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Hello all! Poking my head in to give a secret heads-up: I'm running Finish Your Novel again for the Loft this June/July. This is not yet official information, but keep an eye out for it on the Loft website soon if you're interested in taking it again or recommending it. It will be very similar to the version you've already taken, so no new information for you folks, but if you found the exercises and feedback helpful, it's certainly possible to take it again if you like.In August, I'll be running a more intermediate level four-week course for people who want to work on improving the tension in their draft -- we'll dig deeper into things like conflict, character and narrative distance. That one's called Dial Up the Tension -- again, you can keep an eye out for information on the Loft website soon, if you're interested.Hope you're all well!Kate

Hi writing buddies!  How's everyone doing?  Anyone planning to join April's Camp NaNo?  I signed up - my goal is to draft the remaining scenes to complete my SFD!  This week's progress report and next week's goals:1) I finished the draft of my new opening scenes!!!!  Five scenes in all = 3,300 words.  I'm not certain yet whether these will be one chapter or broken into two. 2) I made no progress on my scene chart.Upcoming week:1) Finish my chronological scene chart!    Would love to hear from others!

I use Wordpress, and I really love it.  I pay for a moderate premium plan every year as well, so my site address is just WritingDragons.com.  I feature dragon artwork and talk about life, mostly, even though it was supposed to be about keeping myself accountable and writing my book.  Hopefully, that's what I'm getting back to with the new schedule.

Hiya, sorry to have been away!  It is hard to keep up with a forum sometimes... but I'm not giving up!I posted a new schedule on my blog last week that will give me more time for actually writing my book, and even though I didn't write that as my last week's goal, that was it, and I did it.  Yay!This week, I have to get ONE dragon posted, and according to my calendar, it needs to be a St. Patrick's Day dragon, since next week I have to get the March Birthstone dragon post done.  I'm also doing the daily blogging challenge AtoZ in April, so instead of focusing on my book just yet, I'll be prepping posts for that -- but I will get back to my book soon, I swear!I do feel like I'm heading for the right track this year, even if I'm still off-roading a bit here at the start.  Cheers!

Hi folks,I wondered if anyone discovers 'holes' in their stories - a place where the jump from one scene to the next needs something in between.  How have you handled it?  Do you create a new scene?  If so, what steps do you go through to figure out what's missing or what the scene needs to be?RJ

Hey folks!  How's everyone doing?  It's tough keeping up, isn't it?My personal progress has taken a hit and I've made little this week - I had company in town which made it more difficult but that's no real excuse as I get up by 5 or 5:30 each morning.Here are this week's goals:1) Finish my chronological scene list;2) Finish the SFD of new CH 1 - three scenes.If I accomplish just these two items, I'll be happy. What about you Carol?  Jamie?RJ

Hi Jamie,Glad to see you back! I had wondered where you disappeared to.  Tell me again about your blog.  I'd love to know more about it and your experience with it.  I blogged my recent medieval trip through Normandy for friends & family and found both blog sites I tried to be full of glitches which were terribly frustrating.  What site do you use?  Have you experienced this?RJ

Hi RJ!  I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up with this forum, but hopefully I'll get better -- I just posted a new schedule for my blog that will give me more time for actually writing my novel, and part of my plan is to come back to this forum.  So I'll start the next week, and if you're still coming around, perhaps I'll see ya.

How's everyone doing?  This past week I wasn't as productive as I had hoped:1) Complete chronological scene list = no progress2) Continue mining the HF novel for insights = made notes from CH 43) Draft new opening scene = I completed about 1/3 of the scene.However, I did complete the freelance article that was due to my editor.Goals for this week: Same as above. 

HI Carol,I read through all your scenes with your tension notes.  In all honesty, when I think of Kate's suggestion to 'determine the tension points' I don't see that as rating each scene, I viewed it as looking at the book overall, and determining where the highest tension occurs in the story as noted below in #1.Here's how I view tension in crafting a novel: 1) according to the W-Plot - which has a triggering/inciting event from which things go downhill until the first turning point, when things start to improve, to the second triggering event, where things turn again and go downhill to the 2nd turning point = point of no return when things are at their worst, which leads to the climax and resolution.  If you look at your novel from that perspective, are you able to identify the key high-tension points that your story travels along this W?2) According to Kate, each scene/chapter or hunk, should pose a question and then answer it but then poses another question.  This keeps the reader reading. I suppose these new questions ("what's going to happen") could be viewed as tension points also. So, if I consider each 'hunk' (scene/chapter) there's a certain amount of tension in each one ... but the main tension should be at the triggering and turning points.  Those are the peaks - so from my perspective, using your scale I'd see the triggering events as 3s and the turning points as 5s.  Relative to the end of each 'hunk', I'd say those are 1-2s, just enough to wonder what's going to  happen and turn the page.  The book cannot be high tension all the time as that exhausts readers. I don't know if this helps or answers your question. If you're not familiar with the W-Plot format, there's a YouTube video by Mary Carrol Moore.  Very helpful.RJ