Pantser or plotter? Do you write by the seat of the pants or from an outline? You need to do both. Here’s why. The process of writing a book manuscript requires both kinds of writing. Intense periods of writing uninterrupted in a generative flow experience and critical reflection on the narration as narrative. After some time and distance between you and your copy has passed, short bursts of structural analysis can advance the story. And that’s more important than your word count. You need to put in the butt-time on the manuscript but without concern for the reader’s comprehension the writer produces pages without them readied for publication. Spending time creating a multi-tiered outline of major (plot) points can help your organize but it isn’t a substitute for writing. And remember readers don’t enjoy PowerPoint presentations in print. Often times the structure emerges from the creative writing process. The question isn’t whether you’re a panster or a plotter. It’s whether you are doing both. Back and forth, a book goes through an iterative process of writing and rewriting. And you will reach points where you can’t see your work clearly. Sometimes you have not written what you think you have and it takes a reader to tell you something is not coming through clearly. You tweak it in so many tiny ways that reading it yet again is pointless. You can’t see the problems. Meta-writing exercises help you recognize and build on the story’s structure, its internal architecture. Here are…
Do you have a non-fiction work-in-progress? Are you in search of structure to your manuscript? The organization and order of information in a non-fiction book is every bit as important as plot is to fiction. Immersing yourself in the subject matter is no guarantee that the structure of a book will reveal itself as self-evident. So how does a writer of non-fiction move from the… [Read More]
Filed Under: Character Sketches, Question Analysis, Storyboarding, Thematic Analysis
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If you aren’t already receiving email updates from the Swenson Book Development, LLC blog, we’d like to invite you to subscribe using the form on the sidebar. If you are already receiving updates in your inbox, we highly suggest switching to our new format! Swenson Book Development has switched to Mailchimp as our official email RSS update system. We’re happy to announce a more readable… [Read More]
Not content to let Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing be the powerhouse of the self-publishing world, Nook Media (a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble) is rolling out Nook Press, its own self-publishing platform for eBooks. What completely sets Nook Press apart from Kindle Direct Publishing is the integrated feature of composing, editing and formatting your book within the platform instead of uploading and converting a file… [Read More]
“Every first draft is perfect,” wrote Jane Smiley, “because all a first draft has to do is exist.” Her words soothe like balm on a writer’s spirit. This simple truth about the process of writing a book is that every author starts with a first draft. Smiley’s words carry the weight of wisdom since her best-selling A Thousand Acres received the Pulitizer Prize for Fiction in… [Read More]
Filed Under: 7-step self-editing, A Thousand Acres, Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, Constance Hale, First draft, Jane Smiley
Although not all WordPress templates support profile images in the comments, when a profile image is allowed, wouldn’t you rather have another chance to show off your online identity’s ‘look’? Putting a face to your brand helps an author reach readers. To see if you have an associated image, log in to your WP dashboard and look at the upper right hand corner in the… [Read More]