There's More To Writing Than Words

By C. LaRene Hall

Sometimes I don’t think I get much writing done. However, after attending a recent writing class, I decided that all my research time and the time I plot out my story is part of that writing time. Even though I don’t have much of a word count, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on my story.

This realization made me feel a lot better about the things I‘ve been doing this past month. I was actually starting to feel like a total failure as a writer because my word count had gone way down. I haven’t been working on any prior story. I’ve started something from scratch and that takes a lot of time.

I’m quite excited to try out some of the new techniques I learned. Things I’ve heard about, but never tried. Usually I just sit down and write. I’ve never written an outline for my story or a plot plan of any kind. It’s just things that pop into my head that my fingers type. Nothing thought out the way I learned I should be doing.

I can see some advantages to doing it this way, but also some disadvantages. I wonder if the story will flow as easily if I’m thinking about characterization. I’m wondering what the chapters will be like if they each have a beginning, middle and end. We’ll soon see.

My newest novel will have a lot more thought put into it because even though it will take longer, I’m going to try to follow the outline I’ve written. I’m also going to interview all my characters and get to know each of them better than I’ve ever done before. I already know them pretty well because they were in my last book. This time they are going to grow in ways you can’t begin to imagine.