Novel Writing with Stephen Booth - Week Two

Yvonne brought a bag of all her Stephen Booth books to Sarah Ward last night - hence the cheering - so Stephen was nice enough to sign them all for her today.

Prior to the start of the morning, we discussed struggling to find the time to write this week. However, Stephen began by emphasising the 2 writing rules: 1.WRITE  2. EDIT

He told us how he doesn’t always write in chronological order.  He writes as the ideas come.

SB led us through Point of view.  This has always confused me.   I enjoy writing in the first person.  SB said this would be difficult to sustain for a whole novel, so it’s got me thinking…

After POV the next decision is whether to write in the past or present tense.

SB talked about the use of Senses and Show Don’t Tell.  Showing encourages readers to interpret details for themselves.  The reader then plays an active part, which keeps them reading.      

Homework was to analyse what we have written so far and see if our characters are describing what they actually know.  Check to see if our voice has intruded?   Also, try writing a scene in both past and present tense, or different POV's.  Sometimes writing is like Method Acting - you must become that person.  

At the end of the morning, I asked if people would be interested in setting up a FB page, so we agreed on the title Writers On Fire.