Have you ever heard the saying “Give the horse his head?”.  If you haven’t, I just want to be very clear about one thing:  I am not suggesting you rip off a horse’s head and feed it to him (or her… whatever).  No, that might be something that you may (or may not) see in one of Aaron’s scene examples, but that’s another story. What it really means (to a rider anyway) is to let the horse run as hard and as fast as it wants (and let it pick its own path too).  OK, that’s kind of interesting, but so what?  What the heck is your point? My point is, sometimes, you have to give your characters the freedom to do things […]

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You have just finished chapter 4 and you know how chapter 6 will go, but somehow, chapter 5 just won’t let itself be written. If you have done any amount of writing you have most assuredly faced this problem. If you haven’t seen it yet, you will. So how do you get from point A to point C when point B is a big unknown? The tool I use most often is the bullet-point.  In short-form, I map out the events that need to happen to get from A-to-C. These bullets can include things like: is travel involved? do any relationships need to change? do additional characters need to be involved (or leave)? and so on. And, of course, for each […]

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I am actually giddy! Not giddy in the “giddy-up-and-go” sense, but more in the “holy crap this is exciting” sense. You may ask why I would feel this way, all the while picturing a guy jumping up and down clapping his hands in girlish glee (or more likely say, “This guys an idiot!” and move on). For those of you still reading, I’ll explain further. Ten years ago (the title of this did say “Let’s Start at the Very Beginning. You were warned!) I had a story idea, or more to the point, I had an idea for some characters. I kind of knew who they were and I had some ideas for the plot to bring them together. Naturally […]

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