Authoring & Playwriting

I also keep a pocket dictionary on my desk! But my favorite resource books that I keep nearby are Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's thesaurus books- https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Helping-Writers-Series-10-book-series/dp/...

Knowing as much of the story as possible beforehand. (And I use dictionary.com)

An outline, thesaurus, and grammarly makes my writing life so much easier.

Hey, Davin Gomez. Hope you're having a great week! I'm about to check out your logline.

Peta, could you please edit your question? It has some errors and isn't very clear. So it's hard to give you feedback.

Hi, Kat Spencer. Here's the first action line of a Holiday/Comedy/Crime script I'm rewriting: "No Christmas decorations. Just a worn-down complex decorated with crime."

Love them all! Thanks for sharing!

You're welcome, Kat Spencer. Thanks. What's something that really struck you?

Every line in Access Denied.

I don't have lines, but I do have scenes I feel that way about. I have way too many books to remember lines.

I have edited and pitched my pilot script for about six or seven times, I am hoping to get it through!

I lose count, Davin Gomez. I rewrite as I go, so the first draft isn't really a first draft, then I do more rewrites after I finish the first draft.

A gazillion times.

I edit as I go. In addition, I have the computer read the book to me before I send it off to my professional editor and then before I publish or submit it, I have the computer do another read through to me.

Thanks for sharing the video, Ashley Renee Smith. It's a must-watch! My favorite marketing tip Charlotte shared is the whole section about publishing a book on Kickstarter. I didn't know authors published books on Kickstarter first, then published them on Amazon/etc.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us, its a must watch

As others have said, thanks for sharing this. I'll soon be launching my next novel and its sequel so there are some great tips here.

You're all so welcome!

Where to start? I think its easier to say if I'm still reading the same author after their sixth novel, they are probably one of my favourites. E.g. Connie Suttle 32 titles, Dannika Dark 13 titles, Phoebe Matthews 12 titles. etc

I rarely read past the first two pages these days if they don't pull me in. Life, as they say, is far too short...

I have SO many favorite authors that I can't even list them all. I'm an avid reader and add new authors to my favorites all the time. (Thank goodness for the Kindle being able to store thousands of books!)

But I do often mention Sarah Woodbury as a favorite. Sarah has several series set in ancient Wales. A couple are mystery, one is a King Arthur type, but my absolute favorite is After Cilmeri, which is time travel to ancient Wales. It's a comfort read series, which I've reread many times.

When I first read the series there were about 6 books. Now I think it's 17. I was so impressed that I looked up the author and emailed her. At the time, I was acquainted or knew of most of the big indie authors and she wasn't one of them. In my email, I asked her if she belonged to the writers' organization Novelists Inc (NINC) which puts on fabulous conferences every year. Sarah lives in a relatively small town in Oregon and didn't really know many authors. I encouraged her to join NINC and attend the conference so she could become plugged into the author community and learn more about the publishing industry.

She did. But by then the hotel was sold out. I told her she could share my room, and she agreed. From there, we became great friends, and we still share a suite at the conference every year. I don't know how many years it's been. 13, maybe.

Sarah has extensively studied historical Wales, spent a lot of time there, and even learned the language. In one of her mystery series books, a character that I'd come to love was killed in battle, and I actually cried! I called her up and said, "Sarah, you killed NAME! I'm so sad, I'm crying." She said, "I know, I did too when I wrote that scene. But I had to. In reality, he really was killed in that battle."

Sigh, the time travel series is much easier on my heart, because Sarah is able to manipulate real history.

Carol M. Salter, I'm the same way. A couple of pages. There are SO many good books now that I don't have to continue reading to see if a book will develop into a good one.

Hunter S. Thompson.

I learned to give the explanation because if I just leave it at that, then people think I'm a crackhead.

Well, I discovered him when I used to be one, a druggie. But what he does and what he taught me to do is something that pretty much saved my life.

He always partied too hard, took it too far, but he ended his self-destruction sessions by putting pen to paper. It was a way to explain himself, why he lost it and did what he did.

When the world sees that message, physically, he looks like a maniac. Just some addict who you shouldn't listen to or be around.

But when it's on paper, his crazy thoughts made sense and had many, many real messages. He became human on paper and was no longer incoherent and awkward.

I was wild, and I have a mental disorder. I blurt things out; it's almost out of my control and what comes out of my mouth sometimes isn't what I intended. Hunter was the first person that introduced that people like me--who feel they're misunderstood for how they've lived life--can start to be understood better if they put what they're experiencing on paper in an intellectual way.

I walked away from real drugs as a kid, but I kept the depression writing. I can honestly say if I didn't see Fear & Loathing and feel so drawn to journaling, I not only wouldn't be a writer, but I probably wouldn't be alive.

So dark and crazy if you read his stories, but I appreciate him.

He introduced me to a way to express myself, one where the right message gets across.

...

Totally do miss gonzo journalism, though, to be honest. It was a lot easier to sell my stories when I was young, wild, and explosive lol People love crazy! It is what it is.

I have a lot, it depends on the genre. But some top favs are R.F. Kuang, Grady Hendrix, Sarah J. Maas, Darren Shan, and Jeaniene Frost.

Kat Spencer, I absolutely relate to that feeling of being surprised by your own story. The book I’m currently working on is the first in a planned trilogy, and I spent an entire year worldbuilding and outlining before I wrote a single page. During that time, I also roughly mapped out books 2 and 3 to make sure the full arc felt cohesive.

One of the biggest discoveries that completely snuck up on me was realizing that my original antagonist, the one I designed the whole first book around, is not the true antagonist of the series. He’s still very much a force of evil and a personal threat to my protagonist, but as I dug deeper, I realized the story needed a larger, more insidious evil working in the shadows. It shifted the emotional weight of the final book and gave the entire ensemble a higher-stakes mission beyond what I initially imagined. That realization changed everything.

Well done, Ashley. And how cool you got the follow-on books mapped out as well. Your words make me want to pick back up a trilogy I haven't worked on in a while. Thanks for that nudge.

In my book THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE I present the classic observation that there are Three Levels to the Dark Side. 1 - A character's own foibles, phobias, faults (like Indy's fear of snakes in RAIDERS, overcome later on to help save the day). 2 - The Dark Forces of nature (like in TWISTER, ARMAGEDDON, or DON'T LOOK UP) . 3 - The Dark Ones, the big baddies or systems on high levels and with great strength (like the President and the tech bro in DON'T LOOK UP).

So we want to have at least two in a story: 1 - Personal, 2 - Impersonal, 3 - Supra-personal.

Best to you all in crafting wonderful, engaging, fulfilling stories!

The defining moment for my protagonist was when he chose to not do a good deed out of selfishness and greed. This later causes him great regret throughout the rest of the story.

Wow Ashley Renee Smith I can't wait to read these :)

Yep, when you get out of the way, the fun starts! That's why I am selective, who I hang out with.

I think someone else's opinion, for sure. Us writers, we can see it so clearly but it's so hard to get somebody else to understand that vision in your head.

In my opinion-and it's just an opinion--the story is ready when I love it so much I don't want to change anything and it's been reviewed by some sort of executive and they said it's definitely good, too.

I try to ignore the other ten execs who said it stinks lol

There's a nice quote from the writer of "The Little Prince" that says, "perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry).

As we build a story, we initially tend to add scenes, characters, and dialogue, but there comes a moment when we need to start deleting things that aren't relevant. It's like letting a shrub grow to then cutting it to its finest form.

It’s rough how subjective feedback is for creative writing but two tricks I’ve learned is never send out a first draft for anything serious.

And rewrite until feedback stops picking on your story’s foundation. Once that story starts hitting it’s ready.

Well said Ismael Kralll - even in our complicated written worlds, we need to remember less is more.

I feel it is done! It feels complete, all boxes are ticked, and storylines are tied.

There's been a lot of times when I felt like throwing in the towel on projects and goals, Randolph Randy Camp, but I kept working on them. I have a bunch of unfinished projects and goals I haven't given up on. They're just on the back burner, and I'm working on them here and there while I work on my main projects and goals. Thanks for sharing this post. Hope it encourages others.

Thank you for this. We all need these words of wisdom.

I wish, in my dreams. I've already had someone say one of my novels would make a great film/series. LOL I will continue dreaming.

Danny, a LOT of the average moviegoers ive talked to about this exact thing who pay to see the CGI-fest movies for their premise go for what I call the "Die Hard" experience. They are going to see "if I were trapped in a building with terrorists, how would I beat them?"

This thought experiment only works for the audience members if they or someone they know has something in common with one of the characters in your story... and like I showed... it does not need to be IN-DEPTH... but it certainly can't be UNDEVELOPED.

Stuart Haag Agree to disagree on certain things, no problem. What I really agree with that I may have understated is they can't be a blank character. Definitely can't be underdeveloped! I just feel like some people are trying to make me super-develop a character and it's just my opinion that I don't think it's necessary--in certain cases.

Carol M. Salter Dreams are the starting point of all brilliant careers.

Danny Range - on that last point I fully agree. Develop your characters enough to inform your script. Unless it's a character driven story, that should be enough, as I kind of illustrated in my rough examples above... The rest of the character development is on an as-needed basis.

Otherwise, you're very right - Michael Bay never won an Oscar for his rich and well-developed characters. But none of them were blanks, either.

I actually didn't do anything. I had timing and luck on my side. Publishing is very different now.

First of all, make sure your book is expertly edited. And by more than one editor. Have a developmental editor who looks at your plot and characters and then after you've made those edits have another editor (or two) for line edits and proofing. Have a professional cover designed and someone with experience look over your blurb for the product page on Amazon and other sites. If your book doesn't look professional and read professionally, it won't matter how much time and money you throw at marketing.