Do You Need a Story Sprint?

By

Scott D. Parker

Sometimes you just have to sprint.

I’ve been writing a novel for the entire year. Restarted on New Year’s Day with an end date on 1 July. We all know novel writing is a marathon, an endurance test of stamina and devotion.

But last weekend, a fun thing happened. I was inspired to write a short story. A week ago yesterday, at work, I encountered a gentleman who works for my company. I’d heard about him, how his mind works, and how interacts with my fellow employees. In some ways, he’s on a different level altogether.

In the course of my introduction, he dropped a quote about how he views one of his past times: amateur boxing. I’m not a boxer, have next to zero clue about it, but the quote captivated me. I was so enthralled that I imagined a scene with a fictional character inspired by my co-worker. Over the course of the two writing sessions, I wrote a 3,800-word short story while not touching the novel.

And I loved it.

Being on a Novel Marathon, I chip away at the end goal, day by day, writing session by writing session. Actually, the better analogy would be I shovel words onto the large pile, knowing one day, I’ll get to “The End.”

That quickie short story? Like a balm. It actually sent a charge surging through my imagination on the novel. It also spurred ideas about taking this short story and treating it as chapter one of another novel.

But I have to finish this one first.

Butterfly Moments

by

Scott D. Parker

How do you know when something you’ve written or planned out is good?

That’s my question for the weekend, folks. Thanks!

Okay, I’m kidding, but it’s an honest question, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

For me, it has something to do with the butterflies in my stomach and the racing pulse.

This week, as I’ve been planning out my next book, I’m still doing the notecard method I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. My routine is up at 5:30 to write/prepare/think for an hour before I have to prep for the day job. In that time, with no music, TV, or anything other than my cup of coffee (in my awesome Halloween mug!), I visualize the story unfolding. 

With a schedule like this, I have already spent the last day idly mulling various aspects of the story. I’ll write them down in my comp book and then get started writing the notecards, one at a time. Oh, I’ll spread out a dozen or so to remind myself where I am in the story. 

There were a couple of days this week when, as I’m seeing the movie in my head, I can actually feel the butterflies in my stomach flying around. I start writing faster (and sloppier), trying to get down all the details. 

In other moments, I can literally feel my pulse pounding in my wrist and arms as I’m writing. I realized it’s not just the coffee, but the story that’s making me excited.

Will others find those scenes exciting? I hope so. It does depend on me writing compelling prose to suck in other readers, but I’m comforted knowing that if folks like the stuff I like and *I’m* digging these scenes, there’s a good chance others will, too.

Time will tell. 

But I love those butterfly moments.

The Humble Index Card

by

Scott D. Parker

Like many a wordsmith, I've tried multiple ways to get a story out of my head and onto paper. I've outlined, planned, and written stories without and outline. I've even tried the index card method, but it has been a long time since I employed this method.

But I'm trying it again with my current book.

What is the Index Card Method?

The way I do it, one index card equals one scene. It's not necessarily a chapter a scene, but I know that some scenes will be long enough to be a chapter. I've read a few books in recent years that have something like 125 chapters and I know that every scene is a chapter. I'm not a huge fan of short-as-a-page chapters. I prefer to group them together into larger chapters. You?

Anyway, the beauty of index cards is the ability to see the story laid out on your table or on a corkboard. You can lay them out any way you, but I've done mine this way just about every time I use this method. The scene number is in the upper left. The upper right is the setting, while the middle top line is the POV character. In this case, Keene is my main character. 

In the body of the card, I list the action. I am using a blue ballpoint pen for the first time in forever. Not sure why, but I started that way and I'm running with it. Every time a character appears on stage for the first time, I use all caps and underline the names. You can see that listed here with a pair of HPD detectives. 

For this card in particular, in pencil, I wrote a question to myself. It's a guide for my thinking about the story and whether or not this scene is actually needed. If it's not, I can discard and not bother writing it.

With the "NEED" comment, that's also a note to myself. When I get around to writing this chapter in a few days, I'll need to work in that little comment. 

The "EXPAND" comment refers to the 1.0 version of this book that's already written. I'll likely not simply rewrite/retype this chapter when I get to it, but I'll revise what's already written in my 1.0 manuscript. This note, in red ink, serves as a reminder to expand on something that's already in the text. 

Every morning, after I've poured my coffee, I'll lay out the existing cards and move forward. I'm up to scene 27 so I don't necessarily have to lay out the first dozen scenes or so, but I lay out the last dozen. I'll follow my thought process and then start writing new scenes. I have a comp book in which I write additional notes, mainly about structure and overall thinking. Together, I have an ongoing mindmap-type thing that I can re-read along the way. Also, when this book is done, I can re-visit all my thought processes, especially if they veer away from the index cards.

Yeah, it can happen.

Do you use index cards? If so, how.

More Writing Lessons from Pulp Writer Frank Gruber

By
Scott D. Parker

Last week, I reviewed THE PULP JUNGLE by Frank Gruber and how modern writers could learn from one of the most prolific authors of the pulp era. Reading through all the true struggles he endured to bust through and actually make it in 1934, I realized that I, in 2018, with a full-time day job, have it pretty good as I work at my writing craft and pursue my own goals.

But Gruber’s odyssey as a writer can also speak to us writers today. What follows are some key facts and quotes I took away from his book.

From August 1932 (when he arrived in New York) until June 1934 (when he sold the story that enabled him to break big in the pulp fiction market), Gruber wrote 174 “pieces” which totaled 620,000 words, all on a Remington manual typewriter. He called himself a sloppy writer, so he had to retype everything after he corrected the manuscript. The fiction spanned the gamut: Sunday School stories, detective stories, love stories, spicy stories, sports stories, etc. Those words were not solely fiction. He wrote tons of articles often on topics he had to learn on the fly. In the book, Gruber lists the dollar amounts he earned for various pieces. Even in 1932 dollars, those meager sales didn’t add up to a living wage.

My takeaway: Yeah, he had it bad, real bad. I don’t. Not really.


The Big Break came in 1934 in one of those great true tales you hear. Gruber gets a call on Friday afternoon. Operator #5 was going to press the next day but was a story short. Could Gruber write a 5500-word story overnight? In his retelling, he started at 8pm and had a character. Two hours later, he had his leading lady. By 3:30am, he had his big finale…but still needed a plot thread to weave it all together. He got it, and delivered the 18 pages by 9am. He didn’t hear back for a few days. He started to worry, so he called on the editor. Oh, he was told, we pay on Friday. Pay? Yup, the story was purchased. And then he was asked for another. According to Gruber, “I was ‘in.’”

My takeaway: sometimes, your best work can emerge out of your brain and through your fingers in whole cloth. Don’t be afraid of going with it.


His income in 1934 was less than $400 ($7,500 in 2018 money). In 1935, he made $10,000 ($188,000).

My takeaway: Yikes!


Even after his Big Break, Gruber worked steadily and for higher paying markets. The key factor here was that Gruber never stopped working. Yes he had made it, but in those days, a writer was only as good as the next sale. So he kept working on stories, then branched out into novels, both detective stories as well as westerns. All the contacts he had made during the lean years paid dividends later on, including when he moved to Hollywood.

My takeaway: Always keep learning. Always maintain your contacts when you make them. You never know what will happen and with whom.


Frederick Faust, the real man behind the famous pen name “Max Brand,” trained himself to write 14 pages every day, year after year. It added up to 1,500,000 words of fiction per year. It took him 2 hours each day. Then he would often drink.

My takeaway: Constant writing and constant production will produce material you can sell. Keep at it. We may not all type as fast as Faust and we may not all have 2 hours in our days, but we do have an hour or so. The words will come, and they will come faster and easier the more you do it.


"There is equality of opportunity. There is no equality of talent." Gruber said that about the days of yore. With independent writer opportunities, the field is even more wide open.


The story of Frank Gruber’s professional life suggests that hard work, determination, and perseverance will enable a writer to hone the skills necessary to become a full-time writer. It also demonstrates that writers must recognize and seize opportunities when they present themselves. Don’t think you could write a story overnight (or Insert Your Own Personal Challenge)? Perhaps Gruber didn’t think he could do it either…until he said “yes”. And he delivered. Only then did he discover he could. Then he did it over and over again.

Lessons I've Learned About Publishing

(The writing advice comes at the end.)

I grew up knowing there were things girls couldn't do, because they were girls.

I really wanted to take karate. The parental veto quashed that. Karate, I was told, wasn't for girls.

It's forgivable. It was a different time, and changing people's perspectives wasn't quite as easy. Small town people like us could live small town lives, surrounded by neighbors with the same skin color and back then, you kept your nose out of other people's business. Nobody told anyone how to raise their child. You could see a crying kid dragged down the road, being told to just wait until they got home, and people wouldn't interfere. It was nothing to spank a child in public.

It was nothing to rape a wife. I suppose legally it likely wasn't even possible to be charged with such an offense.

For all our alleged progress, sometimes it seems little has changed. Oh, laws have impacted the way kids are disciplined, but it comes to gender issues, one doesn't have to go far to see that women are still treated as inferior; consider the fact that women are more likely to be killed by a partner than men are, and that 1/3 of murdered women in the U.S. are killed by a current or former partner.

Overt and subtle sexism exists within the world of entertainment as well. A few years ago, it was gamergate:

Gamergate started with a man lashing out at his game developer ex-girlfriend through a blog post crafted to incite the Internet against her. The maelstrom of subsequent accusations and threats sent Zoe Quinn into hiding. The furor soon sucked in anyone associated with her and those who sought to defend her. Targets were barraged with hatred via email and social media. Their employers were pressured to fire them. Sometimes their home addresses were publicly disseminated. Harassers made fake 911 calls to dispatch SWAT teams to their targets’ houses. (Link)

Over the weekend, an editor was attacked for posting a selfie.

As my own Facebook friends are aware, I had an issue last week with someone who had submitted a story to Spinetingler Magazine. Despite the fact that our submission guidelines are clearly posted, this person sent an incomplete submission.

Now, our system is set up to send an automatic reply, and that automatic reply reiterates how important it is that story submissions be complete. It actually states that incomplete submissions may be deleted without notification and that they will not be considered for publication.

I thought I'd be nice and take a minute and email the writer to let them know that unfortunately, we couldn't consider the submission as it was and it had to be deleted, and advised them to refer to our submission guidelines. I mean, all they had to do was complete the submission and resend it.

Instead, I received this:

I took the rare move of sharing it on Facebook because I have privacy settings in place, and because the name was so generic that it didn't paint a target on anyone's back. After being told to shove Spinetingler up my ass, I wrote back and informed the individual that further correspondence from them would not be read. They have also been informed that they are banned from submitting to the magazine.

The response?

I have not written back to this individual since; however, they have continued to email Spinetingler. When they did not receive a personal reply, they changed their email address and emailed again.

And again.

I haven't read them in full, although while filing all the documents in case of pursuing legal harassment charges, I did notice I'd been called shit-for-brains.

Such a way with words. I mean, I must seriously regret not fawning all over this individual the minute they graced our inbox with their so-called writing.

In this midst of this, some possible blame was thrown my way on Facebook by someone who seemed to think that the person's behavior could potentially be excused if I hadn't expressed myself clearly.

Why should anyone ever have to open email that is this abusive? This person initiated contact with us. This person even admitted that they knew the submission guidelines and ignored them.

But it's my fault they started swearing at me?

Others speculated that the reason this person was acting that way was because I'm a woman. When I go online and see a Marvel comics editor being harassed for being a woman, it's hard not to think that's a reasonable conclusion.


Lawmakers don't seem to treat this issue seriously.

When discussion of online harassment exploded into the mainstream a few years ago after Gamergate, I thought it would mean change was on the horizon. Today, I can see these years have been an utter waste. A federal bill to punish “swatting” sits in limbo. Reddit is still convulsed in the same battle with itself that it’s been fighting since 2014. A handful of bad actors are permanently banned from Twitter (though white nationalist Richard Spencer was un-banned this week). (Link)

Where does that leave us? Well, Spinetingler has always been a labor of love. The odd bit of money generated hasn't come close to covering costs of investment over the years.

And let's be real; nobody wants to pay for these things. We talk about artists being expected to give their work away for exposure, and I've experienced that as a writer as well. However, with Spinetingler, there are people reaching into their pockets and others banking off hours upon hours of time to keep things going.

We've watched ezines and magazines fold one by one, and from the glory days of online ezines promoting crime fiction, few of us are left.

We can celebrate being the first venue to publish a number of writers who've gone on to great success. James Oswald is one; Mindy Tarquini is another.

But the inference from someone that there was any justification at all for this person's continued harassment had me start thinking it was time to pull the plug after 12 years. I have my 9-5 responsibilities. I have a family. I have my own writing, and that's the main thing that gives out when I work on Spinetingler. While I'm certainly sad to see places shut down and don't want to pull the plug, there's an issue with how professional women are treated, and the backlash over a Marvel comics editor's selfie is proof of that.

If anyone's looking for a woman who may be occasionally seen but not heard, they've got the wrong woman here.

I don't want to believe that in 2017, women still need to have a platform extended to them because they're less than equal, but a lot of things lately have demonstrated that's the reality of the world we live in.

Do I ban books by male authors from being reviewed?

Do I prepare a female-only issue of Spinetingler?

This issue that I'm working on is a tester. If it can't generate ad or sales revenue to break even on the costs of paying writers and artists involved (no pay to editors, no contribution to website costs) then it may be the last we ever do. We've been toying with an option to put it into print, but I'm reluctant to do that because I'm not sure we'll be continuing next year.

Working as an editor has schooled me as a writer in ways I never could have imagined when I started out. What I learned that every writer should know before they submit material anywhere:

1. ALWAYS follow the submission guidelines.

2. You are not the exception to the rules.

3. Editors are very busy. Don't email them every few weeks to check on the status of your submission. (I have writing I submitted to publishers six months ago that I still haven't followed up on.)

4. Professionalism and courtesy will go a long, long way in the publishing business.

5. Editors will reject stories because a writer is difficult to work with.

6. Writers unwilling to make corrections to their work or consider developmental editing suggestions earn a reputation of being difficult to work with. (See #5.)

7. The publishing world is small. Chances are, if you've make a horrible impression on one editor, they've told at least three others.

I referenced this writer being banned. Spinetingler has a shitlist. I'd bet cold, hard cash that other publications do as well.

Editors don't put rules and guidelines in place because they're anal or because they enjoy tormenting writers. They do it to ensure that writers have the best chance of success with their submission. I learned years ago to include strict formatting guidelines because I accepted a story that wasn't properly formatted. The writer had used a hard return at the end of each line like a typewriter, and that meant that all of those hard returns had to be extracted... Only they refused to do it.

I gave up hours of my time to do it, and in the end, after talking to some other editors, I realized I had made a mistake by coddling this writer and wasting my own time. Any writer who won't correct their material will be unaccepted.

I hold firm on that to this day. Occasionally, I still get to read a story that blows me away and I instantly love it, but within what we accept there are a number of stories that went through a period of time where they were simply under consideration. They may have been similar to another story in terms of theme. There may be technical writing issues that need to be corrected. Error-free and original stories will always rise to the top, but many stories simply just edge another story that's comparable out because we have to make decisions.

That's taught me that for every piece of writing I send out, there are a hundred others who've submitted and are fighting for the same slot. The odds are against even those of us who've been traditionally published. Nothing is guaranteed to anyone in this industry.

Whether you're a man or a woman, you have to work for what you get.

And if you really are a sexist asshole, you'd best keep that on lockdown while dealing with professionals in the industry.

Writing With Circles - Two Great Resources

By
Scott D. Parker

This was a great week for writing advice.

First up was the latest episode of Rocking Self Publishing, one of the essential podcasts if you want to learn what's going in the world of independent publishing. Host Simon Whistler interviewed author Jacqueline Garlick. Over the course of the hourlong discussion, two things emerged.

One was her increase in writing speed. She took inspiration from Chris Fox’s 21-day novel challenge. She attempted the fear and ended up with a first draft in about 15 days. She knew the manuscript would be reworked over subsequent drafts, but getting the story out of her head in a short amount of time was eye opening. She ended up completing 10 manuscripts in various genres last year.

Impressive. Most impressive.

Ever a student of the writing process, Garlick attended multiple conferences and met lots of other writers. She also taught writing. After sifting through all of this information, she conceived the idea of a plot laid out on a clock. The opening is up to 3pm, the middle is from 3 to 9 (with the midpoint naturally at 6pm), the climax from 9 to 11, and the final denouement from 11 to 12. It’s a neat way to visualize a story that was new to me.

If Garlick’s interview solidified some of my own thinking regarding writing pace, then an article Joe Lansdale write really drove home some key points in the writing process. Published in The Strand, Joe’s “The Rules of Being a Professional Writer” proved to be quite the peek behind the curtain. The obvious rule of reading a lot and writing a lot is again reiterated for the thousandth time. It's in the rest of the guidelines that true sneaks out.

Again, an obvious one: be excited about what you write. If you're not dying to get to the next scene, neither will your readers. Keep your day job until you know you can make it as a writer. That one hits home with me, a day job holder who writes at 4:30 am.

The second circular analogy about writing came from this article. Lansdale writes thus: “I don’t plot, at least not consciously. I go to bed, and my subconscious works on it. When I awake, the work is there, and when I finish for the day, I know from experience my subconscious will fill me up with the next day’s work. Now and again it lets me down, but that is rare. For me, working this way, I get to enjoy the creation of a story from soup to nuts, and the passion that goes with it. Some writers need a road map, some a compass. I’m the latter.”

This year, to date, I have not plotted out the two novels I’ve worked on. That's new for me...and fun! I have a general idea of the ending, but I’ve been experiencing the story alongside my main character. Sure, there may be a moment when I know that my hero is going to discover something, but more often than not, my creative voice just landed something on the story I didn’t see coming. My hero is surprised. I just have a big goofy grin on my face and marvel at how great it is to be a writer.

Lansdale's piece just landed itself on my all-time best writing advice list. 

Here are the two links. Enjoy and learn.

http://rockingselfpublishing.com/garlick2/

https://strandmag.com/the-rules-of-being-a-professional-writer/

Tracking Your Productivity So You’ll Know How Long a Story Takes

By

Scott D. Parker

If someone were to ask you how long it took you to write a story or a novel, would you be able to tell them?

In the business world, we’re often asked to present an estimate for how long it will take to complete a project. That estimate is can sometimes be the one aspect of the estimate that either awards the project or kills it. I’m a technical writer by day, and I’ve been doing it for 17 years. Even now, I sometimes struggle to offer a detailed estimate based on the given parameters that you know will change in the course of the project. Only time and experience and the number of years I’ve been doing that kind of work has enabled me to come close to a proper estimate given a particular set of criteria.

This year, I decided to apply that mentality to my fiction writing. I’ve toyed with the idea of tracking my hours before—only once, actually—but decided it was time to do it again, this time for the long haul. I’ve got a number of challenging goals ahead for my writing life in 2017 and I think it best to know just how long it takes for me—a full-time day job person and, by default, a part-time fiction writer—to write a novel or a short story.

I began the new novel on New Year’s Day. It was developed from a story I set aside while I focused on other stories, but I’ve now returned to it. The only time I have most days is the one hour starting at 4:35am. Every other Friday I have off. Throw in Saturdays and Sundays and I’m looking at four days a week with one hour to write and three days in which I have at least an hour, if not more. Some of the workdays I have slide a few hundred more words in, but, by and large, I’m writing this book at an hour per day.

What am I tracking? Naturally Words Per Day and Words Cumulative. I have to know how much I’m writing. Beyond that, time. I track the time in minutes, in hours, and in cumulative hours. With those pieces of data, I can get my spreadsheet to calculate the Average Word Count Per Hour and a rolling Seven-Day Average.

What has all of this data revealed to me? As of yesterday, thirteen days after starting the new book, I’m up to 33,000 words. Throwing out the first two days of writing (since it was filled with material already written), my best word count day was Thursday. I had jury duty and a few extra hours to write. Yesterday was pretty good, too, since it was an off day. My lowest, ironically, was last Saturday, but I had a bunch of household duties to perform. And the total time used to date is 18.33 hours.

You want to know the real kicker? My average word count per hour for the work days is around 1966. Yesterday and Thursday, I produced more words, but my average was 1801 and 1824 respectively. How’s that for odd? More time to write, certainly more words, but the pace was off. My wife has a theory that I subscribe to: in my 4:30am regularly time, I have a hard stop at 5:30 to get ready for work and get my boy ready for school. Likely my creative brain is firing on all cylinders during that time.

What is the end result of this data? Simply this: as a full-time day jobber and part-time writer (so far), I’ll be able to have the first draft of a novel completed in a month. Yes, it’ll need work after that, but the draft will be done. Projecting forward, it will be likely that I could have a completed first draft of approximately 55,000 words in about 30+ hours. 

Now, with that kind of data, I’ll be able to predict how much time other novels will take. I’ll still need some additional data, but having that in my hand reminds me of the cold hard fact of writers like me who are not as lucky to be writing fiction full time: Yes It Can Be Done. And with relatively little time taken away from other things. And if I can do it, so can you.

How about y’all? Do y’all track your time?

Plotting Via the Capri Method

By
Scott D. Parker

If the two camps of writers consist of pantsers and plotters, call me more of a capri.

Back in 2005, I got asked a question by a co-worker/aspiring writer: “Will you read chapters of my book?” My answer was simple: “Sure, if you read mine.”

Crap. Now I had to produce. I had nothing on paper and needed a direction. Knowing nothing really about writing other than what it took to write my thesis, I bought a comp book, different color pens, and a stack of note cards. I then proceeded to brainstorm about the story I wanted to write. I had in mind a single scene, but I didn’t know where it went. I knew it wasn’t first, so I wrote a bunch of scenes that lead up to it (it was a big reveal) and then the outro from it. Each card was a scene, color-coded per POV character, and, after I had the whole story outlined, I started writing.

What was good about that process is that each night at 10pm—the only time I had to write—I picked up the next card and wrote just that scene. Since I knew where I came from and where the story was going, I could foreshadow or refer back to other things. The only stumbling block I got was from my critique group: “Hey, what are the other bad guys doing during all of this?” I told them and they said to write it down and put it in the book. I did and I finished my first novel using the outline/plotter way.

So, the next seven years, I tried NOT doing it that way. I finished nothing.

Lesson learned. Last year, after I wrote a novella—my first finished piece of any length; you’ll see it in 2015—I needed something else to continued my writing streak. I picked up an unfinished novel and wrote the next chapter. Liking the story again, I sat down and remembered how well the index card method worked for me back in 2005. You know, you dance with them that brung ya. Thus, before writing another word, I outlined the story. Granted, I didn’t get to the end. I only outlined to the midpoint, but I had my road map. Boom, I was off like a flash. Once I got to said midpoint, taking a few deviations along the way, I outlined the rest of the story.

Again, a few deviations were met with pauses and more outlining, but basically I realized that, for me, an outline/scene breakdown/roadmap is the way I write best.

Proof? I finished that novel.

Then wrote another novel (starting the very next day) with the same method.

Then wrote another novella (longer this time, 34,000 words) with the same method.

Then wrote another novella of 29,000 words with the same method.

Then wrote a short novel (approximately 60,000 words) with the same method that I’ll finish this weekend or next week.

Lesson learned: I am a plotter. With the caveat that I freely let myself drift off course if the story dictates it. But here’s the key factor for me: If I drift, I still plot. Let me explain.

I have a bunch of scenes mapped out, either to the end or some point before the end. Doesn’t matter. In the course of the actual storytelling, characters start to get some of their own personality and not just be cardboard cutouts being moved by me. When the story takes a turn I didn’t foresee, I take a step into that new path. But only a step. I then stop and ponder the new direction in light of what I’ve already written, what I’ve already planned, and then decide if the new path is worth taking. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

This process, while it may sound clean, can be rather messy. But it seems to work for me. When I do action scenes, I actually have to choreograph the scene and break it down into smaller chunks. But I get there.

For an example of how this works for me, here’s a shot of the current WIP’s index cards/post-it notes, etc. in my writing room.

• A - Initial set of index cards before I went with post-it notes. My goal is to have each corkboard have two separate stores, the one I’m writing and the one that’s coming up next. I’m not there yet.
• B - Post-it notes on large piece of paper. I laid that paper out on a table, drew a line from beginning to end, and started pasting scenes. They’re color-coded but I’m not sure you can see it.
• C - Post-it notes on 11x17 paper. This is just the finale scenes since I wanted to be portable and write elsewhere in the house. Also, that’s my PC (I write on a Mac) where I have my dictation software. When I’m brainstorming the index cards, I’m live on Dragon Naturally Speaking talking…well, to myself and the program records everything. Nifty.
• D - I diagramed one of my favorite novels, breaking it down into scenes, chapters, plots/sub-plots, etc. just to see how it was written. Enlightening.
• E - Current calendar of events as I prepare for 2015. More on this in a future post.
• F - More sheets of paper taped on doors. This is my big list of plot ideas based on series characters.
• G - (far lower left) - That is my shelf of manuscripts. I have them separated by series. That one in particular is the third novella.

I love talking strategy and processes. I use Scrivener exclusively to port most of this stuff into electronic format. As I mentioned in a previous post, I also copy/paste my active WIP into Google Docs so I can write on the go.

What are your favorite techniques?

Always Be Writing

by

Scott D. Parker

Back in the day, when mass market paperbacks were first invented, I imagine there were a lot of people who suddenly realized “Wow, I can take the book I’m reading and stick it in my back pocket and carry it around with me.” The portability of a paperback meant that avid readers could always read, in line at the grocery store, the post office, wherever. Same for the boys who fought in World War II. Paperbacks were light and took up relatively little space. It was a good thing.

Fast forward to today’s smartphone and iPods and tablets. For avid readers, being able to carry a literal library of reading material is one of the best things for readers who don’t mind reading on a screen. Now, with all the apps like Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc., we readers never are without a book. Moreover, for those of us with ereaders at home, our progress is synced along the way. Throw in audiobooks and this is truly a golden age for readers.

I’ve been both kinds of person in my lifetime. I used to carry paperbacks in my pocket, I used to read on my Palm Pilot (!), and now I enjoy having my iPod Touch G5 with me all the time. It’s remarkable and nothing new.

What is new is on the writer’s side of things. If you’ve read some recent posts, you’ll know that I have a day job and on five-minute breaks at said job, I pull out my iPod and write a few paragraphs of my story. In fact, I tweeted this week a milestone in that type of writing:

997. The number of words I wrote today on my iPod Touch in seven 5-min. breaks at the day job. Yes, it can be done. #AlwaysBeWriting

I used the hashtag “AlwaysBeWriting.” I’m not a huge hash tagger and others have already used that tag and my subconscious just reminded me. Don’t care. But it made me think of my recent activities as I’m walking around this earth with this little computer in my pocket and I realized something remarkable: I was pulling the iPod out not to read something but to advance my current book.

Was I really? What did I do at Kroger last weekend? Hmm, I wrote a few sentences. What did I do last month when I took the boy to the dentist? Wrote. Standing around the kitchen waiting for the beef to be browned and the water to boil? Wrote. During a commercial break while watching “Face/Off” or “Project Runway?” Discuss which artist was the best and whom to send home. Gotcha, but you see my point.

For me, having this little device has enabled me to always have my active *first draft* manuscript with me. If I have two or five or ten minutes free during the day, I can choose to write and I often do.

Every little sentence gets you closer to The End, even if those sentences are written while waiting in line somewhere you’d never think you could write. That’s what I meant by the hashtag #AlwaysBeWriting.

Am I alone in this new realization? Are y’all always writing?

A Year From Now…

by

Scott D. Parker

I have a printed quotation thumbtacked to my corkboard here in my office. It reads “A year from now, you may have wished you had started today.”

I can’t say for sure when I found and printed that quote, but I do remember a choice I made a year ago this month. I could be pithy or witty or funny, but it boiled down to a simple acknowledgement: You have not been writing for long enough. Time to start again.

It was 1 May 2013 that I started writing again. It was in fits and starts that first month, reminding my fingers and my brain what to do--actually they never forgot. I was just too lazy. Yeah, that last thing’s the truth, without the shiny candy coating. As May 2013 went on, I worked on what was supposed to be a short story. It ended up blossoming into a novella, the first of a new series character.

Looking back on the year that I’ve just lived, there have been some incredible highs: I wrote two novels, back-to-back! I wrote consistently! I created some new characters I really like! I can also recognize the not-so-highs (I refuse to call them lows): I realized my limitations. I realized the things I need to improve on to write better. I realized I need to always have a plan for my writing. Along the way, I kept word count totals (269,792 words written in 2013) and I had that incredible writing streak: 255 consecutive days of writing.

When I look back on my past year, I am very proud of myself. I can remember making the decision that 1 May 2013 would be the day I started again. Ironically, these past couple of months, I’ve again fallen into a non-writing slump, but I started again on May First. Looking back, I like how far I’ve come. Looking ahead, I now project new thoughts and goals on this new “Writing Year.” (I just thought that up; wonder if that’s a new thing for me. If so, then I get two New Year’s Days per calendar year!) If Writing Year 2013 was the year in which I reminded myself I can write and demonstrated I can do it consistently, then Writing Year 2014 will be dedicated to improving my craft, producing more content, and making it available to the reading public.*

If you are on the fence on some creative endeavor, let today be the day you start. A year from now, you will definitely thank yourself.

TODAY IS FREE COMIC BOOK DAY. Find a store near you and find a new story to enjoy. I'm heading out to The Pop Culture Company here in Houston. 

*I know that goals are best achieved when they are enumerated and spelled out. I know that, but I need a bit more time before I make them public. I think I know the complete set of goals, but need to make sure they fit into a coherent and realistic plan.

Aaron Allston's Writing Guidebook: An Enlightening Look at the Plotting Process

by

Scott D. Parker

A couple weeks back, I wrote about one of the rabbit trails we all take through the shrubbery that is the internet. The thing at the end of my trail was the wonderful happenstance discovery of Aaron Allston’s book, Plotting: A Novelist’s Workout Guide. For those who may have missed it, the following text from the opening page is what hooked me:

Do any of these statements sound familiar?

• "I come up with good ideas, but I can't develop them into complete novels." [Yes! That’s me!]
• "I'm going along fine with my novel, and then it just stops. I can't get it moving again." [Again, yeah!]
• "I know what happens from start to finish, but I can't figure out what it's really about." [Sometime, yeah.]
• "I know what's supposed to happen and what it's supposed to mean, but my story is just not working." [Still me, a bit]
• "My novel is missing something and I can't figure out what it is." [Sure.]

If any of the above applies to you, Plotting: A Novelist's Workout Guide can help.

Well, I’m here to tell you that I’ve finished this book and it is exactly what I needed. You see, I’m stuck on a story that I’m writing and I’m trying to figure out which way it needs to go (bullet point #2). Moreover, bullet point #1 is a thing I struggle with as well.

Allston breaks down his book into two large sections. The third section is the appendix. Part one is theory. Here is where he lays out, in detail, many of the concepts most of us already know: What is a scene, the basics of plotting, the four elements of plots, etc. But where this book differs from others I’ve read is in two very important ways. One, Allston gives you exercises! Yes, you have homework. Some of these exercises might be basic, but for a beginning writer (or one who might be stuck), they are fantastic. There are exercises in each chapter (four chapters per section) and, while they start out as random exercises, they gradually turn to your own work. That’s a nice way of coming at your novel--in-progress with something akin to outside eyes.

But where this book really earns it’s keep is the sample novel. To illustrate his points, Allston uses lots of on-the-fly examples. Along the way, however, he starts a novel from scratch. He poses an idea for a story and takes it from idea all the way through two to three outlines! This was like a light bulb went off in my head. I’ve heard talk of outlining over and over and I could not get past the idea of the high school-type outline with Roman numerals. I was a bit ahead of the curve with my use of notecards, but seeing Allston ask the questions writers are suppose to ask, answer them, and then build his plot was so enlightening. Especially when he got to the outlining stage, just reading and trying to absorb all that is present in the outline is both daunting and exciting.

The book has done something I expected it to do: I couldn’t wait to finish it so I could start applying it’s teachings on my own work.

I mentioned this in my previous post mentioning this book, but Allston recently passed away. But he has left writers of all stages of development with a fantastic primer on how to plot and prepare for writing.

You can get the book via Amazon or at ArcherRat Publishing’s website (where you can get the epub or a PDF) If you head over there, Allston also posted some Author’s Notes where he examines the process he used to write a few of his short stories. If you get the Amazon Kindle version, you can highlight and annotate the book to your heart's content. I know I sure did. Afterwards, you can go and get your notes from the web and keep some of Allston's checklists on your desk while you write. Perfect!

This book, in its circuitous route, arrived at the time I most needed it. I'm now looking forward to applying Allston's processes in all my writing.

The Serendipitous Rabbit Trail

by

Scott D. Parker

The internet teems with rabbit trails. But sometimes, those rabbit trails can lead somewhere you never knew you wanted to go.

You know what I’m talking about. You go to the internet to look up something you need to know. You either find the answer right off the bat and sign off or, more likely, you find your answer and then see something else. You click on that other link which leads to yet another website. Before you know it, you’ve killed half an hour. Or more.

Recently, via Black Gate.com, I read about the passing of Aaron Allston. As much as I like Star Wars, I was unfamiliar with his name. I glanced at his birth date, gave myself a few moments to see if I really knew his name, realized I didn’t, and then moved on.  

Cut to a few days later. I’m reading through yet another list of articles at Black Gate and saw the cover of something called Doc Sidhe. It’s a Doc Savage pastiche. I had never heard of that book but, it being a Doc Savage-type thing, I quickly clicked on the link to read the entire article. Fancy my surprise that Doc Sidhe was written by Allston who, to me on that day, was the writer who had just passed away. Imagine my surprise.

Just wait. It gets better. Liking what I saw on the cover of Doc Sidhe, I followed the rabbit trail over to Amazon. My thought was to buy the ebook. I searched for “Doc Sidhe” and found only the paperback. No ebook. On a whim, I clicked on Allston’s name and there found the end of my rabbit trail.

I’ve gone on record regarding my challenges of, to date, getting an idea for a book from initial spark of imagination to a manuscript. I’ve proven that, once I have the idea and the structure, I can bust out a book. But I’ve been having imagination issues. Which is why I've started reading how writers do their thing.

So imagine my surprise when I saw the following book on Allston’s Amazon page: Plotting: A Novelist's Workout Guide. Hey, thought I, that’s kind of something I could use. Intrigued, I sent a sample to my Nook. Opening the Kindle-only ebook, I read the first page:

Do any of these statements sound familiar?

• "I come up with good ideas, but I can't develop them into complete novels." [Yes! That’s me!]
• "I'm going along fine with my novel, and then it just stops. I can't get it moving again." [Again, yeah!]
• "I know what happens from start to finish, but I can't figure out what it's really about." [Sometime, yeah.]
• "I know what's supposed to happen and what it's supposed to mean, but my story is just not working." [Still me, a bit]
• "My novel is missing something and I can't figure out what it is." [Sure.]

If any of the above applies to you, Plotting: A Novelist's Workout Guide can help.

Next thing I did? Immediately went back to Amazon and bought the ebook. Forget this sample thing. I knew I wanted this book.

And, so far (about 19% percent in--biggest peeve of Kindle = no page numbers!) I am already learning things, annotating like a crazy man. Better still is how Allston is taking all the instructions he writes about and creating a novel-in-progress, showing exactly how all of his instruction applies to real, live story.

I’ll report on this book when I finally reach the end, but, so far, it’s a excellent purchase. It's exactly the book I needed right now. And I owe it all to serendipity and, of course, to Mr. Allston. May he rest in peace. Thank you for writing this book.