Sometimes we writers think we’re doing cool things in our story, when in actuality we’re killing our story instead.
There are a lot of ideas that might work in some stories, but not all of them. It’s important to know when to use them, and when to not.
So let’s go ahead and talk about the top 10 things that writers overrate!
If you’ve ever watched anime before, then you know there’s a bunch of weird stuff that happens.
Nosebleeds when seeing an attractive woman, massive hammers casually pulled out of interdimensional space, and of course, running to school with bread in your mouth because you’re late.
But what can we learn from all of this insanity, and how can we apply it to our own storytelling?
To answer your first question: no, pantsing in writing does not mean pulling down the pants of a story an exposing all their private metaphors and symbolism.
Pantsing means writing by the seat of your pants, not knowing what will come next. Its opposite is outlining, which is when you know exactly what will happen next in your story because you created an outline beforehand.
Is one strategy better than the other? Let’s find out!
Beginner writers always ask: how can I write about something that’s already been written?
What do you do when you want to write about a magical school, but Harry Potter already exists? Or a tournament where kids kill kids but Hunger Games already exists?
The answer is easy. It all lies in the twist.
Over the weekend I watched the movie Coco, one of Pixar’s most recent films.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it got me thinking, “Man, Pixar is really good at telling stories!” I wonder if they’ve ever talked about how they go about writing them?
All it took was a little Googling to find “Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling.”
For the last stream, we did something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while: create the Ten Writing Commandments.
I’d put it off until we as a stream had written and read enough material for me to feel comfortable writing them up. I jotted down a few ideas before the stream started, but as always, chat was the real star with their suggestions.
After a long brainstorming session with good discussions and questions, we wrote our Ten Commandments.
Here’s what we came up with:
Last week on Tips-y Tuesday we talked about what to do when Word’s blinking cursor is making you sweat on a blank page. Today we’ll go to the next step: what to do when Word’s blinking cursor is making you sweat in the middle of a sentence.
So I’ve been writing for a whole bunch of years now (some years better than others…) and I’ve accumulated a bunch of crazy ideas that I use myself and have shared with others at writing groups. Since they work well for me and some other similarly crazy people, I’ve decided why not share them with the internet as well.
I’ll do my best not to advise you to burn down your house, but I make no promises.
