Sunday, August 19, 2012

Candace Havens' One day workshop.

I'm amazed! Candace stuffed so much new information in my brain in one eight hour day than I know what to do with! Good thing I took notes! HA-HA! She taught me that there are a lot of ways to plot my story before I begin, such as a synopsis, scene wish list, guide posts and six stage plot structure, which includes opprotunity, intising incident, point of no return, all is lost, climax and resolution.
She reminded me that I we have to give our hero what they need and not what they want. That reminds me, when I wrote my first novel my heroine had the chioce of two boys, the one she knew her whole life or the new boy. I like both boys, but now I know why I picked the boy I did.
Candace's workshop however, was about FAST DRAFT in TWO WEEKS. No whining, no excuses, unless you are dead or in a coma. The hardest thing to learn and perfect, if we can ever actually do that, is to turn off our internal editor. This means no going back, no looking for the perfect word, no spell check. Then let your story rest, do the research you need for editing, then enter EDITING HELL in TWO WEEKS.
If you are a writer, I highly recommend this course.  Desk clean, distractions eliminated, pens up, get writing.