edition and an audiobook version will be released very soon. I’m not able to time their release exactly, the way I can time the release of the e-book, but I’ve set the wheels in motion and both versions are grinding their way through the machine at Amazon. I’ll try to write a brief blog post when they go live, which should be within the next few days.

Here’s an excerpt from the very beginning of the book, slightly edited for this blog post:

Want to Write a Dynamite Novel?

Do you want to write a dynamite novel? 

I bet you do.

And I bet you can.

I’m here to teach you how.

Why do I think I can do that?

Because I’ve been teaching people how to write fiction for a long time. 

Tens of thousands of writers around the world are using my Snowflake Method right now to write their novels.

What Is the Snowflake Method?

The Snowflake Method is just a series of ten steps you can use to design your novel so you can get the first draft down on paper. People e-mail me all the time to say these steps work like magic to unlock their creativity. 

Please note: the Snowflake Method doesn’t make you more creative. 

Because you already are creative. 

The Snowflake Method just tells you what task to be creative on next.

You don’t have to use all ten steps of the Snowflake Method.

You can use any steps you like. 

You can ignore any steps you don’t like.

The ninth step in the Snowflake Method is to design each scene before you write it.

The Importance of Writing Dynamite Scenes

Why do scenes matter? Because the key to writing a dynamite novel is to write a dynamite scene. 

When I first started writing fiction, my scenes just weren’t working. Then I discovered Dwight Swain’s classic book, Techniques of the Selling Writer. That book had a couple of chapters that changed my life. They taught me how to write a powerful scene.

If you can write one powerful scene, you can write a hundred. And that’s a novel.

I’ve been teaching at writing conferences for many years, and I’ve critiqued manuscripts for hundreds of writers.

The #1 weakness I’ve found in beginning and intermediate writers is that they don’t write strong scenes. 

The absolute fastest way for most writers to take a quantum leap forward is to learn how to design strong scenes. 

Dynamite scenes.

In this book, I’ll teach you how. This is a short book, focused on just that one topic. You can blitz through it quickly and master scene design. You can.

As I said, I first learned how to design scenes from Dwight Swain’s book, Techniques of the Selling Writer. I’ve now spent decades mulling his methods, rethinking everything, trying to simplify, and adding new ideas. This book is one result of those decades of work. 

My one goal in writing this book is to teach you how to become an expert in designing powerful, amazing scenes that will move your readers’ emotions. 

Once you master scenes, you’ll be one giant step closer to writing powerful, amazing novels that will move readers’ emotions.

Let’s do this, shall we?

Turn the page to get started.

Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Apple iTunes

Fear of Writing

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in Fiction Writing

Do you wrestle with fear of writing?

Maanya posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

Hey! I was wondering how to get over the fear of writing. What I mean is that I have a great idea for a book, but I’m just terrified of writing it, let alone letting the world know. Are there any tips? Thank you for your time..

Randy sez: I’m surprised nobody has ever asked a question like this on my blog. (At least not that I can recall.) Because I’d bet this is a problem for a lot of writers. I’ve certainly had to face down my own fears many times in the past.

I wish I had a super simple answer, but I don’t. This question is above my pay grade. What I can do is give my first thoughts on this, and then I’ll throw it open to my readers to see what insights they can give.

First Question: What are You Actually Afraid of?

I don’t think Maanya is afraid of the actual act of writing. I suspect the fear is about something that goes along with writing. Here are a few things a writer might be afraid of:

  • Maybe I’ll agree to a a deadline and then miss it.
  • Maybe my writing will be awful.
  • Maybe people will hate my writing.
  • Maybe I’ll get really horrible reviews.
  • Maybe my book won’t sell and I’ll wind up having wasted a lot of time.
  • Maybe _______________ (fill in the blank with your own fears).

Second Question: Is it a Rational Fear or an Emotive Fear?

The second thing to ask is whether there’s actually a reason why you should be afraid.

If you live in a place where tigers roam around freely and if there’s a good chance you might actually run into a tiger, then you have good reason to be afraid of tigers. That’s a rational fear.

If there is essentially no chance that you’ll ever run into a tiger, and you still live in constant fear that you’ll be eaten by a tiger, that’s an emotive fear.

Let’s be clear that fear is real, no matter what’s causing it. Even if you know that your fear is not rational, it won’t just magically go away. It feels the same, either way. Fear is fear.

But it’s still useful to know if your fear is rational or emotive, because that gives you a clue on how to deal with it.

Dealing With Rational Fears

If your fear is rational, then you can deal with it rationally. You can ask yourself questions like these:

  • How likely is it that the thing I fear will actually happen? Are the chances one in two? Or one in a million?
  • Can I make a plan to make sure it won’t happen? Or at least make it much less likely to happen?
  • If it does happen, will it really be so awful? Do other people live with it? Can I live with it?

I always procrastinate before blogging (or sending my e-zine or posting a new book to be published).

I’m afraid it won’t be my best work and people will hate it. And that’s a rational fear, because every writer has been slammed for something they wrote. I have in the past. I know I will in the future.

I deal with that by asking myself: “Is this the best work I can do today?” (I don’t ask if it’s the best work I’ve ever done in my life. By definition, that only happens once in my life. I ask if it’s the best I can do on this particular day.)

If the answer is no, then I rewrite it until it’s the best I can do today. And then I send it out. I remind myself that J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling and Stephen King all have received scathing reviews, and it didn’t kill them. I’m not in their league, so I’m guaranteed to get scathing reviews too, many times. I won’t enjoy them, but they won’t kill me. (And I won’t go out of my way to find them either. If somebody puts rat poison in your spaghetti, you don’t have to eat it.)

Dealing With Emotive Fears

I’m not an expert on this, but I don’t think you can deal with emotive fears by rational self-talk. I’ve had my share of those in the past, like everybody. I couldn’t solve them by myself.

To get specific, I used to have quite a lot of travel anxiety. And I had extreme, extreme, EXTREME fear of public speaking. Those are very inconvenient fears to have when you travel to lots of conferences where you then get up in public and teach. And it’s no picnic to go to an awards ceremony when you’re more afraid of winning than losing (because if you win, you have to go up front to accept your award).

I lived with those fears for several years and they didn’t get any better. They weren’t rational fears, so rational self-talk didn’t help. They were emotive fears.

Eventually, I found a good counsellor and we spent several weeks dealing with those fears.

And we kicked those fears to the curb. I won’t say they’re dead. They’re still out there, lurking, but they don’t have a home in my heart anymore. I’m very comfortable traveling now. I’m very comfortable speaking in public.

What Do My Loyal Blog Readers Think?

I’ve said all I can on this subject, so now it’s time to ask my Loyal Blog Readers. What do you think? What would you tell Maanya? How have you dealt with fear of writing in the past? Or other fears?

Got a Question for My Blog?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

When Should You Drop Your Story?

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in Craft, Fiction Writing Tagged: , ,

Is your current novel in a quagmire? Are you wondering if maybe it’s hopeless? Do you think it might be time to move on? How do know when you should drop your story?

Elin posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

How do you know when to drop/kill a project/book/story?

I’ve been working on the first draft of a novel and I’ve been realizing there’s a lot of problems with the plot. For instance, I don’t quite have a clearly defined second or even third disaster (maybe, I have ideas for them in my first snowflake of the story but that was a year ago and I’ve long since tossed it into storage), and my subplots are all hopelessly tangled with the main thread and need some untangling/focus. It doesn’t help that I’m probably being way too ambitious with this by making it the first book in a series despite it being my first original writing project.

I’m very much a seat-of-the-pants writer (seeing as how snowflake didn’t really help identify any of my problems specifically, only highlighted how overall unprepared I was to actually make a snowflake), and more of the story is unfolding as I force myself to progress and come up with new scenes/plotpoints/what-have-you. I’ve been working on this (mostly inconsistently, to be honest) for three years now so this project is pretty close to my heart. However, I’m wondering if I should change gears, drop this project for now, and move on to a less ambitious, more “traditionally designed” (but less thought about) project (ex. a techno-magic fantasy tragedy of Little Red and/or a slower, character-driven, semi-post-apocalyptic fantasy).

(The series I’m working on now is an action/adventure (hopefully, I’m working on adding more action) character-driven fantasy with an overarching theme of pain/suffering leading to hope. The setting and target audience is admittedly less defined, but I’m hoping it all works out as I go.)

Since I rambled on A LOT, I’ll reiterate: How do you know when to stop working on a story? (And some guidelines on why you should?)

Randy sez: OK, that’s a lot of question there. The core issue is how you know when you should drop your story. That’s an issue every writer has faced.

Reframing the Question

First let me point out that dropping a story isn’t necessarily permanent. You can set it aside on your “Someday Maybe” list and come back to it later.

But let me turn things around a bit, Elin. It sounds to me like you’ve lost enthusiasm for this story, at least for right now. It’s a big ambitious project. This may be a case of trying to do calculus when you haven’t learned algebra yet.

So let’s reframe the question this way: How do you know when you should keep working on a story?

I can think of several reasons you might want to forge ahead with a story, even if it’s causing you some pain:

  • This story is burning a hole in your gut. If you don’t finish this story, you’ll be thinking about it all the time and wishing you were working on it. (This is an emotive reason to keep working.)
  • This story is going slow right now, and it feels like you’re in the swamp, up to your ears in alligators, but you know perfectly well that this is the usual slog-through-the-middle that happens with every story that was ever written. You have good reason to think that with a bit more slogging, you’ll come to dry land and produce a story you can be proud of. (This is an intellectual reason to keep working.)
  • This story is one you already sold or know you can sell, and it really is a doable project, even if you’re not in love with it. But it will bring you money, and you need money. (This is a financial reason to keep working.)
  • This story is ___________________. (Fill in the blank with any other reason you can think of that would make it a good sound decision to push ahead to the finish line right now.)

Why Continue on This Project?

Now the issue I see for you, Elin, is that it looks like your heart’s not really in this story right now. Maybe at some point in the future, your heart will be back in it, but at the moment, it looks like you don’t have an emotive reason to keep going.

You also appear to have some doubts about whether you currently have the skills to finish it. You’re thinking that you might build those skills by working on a less ambitious project. And I would bet you will.

And also, it sounds like you haven’t sold this project, so there’s no major financial incentive to carry on.

So the question I’d ask is whether you can think of any other compelling reason for keeping on working on this project.

A Break is Not Forever

If you can’t think of a good strong reason to keep going, then I think it makes sense to write some notes to yourself about the project so you can pick it up a year from now, or five years, or even twenty.

It’s OK to put it on the shelf for a while. (I set aside a big project back in the mid 90s. It’s still not time to pick that project up again, but someday I’d like to. In the meantime, I’ve finished a number of other novels and published them and my skill set is quite a lot bigger now.)

Then go work on something else. Work on less ambitious novels that will help you learn the craft better. (Nobody ever masters the craft of writing, but at a certain point, you can say, “I’m good enough to tackle this particular project.”)

It’s good to be ambitious and work on hard projects. But one thing at a time. Everest should not be the first mountain you try to climb.

Got a Question for My Blog?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

Can You Keep Secrets From Your Reader?

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in Craft, Fiction Writing

What if the main character in your novel has a secret you don’t want your reader to know? How do you handle that? Is it cheating to keep secrets from your reader?

Geoff posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I’m 70,000 words into my first novel. The main character is written in first person, other characters are in third person. The main character has murdered someone and the novel opens with him going to the funeral, but I don’t want to reveal he’s the killer until near the end. How do I conceal this as the main character will have been thinking about this murder from, literally, the first chapter.

Randy sez: That’s a tough one.

When you put your reader inside the head of a character, you’re obligated to tell the truth. And what do we mean by the truth?

You Owe Your Reader the Whole Truth

Witnesses in court are required to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Readers expect no less when they get inside the head of a character in a novel.

A little terminology before we go on: In most scenes, the author chooses one character as the “viewpoint character” (also called the “point-of-view character” or the “POV character.”) We’ll use “POV character” here.

The key point is that for the whole scene, the reader experiences life from inside the head of the POV character.

  • The reader sees what the POV character sees.
  • The reader hears what the POV character hears.
  • The reader knows what the POV character knows.
  • Most importantly for our purposes here, the reader thinks what the POV character thinks.

Your reader has paid for you to put her inside the head of your POV characters. You owe it to your reader to do that. If you don’t do your job, your reader can vote with her feet—she can walk away from your story. If she does, then it’s probably the last time she’ll pay you. That’s why you owe your reader the truth—because she paid for it.

Personally, I hate it when I read a novel and learn that the author has withheld essential information that the POV character knows. I still remember the rage I felt when I was reading a World War II novel once and discovered right near the end that one of the main characters, an American commando, was actually a Nazi sleeper agent. And he never once thought about this during scenes when he was the POV character.

When it’s natural for a character to be thinking about some thing (“Oh, by the way, I killed that guy in the casket.”), then it just seems wrong for the character to not think about it.

Are there any ways out of this?

Yes, there are a few, but they’re not easy and they normally don’t last very long. Here are a few ways it can be done:

  • Befuddle the POV character
  • Distract the POV character
  • Interrupt the POV character

How to Befuddle a POV Character

Your POV character may not be a very bright cookie. Or he may be drunk. Or he may heavily medicated. Or he may be suffering from the effects of a whack to the head. Or he may be reeling from some emotional trauma. Or he may be, in some other way, an unreliable narrator.

In any of these cases, it’s plausible that he might not be capable of thinking the thought you don’t want your reader to hear. But you have to work hard for him to be incapable for a long time.

How to Distract a POV Character

Your POV character may be fighting for his life. Or he may be obsessed with some other thought. Or he may be responding to a series of intellectual challenges that are maxing out his brain. If your POV character is able to compartmentalize his mind enough that he can fully focus on something else, and there’s a very good reason to focus on that something else, then he’ll do it.

These are possible ways he might not get around to thinking the thought you don’t want your reader to hear.

Interrupt the POV Character

Your POV character may be just on the verge of thinking the thought you don’t want your reader to hear when there’s an interruption of some kind. Maybe an explosion draws everyone’s attention over there. Or maybe some other character interrupts to say something important.

This can work, although an interruption generally doesn’t last very long, so you need to be near the end of the scene when you play this trick.

Don’t Cheat the Reader

These tricks work, but they’re tricks. It’s very possible the reader will resent them. You don’t want your reader to resent you. She paid for an honest story to be told. Tell an honest story. If you need to have a POV character withhold the truth from your reader, you’d better have a very good reason—a reason your reader will agree to. And you’d better come clean at the first opportunity.

If you fool your reader once, shame on you.

You won’t get a second chance.

Got a Question for My Blog?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

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