Lorna Faith

Clean Fiction Author

How to Begin Each Chapter and Conquer the Blank Page

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Writing a good beginning for each chapter in your novel is tricky.

Sometimes staring at the blank screen(or blank page), is so intimidating we procrastinate.

I know many times looking at the white space on the screen in front of me, has flustered and overwhelmed me to the point that I’ve chosen to do the laundry, vacuum or basically anything else to AVOID that dreaded beginning.

So what helps you begin each chapter and defeat the blank page?

How to Begin each chapter

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What are some ideas to help you conquer the blank page?

Many times as writers, our instinct is to add filler to fill in all the gaps between chapters. Sometimes we do this in nonfiction as well as fiction. So we do our best to get every possible detail we can think of, onto the page.

In fiction, we add filler especially when a bunch of time has passed between from the last chapter to the one we’re writing. Many times we add ‘filler’ when there’s a significant passage of time from one chapter to another and we need to catch reader’s up to speed.

I often catch myself adding extra words or phrases when I begin a new chapter. This is what I’m trying to fix as I’m editing my new book right now 🙂

What are some great ways to get started on the next chapter?

Action: When you start a chapter with action – using verbs – can jumpstart your story instead of just using ordinary words… like turn her head, whirl, walk… write words that are more distinctive. Do what you can to avoid those annoying adverbs like walked slowly or walked lazily. Instead substitute words like strolled or sashayed.

As you get your character moving and keep her or him in motion for a page or two you’ll begin to get more ideas on where your next chapters will take you.

Dialogue: Open a chapter with Dialogue. It’s a great way to grab the reader’s attention. When you’re in doubt about how to get a new chapter started, start with a little bit of dialogue.

In Jane Austen’s well-known novel, Pride and Prejudice she starts off one of her chapters with a dialogue between Elizabeth’s parents. “I hope, my dear,’ said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at breakfast the next morning, ‘that you have ordered a good dinner to-day, because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party.”

Conversation draws me into the story – whether it’s fiction or non-fiction.

Sensory Details: Picture where your main character is – like a movie in your mind. Close your eyes and put yourself there and imagine all the details your character might hear, touch, taste, smell or see. Then focus and find an interesting detail, so you can start writing at that point.

The important part to this is that you get started. If you write with too much description, or if you’re not happy in any way, then you can always fix it later.

What are some not-so-good ways to start a chapter?

Backstory: When you begin a chapter with long explanations of a character’s history, it’s not very exciting for the reader. Sometimes that’s a good excuse for the reader to skim. Reader’s don’t need to know about Bobby’s aunt’s puppy and how that little dog peed all over the stairs which caused Bobby to fall down the stairs and break her leg.

It’s much more interesting for the reader if you Show vs. telling what happens to her. Rule of thumb: reading about past action is boring. Current action is what’s exciting to readers.

In a dream or waking up: This has been overdone. If you start the chapter with your character waking up or in a dream, it’s usually isn’t very interesting… and many times this is another place where a reader will skim. Go back and reread a book where the character awoke from a dream and ask yourself did you find it interesting?

Dull vocabulary: If there’s ever a place for brilliance of voice, phrasing, interesting vocabulary, it’s the opening of a chapter. It’s here that you want to catch a reader’s attention. No, you don’t want it so overblown that it is out of character with the rest of the story; however, you do want it to catch the reader. And, the beauty is that if you do overwrite, it’s just a first draft.

These are ideas to help you get something-anything-on paper. There’s plenty of time for revision. But that first draft has to get written, on chapter at a time. So let’s do this thing – you and I both – let’s stop procrastinating… and just write.

How do you begin your chapters to make your story interesting? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. We can learn from each other 🙂

 

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008 Outline Your Novel using 4 Part Story Structure and Create a Marketing Plan with Nick Thacker

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I learned a lot in this interview with bestselling thriller author Nick Thacker. Originally from Texas, Nick now lives in the mountains of Colorado with his wife, daughter, a tortoise and 3 dogs:) He’s a prolific writer of many bestselling thriller novels, which you can find at his author website nickthacker.com.

Nick also helps authors write, publish and market their books at his website writehacked.com. You can connect with Nick on Facebook or Twitter or email him at nick(at)nickthacker(dot)com.

Sorry, I wasn’t able to record this interview via Video. For some reason my Skype/eCamm connection wasn’t working properly the day we recorded this – so it was actually Nick who recorded the audio for me…. for which I’m very grateful 🙂

Interview Summary

*Nick shares how he got started writing. He says he really doesn’t like sitting down and trying to get words up on the screen every day – rather he likes to have written. He didn’t start writing until 2010-2011. He remembers he loved reading thrillers, like Dan Brown books, etc., but he also found some thrillers he didn’t like. Nick says he’s happiest when he’s writing books that entertain.

He thought if other people can write, I can too. That was his first book The Golden Crystal (Techno Thriller Military Science Fiction Best Sellers): A Technotriller Novel. Nick wrote this first book for his Dad and gave it to him on Christmas.

 

*With his first book he got stuck in the ‘muddy middle’ and started reading books on writing for about 3 months. A book that really helped him to understand how to write better scenes and how to write your sentence structure in a linear way was by reading Dwight Swain’s book Techniques of the Selling Writer.

*Nick says he’s read this writing book over and over again and talks about what he learned of how to gives awesome detail of the scene. First you have a goal, then a conflict and then a disaster. Example: Goal is the character wants to call her friend. Conflict is she’s trying to call her friend but she keeps getting another incoming call so she can’t call her friend. Disaster is her phone dies.

*The Sequel is the opposite of that: Reaction is “Oh my gosh, my phone died, I better plug it in. The Dilemma is she can’t find her charger. The Decision is I’m going to buy a charger from the store.

*Nick says then he used Dwight Swain’s writing book to rewrite the beginning and middle of his first novel and he still references it to this day.

*He says he was writing a blog about marketing and then he shifted his blog about writing and marketing books. Later Nick started his podcast, Self Publishing Answers which he now does with two other writers, Kevin Tumlinson, and Justin Sloan.

*Everyone writes and outlines differently and Nick recommends to keep trying different ideas to find what works for you. He starts by describing his book in two sentences – this also works well as a blurb for your book. Nick wrote a more detailed blogpost about it here.

*Nick says he loves Larry Brooks website StoryFix.com. He helps writers learn how to write and how not to write. Nick says he writes to the 4 part story structure and it helps him not to worry about what happens next when he’s in the middle of writing. Larry Brooks has a series on story structure here.

*To outline his story, Nick uses Evernote and then he writes his story using Scrivener . He says sometimes he’ll use the Evernote app on his smartphone and then it syncs to his computer. If he needs to, Nick adds folders on the left-hand side of the Scrivener screen, and creates Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, and Act 4. In this interview, I mention how much Joseph Michael’s Learn Scrivener Fast  training course has helped me. I often go back and listen to those short videos for whatever I need help within Scrivener.

*On his blog, Nick writes a great blogpost on how to market your book here.  His biggest recommendation is to get started with an email list. He also says Facebook Ads have really worked well for him. He says it’s amazing(and slightly creepy)…  how well you can track your customers on Facebook.

*Nick’s novel Atlantis: The Origin Mystery: The Atlantis Deception (Kindle Worlds Novella) is part of the Kindle Worlds series with Amazon. He says Amazon called him one morning and said A.G. Riddle is launching a kindle worlds, world with his books. He said A.G. Riddle had mentioned his name and asked Amazon to ask Nick to see if he’d want to write a book in the series. And they offered 50% commission for Nick to write it. So he wrote it – they said it needed to be done in a month – and he was surprised that it was one of the best novels he’s written.

 

*Nick says his friend Kevin describes this book as Jurassic Park in space. The main characters get locked into the center of their ship and all the creatures are trying to kill them. He said he just wanted people to be entertained – for readers he created a feeling of wonder with new ideas.

*I asked Nick how he overcomes resistance and failures. He says he has experienced plenty of failures, and what he’s found is that it’s important to know what brings you to a ‘downward spiral.’ Nick talks honestly of how he has something that happens at work, which later stops him from writing every day. So he’s found that he needs to put, what’s bothering him, in a box and close it temporarily and then open the writing box when it’s time to write. He mentions that his friend Keven Tumlinson writes in a journal every day and says affirmations – which seems to help get him be more of a prolific writer.

*Nick recommends that authors who are serious about writing as a career, to think of it as a business. He keeps his production plan written down in a document in Evernote where he writes his long-term plan. He writes down the books he wants to write by a certain date and he also writes down when he wants to get an agent, etc. When you have a business plan written down, it helps you to be more productive.

*I asked Nick what his thoughts were for the future of Indie Authors. He gives the example of how Amazon could – in the future – figure out how fast you read and when you read and by doing that recommend books specifically for your travels or whatever you are.

New books Nick’s writing now is the Harvey Bennet series. The Enigma Strain (Techno Thriller Science Fiction Best Sellers): Military Science Fiction Technothriller (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 1) which has over 400 reviews on Amazon, is about the world’s largest active volcano is under Yellowstone National Park and is based on the question of what happens if someone decides to blow up a bomb under the park?  The next book in the series has the same good guys and bad guys – and Nick says he’s playing with the idea of video recording people’s dreams and memories. The setting is in the Amazon rainforest. He’s also working on finishing the Relics series – the first book is Relics: The Dawn: Relics Singularity Series Book 1. Nick’s also working on co-writing the series – The Lucid: Episode One: Post-Apocalyptic with Kevin Tumlinson and then co-writing another young adult fantasy book with his friends Kevin and Justin.

To connect with Nick, you can find him at NickThacker.com and you’ll get four books for Free when you sign up to the mailing list. Also check out writehacked.com where you can find the self-publishing book marketing plan. You can also connect with Nick on Facebook or Twitter.

Do you use 4 Part Story Structure to outline your novels? Please comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

4 Editing Techniques to Empower Your Story

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After you’ve written your first draft of your story it’s time for editing.

Sometimes editing can be the most painful part of getting your book out into the world. I get it.

Honestly, editing is the part of the process I struggle with most. Most of the time I feel like pulling out my hair as I read through my manuscript line-by-line.

But, this week I’m happy to tell you that rewriting my novel actually became somewhat less-stressful. I know – I’m super surprised too.

I’ll explain what happened. I discovered some helpful tips reading through a couple of editing books – like Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King –  and I also learned so much from Margie Lawson that has been a turnaround in my understanding of how to edit and rewrite a book better.

These editing ideas – from bestselling authors – I hope will help enhance your writing and make your book into a page-turner that readers will love.

4 Editing Techniques

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Digging deeper into the details of your story…

When writers first start out, it can be difficult to see editing as a good investment. But I’ve learned that every step you take to make your story better will enhance your finished product, please more readers and will help you get better reviews and sales.

There are many different types of editing where you get paid help from professionals with your book – structural edits, copy edits, beta readers, proofreaders – but in this blog post, I want to talk about self-editing techniques that you can do on your own – learned from bestselling authors – to make your book hard to put down.

These editing techniques aren’t meant to change your style or writing or your writing voice… only to empower your story.

So, step out bravely and try something new – it’s what I’ve been doing too and I feel like it’s changing my story in amazing ways 🙂

4 Tips to Edit Your Book

1.Learn how to backload your sentences with Power words. Simply put, backloading is taking the one word that is the most important in your sentence, paragraph or scene and putting that word at the end.

Examples of Power words are: spectacular; harsh; fierce, fear, shock, nude, obsessing, madness, violence, furious, slapped, irritated, self-absorbed, etc.

These words are used to pick up the pace of your story and they add greater emotion to your scenes. But, you don’t want to backload every sentence with a Power word because it will end up losing its’ power. But adding a power word to every scene will help to create a page turning book.

At Hidden Falls by Barbara Freethy has this paragraph that backloaded with a power word.

For a second, he’d felt a ripping fear that he might not want to let her go, either. Which was crazy, because where women were concerned, he always let go first. The only time he hadn’t had ended in painful disaster.

The word ‘disaster’ is a power word that conjures up thoughts of foreshadowing and tension in the reader.

Practice circling the last word in each sentence, paragraph and scene in your book and see what you have. If you find a common or predictable word or phrase, change it to a power word. That’s what I’ve been working on and it’s already making a big difference.

2.Try using Anaphora in your sentences. This is where you repeat a word or phrase at the beginning of three(or more) clauses or sentences. The first three words or phrases that you repeat in a row builds tension.

That’s what Brenda Novak did in her book Stop Me.

She had to get out. Before someone realized what she’d discovered. Before the man who’d locked her in here returned. Before she wound up rotting in a shallow grave like the corpse staring sightlessly back at her.

Those three sentences that begin with “before” build incredible tension in the reader and makes you want to read faster so you can see what’s going to happen next.

Anaphora is great to use to enhance a feeling, a thought or a point. There’s great rhythm and power when you use this editing technique to build tension in your story.

To practice adding anaphora to my manuscript, I’ve created a new blank document and I do a copy and paste of the paragraphs or sentences where I this editing technique would work. Try it out. You might be surprised at how well it works.

3.Practice using Asyndeton in your phrases. This is where you cut out conjunctions – for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, either, neither – between words and phrases. Usually, it happens in a list of three or more.

When you use Asyndeton it makes your sentence or paragraph sound more climatic.

For example, Suzanne Collins uses it when she shares backstory in The Hunger Games.

He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained.

You can see there’s no ‘and/or/so’ used in the above sentence. It does build momentum in the sentence.

4.Try using Polysyndeton in a few sentences. This editing technique uses many conjunctions. For example, use the words ‘and’ or ‘or’ several times in the same sentence without using any commas between them. Doing this packs an emotional wallop for the reader.

For example: He ran for miles and miles and miles.

If you took out the last four words, the sentence wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

An example from the book I’m editing, Anchoring Annaveta.

Whoever was at the door knocked and knocked and knocked, but no one answered.

That’s another idea to practice when you edit your book.

I hope you find these 4 ideas useful as you edit your book.

I think these unique ways to create tension and build excitement, have already made my book more interesting.

I’m practicing and experimenting with these editing ideas too. It’s definitely been an eye-opener on how to write a book that will grab the reader so they don’t let go until they’ve read the end.

That’s what all us authors want, right? 🙂

What are some editing ideas you’ve found helpful? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments – we can help each other!

 

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6 Practical Areas of Growth for Writers in 2016

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I’ve been going through my list of areas I need to grow in as a writer for 2016 and I’ve realized that there are many areas for me to focus.

As I read through my own list, I thought maybe other writers would find my own list helpful as they sort through their own.

So here’s what I’m working through in my own writing and creativity process this year.

6 practical areas of growth

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6 Practical Areas of Growth for Writers in 2016

Just like many of you, I’ve chosen to get more serious about my writing this year. I’ve loved writing in past years, but too many times I would get sidetracked by some shiny new thing and would begin that.

Honestly, this has been a big area of growth for me personally and as a writer.

Too many times before, I would panic and somehow think I wasn’t doing enough, so in my fear I would chase something else(insert ‘new book/course/website’ here).

I’ve realized(at last), that I need to make a change – maybe you do too? If you are wanting to get more serious about your writing, I hope you consider adding these 6 practical changes to how you structure your writing process this year.

To be more deliberate in your writing habits, there are some changes to consider so you are more effective as a writer and Authorpreneur. These are the changes I’m making this year that I hope you find useful as you rethink your own writing journey.

1. Be dedicated to your creative work. This is where you get to choose, as a writer, to commit to writing the story you’ve dreamed of publishing. If storytelling is what inspires you, then don’t settle for low expectations and small dreams. Seth Godin in his amazing book The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? writes, “The path that’s available to each of us is neither reckless stupidity nor endless compliance. No, the path that’s available to us is to be human, to do art, and to fly higher than we’ve been taught is possible.”

2.Choose each day to improve your writing craft. This takes step #1 a little further. Beyond committing to writing, choose to: 1)read 15 minutes every day on some part of the craft of writing 2)regularly watch movies and write down the story structure 3)practice writing every day.

3.Simplify how you capture ideas and organize your to-do list. As writers, each of us are multi-taskers and it’s too easy to forget things we need to do or to simply not have a place where we can write down ideas as they come to us. I used to try to keep everything in my head – and I was losing ideas and forgetting important items on my to-do list. Now I have added Evernote to my iPhone as well as I can sync Evernote to my computer too. Another great app(for your smartphone) to write down your ideas and your to-do-list  is Todoist(free). I write down ideas for books, blog posts or generally what needs to get done and it’s so helpful. It doesn’t matter what type of system you use, but you need something. It’s much too easy to forget:)

4.Decide on specific and measurable writing goals for yourself. Choose what you want to write and publish this year and set S.M.A.R.T. goals for yourself. I found this older post by Dean Wesley Smith, has many great ideas to help writers with goal setting.

5.Double check that your books are available in a wide range of digital markets. This is important. You don’t want to rely on just one retailer for readers to buy your books(ie. Amazon). Throw your net wide and publish on Amazon, Kobo, iBookstore, and for everything else you could use Smashwords or Draft2Digital to send your book to many other retailers. Give yourself the gift as an author of getting your books everywhere you can… you’ll be glad you did.

6.Focus on building your list of readers and your tribe. Growth as an authorpreneur comes from really two main areas: 1)writing more books  and 2)focussing on growing your home base – your website. For both your books and your website it’s important to have an email signup so people can connect with you. Also, on the last page of your book, include a link to a signup page for your readers, so they can continue to receive your blog posts and new book releases. This is really the #1 thing as writers and everything else you do should point back to it.

What are some areas you want to grow in as a writer this year? Please comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts! 🙂

 

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