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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. #8

By on October 6, 2011 in Author Mistakes, Editing Basics, Rachel Hauck, Secondary Characters

My Best Friend’s Wedding Neglecting to create dynamic secondary characters. Definition: Secondary characters are the protagonist, and the author’s best friend. A great story telling tool. They widen the stage, round out the story, spotlight the protagonist. They help tell the story. They add depth. They add conflict. They add humor. They reveal truth. It’s so easy to get caught up in creating our protagonist(s) we often forget to layer and deepen other characters. The end up being placeholders or sound bit machines. Secondary characters need to have a goal. A purpose. A hint at a problem. They can be a bit shallower than the main characters, and a bit two-dimensional, a bit more flippant, a bit more of a hyperbole. Use secondary characters to show the heart and depth […]

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