Overall

• What is my conflict and how do I resolve it?
• What is “The Point?”
• Be free—no restrictions, bleed on the page
• Write like no one is watching
• Write as the narrator with a sense of detachment
• Search for the TRUTH (watch for falseness; write what you feel is true)
• Write the small true moment when you had hope
• Internal Struggle is the plot! It’s about personal growth, psychic struggle, inner conflict, your split heart
• Where is the arc of your story?

Always think of your reader

• What is the extraordinary thing that ignites or turns your story and arrests the reader’s attention?
• Keep the reader in mind—what is your gift to the reader?
• Take your reader where you want to be (not everything you went through)
• Make it easy for the reader
• Never waste a reader’s time
• Are there surprises for the reader?
• Tell the reader the dumb things you thought
• The reader needs to know what you smelled, who you were, what you felt like
• Explain openly to your readers why you remember something: “The detail is branded on my brain forever…”; “I remember that because…”
• Use self-awareness with your readers: “I hope I’m not sounding…”; “I know it’s lame…”

Your characters

• Are all characters critical to the story?
• What are the hopes, dreams, and fears of ALL your characters?
• Interiority—What’s at stake? What are you or your characters going to lose?
• Do your characters stand on their own?
• Can you tell who’s talking without knowing who it is?
• Describe characters: physical appearance, actions, dialogue, internal thoughts
• Describe or introduce characters from:
  • Some else’s point of view, “My sister always says I’m…” My mom always described me as…”
  • Photos—Refer to them openly: “in that photo, I saw…”
  • Compare/contrast—what a character is NOT, e.g. “Why I am not a thief”
• Ways to introduce things you don’t know about a character:
  • “Did it occur to him…?
  • “Perhaps he thought…”
  • “She must have reflected on…”
  • “Perhaps the sheer relief of having at last decided…”
• Quote others’ impressions about a character:
  • “Craig thought that John may have felt embarrassed…”
  • “He must have been intrigued…”
  • “…but perhaps not entirely displeased…”
  • “He must have known…”
  • “They may have felt…”
  • “It is not difficult to imagine the feelings Goretti must have had when she saw us for the first time.”

Setting and Scenes

• Remember the setting
• Does every scene help move the story forward?
• You can lie! Then go on with your fantasy, create/invent a scene:
  • “I imagined…”
  • “It could/might have been…”
  • “My guess is…”
  • “Maybe…Probably”
  • “I could just see it…”
  • “IF ONLY…”

Writing details

• Did you repeat yourself?
• Watch word clutter
• Simple sentences, nouns, and verbs!
• Are you rambling??
• Did you say the same fancy (quintessential) word more than once in the book?
• Did you balance dialogue with narrative?