“You Will Always Be Too Much Of Something For Someone: Too Big, Too Loud, Too Soft, Too Edgy. If You

for the draft thing: when i start writing novels i always have a lot of beginning, a fair amount of backstory, a solid ending, and maybe one or two key events in between, but nothing in the middle. i'm never sure how to approach this and it usually kills a lot of my projects :/ not sure if this is a question you can answer easily but if there's any tips i'd love to hear it!

Planning the middle...

I’ve gathered a couple of resources that I believe may help you with this. 

Coming Up With Scene Ideas

How To Engage The Reader

Pacing Appropriately

Balancing Detail & Development

Writing The Middle of Your Story

Powering Through The Zero-Draft Phase

Maintaining Writing Momentum

How To Prevent Getting Stuck

Writing Your Way Through The Plot Fog

Resources For Plot Development

Guide To Plot Development

How To Foreshadow

Novel Planning 101

Tackling Subplots

Things A Reader Needs From A Story

Planning A Scene In A Story

How To Fit Character Development Into Your Story

And some prompts in case you have trouble getting the creative juices flowing while you’re brainstorming...

Romantic Prompts

Angst Prompts

Dramatic Prompts

Suspenseful Prompts

Sad Prompts

20 Sentence Story Prompt

31 Days of Character Development : May 2018 Writing Challenge

31 Days of Plot Development : January 2019 Writing Challenge

–

Masterlist | WIP Blog

If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.

“It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine.”

— Mark Z. Danielewski 

“People do not hurt us, our hopes from them hurt us.”

— Imam Ali 

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

— Albert Einstein 

The Structure of Story now available! Check it out on Amazon, via the link in our bio, or at https://kiingo.co/book

.

.

.

A scene agitator is something that makes a task more difficult, distracting, uncomfortable, or interesting. Agitators make scenes more intriguing as we see a character struggle. Let's review a few types of agitators.

Agitators include:

• Loud noises that distract characters (and the audience) including a car alarm, an air raid siren, a passing subway, etc.

• The introduction of anything inherently dangerous such as a tiger in the room, a character juggling a knife, etc.

• Dangerous settings such as a tight rope, a fight over a river of lava, a discussion on a cliff's ledge, etc.

• Any agitation of the senses such as free-floating dust, popping grease from cooking bacon, etc.

• An stream of disruptions or interruptions to a conversation.

• A physical constraint such as the tightening of a corset during a conversation.

• Anything that violates social norms such as a violation of personal space, a violation of personal hygiene, etc.

• Inclement weather such as hail, lightning, thunder, etc.

• Anything vying for the character's attention.

• Anything that inhibits or blocks clear and unfiltered communication such as a fuzzy phone connection, a physical barrier between a conversation, etc.

• Pungent smells such a skunk, manure, the sewers, etc.

• Bugs

Kiingo

Add an Agitator to Your Scene

A scene agitator is something that makes a task more difficult, distracting, uncomfortable, or interesting. Agitators make scenes more intri

Writing Tip #235

If you want to get serious about increasing your writing output, you need to know what your baseline is. For a few weeks make a note of when you start writing, when you stop writing, the number of words you wrote, and where you were. Then analyze the information. You’ll quickly get a sense of if you write better in the morning or at night. If you write better at home or somewhere else (I know this isn’t as easy to do because of covid right now). Then when you can, write at the time and place that make you the most productive.

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”

— Ray Bradbury

“You hear but are you listening? You exist but are you living? You look but do you see?”

— Unknown