Tag Archives | how to write a great story

The Fast Draft – Should you or shouldn’t you?

By on January 5, 2012 in Author Mistakes, Editing Basics, How do I Fast Draft?, Rachel Hauck, Writer's life

I’m fast drafting a novel right now. Last night, after dinking around all day, I told myself to “get to it” and blasted out 2000 words in an hour. Give or take a minute or two. I’m near the end of a book so I know a bit of what’s going on. I have a feel for the characters and the story. Those random conversations characters have together started running randomly through my head a few weeks ago. Next week, I’ll end this fast draft and start rewriting. Most of the beginning of the story will change, I already know. The middle needs a lot of tweaking. With that in mind, I hope my ending is the most stable part of this fast, first draft. I’ll have things at the […]

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Taking Stock of 2011

By on December 29, 2011 in Encourage Me!, Rachel Hauck, Writer's life, Writing Life, Writing Life Coaching

Time to belly up… how’d your writing goals fair in 2011? Did you set goals? Did you keep track? Did you succeed? Even a little bit? I bet you did. Come on now, if you wrote one page toward your writing goal of completing a novel, you’ve succeeded a little bit. A very little bit, but you did something. We have a tendency to stick our heads in the sand when we think we’ve failed at our goals. At attempting our dreams. Why confirm that silent but deep down fear: “I’m a failure.” By taking stock of our goals, our success and failures, enables us to move forward with a better grasp of where we are and why. Often when reviewing a goal, we find we didn’t fail as much […]

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Avoiding the Rory Gilmore Syndrome

By on December 22, 2011 in Author Mistakes, Heroine, Heroines, Protagonists: The Basics, Rachel Hauck

I love the TV show Gilmore Girls. The writers created such a fantastic story world with Stars Hollow and powered it all with quirky, fast-talking, beautiful Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. But the writers fell into a characterization hole, IMHO, when Rory became too-perfect-to-live. Too good to be true. Every man and his brother, every girl and her sister loved Rory. All who met her believed she hung the moon, stars and visited the Sombrero galaxy while stirring brownie mix for pale-skinned orphans. She was smart. She was beautiful. She was quick and engaging, a repartee’s repartee. She was kind and giving, her mother’s best friend. The girl next door, the one to take home to mom, and dad. She couldn’t golf or run fast, but who cared? What an endearing […]

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Ten Common Author Mistakes. #4

By on August 4, 2011 in Author Mistakes, Editing Basics, Rachel Hauck

You do realize these common author mistakes I’m blogging about are my opinion only and not subject to any known or award winning authors. I formulated these ten things while on a reading spree this summer. So, take them for what they are worth. Okay, numero quatro! He said, She Said. They Came, They Saw, They Went Leaving the reader suspended in time and space. This one actually surprised me. But I read several novels recently — one a YA and the other an historical — and I was lost on where I was as the reader. I wasn’t sure how much time had advance. The scene’s stage had little to no description. I couldn’t get a feel for the “space” the characters lived in. In the YA, the protagonist […]

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