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Sometimes, you’re midway through a story and you suddenly realize what you need to change to make it work. A later development requires some earlier foreshadowing, or you need to remove a detail so your new path makes sense. It’s a lightbulb moment, and often the point where a story really comes together for many writers, but what do you do if you can’t make the change? In fact, what do you do if …
[Read more...] about ‘Retcon’: How To Rewrite Details In An Ongoing Series
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ story is an odd one. Until 2008, he was a modestly successful journalist writing for papers including The Washington City Paper and Time. But soon after, his Atlantic column and wildly successful blog culminated in the publication of his first memoir, The Beautiful Struggle. After attempting to pick up where celebrated author, essayist, and activist James Baldwin left off with …
[Read more...] about 5 Ways Ta-Nehisi Coates Can Help You Improve Your Writing
If editing a book is hard (and it is), editing your own book is five times harder. After all, this is likely to be something you care about as if it’s a part of you, but even if the stakes weren’t raised, you’d still be in the unenviable position of second-, third-, and fourth-guessing your own decisions. Compounding these difficulties is the fact that your relationship with a book isn’t …
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Zadie Smith is one of those writers whose success story is so staggering that you can’t help but resent her a little. Her first novel, the wildly successful and intimidatingly brilliant White Teeth, was published when Smith was just twenty-four, and it’s rumored she received a £250,000 advance based on only a synopsis and two chapters. She wrote the thing while studying at – you guessed it – the …
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When it comes to writing a story, the beginning and the end tend to get all the attention. If you’re relating a story, you’re probably going to explain where things begin, the central goal, and whether or not it’s reached. If an author manages to produce a particularly gripping middle – the Battle of Helm’s Deep or the narrator switch in Gone Girl – it might get a mention, but otherwise it tends …
[Read more...] about Is The Middle Of Your Story Letting You Down?
If there’s one writer who’s (thankfully) incapable of shutting up about the writing process, it’s beloved American horror icon Stephen King. In his fantastic and much-quoted On Writing, he says, The first draft of a book – even a long one – should take no more than three months, the length of a season. – Stephen King, On Writing And, ever since On Writing’s publication in 1999, we eager …
[Read more...] about Why You Should Finish Your First Draft As Quickly As Possible
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