 So we’ve made it to the final post in this series!
EDIT YOUR PREVIOUS DAY’S WORK BEFORE WRITING NEW MATERIAL This might seem to be more important for cleaning up your novel, rather than reaching the day where you pound out the words THE END, but let me explain! Editing your previous day’s work gives you several benefits. 1. By the time you finish your novel, you’ve actually completed your first round of edits. Trust me, this is valuable. I didn’t do this on my first full manuscript and it was a long slogging process of fixing all the misspelling, minor typos, and double-typed words. The worst part was I still had to do real editing after all that. By editing your previous day’s work, you handle the tedious process in manageable parcels. 2. You give yourself a chance to ease back into the writing stream. This editing time helps your brain reacquaint with the ideas you assembled the previous day and helps you start building forward momentum as you move into fresh material (a cup of coffee also helps!). 3. You will be encouraged to create more when you find those well-written gems tucked away within the manuscript. Don’t ignore them. Savor them for the victories that they are and keep writing. The more you write, the more frequently these treasures will find will start cropping up! I would offer two minor words of caution. 1. Don’t spend so much time editing, that you neglect the writing process. If you don’t write, you won’t have words to edit the following day. Never allow any process that hampers your forward motion. 2. Don’t read your previous day’s work and beat yourself up because it’s not the most amazing prose ever composed. Keep in mind that you will be polishing and adjusting later. Right now you are only interested in the big picture. Lastly, on a practical note, here are a couple of thoughts to help you on your way to completion. 1. Keep you final formatting goal in mind. If you plan to send your manuscript out to agents, start out with clean document properly formatted with 1" margins, 12 pt font, and a proper title page. If you're planning to publish on Kindle, format the chapter headers and put in the necessary page breaks. Getting the details right as you go will save you hours of tedious tweaking later. 2. Watch your punctuation and spacing. For the sake of visual clutter I don't recommend you keep it on all the time, but use the Formatting Symbols feature as you work will help you find the extra spacing and rogue formatting issues. Turn it off after you've done your verbal housekeeping. So there you have it seven tips for writing and finishing your novel. Click here to see Tip Number One. Click here to see Tip Number Two. Click here to see Tip Number Three. Click here to see Tip Number Four. Click here to see Tip Number Five. Click here to see Tip Number Six. Something to add? Continue the conversation below! Sign up for my newsletter here.
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 This tip is obvious but vitally important to completing your novel.
WRITE STRAIGHT THROUGH YOUR FIRST DRAFT I offer my first attempt as a case study. When I began trying to write a novel, I started without a solid outline and simply “pantsed” my way along. And it wasn’t pretty. If I got stuck, or worse, bored, I would simply jump to another section of the story and keep writing. I do understand writer's block and have some tips here and here, but this is not the solution for completing a novel. If you skip enough sections, you’ll end up with a Swiss cheese novel. So what is the psychology behind wanting to skip around? There are probably many reasons, but here are the most common. 1. We skip because we are stuck. We write ourselves into a corner. I hate this feeling. I would rather spend the extra time experimenting in the outline phase getting the story right. If this is where you are stuck, I would encourage you to step back and figure it out. You will have to do it eventually. 2. We skip because we are excited! Sometimes a terrific scene will just pop into our minds, and we feel the siren call to write it down. It’s deliciously easy, but don’t do it. If the scene is good, it’ll keep. Make notes if you must, but keep on writing where you are. Don’t do anything that will change you trajectory or momentum. 3. We skip because we are bored. The converse of reason two, we've lost interest in the scene we are currently writing, and any other place in the story would be more enjoyable. This is typical human nature, but we must not let it stop us. In this stage of the game, it is better to write a mediocre scene that you can clean up later than leave a blank space for a terrific scene later. Inevitably, the blanks will stack up and you will have compounded a problem to the point of despair (and the abandonment of your precious story). So what are some benefits of writing straight through your manuscript? 1. When you are done, you will have a complete story, not just a series of vignettes firmly planted in thin air. 2. Your story will have a tight internal structure building into a crescendo, written the way it will be read. 3. You will have faced your obstacles, surmounted them, and have a complete, coherent first draft. This process may not be thrilling or mysterious, but you will thank yourself when you type that final period. Click here to see Tip Number One. Click here to see Tip Number Two. Click here to see Tip Number Three. Click here to see Tip Number Four. Click here to see Tip Number Five. Something to add? Continue the conversation below! Sign up for my newsletter here. |
AuthorJonathan Polasek is an Archives
July 2016
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