25 October 2006
The secret to reaching 50,000
I was surfing the forum over there at NaNoWriMo and found that someone had posted The Secret to Reaching 50,000:My secret to reaching 50,000
I use the 13 step method... actually it's the 10 step method, but I like 13, so I changed it.. The 10 Step Method it's quite a popular method used by many professional best selling writers, not sure who invented it...anyways it helps me to write a lot of words, real fast, so I thought I'd tell you guys about it, in hopes that it'll help someone else reach the 50,000 goal too, but here is my 13 Step version of it:
Write down
Scene 1
Scene 2 etc,
all the way to 13... these are your chapters, plan on having 13 of them.
Think about your plot, in terms of 13 tiny stories, than write a title for each...
now you have your 13 Chapter Titles
Your list should now read:
Chapter 1: "title here"
Chapter 2: "title here" etc,
all the way to Chapter 13
Now, go back to your list and add the actual scenes:
Chapter 1: The Title Here
scene 1
scene 2
scene 3
scene 4etc, all the way to 13 scences.
Do this for each chapter.
Now go back and write one sentence to describe each scene of each chapter. Once you have completed this, you well have a complete and detailed outline to take you step by step through your story... print it up and keep it on hand when you are writing, so that you can keep your story running smoothly from one scene to the next (though you can change anything in you outline that needs changes once you start writing... it's not a hard and fast law that you stick to the outline... the outline, just helps you to write faster, by keeping your original story idea where you can see it)
Once you get going the actual writing, you plan on say, write 5 scenes a day... and you'll find that by using the writing a scene at a time, rather than going for word count or page count, you will write more and write faster...I average 3,000 to 10,000 a day using this method. Yet, when I try for word count, I usually get stuck after about 500.
Try it and see, you'll be amazed at how well this method workswhy does it work? because you are focused on your plot, not the word count, and when you stop thinking about the words, they just start flowing out of you with out you even realizing it.
I hope this helps!
From the responses this person got, everyone was enthusiastic about the method and planned on trying it out. Truth be told, I don't know if this would work for me. I've never been the type to do outlines. I like to fly by the seat of my pants. The only thing I know about DA Book Two is that it involves Draven's favorite hangout, drugs and gunrunning. I have a set Chapter number for each book--12--but actually went to 13 with DA Book One. Therefore, I'm going to have to do the same with the remaining books in the series. It just worked out that way. I had planned for 12, but apparently, the story wasn't done.
I dunno. Maybe I'll play around with it this weekend and see what happens. Whaddya think?
