Well, after promising myself I would start plotting Mauve Eye days ago, I suddenly decided I wouldn’t, I need a realluy good plot in my head before I get anything on paper, and I already have the culture of my Witch Hunters firmly in place.

It’s a realaly great culture and it fits my nameless main character perfectly, I am already getting scene ideas just from simple background info. Now I will go onto to some location work and mapping, which is always fun. Then, hopefully I need to work on religions, government etc… I am really going into depth with this one because I’ve learned from previous mistakes. I need almost everything in place before I begin.

THen finally, once wordbuilding is over I will be able to get to grips with the little details of my MC, and I also need to work on another major character I have in mind.

Ooo…Exciting

Well, another rant today!

I can not abide people who say “I’m a writer” then approach me with a single paragraph that has taken them a week to think up of. Why take time on 50-100 words when you have 90000+ words to write for a Novel? I don’t see the logic in it and further more, because they arn’t writing all the time, plotting etc… they become fed up with it and don’t write again. I sigh and restrain myself from lashing out at these new writers.

I just say “write the damn thing” because at the end of the say they can go back and edit anything they were unhappy with in the revision. Writers write. There is nothing more or nothing less about the sentence, but none of them listen, which annoys me even more.

So I’ll give one piece of advice today: If you are a writer, just write the damn thing!

15000 words and the beginning and opening to the story as a whole is done.My MC has finally discovered himself and his aim and I have had a slight theme switch.

Various things have happened that I didn't want to so another plot revision looks hopeful. 

Todays writing tip, and this is from experiance. When you build a world map for your sci-fi or fantasy story always think bigger.

When I built my world I started of sketching a  city, then a country and then I expanded to continents. This makes it more realistic, where you story takes place is only the tip of the iceberg. When you start to introduce more world you can get a better idea of where civilisation started and how it expanded, also why some places arn't yet discovered and in turn you may get plot ideas.

So there you have it. Always think bigger. 

When I started writing longer stories I went in head first and barracaded thousands of words into the story. Can you guess what happened? The story became blander that an eastender’s repeat. The characters were generic, the plot was “and then this” and nothing was leading anywhere. I would be fooling myself if I was to carry on.

After this failure fifteen thousand words in I went on an expedition on how to plot, there are quirky methods, there are ones based upon scenes you want to write. None worked for me, they all seemed to forceful of getting ideas out and didn’t leave room for me to breath. Plotting should be fun, vibrant and it should get you geared up to write the novel.

So the first thing I do is I take my base idea and write the opening chapter or prologue. Write about the first characters that come to mind, we’ll work on those later, just write an exciting piece that intrigues you and makes you want to build more onto the story. It may end up that you never use this in your final draft of your novel but the fact is it adds enthusiasm to your work.

Done? Right you have your start, the next thing is to vision where is this taking place, is it in our world. If so where? Is it in your made up world. If it is then you will need to world build. I usually start with a map of the world or city and create it around the location of the first piece I do. After this ideas start to bounce around.

Next thing to do is if your first scene is about the villain, you need a hero or vice-versa. When you have the 2 main characters you need an ending, what do you want achieved at the end of the novel, does your main character live. Of course you only have skeletons of characters at this stage, your 3D characters come alot later.

When you have your beginning and end you can start working on the middle or extend the beginning, you will need to introduce your main character in the first few chapters/scenes so you need an interesting action packed start for him/her. Then you will need a scene about you MC going from danger to more danger, you will need to constantly work on building towards your ending.

This worked for me, it will work for you, it will make you want to carry on to the end.