Time-Saving Tactics: Try Half-Drafts

By Alina Chase

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      When all you’re trying to do is capture thoughts,  develop ideas and explore possibilities, why restrict yourself to sentences, paragraphs and chapters?  Nothing will bring your train of thought to a screeching halt faster than stopping to ponder a comma or word choice or sentence structure. If you scribble and draw instead of write, you can capture ideas more quickly and more ideas on one page with no rules to distract you.
      Try using a cheap spiral notebook (or the flip side of wasted printouts) and a pen or Crayons instead of your laptop. Then "write" using symbols, graphical representations and your version of shorthand. Advanced doodlers may even want to add stick figures or sketches. Do this in any way that makes sense to you, keeping in mind that the fewer words you use at this stage, the more time you'll save.
      Then number, letter or otherwise code your ideas. Connect conepts with lines and arrows. Combine points with boxes that represent paragraphs, scenes, or chapters. Then, later, you can shuffle sheets around, spread them across the floor, or tape them to a wall to experiment with different scene and chapter sequences
      Think of these first drafts as half drafts for pantsters, graphical outlines for plotters. Quick to develop and review, they'll minimize time wasted on tangents and writing clunky first-draft prose destined to be deleted. They contain just enough information to jog your memory so that when you do get back to the laptop, you can focus all your energy on writing brilliantly!

When NOT to Start the Book With Conflict

Who Brings A Knife To A Gun Fight? (Photo credit: Cayusa)

Actually, I can think of some downsides to opening a first chapter with conflict. The reader won't care about the character unless the type of conflict is chosen carefully because the reader won't know the character enough to really care. To combat this, I'd use the conflict to say something about the character. But what about the initial hook? Use suspense, tension, reader curiosity, mystery, just long enough to set up character before diving into the conflict.

Some types of conflict are rarely effective as an opening hook because most books (except sequels) start with the reader knowing nothing about the characters, issues, or world. And the opening hook makes promises to the reader about what kind of book they are about to read. So avoid starting in the middle of a conflict that is...

• Character-dependent.
• setting-dependent
• back-story-dependent
• different type of action than typical
• different mood than typical
• no connection to main issues

Working with an Absent Antagonist

Day Thirty-eight: Skulking (Photo credit: mbshane)

The book opens when the protagonist finds recent signs of the monster she has been hunting. The creature is nearby but does not actually appear until the next scene. Who is her main opponent? The creature. Where is it? Not here.

Scenes of pursuit and flight are perhaps the most common examples of absent antagonists. And thrillers are not the only books where the antagonist is not present. Maybe the protagonist is his/her own antagonist. How does the writer keep the reader involved when a direct confrontation just is not possible? Here are some techniques:

• Develop the sense of danger. She knows it is out there but not exactly where so it could appear at any time. Show destruction previously caused by the antagonist and hint at what it could do to the protagonist.
• Develop the sense of uncertainty. Not only could it appear at any time and from any direction, she's never actually seen the creature. Let her imagination run wild.
• Make the mood forbidding. Plants rustle without a wind. Sour smell from the burned out den. Lack of magic where there should be lots. No wildlife moving. Add what could be a bad omen. Skin prickles. Imagine that ghosts or some part of the setting is trying to warn her of danger.
• State fears/ worries/ uncertainties from the protagonist's POV. If she is unsure of her success, the reader will worry too.
• Set a time limit. The protagonist has to find the creature now before there are more victims and before someone else gets involved.
• Have someone warn her of the danger. Have someone warn her of the worst case outcome – the one that happens or one that is similar to what happens.