What?\u00a0 Backwards?<\/p>\n
What I mean is, instead of writing a novel (or, for me now, screenplays) and then trying to condense my 70+K pile of words into 500-800 word synopsis, then a 100-150 word blurb and finally a 10-25 word logline (less important for novels, but critical for screenplays), I start the other way around.<\/p>\n
I’m sure that most, if not all, first time authors simply start writing.\u00a0 The more plotter oriented (vs pantser) will have outlined their story, but basically, assuming you actually are a writer<\/a>, you’re going to write just to find out if you can.<\/p>\n The problem then becomes condensing.\u00a0 You started writing for a reason, you had a story to tell, something that caused your fingers to itch.\u00a0 But now that all got lost in your wonderful prose,\u00a0 your charming characters, your clever plots.\u00a0 You’ve lost sight of why you started writing, so distilling your pile of prose to a simple coherent summary is hard.\u00a0 I’m positive I spent way more time on my blurb and synopsis than I did writing the first draft.\u00a0 I decided: never again!<\/p>\n So now, when all I have is the gist, that kernel of an idea I want to blow up into a pile of prose, that’s when I create my summaries.\u00a0 I make notes about what’s important for the story, the elements of the plot and characterization I think make it unique and worth investing time, the critical reveals, sometimes even dialog.\u00a0 I turn that into a blurb, logline and synopsis first, and only then start writing.<\/p>\n This doesn’t mean you can’t change.\u00a0 Never think of them as a straight jacket, but if you decide you want your cozy mystery to morph into a scifi first contact, you should, then and there, update your blurb, logline and synopsis with the reasons why.<\/p>\n Does this make me a plotter?\u00a0 Well, to a certain degree.\u00a0 But I always knew the ending before I started writing any of my stories.\u00a0 And I usually wrote the ending fairly early in the process.\u00a0 Sometimes the ending morphed as I wrote the body of the story, but usually the ending was what drove the structure of the body to begin with.<\/p>\n Now, if you’re writing for your own enjoyment and never intend to show it to more than a handful of friends, no worries.\u00a0 Go with what works.\u00a0 But if you intend to show your baby to the world in an effort to get paid, you’ll need a blurb at an absolute minimum, one that captures the essence of your story, grips the reader and forces them to buy and read.\u00a0 I feel that’s much easier to do if you start that process first, rather than last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What?\u00a0 Backwards? What I mean is, instead of writing a novel (or, for me now, screenplays) and then trying to condense my 70+K pile of words into 500-800 word synopsis, then a 100-150 word blurb and finally a 10-25 word logline (less important for novels, but critical for screenplays), I start the other way around. … Continue reading “Writing Backwards”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}