Amazing Secrets of Character-Driven Plots (And How to Craft Them)

Posted on by Cathy Kirch

When we read a well-crafted story, it can sometimes seem as though the perfect plot fell from the sky and the author simply plucked it out of thin air. 

They make it look so easy, we mutter. Why can’t I get that kind of inspiration?

But in reality, juicy and engaging plots don’t just “happen”—they’re the result of intentional craft. By pulling apart the stories we love, we can see how all the moving parts fit together to make the machine run as intended.

And the good news is, we don’t have to depend on inspiration to deliver us a juicy plot—we can create it ourselves.

Continue reading Amazing Secrets of Character-Driven Plots (And How to Craft Them)

Top 10 Reasons to Write Your Novel Out of Order

Posted on by Cathy Kirch

Great novels feel seamless. 

The plot is tight, the conflict compelling and believable, the characters jump off the page. Every detail feels organic, as though it couldn’t have been written in any other way than what we’re reading.

This impression, however, can be a little misleading. 

When we flip through published novels on bookstore shelves, it’s all too easy to imagine that the writer simply sat down and churned out the book from beginning to end. 

But this is actually not how most authors work.

Research comparing processes of novice and advanced writers finds that experienced writers tend to work on whatever is easiest for them at the moment, rather than forcing themselves to work in a specific order.

Many writers I’ve worked with who write out of sequence (especially those of us with ADHD) view their nonlinear approach as a sign of their own incompetence—when in actuality it’s a sign that they’re relatively advanced in their process.

So here’s the good news: Just because our readers will read the story linearly, from page one to The End, doesn’t mean we have to write it that way—it doesn’t mean our process has to be linear.

Writing out of sequence can be incredibly freeing, and there are a lot of advantages to this approach.

Here are my top ten reasons to write your novel out of order:

Continue reading Top 10 Reasons to Write Your Novel Out of Order

How To Turn Distraction Into Your Best Writing Session Ever

Posted on by Cathy Kirch

I am a writer.

I also have ADD.

But I suspect this experience is not entirely unfamiliar to other writers:

I’m working on a story, and then—BAM—I’m hit with a brilliant idea for another project, or a scene for later on in the piece, or a detail I want to make sure to include somewhere, etc.

The problem?

I either get so absorbed in the new idea that I completely lose focus on what I was working on, or I tell myself I’ll remember the new idea (but never, ever do).

Worse still, I sometimes try to maintain focus on both at the same time, trying to remember the new idea while still working on the original piece, rendering both efforts frustratingly inaccessible and mediocre.

My hands already cramp up trying to keep up with the speed of my thoughts; now I’m trying to hold onto an idea (or more than one!) while also pursuing a separate thread of attention. It’s simply not possible.

Writing on its own is hard enough—and research reflects this.

Continue reading How To Turn Distraction Into Your Best Writing Session Ever

How to Set Goals That Will Actually Make You Write

Posted on by Cathy Kirch

Last month you said you’d have 50,000 words by the end of the summer. Last week you said you’d finish your story by the end of this week. Yesterday you said, for the 100th time, “I’ll write tomorrow.”

Sound familiar?

I’ve been there—making promise after promise, scribbling an arbitrary word count on a post-it note like it was going to force my fingers to the keyboard.

And I’ll be honest: sometimes I’m still there.

It was worst during the year that followed turning in my MFA thesis. Now that deadlines no longer breathed down my neck, there was nothing constantly driving me—or my writing—forward.

Nerd that I am, I researched my heart out. I read up on productivity, on goal-setting strategies, on the writing habits of famous authors. I dove so deep into the work of others I forgot my own, and every time I tried a new strategy, I gave up almost immediately.

I was thinking a lot about how to get myself to write, but I still wasn’t writing.

Why wasn’t I writing?

And it wasn’t just me.

This was an issue plaguing many of my friends and fellow MFA grads—and it continues to be an issue for a lot of writers.

The problem with the way we set writing goals is, most of the time, we’re not doing so in a way that will actually get us to sit down and write.

We make the mistake of assuming that because so-and-so famous writer produced a thousand words a day, or followed such-and-such specific schedule, that we have to operate within the same goal-setting framework. As though all writers are wired the same!

Which is crazy, really, because something that often defines writers is how not like everyone else we are.

We pride ourselves in thinking outside of the box, in seeing the world differently—and yet we try to fence ourselves within these arbitrary parameters because, hey, it worked for Hemingway/King/Woolf/insert-famous-author-here.

The key to setting effective writing goals is recognizing that different writers write differently—and should set their goals accordingly. When I struggled to set writing goals that worked, I failed to consider a crucial piece of the equation: me.

I’ve outlined three goal-setting styles below—along with how to decide which approach is the right fit and how to modify them to make your goals work for you.

Continue reading How to Set Goals That Will Actually Make You Write