Listmania!

I sure hope I don’t get sued by Amazon for that blog title. They seem to like to sue anyone who uses/says/thinks something related to their site.

Believe it or not, I still have some questions left to answer from my call for questions way back on 6 November. I better get to answering!

If a tree falls… asks: What kinds of lists do you make (if any) to keep your story straight?

I only have one actual list, and it carries over from book to book (to book). We will get to that later. First I will talk about how I keep things straight for each individual book.

Really, what it comes down to is that I was blessed with an amazing memory. Just ask Bubba-he will verify that I can remember, word for word, conversations we had long before we were even dating. So that helps a lot when it comes to keeping things straight. But there are other things I do as well.

With each book I write, I also write a book diary. It is nothing fancy-just a separate document on my computer. Before each writing session, I open up the book’s diary and spend five to ten minutes in there. I write what I am feeling about the book and my writing, things I am excited about, things I am struggling with, and things I want to do with the book. It is just a way to keep on top of what I am doing with my writing. After a few minutes writing in the diary, I head over to write the actual book (but keep the diary open on my desktop).

If I am really struggling trying to get words down in a book, I will go read over some entries in its diary. Reading them helps me to remember what I am trying to accomplish. It also helps me recall the joy and excitement I have for the project (once I get deep into the work of writing a book, some of my elation gets buried-the diary helps bring it back). Reading a book’s diary is also helpful in edits. All those things I wrote about struggling with are the things I will know to pay attention to as I revise.

Sometimes, when I am in fast-and-furious writing mode, I will get a brilliant, but untimely idea. It could be for something to happen later in the book, or for a sequel, or for something to add to the beginning, or a change in character arch, or any other number of things. When this happens, I will take a minute or so in the diary exploring the idea. Then I leave it and get back to work.

Okay, enough about that. Onto the one real list I keep: The overused word/phrase list. After I write each book, I create a word cloud of it to show me which words I used the most. They are then added to the list. During edits, I do a universal find for each and every word/phrase on the list and check to see which uses are necessary and which ones should be left out. More often than not, it should be left out.

I think every writer should have one, and every writer’s list will be different.

Example: The author whose book Bubba and I just finished reading (who shall remain unnamed) should put these words/phrases on the list:

Suddenly/All of a sudden/In an instant/At that moment

The book was very good. It had a compelling, fun story with a fairly unique view. And it was well written, for the most part. But after the first dozen or so uses of these phrases (mostly all of a sudden), each subsequent use jarred me out of the story a little bit. The author’s writing was well paced, and the urgency could be felt. These words were just crutches and were unnecessary. I feel the book would have been stronger without them.

Maybe someday, I will be brave and share my list with y’all. That day is not today.

Well, that concludes today’s Q&A session. Thanks for playing!

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