Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline (WMG Writer's Guides)
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Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline (WMG Writer's Guides)
Did I know the characters? Nope, just learning about them as I typed. Just as a reader would learn about them as the reader reads the book.
Dean Wesley Smith • Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline (WMG Writer's Guides)
Writing into the dark imitates the reading process for the writer. All writers are readers. And as readers, we love it when a writer takes us along for the ride in a good novel. So when writing into the dark, that same feeling of reading is in the writing process. Our conscious mind is just along for the ride. The creative side is making up a story
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since I never reread what I write after I get to the end, how do I know to cut out something? Simple. It shouts at me from the structure of the outline that I wrote as I was writing.
Dean Wesley Smith • Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline (WMG Writer's Guides)
Cycling, knowing you will be done when you hit the end, makes you fix any problem or mistake instantly, the moment you see or discover the problem.
Dean Wesley Smith • Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline (WMG Writer's Guides)
They didn’t get paid for rewriting. Only finished product. The focus was to get it correct the first time through. That should still be your focus,
Dean Wesley Smith • Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline (WMG Writer's Guides)
The only purpose of the critical voice in creative writing is to stop you.
Dean Wesley Smith • Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline (WMG Writer's Guides)
two years after that realization, mad at myself for not finishing a novel and for making novels into something “important” instead of just fun, entertaining stories, I sat down at my trusty typewriter and thought only about writing ten pages a day. I had no outline, nothing. My focus was on finishing ten pages. Period. Thirty days later I had finis
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A key point to remember is that “next sentence” does not have to be the very next sentence the READER is going to read. It just needs to be the next sentence you are going to type. The next sentence could be the start of the next chapter. Or you could cycle back and write some extra description at the start of chapter two as the next sentence. It a
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