Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Are You Stuck?

Are you stuck? Is something not quite right about your story? That’s where I was until I found my voice, which I mentioned in Monday’s post. However, now that said voice has been discovered, I need to basically start over. Again. If I didn’t like my characters so much and enjoy their story, I’d scrap the book, but I can’t. I need to give it a fair shot.

However, I’ve learned my way of plotting is flawed. I was unable to see plot holes with my method, so I needed something else. Tomorrow, I’ll share what my secret is, but first, I want to hear yours. How do you ensure you don’t have plot holes? Are you confident everything has been resolved in the end and that you haven’t left anything hanging? Are your characters fully developed? Have they grown? If not, or if you’re not sure, stop by tomorrow. I may have something that can help you…

9 comments:

  1. Anxious for tomorrow's comments since I am starting NaNoWriMo on Sunday. Hoping you can keep me from some pitfalls in my plotting.
    Diane

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  2. I'm still working on plot. I can tell I haven't got the instincts nailed down yet, so I switched to short stories and novellas while I work on it.

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  3. I'll be interested to see your advice tomorrow. My very unofficial method is scribbling post it notes that say "Don't forget to wrap this this and this up". Not so scientific

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  4. I'm a huge plotter and developer of my characters before writing. Of course I try to leave room for all of the twists and turns that naturally happen as we write. But with a big plan, I feel like I'm getting to my destination without losing my way!

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  5. Outlining helps keep those plot lines tight and pot holes filled. :)

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  6. I've found when I get toward the end of my book it's best to write out all the things I've left to resolve. Mostly it's just scribblings in my notepad that probably make little sense to anyone but me but I go through one by one and make sure they're all checked off before the book is complete.

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  7. I say scrap it. I did this to my last novel and it ended up being SOOOO much better. Just start over, now that you've found the voice and go from there...

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  8. Diane: I'm not sure this will be able to help you much for NaNoWriMo because the process takes a month. However, you can always go back and do the exercices after NaNoWriMo is over. There's a second part to the book for manuscripts that are 50% complete or more.

    Roni and Stephanie: That's what I've done too, but still missed some things. Not so much in not wrapping things up, but holes I didn't know were there.

    Jody: Nice to see a fellow plotter.

    Angie: Apparently, you have to know how to outline properly because I still had holes in mine.

    Chantal: I'm tossing a lot of it, but the good stuff will stay because it still works with my voice and is a great story. At least, I think so. ;)

    Lynnette Labelle

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  9. Interesting...your journey sounds alot like mine. I wrote a women's fiction...that could probably fall into romantic comedy, romantic suspense, somewhat chicklitty at times... and I feel like my voice was very strong in that. But then when that was done and didn't get any agently love, I put it aside and started a paranormal romance...which also is leaning more toward women's fiction now, with humor.

    And yet the stories that call to me are dark. But every time I write dark, I end up funnying it up somehow.

    I think I know my voice, but I do have trouble with plot points. I get very frustrated trying to braid things together and infuse conflict. That's probably my weakness, and I'm interested to see what you've found out.

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