S.M. Butler's Blog, page 44

What About Blogging?

I love blogging. It’s probably one of the most powerful ways I’ve ever used to build my author platform. It’s interactive, it’s fun, and it gives our readers a chance to learn about us, our lives and to support us. Yet, every time i talk to writers about blogging, I get the magic question?

How often should writers blog?

If you go out there and search, you’ll find dozens of social media classes out there, all with different approaches. So before I give you my opinion, let’s talk about some of the approaches I’ve seen out there.

Blogging Once a Month

The one good thing about this is that you’re regular, and it looks like you only have to have twelve posts a year.  But that blog post can’t sustain itself in community and discussion for a month. No one is that good. People don’t have that kind of attention span.

Regular blog posts attract people to connect regularly with us. Now I don’t always stick to the schedule I keep but I have blogs going out every week. I actively comment on almost all the comments I get unless there’s no reason to respond. I’m still shocked and amazed that people visit and comment on my blog, like I have important things to say. That’s not self-deprecation, that’s just me being wow’d. But those people wouldn’t be there if I blogged once a month.

It’s not saying that blogging once a month can’t work. It could, potentially. But what writers need is to grow a community around themselves, and for other people. 30 days-long hiatuses (haiti?) without content is an Internet lifetime. Websites rise and fall within a month’s time.

Blogging Every Day

Microblogging, like Tumblr has recently become somewhat popular. Short blogging every day can work. It works for John Scalzi. But it’s exceptionally hard to do effectively. When you’re juggling a day job, house, kids, and that damn book that won’t write itself, blogging several times a day might be a bit draining. The same goes for blogging every day. Some writers *cough*Chuck Wendig*cough* make us all look bad and consistently blog every single day without fail and they are monster tomes of information.

The advantage of blogging every day is that your content quickly saturates the Internet and can help fast track that brand you want to build. But really, it’s hard to do for a long period of time. over years.

Notice how I’m not addressing multiple blogs or group blogs? That is a post for another day because it’s a post all its own.

So the Magic Number is….

I’ve talked about blogging once a month. I’ve talked about blogging 30 times a month. Is there an inbetween?

Personally, for new bloggers who are unsure of themselves, I recommend once a week. It’s easy to do. Most blogs are 500-800 words on average. That’s 500 words on a blog post about whatever subject you want to talk about. It’s not overwhelming, yet it’s enough to stay in a reader’s mind.

I also recommend working your way up to three times a week. Ideally, doing it three times a week right in the beginning will get you into that mindset immediately, keep it in your mind that you need to keep up with the blog, and gets your name out there more quickly.

Blogging makes writing faster easier

With the average blog being 500-800 words (and yes, I’m well aware that this blog is twice that *sigh*), you have to make your point fairly quickly. My earliest blogs (thankfully on blogs that no longer exist) were pointless ramblings with no organized thoughts. Blogging makes you think about how you want to say things. It makes you mentally organize content. It helps us become better writers. And of course, the more you blog, the faster the results and the easier it gets.

Blogging is good for the soul

You don’t get anywhere without hard work. That’s what my daddy told me. But he’s right. And if you give up on blogging, you’re letting all that hard work go to waste. I’m sad that I’ve let two blogs of my own and a group blog die because I couldn’t commit to them. When I started blogging here, I made a commitment to myself not to let that happen again. It’s important to me that my blog continues on and that it’s the center of my author platform, especially as I get ready to publish my first two self-published books.

The other thing I love about my blog is that when I can’t seem to make the fiction work for me, when I can’t make with the words for my books, I can switch over and write a blog post and a lot of times, that frees my mind enough to get the creative juices flowing. I end up moving on, going back to the fiction I had trouble with originally.

 Blogging regularly goes along with professionalism

Does that mean that if you don’t blog regularly you’re not professional? Not at all. But a languishing blog looks worse to a visitor than no blog at all. It’s like leaving your dirty underwear out for people to see when you invite them over. Not fun.

Blogging is a great way to demonstrate that we take our writing seriously. We’re building up that platform to sell a book that maybe we haven’t finished yet.

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but I don’t want to be the one who is embarrassed about being a writer. When someone asks me what I do, I want to say “I’m a writer.” The next question will always be “What have you written?” and then I can slip my blog addy to them and hopefully turn them into part of my community.

When I first came online as a writer, blogging gave me the confidence to be able to write without being embarrassed. I had serial story going, and while it was absolutely horrible (I’ve improved a lot!) it helped me develop myself for the future of being in the public eye. A blog gives us something to show as a professional front.

But what’s the magic formula?

Pfft. I didn’t title this post “What’s the Magic Blogging Formula?” It’s not about the formula. It’s about the individual. If we try to force it, it shows. If we hate it, it shows.

Blogging makes us stronger, more effective writers and it connects us together so we don’t have to drive readers to our books ourselves. So there’s not really a clear cut answer to how many times we need to blog. I try for 3-4 a week. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don’t. But i never post less than 2 a week. You know your strengths. You know what you are capable of doing.

Blogging isn’t as hard as you might think. I spent years blogging about my divorce before I was done with it and ready to move on. None of that was fluff. And I frequently go back over those posts to see how I felt during those times, especially since I have a penchant for writing single parents.

My recommendation is to blog as often as you can be counted on and still be able to finish the books. You need to finish that book. But even if we only have an hour each day to write, can’t we sacrifice another 15-20 min of sleep to write that 500 word blog post that needs to go up?

If we can’t spare at least once a week to write that blog post, there’s no point to blogging for you. The content on a blog needs to be fresh, and seeing a post that is three weeks old doesn’t give the reader that feeling. Inspiration is great, but it doesn’t get the writing done, and a professional writer can’t wait for inspiration, not when that phone bill hasn’t been paid yet.

So what are your thoughts on blogging? Love it? Hate it? What’s the biggest challenge you face with your blog? But on the same token, what’s the biggest benefit you’ve gotten from blogging?

It’s Friday, you guys! But unlike the many others who have the weekends off, I’m gearing up to work. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. Yesterday, I started talking to some more established authors from various loops, chats, and forums about something that has been on my mind.

I like non-fiction. It gives me a break from the words I write. Gives me a chance to think about other things. Like non-writing things, which to be honest, tends to fill a large space in my head. I love writing. I love talking about writing. I love talking about social media and all kinds of things like that.

When you start a business, the first thing that people advise you to do, before you do anything else, is to create a business plan. i started thinking about this when I was reading a book about how to be successful as an author and the authors suggested it. So, I sat down yesterday, and wrote out a three year business plan. I would think that five years might be better, but I’m not ready to think that far out, because I’m at a major crossroads right now, both in my writing and my life. And the best part about my plan is that I can adjust it later if I need to to include five years instead.

So, I did some asking yesterday, when i got this hare-brained idea about a writer career plan, and found a surprising number of authors, even self-published authors, didn’t have a career plan in mind other than “get this damn book out!”

I decided I want one, and started making one. It’s not done yet, or I would post a basic template of what I did. Maybe I’ll do that next week.

What I started with this week is something that I can share. The first thing I did with my new writer career plan is set my goals for the next three years. I came up with one sentence that is what I want from my writing in three years. It’s my going to be my Main Goal. That sentence encompasses everything I want to get accomplished over the next three years.

This statement is about me and what I want to accomplish in SMART goals. And what is SMART?

S – specific,

M – measurable,

A – attainable, achievable,

R – realistic, relevant, reasonable,

T – time-based, timely, tangible, trackable

I’ll probably do a SMART goals breakdown later, but you can get the gist of it here. I could say “I want to be a writer!” or I can say “I want to be making X dollars per month, selling Y number of books, and be finished with my degree.” See the difference? That’s my Main Goal.

Then I have about five Supporting Goals, all which when achieved will give me my Main Goal as a result. These may be “Write X number of books” or “Promote each title published” or whatever. They are kind of like action steps to achieving the Main Goal. I’m working on breaking these down into bite-size action steps now.

I have a lot of other things on my plan, which eventually, I’ll share with you guys, because I do think that every author should have a career plan.

For now, I’m curious. Do you have a career plan for your writing? What kinds of things do you put on your plan? Or would you if you had a plan (which you should…)?

It’s that time again! ROW80 check-in time! For those of you that don’t know what ROW80 is, it stands for A Round of Words in 80 Days. It’s a challenge done four times a year, and it’s meant for people with lives that can’t do a strict challenge like NaNoWriMo. Learn more about ROW80 and sign up on the website.

Basically, how I do my goals is that I have an overall blog post at the beginning of the round detailing what I want to accomplish this round. Then each week, I do three sections to each topic: what I meant to do, what I did, and what I will do. That’s me stating what my goals were, what I did to accomplish them, and what I’m going to do for next week. Because I’ve learned that if i don’t beat myself over the head with things, I don’t get it done.

This week was really nice to me, guys.

Writing
What I meant to do this week:

I’m going to put aside the menage this week and start editing the contemporary romance since I need to be done with the content pass before I leave for Margie Lawson’s IMC class in CO.

What I actually did this week:

I started the content edit for NSA. It’s going fairly quickly, but I feel like it’s not adding as much wordcount as I thought it would. This is distressing, because I wanted it right around 55-60k. Though what will happen is Team Awesome will get it and will be all “YOU NEED TO ADDS THIS! AND THIS! AND THIS TOO!” and I will add another 15k doing what they tell me to do.

What I will do for next week:

Edit No Strings Attached. That’s pretty much all I’m planning on this week, as next week I’m going to Margie Lawson’s Immersion Master Class in CO and I’m taking that story, so I’d like it to be in really nice shape so I can tear it apart and make it sparkle.

Blogging and Social Networking
What I meant to do this week:

Post three times
Sit down and write out a couple more writing posts for Tackle it Tuesdays
Need to work at scheduling guest bloggers still.

What I actually did this week:

I think I actually posted four or five times. I’m not sure, to be honest. I’m trying to become more streamlined with my posts, focusing on more social media and writing craft posts. It’s not that hard, because that’s what I love, but finding topics I won’t write a tome about all the time is a different story.

What I will do for next week:

Create a new schedule that I’ll post later so readers know what to expect.
I swear eventually I’ll get around to the guest scheduling. I think with the edits, it’s been easier not having to worry about it.

Publishing
What I meant to do this week:

Refreshing my email.

What I actually did this week:

Checked up on submissions. One never made it to the publisher so I resent it. (Lesson learned here: When in doubt, and it’s past time to hear? Ping the recipient.)

I made a cover for a book I have on submission right now. As soon as it exhausts all avenues of trustworthy publication, I’m going to go back through it for proofing (not that I hadn’t combed through it endlessly already but it’s been a while) and get it set up for self-publishing.

What I will do for next week:

A lot of the same stuff. Some refreshing, mostly waiting for now. I do have three more pubs on my list to send to so I’ll send the hockey romance to them later this week and see how it goes.

Crafty Stuff
What I meant to do this week:

Sit down and figure out how much to set for the Kickstarter goal
Figure out donation prizes and such.

What I actually did this week:

I made about eight covers to use in the Kickstarter video.
I made a Kickstarter budget.
None of this sounds very crafty. *sigh*

What I will do for next week:

Launching the Kickstarter will be a while because I want to use actual covers that I’ll complete for people instead of examples.
My current goal is to complete a cover a day, which so far, I’m doing okay with. Finding new ways to use stock I have is… interesting. And then there are a few images that I’m hoarding because I want them for me.

Fitness and Health
What I meant to do this week:

Work out three times (you wouldn’t think this would be so hard…)
Do the damn situps and pushups.

What I actually did this week:

Not a damn thing. *sigh*

What I will do for next week:

Probably not too much. I’m way busy with school and stuff, so I’m concentrating on finishing out the term before I do things like be healthy and junk.

Overall

June is my Edit All The Things Month. So far, I’ve edited about 90 pages and it’s the 6th. So, doing okay. Slow and steady, right?

How’s everyone else doing? It’s almost the end of Round 2 of ROW80!

 

Backstory.

It’s a tedious balance. Too much means you bore us with your info dump. Too little means we’re too lost to continue. Put too much information in the first couple of chapters and you lose your readers. Too little, and you lose your readers.

Readers want to be entertained, not lectured. Also, we want to lose ourselves in the world you create, not turn pages going “What the hell just happened? Why did the character do THAT?”

So, how do you know exactly how much is too much?

I don’t know. I really don’t. Wait, wait! Don’t go! Here, I’ll explain. Munch on these brownies while I do.

I read a book I seriously might have put down if it wasn’t a book club book. I wanted to be able to talk about the book and understand when others talked about it, and so, I plugged through the book. Four chapters later, I finally started getting into the book. The story started picking up momentum, and apparently, the author felt she’d dumped enough information on us to last us the next 300 pages.

The thing I realized, though, is if it hadn’t been for a book club, I would probably have put that book down, and any author knows, the one thing you want to do with your story is not give the reader an opportunity to put the book down. No “good stopping places” because once the book gets set down, it’s become a huge likelihood that the book will not get picked back up again.

Mixing the perfect blend of backstory and current events is hard, and I’m sort of guilty of doing that as well in some of my older stories. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about for some time, and working to perfect, not that I think it’ll ever be perfect. It’ll get better, yes.

I think science fiction and fantasy are typically the biggest culprit of them all. Because they are building a world from scratch or basing it off an existing world with added elements, or creating a what if world, (like what if Germany had won WWII) SF&F authors tend to have more information to disseminate. BUT… I’ve seen this infodump thing in contemporary romances too.

But it’s important that they trim the fat, as it were. Do we really need to know who became King of the World after Hitler shot his dog, and enraged the ASPCA, who then picked up pitchforks and torches and organized a rebellion in post-WWII Germany when the story’s set 500 years in the future of that world?

Maybe we could gloss over some of that history. I liked history in school, but I can only take so much. Create the world around me, around your characters. Don’t get bogged down in telling all the little details. Just tell me what is necessary for the story.

So, how are those brownies? Good, yes? Aren’t you glad you stayed now?

So, tell me, what authors have you read lately that have that perfect balance of backstory in their books?

Welcome to Six Sentence Sunday, the day in which I join a couple hundred other authors to showcase fun six sentence long snippets on their blogs.

We’re back to a contemporary erotic romance this week, currently titled No Strings Attached (until I think of another title that fits. I hate titles…), which is planned for a theme call due in August.

A little background… Ashlynn and Ethan are married, (they got married in the first chapter of the book, actually) though they got married for the stability that military life gives them and not for love. It’s about convenience for them. Ashlynn just admitted to Ethan that she’s in love with him, though she hadn’t meant to do that. It sort of slipped….

“Ash…” His voice was soft, full of pity she didn’t want to hear from him. Of course he would pity her. He didn’t love her; he didn’t really need her. The best she could claim is that he cared about her… as a friend. But for her, it was so much more because somewhere between the first time they had sex and now, three months after their wedding, she’d fallen in love with him.

“Don’t.” She put up a hand and shook her head vehemently. “Just don’t.”

For those new to Six Sentence Sunday, you can play too:

1) pick a book– a current Work in Progress, contracted work or even something readers can buy if you’re published

2) pick six sentences from anywhere in the story

3) post them on Sunday (hence the Six Sentence SUNDAY)

Want to play? See the site for information on how to do just that: Six Sentence Sunday

If you have a Twitter account, you can add the hashtag #sixsunday to your tweets when you tweet a link to your Six Sentence Sunday post. If you’re a writer (regardless of published/unpublished status) come join us!

See Suzan.

See Suzan write.

Write, Suzan, write!

See Suzan pull out her hair.

See Suzan bald.

See Suzan bang her head on the desk because she’s way behind in her writing and possibly isn’t going to get this story done when she wanted to get it done and it’s possibly going to take an extra week that her OCD mind can’t handle because it pushes her ENTIRE schedule back for the next three months and screws up her entire life when she has no room for it to screw up.

*deep breath*

See Suzan write some more.

Write more, Suzan, write more.

So, I get some interesting spam in my queue, which I’m sure happens to everyone. Well, since I’m feeling pretty good (and I’m procrastinating edits) let’s answer some of the spam, okay?

My “Words That Should Be Retired” post probably gets the most spam out of any of my posts. Not sure why, but it does.

Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but other than that, this is magnificent blog. An excellent read. I will certainly be back.

It’s like I wrote a book…. Hmm… well, it is about words… Also, why would I need to add pics to drive the message about WORDS home? But thanks for saying it’s a magnificent blog. I think so too.

This next one came in on my Booky Thoughts post.

I do believe all of the ideas you’ve offered in your post. They are really convincing and can certainly work. Still, the posts are too short for newbies. May just you please lengthen them a bit from subsequent time? Thank you for the post.

MY POSTS? Too SHORT? Man, I’m always having to trim the posts. I try to keep them around 500 words but they always kind of explode into 800, 900, 1000 words…. No wonder I can’t keep a regular blog… Anyway *looks at comment name* Sex, I’m glad my ideas are convincing. I assure you they work for me.

On my Branding Schmanding Twitter post:

Hi, i think that i saw you visited my site so i came to “return the favor”.I am trying to find things to enhance my site!I suppose its ok to use a few of your ideas!!

So, obviously, I don’t make a habit of visiting spam blogs. Also, this one goes to an Asian sex site, which I assure you, not my thing. Also, I sort of wonder WHY “return the favor” is in quotes. Is it supposed to be innuendo, since it goes to a sex site? And dude, I’m sure your site is enhanced enough without my help, though I’m not positive what could be useful from this site on a porn site…

And… on the writing software post:

After reading your blog post I browsed your website a bit and noticed you aren’t ranking nearly as well in Google as you could be. I possess a handful of blogs myself and I think you should take a look here:[link redacted] You’ll find it’s a very nice tool that can bring you a lot more visitors. Keep up the quality posts

My ass I’m not ranking well. I’m the first result on Google when you Google my name. Yes, I do vanity Google myself fairly frequently. It’s all a part of my plan to ensure I’m visible to my readers. Not that I have any, but I could! But anyway, I think that I’m doing okay in the SEO department. I don’t need your stupid plugin.

Okay, I think that’s enough for today. If I get any fun spam, I’ll be sure to do another one of these posts. So, let’s discuss. What’s the funniest spam comment you’ve gotten on your blog?

It’s that time again! ROW80 check-in time! For those of you that don’t know what ROW80 is, it stands for A Round of Words in 80 Days. It’s a challenge done four times a year, and it’s meant for people with lives that can’t do a strict challenge like NaNoWriMo. Learn more about ROW80 and sign up on the website.

Basically, how I do my goals is that I have an overall blog post at the beginning of the round detailing what I want to accomplish this round. Then each week, I do three sections to each topic: what I meant to do, what I did, and what I will do. That’s me stating what my goals were, what I did to accomplish them, and what I’m going to do for next week. Because I’ve learned that if i don’t beat myself over the head with things, I don’t get it done.

Writing
What I meant to do this week:

So today I’ll finish the menage bunny
Then I’ll get back into the new contemp so I can finish that before the end of the month.

What I actually did this week:

I finished the menage story!
i finished the new contemporary romance story!
I wrote a unplanned short story!
I started editing the menage story too!

What I will do this next week:

I’m going to put aside the menage this week and start editing the contemporary romance since I need to be done with the content pass before I leave for Margie Lawson’s IMC class in CO.

Blogging and Social Networking
What I meant to do this week:

Work back up to three a week.
Schedule, schedule, schedule. I suck at this.
I put up a Guest Blogger page but I haven’t been actively seeking. Probably should do that.

What I actually did this week:

I posted twice, three if you count last week’s update, because honestly, these updates are kinda long…

What I will do for next week:

Post three times
Sit down and write out a couple more writing posts for Tackle it Tuesdays
Need to work at scheduling guest bloggers still.

Publishing
What I meant to do for this week:

Continue to refresh my email a lot. I’m supposed to hear back on almost all of them this week.

What I actually did and what I will do for next week:

Refreshing my email.

Crafty Stuff
What I meant to do this week:

Finish writing the Kickstarter proposal and work out the details as to donation prices, prizes, ect.
I still want to do that camera strap…

What I actually did this week:

I made a video for the Kickstarter campaign.
I wrote up a rough draft of the Kickstarter campaign.

What I will do for next week:

Sit down and figure out how much to set for the Kickstarter goal
Figure out donation prizes and such.

Fitness and Health
What I meant to do this week:

Workout three times.
Situps and pushups every night.
Do better with the Points.

What I actually did this week:

Worked out twice
Sort of forgot about the situps and pushups
Changed my daily Points goal. Brought it down.

What I will do this week:

Work out three times (you wouldn’t think this would be so hard…)
Do the damn situps and pushups.

Overall

I’m so happy with myself this week. Lots of writing. Not much else, really. I finished the menage, A Perfect Weekend, the romance meant for the Ball & Chain call, No Strings Attached, and an unplanned shorter romance that I might expand later called Unlock Her Heart.

I still haven’t heard back from the submissions I have out. That’s okay though. Only one is actually overdue and I’ve sent a little nudge email. June is going to be a lot of editing which means July will be critiques and beta reads and August will probably be a major submission month. I know there’s one that will be submitted in August because that’s the deadline for the Ball & Chain call.

Other than that…I’ve had a really good week. How’s everyone else’s been?

Wow, it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve done a Tackle It Tuesday. I’ve been slacking on a lot of the bloggerly things. Well, what’s a better way to get back into it than to revisit my Rewritepocalypse process, going through the second stage. You can find the first post I did here.

A whole new beast…

Stage 2 is difficult for me to explain. There’s so much that goes into it, like Act 2 of a story. The meat of what I do is contained in this particular stage.

Where we left off…

At the end of Stage 1, I’ve got a quite marked up document, and a bare bones outline of the story arc. Depending on the complexity of the story, I might have several bare bone outlines of the story arc. I’ve got most of my weak points in the story marked but I haven’t started to fix anything at this point. I’ve gone through each scene one by one and deleted the fillers that don’t advance the plot, or really, just marked them for deletion.

Starting Stage 2

First thing I do for Stage 2 is to open a new document. It’s so much easier to keep things organized when you keep them separate. So I open up a new document every time I start a new draft.I save my revisions in versions, i.e. “FileName_V1-0.doc”. This keeps things safe for me, so I can go back to a previous version if I decide that the day’s work i did sucks.

This is the longest stage and the most tedious, at least for me. Some stories require a large amount of rewriting, some just a few tweaks. Use your best judgement and keep to the >six points of your plot I mentioned in Stage 1.

Many writers work on hard copy at this point but I find I like working electronic, not to mention it’s much cheaper not printing out 300 pages every time I do a rewrite.

How much of a rewrite do I really need to do?

To figure out how much of a rewrite you’re looking at, i prefer to start by taking it scene by scene. Each scene must advance your plot points in some way. Each scene must have a beginning, middle, and resolution. Analyzing each scene is a long process but it’s important to do because having useless filler scenes in your story is not only bore your reader but will also turn them off.

Be ruthless.

For me, I use Jim Butcher’s advice I got from his LiveJournal a few years ago. Go read it in its entirety. I highly recommend. For now, I’m just going to show you how I use what he wrote for rewrites, as his posts are geared towards those just starting to write a story.

So what does a scene that works have to have?

Scenes are constructed of several components, and during the rewrite I have to make sure all the components are there so the machine works. So, when I start Stage 2, I’ve already glossed over the scenes, marked them up a little, and figured out which ones to keep. However, I may be adding more to the deletion file. (Just a quick hint… Never delete. Copy and paste into a separate file that has everything you’ve cut)

The first thing I do is identify the point of view character. A lot of times, it’s easy, because I love first person. But I also have love for third person limited on occasion, especially when I’m writing romance, and sometimes, I even do a first person with more than one character. The main thing to do, if you do have more than one character is figure out who has the most to lose in the scene. That means figuring out what your POV character’s goal is. This needs to be an ACTIVE, SPECIFIC goal, not something that encompasses the entire book because a person’s mind just doesn’t think about that. Instead, your character needs to have a goal more like take the girl out for a wonderful night on the town with lots of attention to detail and customized surprises for her” rather than “make the girl like me.”

The most important thing about goals is that they must be clear, attainable, specific, and important to your POV character.

Next up is Conflict, the very heart of our story. Without conflict, there is no story, let alone a scene. I like how Jim Butcher describes it in his blog: “CONFLICT, ideally, is two characters going head-to-head (on whatever level is appropriate–social knife-fighting can make reading every bit as interesting as literal knife-fighting), while both of them try to achieve conflicting goals.”

There are four ways to resolve the conflict in the scene. Again, I’m a big fan of Jim Butcher’s blog post for this one as well so I’m just going to copy his answers like a little cheat because I can’t say it better.

1: YES. Already told you, this one is a no-no. It’s the simplest, leaves you with the least drama and the fewest options. It’s predictable, almost inherently comes with less conflict, and gives you the worst odds of keeping a reader’s attention.

2: YES . . . BUT. This one is a lot better. In this scenario, your hero accomplishes his scene goal all right–but there’s a complication of some kind, and one that might have consequences down the line. Generally, the more dire and/or disastrous the potential consequence, the better.

3: NO! Another solid scene resolution, from the writing standpoint. The hero sets out to attain his goal, but is flatly denied. Maybe he gets shut down by the antagonist. Maybe he makes a mistake and blows it completely. Either way, he gives it his best shot and is slapped down. Now he’ll have to back off, re-evaluate the situation, and try something else. Use this scene answer with some caution, because it can have the effect of bringing your story to a halt. Too many of them can become frustrating for the reader, and can make your character look foolish and/or impotent, thus reducing reader empathy and the tension of your overall story.

4: NO! AND FURTHERMORE! My personal favorite scene answer. Not only does your hero NOT attain his goal, but he manages to make matters even WORSE along the way. It’s best if the worsening of the situation is your protagonist’s fault, because that’s just FUN, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. THIS answer is really the one that gives you the most interesting scenes, provides the meat for the most interesting and endearing sequels, and is generally the Big Gun you pull out when your plot is slowing down. Warning: it does force you, as the writer, to get a little creative, because it multiplies the problems your hero has to solve. But hey. If you weren’t at least a little creative, you wouldn’t be here.

After you’ve got the basic set up of the scene,you’re ready to analyze and ask the whyfores and all that jazz. You’ve lathered up. Now rinse and repeat for every scene in the novel. Remember how I said Stage 2 is tedious and takes forever? My novels typically have around 100 scenes, depending on length. It takes forever. But by going through each scene this way, you figure out exactly what you need your scenes to accomplish. If you haven’t got one of these components, you can add it in here in this stage.

Alright, you’ve got all the scenes down and you’ve rewritten the ones that need it and you’re making progress on your Rewritepocalypse.

What do you do now?

Finish Stage 2, that’s what. Because Stage 3 is coming, the final stage. Getting over Stage 2 is a monumental hump. Do it and you’re home free. Stage 3 is cleanup. But that’s a post for another day. This one’s already too long.

Welcome to Six Sentence Sunday, the day in which I join a couple hundred other authors to showcase fun six sentence long snippets on their blogs.

This week, I’m editing a new menage temporarily called A Perfect Weekend, so I thought I’d share something from the beginning(ish) of that.

Brianna let go of his hand and laid back on the bed, the sheets smelling faintly of cinnamon and cigars. She turned her face toward the comforter, letting the black curtain of her hair fall over her face, and inhaled lightly. The bed still smelled of René, spicy and masculine, and she let out a soft sigh of contentment.

“Are you trying to make me jealous, doll?” Garrett appeared anything but jealous as she glanced up at him. His smile had forced out his dimples, the ones that made him look years younger than thirty-four, as he stalked closer to her.

For those new to Six Sentence Sunday, you can play too:

1) pick a book– a current Work in Progress, contracted work or even something readers can buy if you’re published

2) pick six sentences from anywhere in the story

3) post them on Sunday (hence the Six Sentence SUNDAY)

Want to play? See the site for information on how to do just that: Six Sentence Sunday

If you have a Twitter account, you can add the hashtag #sixsunday to your tweets when you tweet a link to your Six Sentence Sunday post. If you’re a writer (regardless of published/unpublished status) come join us!