Quick Tips and Fixes
Quick Tips and Fixes are features in each chapter of the book, meant to help you take what you learn in the book to the pages of your own MIP (Manuscript in progress). These are additional tips and fixes, not in the book. Watch for more of them.
Quick Fix: Problem dialogue?
Print out JUST the dialogue. Have friends perform it like a play. You'll find the problem.
Quick Tip: When learning something new...
...at a workshop or reading a book, apply it immediately to something in your manuscript. That will cement the idea and concept in your mind.
Quick Tip: For growing as a writer...
Whether it is from a reviewer, editors and agents, in the form of rejection or from a contest judge, a critique group or some unfeeling reader: "Don't mind criticism. If it is untrue, disregard it. If it is unfair, don't let it irritate you. If it is ignorant, smile. If it is justified, learn from it." Author unknown
Quick Fix: Is the pace of too slow?
Take out: Anything to do with the ebb and flow of life that doesn't immediately have something to do with this particular scene. Dialogue that doesn't have to do with the actions (or reactions) to what is happening to the characters. Description of anything around the characters that doesn't have to do with the action of this scene. Focus on what is HAPPENING and delete everything else. You may have to add a bit of it back but it will be easy to see what is important and which bits you may need for the flow of the story when you read a scene striped of everything but what is essential.
Quick Fix: Having problems writing a specific scene?
Most stories have several 'stories' going on with a variety of different characters. Scenes are interspersed and scattered between other scenes of different plot threads. Open a new Word file and copy several of the previous scenes relating to one particular thread, then read them through and plow directly into this one. Reading one story thread as a whole is a fantastic way to get you back into the proper rhythm you need and an unbeatable way to find holes that might need filling--which may be why you're having problems with this scene.
Quick Tip: If you have trouble getting started...
Print out the last couple of pages you wrote at your last work session. Delete them from your manuscript and type them in again. The process will help you get back into the flow, tone and character voice of your story and will take a lot less time than staring at your computer screen. (The longer it has been since you have worked, the more pages you will want to retype.)
Quick Tip: Having trouble striking the proper tone for a certain scene?
Get our your music collection and find a song that makes you feel the tone you're striving for in the scene. Happy, dramatic, reflective, romantic, whatever. Play the song several times and play it while you're writing the scene. Oft times, getting yourself into the proper 'mood' will help you write the same mood.