In this entry, I apply advice from screenwriter John Truby to the first draft struggles I’ve been dealing with. Additionally, I run into a helpful plot structure from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat and create my own character profile template!

Read Entry Just Writing, then Rewriting with Structure – The Violet Project Diaries – Entry 18

On Writing Atmosphere and Archetypes

…Is writing the second draft supposed to almost feel like you’re writing another story? Well, it doesn’t feel that extreme to me, but there’s a lot that needs to be added, changed, and polished. I don’t know why this seems strange. During this writing session there are times I feel like my first draft is a botched mess and the fact that I’m having…

Switching From Confidently Editing and Writing Anxiously

I have to be honest, I didn’t miss the anxiety that comes with wanting to make sure every word you write is significant. The ideas bursting inside of me while I was editing was really exhilarating. Now I’m back to layering the story down, brick by brick, word by word.

The first draft was easy for me. I heard something the other…

The Violet Project Diaries – Entry 3 – Kill Your Darlings (or torture them)

The chaos is what we want to show our characters responding to. We must also be brave enough to show that they may never learn how to flow with the chaos of life or releasing expectations for things they can’t control or simply taking responsibility for what is within their control. If our darling aren’t working…

I think this is a common thing to happen to most writers. You get to that weird middle ground of your novel and wonder if any of it is even worth it. For me, I was worried about my poor habit of overthinking. In my Violet Project Diarieson Vocal, I mentioned that I had to delete some characters and parts of my novel because it was “too meta”. Although I do want my work to be thought provoking, I…

Time to get back to recording my novel progress. The last post I did about my novel was January 13th, so going back to that, I have finally edited about 110 pages of my first draft and am starting to write through the second. The exposition has been really fun to read through again, but now it’s time to hone in the focus on clear settings, intriguing characters, and establishing solid plots and…

Progress: Page 8 out of 470

Every character should have purpose. I had to redesign a character today, who started off one way, but I had to make her the opposite of what she initially was to improve her presence in the story.

I hate side characters without purpose. I’ve seen main characters without purpose and they make me livid, but side characters are just as bad because you don’t want…

Progress: 6 pages out of 470

Yep. It’s time to start tracking my writing progress again. So far, I’m really happy with it. The editing system I’ve created has helped me so much with rewriting. I’m able to keep track of my changes and the plot. For now, I’m living in a perfect world for a writer like me.

So another part of the system that I have is every 50 pages I edit, I stop and rewrite…