Thursday 27 November 2008

Just Added. . .

I've been catching up on all the blogs I've missed lately and I stumbled upon a link to Why Should Writers Blog?

It's well worth reading as is the rest of the blog so I've added it to my side bar too.

Wednesday 26 November 2008

AWOL

Not been around much lately and I'd like to say I've been busy writing. Alas, I haven't, but I am starting to get back into it. In fact, last night I finished off Chapter 17.

Woo Hoo!

Anyway hope everyone is keeping well.

Time now to catch up on all the blogging I've missed.

Friday 7 November 2008

Fridayitis

In C[r]ash Flow (Or What Went Wrong in October in Book Publishing) Moonrat starts the buy a book campaign.

An encoraging post from Jenny over on LIt Soup on Why Recessions Are Good For Aspiring Writers.

Onyxhawke wants us to kill our darlings in Bittercon! SF/F Has Much to Atone for.

More on commas from The Blood-Red Pencil in The Comma According to Trask and Editors edit commas...and more.

And finally, in When Should I Tell an Agent X? Nathan tells when and what we should tell our agents - when we get one that is!

Monday 3 November 2008

Have I or Haven't I...

...finished that chapter?

I needed to tell myself that Chapter 16 was over and done with just to get a completion goal (it was dragging on that long). The question is have I actually finished that chapter or not?

Why?

Well here's the deal. The structure I have chosen for my WIP is the cliffhanger structure. That's all well and good because it is genre fiction and I want it to be a page turner. My chapters, on average are about 2000 words. I think I have one chapter that is about 3000 words.

Now, I am writing my candy bar scene, and typically for me it is a large candy bar. I've hit the 2000 word mark and I've got nice cliffhanger in there too, but the scene is not over by a long shot. I can easily get at least another 2000 words out of it hence the chapter break.

So here's the all important question. Is it OK to have a scene stretch over two chapters and has anyone here read a published book that has done this?

For the moment I will continue to write the scene in Chapter 17 but I can always merge the two chapters. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Update: I should add that I am writing 3rd person limited. I have one viewpoint only so I can't just move to another scene then return to this one.

Saturday 1 November 2008

Finally Finished Another Chapter

That's Chapter 16 sort of finished.

It's the first chapter I've finished but still felt it needed a lot more work. It's also the longest I've taken to complete a chapter for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it's the most complex chapter I've written to date. I've stuttered and stumbled on this, struggled with writers block and wrestled with the logic of the whole caboodle.

Secondly, there's that whole real world thing that gets in the way - and rightly so!

And thirdly, I've been stuck into Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain, and I've found this text to be invaluable. It has given loads of ideas and brought my prose into sharp focus and made me realise how much more work I've got to do (as if I didn't know I had a mountain to climb already).
 
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