Sunday, June 10, 2012

Tips for Writers Block

   Is writers block making it hard for you to finish your novel? Here are some tips that
can help you finish your novel. The one that you have been trying to get out of your
head and onto paper.

1) Plot out the beginning, middle, and end of your novel. This helps you decide
on the general idea of what your story is about. The more you now about your story
the easier it will be to write.

2) Schedule an hour in your day to write. I found writing on my hour lunch break
was a great way to get in some writing. It takes me 30 minutes to get into a good
writing flow. In an hour I felt I could accomplish a lot of writing.

3) Set a page per day writing goal. I started with a goal of writing 3 pages a day
during the week and 5 pages a day on the weekend.  After a few weeks I found that
I could write a few pages more then my goal! Start with a  page goal that you can
easily accomplish.

4) Begin following your schedule to type your first draft. For your first draft
start typing at an average pace without stopping. Don't worry about word count, page
count, grammatical errors, spelling errors or voice of the story. Type what comes to
your head and what feels right. The first draft is a way to get your ideas on paper! Try
to finish a first draft within a month. For my first novel I wrote my 87 page first draft in
a few weeks. My first draft focused on the main ideas of my story.

5) Move on to the second draft. After the first draft is complete focus on the
second draft. This draft is where you take into account the voice of your story. Try
to decide on what voice you want for the narrative. Focus on flushing out your story
too.  After I finished my first draft my novel was 187 pages.

6) Move on to the third draft. For the third draft really focus on grammatical 
errorsspelling errors, and flow of your novel. This is also a time to fix lose ends,
make stronger connections with characters, and fix contradictions in your writing.
After my third draft my page count was 278.

7) Congratulations your novel is complete! Now it is time to find an editor. After
the editor is finished with your novel find beta readers to test the finished product.
These are two important steps to ensure your novel is more professional.

I hope this helped! Good luck with your writing!

Sincerely,
R.J Ropsen

3 comments:

  1. Great article, very informative - nice to see you've finished 'The Silenced' - well done :)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. I was also excited to hear that you finished another novel congratulations!

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  2. These are great tips!! Thank you.

    Wonderful blog :)

    Andrea

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