Week 2 of National Novel Writing Month—and it already feels like an entire month! This week, I’ve written thousands of words, discovered a writing strategy to keep me on track and am surprised by how well this story is shaping (even though several rounds of edits are in my future).
So, what have I been up to this week when it comes to My NaNoWriMo?
Six years—and here I go again!
True fear is hard to convey, especially when writing a scary story. Sure, you can state that your character feels fearful, but fear is an art form better shown than told. And merely repeating the words “fear” and “dread” and “horror” and “panic” and “fright” and “alarm” and “scare” isn’t going to cut it.
You could go with the classics of rattling chains, splattering of blood and tormented groans. But that’s all been done before.
What you want is to chill your readers to the core. You want to see goosebumps. You want to haunt their nightmares.
Congratulations! You have decided to embark on writing the first draft of your story.
There’s a good chance that you’ve been on this journey before. You tried writing another story that didn’t go as planned. And by planned, I mean writing the story from start to finish.
That’s why you’re reading my blog post. Because you want to get it right this time.
This is a blog post that both pantsers and planners can get behind—so that no one gets behind during National Novel Writing Month.
It’s an age-old question. What came first: the chicken or the egg? The plot or the protagonist?
What if the shaping of the story and your main character happens at the same time?
