Boldness Has Genius In November 2011, I wrote a book. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and this was my first time. Along the way I learned a lot about writing and wanted to jot down some notes about the experience.
- I started with a basic premise – What if? This gave me enough framework to understand who I needed in my story.
- I then spent a lot of time and energy on character biographies and these were invaluable. Once my characters were 3-dimensional, with history, issues, faults, goals, etc., I could just place them on the page and they would often write the story themselves. I was wonderfully surprised with some of the clever plot twists they came up with. The value of not plotting too deeply up front meant that I could go where my characters led me. Continue reading →
