Today marks the release of Kelly McCullough’s latest book MythOS, and you'll find a new interview on the SF Novelists site.
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
How to plot a novel ... now with extra plot!
Not sure whether you've seen my article on How to plot a novel, but there's a tantilising pic of a completed outline where the font is just too small to read.
I keep getting emails from people asking me to make the pic bigger so they can read the text, or to provide the Freemind outline it belongs to. In the past I've said no because the outline was written for my own use and could contain just about anything. The pic was deliberately designed so it couldn't be read.
However, tonight I caved in and skimmed the plot outline for objectionable or actionable content, and after a cleanup I've uploaded the file to my website.
You'll find a link to the file on the article page, and I've also included an html version of the file. It should be a decent example of a plot outline, and if you're curious to see how much it differs from the finished novel you're welcome to buy the ebook version of Hal Spacejock book four.
Obviously the plot outline contains major spoilers, so I'd read the book before the outline!
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
I keep getting emails from people asking me to make the pic bigger so they can read the text, or to provide the Freemind outline it belongs to. In the past I've said no because the outline was written for my own use and could contain just about anything. The pic was deliberately designed so it couldn't be read.
However, tonight I caved in and skimmed the plot outline for objectionable or actionable content, and after a cleanup I've uploaded the file to my website.
You'll find a link to the file on the article page, and I've also included an html version of the file. It should be a decent example of a plot outline, and if you're curious to see how much it differs from the finished novel you're welcome to buy the ebook version of Hal Spacejock book four.
Obviously the plot outline contains major spoilers, so I'd read the book before the outline!
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Writing: you call that a scene?
I posted a version of this to the yWriter 5 group earlier today, but realised it might be useful to others outside that list.
I've been working extra hard on my novel for the past week or so, and after much editing and re-editing I suddenly realised that working on dozens of scenes with 1500-3000 words in each is not much fun. After a few dozen changes to each scene, usually involving a bunch of new notes and comments, it's impossible to do anything with such big chunks of text unless I reread them to work out what I've stuck in there - and all that re-reading takes time.
So, today I took a dozen scenes from my WIP and broke them down into 35-45 much shorter snippets, each containing just 200-400 words. Each snippet is a logical piece of a scene, encompassing one or more events, and the description field in yWriter5 tells me exactly what that scene contains.
Obviously they'll be combined back into larger scenes again before the book is done, but in the meantime I can work on much smaller chunks of text, which makes it much easier to edit them (How long does it take to re-read 200 words? Most emails are longer than that!), and who can possibly procrastinate about sitting down to write 200-300 words of fiction? Especially when you have a one-line sentence telling you what those 200-300 words have to achieve.
It's all trickery of the mind, but the brain is all that stands between a writer and their next completed novel, so I say get tricking.
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
I've been working extra hard on my novel for the past week or so, and after much editing and re-editing I suddenly realised that working on dozens of scenes with 1500-3000 words in each is not much fun. After a few dozen changes to each scene, usually involving a bunch of new notes and comments, it's impossible to do anything with such big chunks of text unless I reread them to work out what I've stuck in there - and all that re-reading takes time.
So, today I took a dozen scenes from my WIP and broke them down into 35-45 much shorter snippets, each containing just 200-400 words. Each snippet is a logical piece of a scene, encompassing one or more events, and the description field in yWriter5 tells me exactly what that scene contains.
Obviously they'll be combined back into larger scenes again before the book is done, but in the meantime I can work on much smaller chunks of text, which makes it much easier to edit them (How long does it take to re-read 200 words? Most emails are longer than that!), and who can possibly procrastinate about sitting down to write 200-300 words of fiction? Especially when you have a one-line sentence telling you what those 200-300 words have to achieve.
It's all trickery of the mind, but the brain is all that stands between a writer and their next completed novel, so I say get tricking.
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Hal 4 powers on
Great news for the Hal Spacejock series ... the 2009 Ditmar Awards ballot has just been announced, and Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch (Book 4) is a finalist in the Best Novel category.
Last month Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch took out the WA Science Fiction Foundation 'Tin Duck' award for best SF/F/H novel of 2008. Earlier this year it was one of only five finalists in the Aurealis Awards Best SF Novel cateogory. Last year it was a number one bestseller at Fantastic Planet.
I'm a highly self-critical writer and I'm never completely happy with my work, always believing there are so many ways I could improve if I could only see through the writerly fog and understand where I'm going wrong. Therefore it's really encouraging to get all this external validation, and as long as it keeps my publisher happy and they keep asking me for more novels, I'll always have a chance to get a Hal Spacejock book just right ;-)
Congrats to everyone on the ballot and commiserations if you missed out.
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
Last month Hal Spacejock No Free Lunch took out the WA Science Fiction Foundation 'Tin Duck' award for best SF/F/H novel of 2008. Earlier this year it was one of only five finalists in the Aurealis Awards Best SF Novel cateogory. Last year it was a number one bestseller at Fantastic Planet.
I'm a highly self-critical writer and I'm never completely happy with my work, always believing there are so many ways I could improve if I could only see through the writerly fog and understand where I'm going wrong. Therefore it's really encouraging to get all this external validation, and as long as it keeps my publisher happy and they keep asking me for more novels, I'll always have a chance to get a Hal Spacejock book just right ;-)
Congrats to everyone on the ballot and commiserations if you missed out.
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Ker-thunk
I love that moment where you've been working on a novel for months, you've written two thirds of the draft, and you suddenly get a flash of inspiration which allows you to greatly improve a sub-par subplot. Not only that, you also manage to tie it firmly to the main plot AND foreshadow upcoming events.
This happens to me with every book I write, which is why I'm happy to write chapters and scenes even if the plot isn't quite there. A plot outline should be organic, like a nice green vine, and every author should pack a pair of shears and grafting tape.
Words are free, and you can write as many of them as you want without paying taxes, so bash those scenes out in volume and you never know where you'll end up.
The biggest mistake is to not start writing until the plot is perfect, or to stop writing because you're not sure what should happen next. Write it anyway!
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
This happens to me with every book I write, which is why I'm happy to write chapters and scenes even if the plot isn't quite there. A plot outline should be organic, like a nice green vine, and every author should pack a pair of shears and grafting tape.
Words are free, and you can write as many of them as you want without paying taxes, so bash those scenes out in volume and you never know where you'll end up.
The biggest mistake is to not start writing until the plot is perfect, or to stop writing because you're not sure what should happen next. Write it anyway!
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
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