Prewriting redux

There’s a lot of emphasis these days on prewriting—that is, all the stuff you need to do before you sit down and actually start Chapter One. It is a comforting thing for many writers, because it gives people a plausible method to follow. Do this, decide that,

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What the reader needs to know…

I am still struggling with the WIP. After going to COsine in Colorado Springs, I became convinced that I’m starting in the wrong place and doing too much scene-setting, but when I try to revise I bog down in considerations of what the readers need to know,

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What’s free and what isn’t

Most writers get something “for free” – some part of writing that they don’t have to work at to get it to an acceptable level. Sometimes it’s something general: plot development, emotionally complex characterization, solid background, an intuitive grasp of story structure. Sometimes it’s something more narrowly

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Plot, situation, and incident/event

A lot of writers stall at the very beginning of story construction – at the idea stage – because they have never thought about the difference between situations, incidents/events, and actual plot, much less how to move from any one of these to any of the others.

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More on Beginnings

“Beginning: The point in time or space when something starts.” – Oxford languages. From that deceptively simple definition stems a lot of writerly misunderstanding. At a rough and very unscientific estimate, around 90% of the writing advice on beginnings talks about what belongs in the first few

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Pinball Wizard

Ultimately, plots are driven by the characters. Even when the main character is shipwrecked on a desert island and supposedly forced by this outside circumstance to struggle against nature, the character could simply give up and starve to death. Most writers don’t choose characters who would do

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