In a world where you can send a message in a few minutes with email, twitter, snapchat, or the latest popular way to contact a friend in another city, state, or continent, a letter posted though the mail carries a wonderful appeal.
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, but can you get even more words out of one? What about two-thousand? A whole novel? It’s all up to you. But I do have three tips for you to find writing inspiration, as well as five images you can use to spark your creativity.
Your story’s setting includes everything that affects your characters. It is the environment in which they live, breathe, and find meaning. It is where they fail and learn to succeed. All this to say, your story’s environment matters.
You’re ready to start drafting.
At this point, you’ve been introduced to the important pieces of Scrivener’s user interface; you’re familiar with the essential plot and structure principles, including why you should break your story out into component scenes, which Scrivener excels at; you know how to create character and setting sketches using template sheets; and you have a complete account of my storyboarding process for planning stories and getting unstuck while you’re writing.
In other words, you have all the tools you need to start drafting your story.
Once upon a time there was a…? There was a…? What was there? This is not a rhetorical question.
I really, really, really, want you to answer me. Once upon a time there was a…? You can’t think of anything? Okay then, lets play a story game to train our imagination, have fun, and maybe win a prize!
I’ve “won” NaNoWriMo six times (and only published one major work and two novelettes, so this is not a boast). On far too many occasions, I’ve completed my work, gotten my goodies, and then done nothing at all with the novel I wrote. Sometimes, I lost momentum entirely; I’ve even ended up blocked. I don’t want that to be you.
