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Karin Adams

About Karin Adams

https://www.karinadams.com

Karin Adams is the author and creator of The One Week Writing Workshop: 7 Days to Spark, Boost or Revive Your Novel. Her books for younger readers include Lights! Curtains! Cows!, No TV? No Fair!, My Best Friend is a Viral Dancing Zombie, and Mermaid Warrior Squad. Her 2014 middle grade novel Frostbite Hotel was shortlisted for the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award and SYRCA’s Diamond Willow Award.

Posts by Karin Adams:

a hand wearing a rubber glove holding a soapy sponger

Spring Clean Your Manuscript!

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How do I go about revising my draft manuscript? What steps do I take? Is there a proper order for these steps?

In my experience, revision is perhaps the most misunderstood step in the writing process. Many think that revision is the same as proofreading for spelling and grammar. Others believe that revision is something an editor does for you.

While revision certainly can involve proofreading as well as input from other people (editors, readers, etc.), it is most certainly a step authors themselves take to improve their drafts. I see it as a creative step, where your writing and your story continue to come to life. Where might new scenes be needed? How can story events be better arranged? How do I improve my language?—this all gets another look. It’s not merely about dotting “i’s” and crossing “t’s”.

But even if you define revision in this way—a chance to look again, make creative changes, polish one’s writing—you might still ask: Where do I start? What kind of approach should I take?

Spring Clean Your First Draft

I’ve done some deep dives into the revision stage in my book The One Week Writing Workshop and in my articles Three Ways to Clarify Your Plot and  How to Know When to Stop Revising Your Novel.

But it hit me the other day that we can translate the housekeeping steps we take to air out, refresh, and polish our dwellings into tips for revising your manuscript. In fact, it might be super helpful to think of revising a draft manuscript in the language of Spring Cleaning! So, let’s roll up our sleeves together and see what this “fresh” approach looks like…

Before You Spring Clean, Take a Spring Break!

I will always, always advocate that before you begin to revise a draft (whether it’s a first, second or third draft), it’s crucial to step away—to rest. It clears your mind and allows you to better see the proverbial forest and the trees when you return.

Rest can certainly involve a bit of fun—in fact, the more you can get your mind occupied with thoughts and experiences outside of your story, the better. So, give your mind a metaphorical Spring Break (how wild you go is up to you)!

Assess Your Space

When you’re rested and ready to get to the nitty-gritty (sometimes very gritty) task of cleaning your home top to bottom, it’s wise to first take stock of the big picture before fussing with details. Maybe you walk through each room and let your eyes take in the state of the mess. You let yourself get a sense of what needs to be done and the order of their importance. Maybe afterward you make a list of to-do’s.

It’s the same with a fiction manuscript. You can count on several “sweeps” through your draft. I advise that you see the all-important first sweep or read-through as a chance to acquaint yourself with your manuscript as it stands. Next, you might read it again making notes on what you think you’ll need to change to clarify, polish, and improve. In other words, do a walk-through of your text, then make a revision to-do list.

Declutter

The fewer items in a space, the easier it is to get to the heart of spring cleaning: dusting, scrubbing , sweeping, etc. So before making microscopic changes to words and phrases in your story, first take some time to decide what might in fact be superfluous…and then “declutter” it. That way when you do the finer work of finessing your language,  you’re less likely to spend energy revising a paragraph, scene or chapter that’s ultimately destined for the cutting floor. Look for things that you know aren’t serving your story, and instead of wasting time polishing them, clear them out of the way.

Pro tip: if you’re on the fence about whether to keep something or let it go, create a document where you keep “Old Stuff”—kind of like a box of “maybe items” you tuck away in your storage room. Chances are you’ll never look at this document again, just as you’re likely to eventually toss or donate that box! But if you need anything from it, it’s there.

Organize

Once you’ve decluttered the obvious extras and are happy with what’s left in your draft, it’s time to ask yourself—does it flow? does it make sense? Is the pacing right? Have I told the story in a way that makes sense to the reader? Does my story draw them in/keep them in suspense/make them wonder the way that I’m intending?

Like organizing your kitchen or your clothes closet, organizing your manuscript might involve rearranging, reordering, and more “letting go”. Also, you might need to add new material. Getting organized in a home sometimes means adding to a space (bins, shelving, better lighting). Similarly, your manuscript might need additions and expansions at this stage to achieve cohesion.

Deep Clean and Detail Work

All right, Spring Cleaner—you’ve assessed, decluttered, and organized your home. Now you can deep clean, i.e, attend to the details big and small. Your goal is to revitalize, refresh, polish and shine up your home. There are excellent terms to keep in mind when revising your manuscript. This is probably the time in the process where you find you’ll be tackling that to-do list you made earlier in earnest!

You might need to rewrite sections to better express your ideas, or to bring your characters more vividly to life. You might rework your dialogue to make it sound more believable, or to better suit whoever’s doing the speaking. Any new scenes you’ve added are likely raw, and are worthy of a little extra elbow grease to make sure they harmonize with the rest of your prose and serve their intended purpose. This is the time to wrestle with that opening chapter and make sure it sings…

And if you’re going to do any proofreading, this is the time to do that, too—think of it as that final buff and polish.

Put Your Feet Up

Ahhh…what a great feeling to sit back in a comfy chair with your feet up as you take in your freshly cleaned home. In the same spirit, be sure to celebrate your Spring Cleaned draft with a celebratory break…and then…

…Have Company Over!

A spring-cleaned home feels so very guest-ready, doesn’t it? It might not be magazine-perfect, but it’s tidy and welcoming. It’s a place that reflects the most orderly, settled version of you and your home. Similarly, your draft is now ready for “company”—in the form of sharing and feedback.

There may still be some finessing left to do once your guests are gone (just like you need to tidy up a bit after guests leave!), but you know that you’ve put the best, most cleaned up version of your draft out there. You’re less likely to get notes that express confusion and puzzlement about what’s going on. Your draft is now a decent reflection of the story you want to tell, and the feedback you get is more likely to help you take it to another level.

Happy Spring Cleaning, writers!

a cup of tea, a raisin bun and a candle beside blanket

Why should you wait before revising a first draft?

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When it comes to finishing a first draft, following up with a break—a rest—is not just a good idea. It’s arguably an essential task. Whether or not you’re filling your days with dreaming and drafting right now, at some point you’ll arrive at this crucial step in your process. So, let’s explore “rest” together, both the obvious benefits, and maybe the not-so-obvious ones when it comes to your fiction!

The power of rest when revising a first draft

Finishing a first draft is a major accomplishment. Let’s celebrate that right off the bat! You’ve been working for weeks, months—maybe years. You’ve planned or dreamed, sometimes wrestled, sometimes flowed. You have persevered and made it through to The End.

In my own experience and in working with other writers through my creative writing workshops, there’s a range of different impulses and emotional scenarios that might play out after finishing your draft. You might be soaring on the rush of completion—you’re ready to hit ‘Send’ on an email blast to friends, family and publishing houses.

On the other hand, you might want to toss your laptop out the window and never look at the thing again.

It probably won’t surprise you that I’m going to urge you to find the middle ground between these extreme scenarios. I say: resist the urge to share it for now, because it’s not quite the (brilliant) story you think it is. But also, resist the urge to abandon it forever…because it’s not quite the (awful) story you think it is!

Instead of giving in to your emotions at this stage—whether you are jubilant or fed up or anywhere in between—plan on resting your draft. Feel your feelings, but know that now is the time in the process for rest. How long will vary writer to writer and project to project. In my opinion, resting a draft for anything less than two or three weeks is probably not enough to give you the full benefit of this strategy. Some authors give it months.

So, what are the benefits of a decent rest? First of all it will give you a chance to come down from the exhilarated heights or level up from some of the lows so that you have the peace and clarity that will serve you when you start to revise. Second, more in terms of your manuscript, I propose that there three broad categories of advantages (and I’ve given them titles because that’s what writers like to do!): Seeing the Whole, Seeing the (Right) Parts, and Arriving at a Greater Sum.

Seeing the Whole

Stepping away from your draft before making further changes (and before sharing) will give you a unique and immensely helpful chance to see your story as a whole on paper (or screen) for the first time. I find that this just isn’t possible at 7:00 am the morning after you finished at 11:43pm the night before. You are too close to your manuscript. In your mind’s eye, you can see all of your creative intentions with crystal clarity. But that doesn’t mean they’ve made it onto the page—and you won’t be able to tell! The flip side of this is the writer who thinks their story is awful. It’s not! There’s brilliance in there, at least in a potential state, and even in rough spots. But you probably won’t be able to see any of it either without some distance.

So, take that break. What you’re giving yourself is that one and only (but amazing) chance to read your first draft objectively as a whole. I recommend that you do your first read through without making any notes or changes at all. Feel the overall rhythm of the story as it exists at the moment—the big picture. Let your mind take “big picture” notes, about what’s working beautifully, and about what still needs creative work. I think you’ll find that this becomes invaluable to creatively revising your story,  letting it become what you see in your mind. This just isn’t possible without a rest in my experience!

Seeing the (Right) Parts

When we jump into revisions too early and can’t see the big picture—the whole—we often start tweaking spelling and grammar and changing little details here and there. While it’s not wrong to tweak, it’s potentially misdirected energy at this stage—you’re fixing and fussing with things that may not survive in your manuscript after feedback or a deeper revision. Resting will help you to see the big picture things that need changing, and thus help to zero in on the smaller parts that stick out as in need of a polishing hand if they are going to serve the story as a whole.

On a purely practical level, you don’t want to spend all sorts of time fussing with paragraphs (or chapters) you’re ultimately going to cut. Get that big picture view so you spend your time addressing the parts that really need work.

Arriving at a Greater Sum

Once you’ve made a first pass through your manuscript with the advantage of rest, and made some thoughtful, deliberate changes, I say rest again. It doesn’t have to be as long this time, but now that you’ve made creative changes to your manuscript, it’s been transformed. Step away, take a break, and come back to it as you did the first time. You may repeat this revision process again or even a few more times. But it’s worth it. Your project is coming into clearer view, better matching your vision each and every time.

And soon, as your story comes more in line with the brilliant story you’ve been imagining all this time, you will have that urge to share it with everyone under the sun. But now this urge will be based on much more solid ground—on the deliberate creative work and confidence that follows a good rest.

a lightbulb resting on a stack of books

What to Do Before Writing a Novel

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You have an idea for a novel. It may be anything from a vague notion to a crystal clear concept. What, if anything, should you do to prepare? You might know (or suspect) that you are a planner type, and so you want to do some “figuring” before diving into your draft. On the other hand—vague notion or otherwise—you might be the sort that wants to dive right in and get going! Whether you are a plotter or a dive-right-in writer, I think that there are three broad strategies all writers can adopt when thinking what to do before writing a novel. (Or, better stated: before-ish.) It comes down to Reading, Research and Recess. Let’s explore what I mean together!

Figuring out what to do before writing a novel

I will be honest: I’m more of a planner-type writer. Several lessons in my book The One Week Writing Workshop offer strategies that encourage pre-draft dreaming, exploring and figuring. I follow this up with tasks that then help you to focus and funnel this preliminary work into a confidence-inspiring plan before you start your draft.

Now, I acknowledge that not everyone likes a formal plan. And yet…I’ve led enough creative writing workshops to know that most of us need just a little something to prime the creative engines before we get going on a manuscript. If not a formal plan, then maybe something like preparatory play. That’s where my three pre-draft strategies come in—Read, Research, and Recess—and I believe that everyone can benefit!

Reading

You’ll be hard pressed to find any writer who wouldn’t advise you to read before writing your novel. It’s generally-accepted wisdom that reading fiction helps train you to write fiction. I would certainly agree with that! I also guess that if you are preparing to write a novel, you probably are already an avid reader of fiction—it’s likely not a stretch at all. So, keep it up!

What you may want to add or adjust when it comes to your avid reading habit is a deliberate shift into“study mode”. As you read fiction, use a noticing eye, focusing on how authors approach any number of things, from opening lines to creating tension between characters…how she uses language to effectively describes settings …and how he juggles multiple points of view….etc. If you have specific questions about particular writing techniques or how to go about something in your own writing (for instance, how to write dialogue in a novel), treat the books you read as your mentors—and get inspired by their “solutions”.

You might also want to get more intentional about what you read as you prepare to write your own novel. You don’t have to give up reading widely if that’s what you do, but consider beefing up your reading list to include more books in the specific genre you’re planning to write in. This way you can better acquaint yourself with the genre’s rhythms and peculiarities—kind of “absorbing” them consciously and even subconsciously  as you read. You might also want to consider re-reading books in your chosen genre that you’re already familiar with. Knowing the twists, turns and ending of a story in advance, you can really focus on studying technique in that narrative, thus inspiring your own writing approach. (My advice: don’t do this with your favourite book of all time—let it remain a story!)

And of course, you can be reading, even the “studying” kind of reading, while you are writing your draft. So, before-ish. Start in on some focused reading, and keep reading this way even as you write.  This can help your draft and can inform the revision stage, too.

Research

In order to write with authenticity, you might have to do some research before you get going on your draft. What this means will depend on the kind of book you’re writing. If you’re writing historical fiction, it’s probably rather obvious that you’ll have to do plenty of academic-style research. Your novel simply won’t be believable without it!

Other kinds of stories might require research, too—and not all research requires a trip to the library. For instance, my middle grade novel My Best Friend is a Viral Dancing Zombie features two boys who are making a stop motion movie. While I wasn’t intending to write a how-to-make-a-movie guide within my book, I certainly needed to get familiar with the basics about animated films so that I could write authentic scenes about my eleven-year-old characters as they made movie magic after school. I had to get acquainted with the tools, technique, and timelines of this kind of movie project, and figure out what it would be reasonable to assume boys this age would have access to and could create (quite a lot, actually!). I looked up articles on the subject. I watched tutorial videos. I viewed stop motion movies created in classrooms I was working in at the time (use your social connections!). I talked to my animator friend to clear up my list of technical questions. This was all research, and actually none of it took place in a library.

So, take some time to think about the sorts of things you’ll need to learn or research in order to write authentically. Where can you find the info? Who can you ask? Do as much research as you can before you begin your draft. It might very well shape and inspire your story! But just as with reading, there’s no rule that says your research must be 100% complete before you begin to draft. It might not even be possible since you might only realize the need for research in the midst of writing certain scenes. Your research can be ongoing, shaping your draft and informing your creative revisions afterward.

Okay- so, above we’ve covered story research. But you might also want to do some writing research before you write your novel. This might take the form of attending writing workshops, reading writer’s guides, or watching online video courses. I would of course love for you to grab my book or sign up for my videos classes (!), but there are plenty of other wonderful resources out there that can be helpful to your writing process, too! I believe that whatever increases your writing confidence and offers advice that you find helpful and motivating is the right resource for you.

One note of caution (especially to you planners): don’t stay stuck in a planning loop! Reading an endless list of how-to books or spending hour after hour on videos at the expense of rolling up your sleeves  and drafting will ultimately work against you. In my workshops, that’s why I aim to get you writing as you read. So, be sure that—whatever guide you choose—you use these writing tools to boost the quality of your writing time, not replace it!

Recess

If you’ve been reading my articles, you’ll notice that I often talk about maintaining a sense of play, experimentation and exploration when it comes to writing (kind of like recess, where we just played and let our imaginations guide us). The time before you begin to write your novel might  be the most natural time to lean into this approach. Your story idea feels fresh, exciting, and full of possibilities…and it is!  So, I say take advantage of this feeling and take steps to keep things fresh and playful.

Do you draw, even just a little bit? Why not sketch out that intriguing character you’re picturing… Or, perhaps you know your characters will be setting off on an epic journey. Why not make an intricate map? This can help better to connect you to your story, and it’s fun. You can even decorate your writing space with your handiwork to keep you inspired!

Maybe you keep bumping into the questions: who is my main character? …or…who should be the one to tell the story? Experiment. Write a random scene a few times, using different points of view. Change the tone, change the location…what happens? You might never use this scene, but playing around can be a great way to get ideas!

Speaking of playing around, you don’t have to limit this to things you do with your story. Consider taking time to engage in non-writing but delightfully creative activities, to feed your own playful soul. I’m not talking about spending hours and hours you don’t have (especially when you want to add writing into the mix of your life!), but don’t forget to make puzzles, knit scarves, do word puzzles, colour, or cook. It’s amazing how keeping actively creative—nurturing a “creator identity”—can light up our writing, both directly and indirectly. 

Now, nothing we do on a writing recess is being written or drawn in stone. It doesn’t have to “count” toward anything, just like no one gave us grades for how we played at recess. No one has to see your playful experiments other than you. But doing these kinds of things might inspire story moments. And even if not, simply keeping you connected to the joy that comes with creating something that never was before has great value.

As with Reading and Research, Recess can be enjoyed both before and while you write (in fact, I highly recommend it!). 

a person holding a yellow note with the words keep going

How to Build Confidence as a Writer

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Mostly when we go looking for writing tips, we find advice related to the creation—meaning the story or novel we want to write. That’s great—there’s wonderful advice out there to be had! But there’s something we don’t see as often and that I would argue is just as important when it comes to the writing process: the creator—that is, you the writer. After all, without your imagination, your creativity, and your willingness to engage the writing process, there wouldn’t be any creation. So, let’s focus on YOU for a moment! I’d like to share my top tip on how to build confidence as writer. It’s based on my own experiences as an author and the years I’ve spent leading creative writing workshops. It’s a simple shift, but for some it can be what keeps them on the writing journey (and I think that’s worth it!).

Your Writer’s Mindset: Setting the “shoulds” aside helps build confidence

It’s not at all a bad thing to have dreams and goals when it comes to writing. But sometimes what we’ve come to believe about writing or the writing life can get in the way of seeing those dreams and goals come true. This can be true whether we’re just starting down the writing path or we’ve been at it for a while.

I’m talking about things like telling ourselves we should be writing a certain amount of hours every day. Or, that for a good writer, writing should flow easily. Do either of these sound familiar?

There’s more:

I should be able to write one book a year at least (a real writer can do that).

Ideas should be coming to a good writer at any and all times of the day.

…And I should have a notebook with me and should be filling it with ideas if I’m calling myself a writer…

I should sell x number of copies of a book to be successful.

There are more (so many more!) ways that we writers judge our own worth (and often fall short)…

Again, goals and dreams aren’t bad—not a bad at all! In the best cases, they can inspire us to try, grow and strive as writers. In the worst cases, however, they can become a discouraging hum (or shout!) that deflates our confidence, discourages our efforts, and causes us to give up.

The key of course is what you do with these shoulds when your writing life and efforts don’t match your expectations. Do you take it as data—an indication that you might want to try new tactics? Or even a sign that, possibly, your expectations were inaccurate, at least for you right now on your writing journey? This, I think, would be a helpful way to use “shoulds”, but in my experience, very few people see them this way. We don’t usually reflect on should or consider adjusting them, instead we fix them in time and space measure (ourselves) by them. When we fall short, we’ve failed. The problem is with us. And this is the quickest way to lose confidence in ourselves, maybe even for good (ugh!).

If a new writer reads somewhere that he must write 3,000 words a day in order to be a real writer, and finds this task initially (or forever!) impossible for him, should he throw in the towel? If a seasoned writer has picked up somewhere that for a real writer, a good writer, writing flows in an almost effortless fashion, and yet she is always stymied and slumped when it comes to writing those middle scenes, they’re always trouble…so much so that she doubts her own abilities. Is she just not cut out for this? Should she pick a new passion?

Or…instead of living by absolute “shoulds”…might these writers be much better served viewing their initial expectations as possibilities? I think so! Because when we experience a disconnect between a possibility and actual practice, we have the opportunity to adjust to a different possibility! And most importantly, we’ve found a way to remain on the writing journey.

So maybe…that new writer adjusts his word count expectations? Maybe he reduces his target by a bit, or a lot, until he feels comfortable with his writing rhythm? From there, the word count might expand over time (or not) but he is writing in a way that works for him…That is a recipe for growing confidence.

Could that seasoned writer simply accept that middles are a challenge for her—at least at this stage of her writing journey. Perhaps then she could seek strategies that might help her through, even if this isn’t her first book? Maybe she even reevaluates her belief that writing has to proceed beginning, middle, end…maybe zipping around to different spots in her story, even playing with out-of-the-box ideas when she gets to the sticky middle, could be among the very best “new” tips on how to write a good story this veteran author discovers for herself!

So, to protect a healthy and helpful Writer’s Mindset, I say we don’t give up our goals and dreams, but let’s consider giving up our shoulds. Let’s claim our status as writers right now—without delay!—no matter what our writing life or writing output currently looks like. We are writers simply for engaging the process of writing. As writers (already), we can then be open to adjustments, fresh perspectives, growth, and the fact that our writing journeys and output may not look exactly like everyone (or anyone) else’s. That’s what your writing goals can show you if you let them—not your worth as a writer, but your way as a writer.

a person using a planner and calendar app on a laptop

Tips for Plotting a Novel with a Calendar App

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We’ve arrived at that point where one year is beginning to wind down and we start to look to the next. It got me thinking about calendars, and more specifically how I use calendars as a tool to help my writing. I want to share with you two of my best tips for plotting a novel with a calendar. The first way helps you to keep a story on track, and the second helps preserve you as a writer! While these aren’t necessarily mind-blowing tactics, I know that I went a long while in my writing life before I started using them, and things have greatly improved for me ever since! My hope is that they’ll help you, too.

Two Tips for Plotting a Novel with a Calendar

As I was working out my plot for my third novel, Frostbite Hotel, I realized I was getting muddled when it came to the passage of time. In terms of story timelines, Frostbite Hotel, set in a contemporary school during the winter months, is a pretty straightforward tale. There is no subplot set in a different era. No one is time-shifting through history. Even still, I needed the story’s events to unfold in a way that felt realistic to my readers. I needed to allow enough time for certain events to take shape, find the perfect moment for specific turning points to occur, and work all of these things around special events that happened at fictitious Huddleston Elementary School. I also wanted to keep the snowy season in mind, particularly the best time for blizzards and winter celebrations in the Canadian prairie location I was imagining. (Pretty important to a story about a schoolyard overrun with snow fort entrepreneurs!)

So, I turned to the calendar app on my computer. I created a dedicated Frostbite Hotel calendar, chose an icy blue highlight color, and began to plot the key events that I was planning to include in my story across a couple of winter months. Because I could look at my plot points all at-a-glance, I quickly realized where I needed to stretch some action over more time, or rein things in where I was dragging.

After dragging and dropping things around on my calendar to make some tweaks and adjustments, I soon saw a logical timeframe emerge—a flow and order of events that made sense. I worked to this “fictional schedule” as I wrote my draft, calling up my calendar whenever I needed reference points. It certainly helped! And there was something about seeing story events in my calendar that made my story feel even more real; though it was fiction, it felt more rooted in real time and in my real life—so, that was fun! Also, I think it’s interesting to note that I don’t actually state any dates in this book, but it was helpful for my own “author logic”. And those little transitions we sometimes use, like “a few days later” or, “on the following Monday” had a real reason behind them!

My next two novels were even more firmly in need of a calendar when it came to planning plot and story world. The action in My Best Friend is a Viral Dancing Zombie all funnels toward a school project deadline, with the need to balance all the conflict and incidents that happen along the way. Also, my two best friend characters are splitsville for a time; so, using two separate, color-coded character calendars, I was able to figure out what each of them was doing over the course of their separation (even when the secondary character wasn’t involved in the main action, he was doing something behind the scenes that would become important to the story…and I wanted it to make sense!). Meanwhile, Mermaid Warrior Squad, a hybrid novel/graphic novel, takes place at a two-week summer day camp. When the story’s events occur are so important, I actually inserted a camp schedule into the book! (But it was of course first planned in my own digital calendar.)

All of my books so far have been straightforward, that is, in linear time and over the course of a relatively short time frame (a couple of weeks to a few months). I’m working on something with a more complex timeframe at the moment, set in a world with fantasy elements and a fictional history that I need to account for. I can assure the fantasy and timeline-conscious writers out there that a calendar is a GREAT help for more complex stories! You can even use two, three or more calendars in parallel. Different colors can represent different characters, or eras, or timelines for parallel worlds if that’s how your story leans! It’s a great tool to keep your story world straight for yourself, whether you lay out “dates” for your readers or not.

Of course this can all be translated to a paper calendar system. A wall calendar or one of those great big (physical) desktop or “family planner” type calendars can be brilliant—highly visual—and right in front of your face at all times if you choose! It’s also easy to get creative with color and organized with handy handwritten notes.

Use a calendar to save your writer’s self!

You don’t need me to tell you that you can use your calendar to make a writing schedule, and set writing goals and deadlines. Of course you can and it can be a great idea!

But if you’re a story-planner type (and if you’re using calendars as a tool, you likely are!) there is one date that I encourage you to mark on your calendar and stick to no matter what: a planning deadline. And by that I mean the day you commit to stop planning and start drafting.

A pitfall for planners, one that I know too well, is spending too much time planning. So much so that it comes at the expense of writing. I get it—we planners want to get our stories worked out to airtight degree of detail…but because of that, we often put off actually writing our draft! In the most extreme cases, but far more common than we might want to admit, we deplete our creative energy and even our own interest in our tale through excessive planning, and never start writing at all.

As I say in my book The One Week Writing Workshop, a certain alchemy occurs in the writing itself. To enjoy the writing experience and to let your story become what it’s meant to be, you need to actually write. So, commit to a planning deadline—marked boldly on your calendar!—after which you start to write no matter what. Don’t worry if you’re not quite sure how long your planning will or should take—estimate it and run with it. You can always return to do a bit more planning if your writing stalls or you hit a dead end. But I’m guessing you’ll be delighted by what you discover in the drafting process once you step beyond the calendar and into the actual world of your story.

a notebook, paperclips, and other planning supplies and stationery on a table

How to Plan a Story…for Pantsers?!?

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No, I am not out to change your writing tendencies! And may the different writing styles, from plotting to pantsing to everything in between live on! However, I still maintain that even pantsers can reap the benefits of a good plan without affecting their let’s-dive-in-and-go-for-it groove. The trick is…to plan in reverse. (Plotters stay with me – I’ve got you covered, too!)

How to plan a story in reverse

Pantsers: Have you ever experienced inner turmoil when it comes to writing workshops or those writing guides on bookstore shelves? It’s not that you don’t want to learn more about writing and grow as a writer, of course you do! It’s just that you love to wing it and fly through your drafts, following the twists and turns your imagination presents, enjoying the ride and what comes of it. For you, drafting is about discovery, and you don’t want to let an overly intricate plan stifle your imagination.

I am not a pantser, but I respect and admire this approach. If it’s working for you and bringing you joy as a writer, I am thoroughly happy for you!

However, in case you’ve never thought of it, I wanted to point out that you can still benefit from all that expert advice and even those writing guides. Instead of using them to figure out your story start to finish before you get going, use them to assess your draft once it’s complete.

For instance, perhaps you don’t spend time sketching out your characters before you get going on Chapter One. You discover them and bring them to life as you write. Fantastic! But once your draft is written, you know you have some revision and clarifying work ahead of you. To reflect on how well your fictional beings are coming across in your story, try using some plotter-and-planner tricks as a way to assess how effectively characters are coming across in your manuscript. As you read your draft, make character webs based only on what you show and tell about your character in your narrative.  Write out a  lists of traits, again, only as they come across in your draft (remember: you’re assessing your draft, noting down what a reader would see, not the unseen/unexpressed thoughts in your head). Can you sketch out brief biographies, or write up little backstory docs based on what your story has revealed? These reverse planning tactics and others like them can show you what’s showing  – and what’s not – in your draft as it stands. And this tells you what your next tasks are during the revision stage.

You can do the same thing with planning strategies you might come across for world building and developing story settings. You might not want to fuss with them before you draft, but they can help you to gauge how alive your world appears in your current story ( whether it’s a fantasy realm or the world of a contemporary suburban neighborhood). Based only on what appears in your current text, can you now create a descriptive document, or draw a map, or answer a list of important world-related questions? Have you included everything you want your readers to see and experience in your draft as it stands? Again, employing “reverse planning” may reveal what so far lives only in your head and what needs to come out onto the page when you update your draft.

Another reverse planning/assessment technique that I love to use is something I call “taking a story inventory”. Simply put, you take a stack of index cards and as you read through your draft, note each beat or scene you come across on a different card. When you’re done, spread them out on a table in order. It’s now much easier to sweep your gaze over this tactile list. It will help you to spot holes, lapses in logic, or action that drags. You can move the cards around, add, delete and rearrange details until it flows – and then you can weave everything together in your updated draft.

Plotters: I myself have used the “take a story inventory” strategy both before and after writing a single draft, in other words: first as a planning tool, then as an assessment tool! Inevitably, changes happen when you go from planning to drafting (and that’s great). So, taking a story inventory of a draft, even if I’ve planned  it out beforehand, helps me to see what has come through in the draft version, and what still needs work.

These are all ways that I’ve actually used reversed planning in my own writing and in my workshops. I’m not an expert on every single planning and plotting strategy out there and haven’t tried all of them – but I would venture a guess that you can probably adapt most of them into story assessment tools, too. Experiment and see what helps you to gauge the effectiveness, completeness and other aspects of your finished first draft.

Whether you only use these tools after writing your draft like a pantser might, or you use planning tools both to plan and  again to assess, they can really help you to get honest with what’s actually in your draft, and where it needs to go next.

 

two men sitting on the floor staring at each other while playing chess

Helpful Tips on How to Write Dialogue in a Novel

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Dialogue.

Most novels need it, and of course writers want to craft it well. But like all the elements of a novel, it can be tricky.

After all, we’re expecting it to do some heavy lifting. Dialogue is showing our readers who our characters are. It may be coloring our scene with emotion. It can also add essential information that forwards a story, or cleverly provide moments of comedic relief.

We also want our characters to speak in ways that seem natural (whether that’s natural for a contemporary teenage girl or a wizened old elf king). We want the conversations to come across as authentic speech between the speakers, capturing the flavour of a place or a time as well as the energy of a given scene.

So, how do we get there in our own writing?

My Best Advice on How to Write Dialogue in a Novel

The first bit of advice I will offer is one you’ve surely heard before: read. Especially in the genre you are writing in! Review favorite books by favorite authors and pay attention to how they craft and deliver dialogue in their stories. Let the techniques and patterns you notice help inspire your own writing. While this might sound vague at first, I believe that once you start deliberately reading as a writer with an eye to dialogue, it will have a huge impact on your work! (Don’t do it every time you read, though—enjoy your own fiction breaks, writers!)

The second bit of advice is more practical and more personal. It’s something that I actually learned taking an Improv class, a class that was somehow wonderfully timed to the months in which I was finishing up a first draft of what was to become my first published novel: Lights! Curtains! Cows!. Our  instructor was giving us tips for making an improvised scene crackle with life and energy. One of the tips he emphasized again and again was to “avoid ‘talking heads’”. In the context of a performance, what this meant was to incorporate action or dynamic movement of some kind into scenes. Even if we didn’t know what the scene was going to be about (and this was Improv, so we often didn’t), he urged us to consider to simply start moving, start doing something. Sweep the floor with an invisible broom. Stack a few invisible boxes. Make a phantom cappuccino. What was most important was that we didn’t just stand there and simply exchange words with the other improvisers (i.e., become “talking heads”). By moving around, doing something, taking specific action, the implied “world” where the scene was taking place more quickly and quite richly came to life.

As I swept, stacked and “cappuccino-ed” on stage, I sensed that this concept could help my fiction writing! I remember taking the idea back to my fledgling draft novel. I became very aware of what was or could be going on in my scenes besides “just talk”. To this day, “avoid ‘talking heads’” is a constant mantra I return to when crafting dialogue. It leads me to ask: What are the characters actually doing as they talk? How can I weave action into this scene so that it illuminates the larger world of my story?

Incidentally, action can be big and bold, but it doesn’t have to be. Is your character stirring honey into a cup of tea? That’s action, and it helps paint a picture. Maybe another character is speaking nonchalantly while anxiously arranging and rearranging the same five items on a desk. Another evocative picture. Action can be scaling a mountain under gruelling conditions, but it doesn’t have to be.

Related to weaving action and movement into scenes with dialogue is to watch for opportunities to bring in the senses and emotions. We don’t want to get too heavy-handed here following every line of dialogue with descriptive text. But here and there we can add text that has a delicious impact. Where is the action taking place? Can I weave in details about the sights, smells, sounds and textures of the place (e.g., What fragrance rises up from tea? How can I describe the sound of the spoon circling in the mug?)  How can I use these sensory details about the story’s world to create atmosphere and set the appropriate tone? (Is the person rearranging the items on the desk aware of what he’s doing, or not? What about the peron he’s talking to…how does she feel about this bit of action? And how do her feelings show?)

Of course, not every bit of dialogue will benefit from or even allow for constant action. Nor do we need to add sensory flourishes all over the place “just because”. But avoiding page after page of “talking heads” is something to keep in mind as you write, especially when a scene or sequence heavy in dialogue feels flat or stale. Writing after all is about immersing your reader in a world rather than simply laying out plot points one after another.  When we try to craft dialogue with movement, action, and with the senses and emotions, our characters can help talk that world into being.

a stack of papers on clip boards and bound with binder clips on a desk

How to Know When to Stop Revising a Novel

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How do I know when it’s time to stop slashing, changing, fussing with and tweaking my story? When do I know I’m ready to stop revising a novel? When is it time to share it with others for feedback?

These are valid questions and lot of new writers ask them. A lot of experienced writers wonder about these things, too project to project. First of all, it’s hard to let go of something you’ve poured so much time and effort into, especially when you know that other eyes are waiting. Even if you don’t struggle with the thought of putting your work “out there”, you might still wonder how to know when what you have in front of you is the best expression of your story.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to hook up your draft manuscript to some sort of revision gauge? You could watch the needle inch away from ROUGH and closer and closer to REVISED…?

In the absence of such technology—the absence of anything external to ourselves, really—we writers need to find another way to answer this question for ourselves. Actually, I’d like to “revise” this statement a bit: we can rely on something that is at least in part external to ourselves. We can rely on the writing process itself.

A Few Signs that You Can Stop Revising a Novel

#1 – Revision is not the same as proofreading. I see revision as the final creative step in the creative writing process. You are still creating while revising, although unlike in the first days of writing your novel, you’re not (always) creating from scratch. You might be making major alterations to your existing text: adding, subtracting and rearranging. You’re sharpening up the action. You’re adding life and zing to dialogue. You’re refining descriptions.  So….when you catch yourself doing more proofreading (correcting for spelling, sentence structure, grammar) than creative alterations it’s a sign that you’re working with your “shareable draft”.

#2 – You’re no longer reading your story, you’re reading your manuscript. This is one of those magical feelings that can be in store for us during the revision process. You’ve read your story through countless times in order to revise. You’ve made several drafts, or major alterations. Then, the required changes start to shrink in volume and stature. You notice that you’ve flipped or scrolled through several pages, even a few chapters, where you’re not making changes. You’re not even looking for changes. Instead, you’re laughing at the clever thing Peter says to Franny. You’re lost in the landscape the words in front of you are painting. You’re holding your breath as tensions mount and action escalates…You’re reading a story. And it’s yours. A big sign that what’s in front of you is your shareable draft.

#3 – Your words are blurring. This is the other side of the coin for point #2, and it can happen, too. You can no longer see your story. Your mind wanders as you read. You know your words so well you can recite them without even looking at the page. Yet you don’t know—you’re not sure—if what you have is quite it.  In my experience, there are two potential remedies for this. The first is to take a break. In my writing workshops, I always advise “resting” a first draft for a significant amount of time before revision, and also building in breaks between revisions, too. So, it may just be that you should give yourself permission to walk away for a couple of weeks and come back with a fresher brain and rested eyes.

The second potential remedy is to get feedback from those you trust right now, even if you’re not sure that this is “the” shareable draft you were hoping to produce (notice that this also gives you a break). You can ask for general impressions, or even ask your feedback crew to look for certain things that you yourself are wondering about or sense that you are struggling with: character development, plot coherence, etc.  (Incidentally, in my opinion, four people is a magical number for getting different perspectives and establishing patterns). Then listen and digest this feedback. Your rested self may gain the last pieces to your revision puzzle from the comments that come your way.

It’s worth noting that this shareable draft may not be (probably won’t be) your last. Feedback can alter it further, and you yourself may have epiphanies about story solutions while your draft is circulating. But you’ve come to a major milestone on the creative road, one that has taken the tenacity you’ve shown yourself you clearly have. I’ll see you there!

hands holding a bunch of colored pencils

Thoughts on Teaching Writing in the Classroom

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For classroom teachers and anyone interested in teaching or leading a group through the creative writing process:

I’ve worked in a lot of school classrooms over the years in my time as a writing coach. From my point of view, if I had to put my finger on the single biggest challenge teachers face it would be the wide variety of different learning styles, levels of interest and skills within your group. I’ve seen so many of you handle this beautifully—and your skillful, wise and patient approaches have informed many of my own strategies when working with a group (of any age!). Thank you!

When it comes to teaching story writing, especially among teachers who haven’t taught it before or who may not be super comfortable with the subject area, the wide range of skills and interest levels that co-exist in a classroom is one of the biggest concerns teachers have. Teachers often express the following classroom reality: “I have a lot of non-writers in my group. I also have a lot of non-readers in my group. Then, again, there are a handful of really keen kids who are going to be bored doing anything less than writing a novel. There’s also the big group in the middle. I want to keep them interested, too.” This comes up not only with the very young, but at every school-aged level.

We’re going to flip all this on its head. Let’s look at your group—with all its variations and levels and personalities—as your biggest asset.

Rethinking Writing in the Classroom

This may require you to rethink what writing a story actually looks like. As an author, trust me when I tell you that writing is not merely a person sitting at her desk quietly thinking up brilliant ideas and then jotting them all down for hours. Writing sometimes looks like this, but not always. And thus, creative writing in your classroom does not have to mean every student sitting quietly alone at a desk thinking up ideas and then writing for an hour. So, if that’s the image in your mind, get rid of it. Free yourself of it!

Writing is a process, and a process has steps. Instead of working toward one single finished product (a polished, proofread story), have students keep a writing folder where they store notes and webs and drawings and drafts. This is writing, too: note-taking, webbing, sketching, dreaming, list-making—I do all of these things as an author. It’s possible that not all students will finish all the steps, nor will each step look the same in every folder but everyone has authentically participated in writing, not only those students who finish and polish a story. And you have something to consider and evaluate beyond a single product at the end which not everyone will be able to produce, or not to the same degree. Not every author (including this one) is able to produce a finished product every time either!

And here’s where your asset—your group dynamics—really comes into play. At virtually every step, you can harness the group energy that you have right in front of you and invite participation. Brainstorm character types together. Brainstorm character traits. Make lists of sparkling words you might use in your stories. Use sticky notes to lay out a potential plot for a group story, and let your students help you to add, alter and shift them around. Let the variety of ideas that bubble up coexist on the whiteboard or chart paper you save and keep tacked to your wall—let’s celebrate creative contributions of all kinds! Even if some of the same voices pipe up time after time, everyone can see the lists and models you’re making together—everyone can be inspired. And you have something to point to when one of your writers is stuck thinking up an idea or a word or what to do next.

When you talk about setting, what a great time to encourage reluctant writers who might be more keen on drawing to sketch out their vision for a story’s world! That becomes their story world plan for their folder—and that’s writing. You might even consider pairing students up where appropriate, one to express a story in words, the other to express the action in a drawing. You can do this with characters, too. In fact, you can task your more artistically inclined students to create and draw original characters first, then pair them with students who prefer to write down words. The wordy students can begin to formulate a story based on the other students’ artwork. Drawings don’t have to be secondary to the written word, they can be the inspiration for the written word. Empowering the reluctant writers in this way may pique their interest in storytelling and may even prompt them to take another step (or leap) into the process.

When it comes to revision, a wonderfully creative step,  model it with your own unpolished work and gather input from your group. What a great opportunity to show them how to give and receive constructive praise and criticism. Then break students into pairs or groups where they can do the same for each other.

I know this doesn’t address all the challenges you face in the classroom when taking on creative writing. You are either balancing more than one subject area or more than one group, along with all the daily administrative tasks on your plate…and etc.! (I’ve seen it— I know!). But what I hope this gives you is a way into teaching writing that can empower and inspire more students than you might at first think. Writing stories can spark creativity, sharpen skills in writing mechanics, and offer students a place to explore and express their own voice. These are all wonderful things that can serve your students beyond writing fiction. So, if we can find a way to bring as many students along on the writing journey (and treat it as a journey, not only a final product), we’re giving our students a gift that can live on in their lives long after the bell rings.

Woman at a desk leaning back in a chair with her feet up on a table while turning her back on her laptop.

How to Beat Writer’s Block

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Writer’s block.

Stuck in the middle….or stuck on page one!

Overwhelm at how much you have to do...

Underwhelm at what you’ve so far accomplished…

These are not nice feelings, but they’re also very common among writers. That may seem like small comfort when you’re in the throes of it, but it’s something—you’re not alone! In fact, because so many of us fellow writers have had this stuck-in-sludge experience, there are also lots of good bits of advice out there on what to do if it ever strikes you (and I say use whatever works for you!).

Below, I’m going to offer you some thoughts based on my own experiences on how to beat writer’s block. I’m hopeful that one or two of these ideas will be helpful to you the next time you feel the creative gears grind to a halt!

How to Beat Writer’s Block the Next Time it Strikes!

#1. Adjust your self-talk. This isn’t always easy, but it’s worth the effort. Begin by reminding yourself that writing is a process. A process is something that has steps, and some steps are bound to be trickier and stickier than others. This won’t immediately solve your problem, but it may help you to catch your breath. Most importantly, if your writer’s block has turned your self-talk against you, and you hear it saying things like “You’ll never move forward!”, “You can’t write!”, “You’ll never get there!”, or “There’s so much to do and you can’t even finish this little part!!”…the image of the process, a path with steps and landmarks along the way, may be helpful.. All is not lost. You are simply on one point of the path facing a temporary barrier.

#2. Zig zagging is an option. Ok. You’ve talked yourself down a little bit. You’ve reminded yourself that writing is a process and you’re just at one of those irritating sticking points. That doesn’t mean you can’t take action, even creatively helpful action. To this end, I recommend zig zagging. That’s my term for jumping to another place in your writing. Skip three scenes ahead, or go straight to the finale. Throw down some words for any part in your story that you can picture, even without filling in the bits that have tripped you up.

Can’t create anything new? Revisit a chapter, scene or paragraph you’ve already written. Read it out loud. Give it a light little polish. Feel like a writer again!

We often get caught up in the ideal of flowing through our story start to finish. We think that this is the only way to write, that anything less is…well…less. But really, there’s no law that says we must write beginning-middle-end.  So zig zag around for a bit. Quite often, you’ll find that this unlocks ideas and possibilities for the tough zones and you’ll be able to return to them quicker than expected and get through them with renewed zeal. Bonus: the new scenes that you began to imagine while zig zagging give you something concrete to work with when you get there.

#3. Permission to blurt. Write or type for ten minutes, even if it’s pure goobledygook. Start off ridiculously if necessary, writing about how the words just aren’t coming, then keep going. Your story just may creep back on the page. But don’t expect anything from yourself. Just let the words fly until the timer goes. Sometimes this is enough to get you in motion, even if just a bit. Count anything you produce as success, even a single sentence. When you come back the next day, your manuscript may feel just a little bit more hopeful…

#4. Take an active break. Sometimes the block is so bad, that all we can do is step away. As you can imagine, this is the tip we need to be the most cautious with. A couple of hours of watching that great new show can quickly turn into all eight seasons. Sometimes even a television marathon can be a great thing, but it’s not hard to imagine how an overly long passive rest can hurt our writer’s momentum in the long run.

What I advise is to take a break, but try and keep it active—whether that’s physically or creatively active. Often a long, brisk walk is enough to coax some new writing into being afterward, even if it’s a paragraph or two. But you might need a longer break, even a couple of days worth of non-writing.  In those cases, what’s worked for me is becoming engaged in a creative non-writing activity. Coloring. Puzzle-ing. Learning to (barely) knit. Building a birdhouse (I’ve never done this, but maybe you’d like to!). The key, I think, is that you’re getting your mind off your story, but you’re giving it creative occupation. In my experience, an active break is more likely to result in the return of your refreshed writer’s mind than a purely passive rest.

So take heart the next time you bump into the writer’s block, and try one or two of these strategies to help you through.

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