{"id":764,"date":"2014-07-20T09:25:37","date_gmt":"2014-07-20T16:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/?p=764"},"modified":"2018-10-07T08:34:12","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T15:34:12","slug":"writing-tip-keep-a-creative-log","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/writing-tip-keep-a-creative-log\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Tip: Keep a Creative Log!"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest differences between a pedestrian novel and a riveting one are the clever little quips, concepts, snippets of dialog, and fresh metaphors.<\/p>\n

But coming up with this material on the fly is a difficult chore, and sometimes next to impossible. Fortunately, you can overcome this problem simply by keeping a daily log of interesting tidbits. Each and every day, many intriguing moments cross our paths. Some are notions we come up with on our own; others we simply observe. Since a novel takes a considerable amount of time to write, you are bound to encounter a whole grab bag of tidbits by the time you finish your first draft.<\/p>\n

Then, for the second draft, you refer to all that material and drop it in wherever you can to liven up the narrative. You may find that it makes some characters more charismatic, or gives others, who have remained largely silent, something to say. You may discover an opportunity for a sub-plot, a thematic discourse, or the opportunity to get on your soapbox.<\/p>\n

What I do is to keep the log at the very bottom of the document for my current novel, itself. That way, since the novel is almost always open on my computer, anything that comes along get appended to the end before it fades from memory.<\/p>\n

Also, this allows me to work some of the material into the first draft of the novel while I\u2019m writing it. For example, here are a few tidbits at the bottom of the novel I\u2019m developing right now:<\/p>\n

A line of dialog:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAre you confused yet? No? Let me continue\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

A silly comment:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNone of the victims was seriously hurt.\u201d Yeah \u2013 they were all hurt in a very funny way.<\/p>\n

A character name:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFarrah Swiel\u201d<\/p>\n

A new phrase:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cTongue pooch\u201d<\/p>\n

A notion:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Theorem ~ Absolute Corruption Empowers Absolutely\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCorollary ~ There are no good people in positions of power\u201d<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t worked these into the story yet, but I will. And it will be richer for it.<\/p>\n

Write your novel step by step…<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest differences between a pedestrian novel and a riveting one are the clever little quips, concepts, snippets of dialog, and fresh metaphors. But coming up with this material on the fly is a difficult chore, and sometimes next to impossible. Fortunately, you can overcome this problem simply by keeping a daily log […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p36xpN-ck","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}