Advice on Writing from the Internets.

I check out Reddit daily as you know by now, as this is part of the name of my blog. I came across an interesting writing tip for finishing a story. The author of this linked blog says to write both the beginning and end at the same time. He states when writing the End your mind now has an easy goal to focus on.

After you write your first chapter, or after you reach your first conflict, take a break and write the ending. Not all the ending, just the important part. It could be a chapter, a scene, or a series of scenes.

How does that help, you will ask? Let me tell you what it did for me, and I think that it is a pure psychological ‘trick,’ a writer’s Placebo, if you will.

I sat down and I wrote the last 3 scenes of my novel. They were the scenes where everything I worked over those 100k pages came together. Plot lines were closed, mysteries revealed, characters’ quests concluded. People shook hands and said goodbye.

As soon as I did that, somehow, deep down inside of me, I felt like I almost finished the book. It felt as if by the simple act of writing that final part, I have managed to close a circle and everything just fell into place.

Thinking about doing this instead of plodding along with my outline. I let you know the results.

CERN STORY- First Draft of 1st and 2nd Chapters (Re)Written.

After boothing at the Gotham Writer's Workshop two-weeks ago I re-wrote the first chapter paying close attention to the criticisms of the other writers. I flipped and combined the initial Chapter 2 into the First Chapter, while taking out the last part of Chapter 1 and used it as the beginning of Chapter 2.  This took a while as I changed some parts of the story to add details that weren't there before and took out devices that didn't work. Revising can be more difficult than writing the original. That being said I am still not satisfied with the first two Chapters as they need more description, specifically one of the characters who remains an enigma. Whether I choose to leave it this way and develop him later in Chapter 3 seems like an idea I am entertaining at the moment.