My notes from the Southern California Writers' Conference.
• Plotting can help alleviate excessive re-writes.
• Set milestones to hit (road trip analogy)
• Build plot twists into each milestone, build empathy for characters
• Pantsing enables you to get it down as fast as possible
• Backstory (side trips) helps fill in ‘road trip’
• Turning the characters loose can change the course of a book (despite your best outlining/planning)
• If you want someone to read your book, you have to be willing to hear what they have to say about it
• People can teach you how to write, but in the end you just have to write.
• Risks to both plotting and pantsing—plotting can create too much structure, make the story seem too pre-planned. The ‘life’ of free thought disappears in structured thought. How do you amble while staying on track and not wandering off?
• Conflict drives the story, not the characters.
• Story-telling “beatsheet” in Excel
• Writer’s block – keep a positive outlook. Write through it or work on another story. Just KEEP GOING!
• Figure out what works for you. Beat sheets, flash cards.
• Take risks—don’t worry about what the reader thinks
• Don’t neglect your fact-checking, people live to nitpick. But don’t include TOO much. Just make it sound plausible.
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