Honourkeeper update
Hey folks,
Just a quick one. I'm now six chapters into Honourkeeper with just over 20,000 words down. It's going pretty well, though I did hit a minor snag regarding a feast scene in one of the dwarf great halls.
Rather than bang my head against a metaphorical brick wall trying to fathom what was wrong and then put it right, I stopped writing for the night and instead sat down and made a few notes. Sure enough, as I started to work out the possible ways of approaching the scene in the form of notes, I came up with a solution to my problem.
It just goes to show you the benefit of having a good notebook that you can write in when you need to. I use mine to write snippets of dialogue, remember pertinent facts about my characters and even flesh out entire scenes. It also shows how working in a different medium can refresh your mind and re-ignite the creative spark. It certainly worked for me.
Oh, and a big thank you to everyone who's posted reviews for Oathbreaker, either sending them to me personally or the various forums and websites that are dotted about. I read all of your comments with great interest and value your constructive critiques, so cheers for that - much appreciated! :-)
Incidentally, one particular suggestion, involving a certain hammer and a dragon was so good that I think I'll explore it in a short story (you'll have to wait a while for that one, though). Who says authors don't listen to their fans, eh?
Just a quick one. I'm now six chapters into Honourkeeper with just over 20,000 words down. It's going pretty well, though I did hit a minor snag regarding a feast scene in one of the dwarf great halls.
Rather than bang my head against a metaphorical brick wall trying to fathom what was wrong and then put it right, I stopped writing for the night and instead sat down and made a few notes. Sure enough, as I started to work out the possible ways of approaching the scene in the form of notes, I came up with a solution to my problem.
It just goes to show you the benefit of having a good notebook that you can write in when you need to. I use mine to write snippets of dialogue, remember pertinent facts about my characters and even flesh out entire scenes. It also shows how working in a different medium can refresh your mind and re-ignite the creative spark. It certainly worked for me.
Oh, and a big thank you to everyone who's posted reviews for Oathbreaker, either sending them to me personally or the various forums and websites that are dotted about. I read all of your comments with great interest and value your constructive critiques, so cheers for that - much appreciated! :-)
Incidentally, one particular suggestion, involving a certain hammer and a dragon was so good that I think I'll explore it in a short story (you'll have to wait a while for that one, though). Who says authors don't listen to their fans, eh?
posted by Nick Kyme at
18:48
3 Comments:
When I hit the mental wall during writing, as one will do at least once on every piece, I often skip it...
That is, with the storyline already in place after the scene will be finished I know that I can continue writing the subsequent parts of the work and come back to it later. Often my first drafts (as you will know) will have notes in parentheses detailing items to come back to. I often do this to prevent myself falling prey to wordprocessoritis, which tempts writers to continually edit on the hoof rather than write.
This happened most prominently during Blades of Chaos, and I left a whole chapter for nearly six weeks - it was not finished until some two weeks after the rest of the novel. If I had waited to sort it out completely that would have set the entire novel back those six weeks.
Of course, you need to give everything a good edit if you do this and make sure that any intereting asides or twists that become evident in the scene get incorporated into the following narrative.
Sage advice, Gav, and welcome to the blog. Apologies for not posting on yours yet - I will, I promise.
I sometimes write a bunch of notes for a chapter that I'm struggling with - occasionally, I'll add dialogue too. Then, when I'm feeling inspired, I'll go back and fill in the blanks/write the chapter. I find it helps to have something there, rather than just a blank slate. It might be that I change my mind from the notes that I had, but reading them gets me back into the right 'mode' of thinking, if that makes sense. Editing is a wise strategy, too, and doing so at the end when you're feeling a little more objective and have the whole novel in front of you, so you've got a balanced picture.
I always outline the hell out of everything, sometimes even keeping individual flow charts for characters to keep track of what happens to them when. The more of a skeleton you lay down before you tuck into the actual writing, the easier it is to slip past any obstructions you encounter on the way. As you know, there always seems to be a scene or chapter that just won't co-operate and it is usually best to skip ahead of it and press on rather than being hung up and stuck in the mud for weeks trying to figure out exactly how the Skulltaker is going to chop off Uthor Algrimsson's head.
If you keep detailed notes, the chances for continuity errors are reduced dramatically. Think of it like storyboarding for a movie, letting the director know exactly what has been done and what still needs to be done, regardless of chronology.
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