To Outline or Not?

I spent eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write

a single word of prose. —Jeffrey Deaver

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in

the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. —Sharon O'Brien

Margaret McGaffey Fisk writes online that outlining helped drop her novel-writing time

from seven years to two months. On the other hand, mystery writer J. A. Janz doesn’t outline

her novels—she writes to find out what happens. So what’s best? Both have advantages.

Detailed outlining gives you a road map for writing. The detailed outline includes everything

you need to write the book—what happens, who it involves, when it happens, and where

the action takes place. The detailed outline might also include character studies and snippets

of dialogue.

Skeleton outlining gives you the broad strokes of plot or contents. You may not know everything

about what will happen to the characters but you do know where they start, how it ends up, and

the general movements they take to get from beginning to end. If you’re a nonfiction writer, you

might know the chapter topics—but not have a detailed outline for each chapter.

I call the third method, “flying by the seat of your pants.” In this process, you start with a few

interesting characters and a problem. Then you write your way into a story.

And here is my sage advice: no one can tell you which way is best. None are best for everyone.

But one is best for you. Do what works.

Why You Need to NaNo!

The only way to learn to write is to write.

—Peggy Teeters

It’s that time of year again. National Novel Writing month (NaNoWriMo) begins November 1st. Are you ready to write like crazy?


You’re probably saying, “But I don’t write fiction!” Maybe you’re slogging your way through a bunch of grant proposals. Or you are writing a nonfiction book to promote your business. Perhaps you want to finish a short story. Use National Novel Writing Month as your framework to get more writing done.

In November 2009, 167,150 people signed up to complete a 175-page or 50,000-word novel in 30 days. 32,178 of us finished. (I crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line in only 28 days!) The NaNoWriMo website provides encouraging emails, a discussion board, and interviews with NaNoWriMo writers for participants.

Here’s my advice: sign up to participate in NaNoWriMo. The external deadline will help you write more. Create a November writing schedule that will help you write 175-pages of your project by the end of the month. Then write. Like mad.

That’s my plan for the month! I’ll let you know what happens.

Write Better: Rewrite

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

 —James Michener

When I read a good book, I want to quit writing. Who can compete? I’ll tell you who: the writer who rewrites the manuscript until the writing is right. It’s all in the editing, friends. Here are five random tips to improve your writing:

1. Read your work out loud. You will catch your grammatical mistakes more easily. You will notice your bad writing habits. You will also hear your writing voice. Once you hear what does not work, modify it. Then read it out loud again.

2. Limit your use of adverbs. Some authors modify every action with an adverb: she walked slowly, he ate hastily, they talked very quietly. As Twain said, “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you're inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it, and the writing will be just as it should be.”

3. Don’t change your verbs into nouns. For example, many writers use investigation instead of investigate or exploration instead of explore. When your characters make an investigation into the truth or begin an exploration, your readers fall asleep. But when your characters investigate and explore, readers pay attention.

4. Find the right word or phrase. Clichés bore me to tears. First drafts are invariably full of clichés. Look for these, eliminate them, and then find the best words and phrases to express your ideas. Mark Twain said it this way, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”

5. Cut, cut, cut! When I write my first draft, I write more than I need to make my point. I repeat the same idea multiple times. I use extra words. I go off on tangents. When I rewrite, I eliminate the excess. As Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

If you read a good book, you know the writer worked at it. It’s the same thing with any well-written copy—on a Web site or in a book. Don’t give up when your first draft turns out little better than a fifth-grade essay. Put it away for a few days or weeks. Then rewrite it. You’ll be brilliant someday, too!

WANT TO USE THIS TIP IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Write Now! Coach Rochelle Melander teaches professionals how to write faster, get published, establish credibility, and navigate the new world of social media. Get your free subscription to her Write Now! Tips Ezine at http://www.writenowcoach.com and sign up to be a member of her Write Now! Mastermind class for professionals at http://www.writenowmastermind.com

Want to Write Better? Shorten Your Sentences

I've always written very tightly, and there's a good reason for that. There's no point in using words that you're not going to apply. You don't use words that are not going to be employed in the narrative or context. It should consist of short, sharply focused sentences, each of which is a whole scene in itself. By that, you put the reader right in there where the story is. —Theodore Sturgeon

Have you ever read a sentence overflowing with ideas and information and constructed with so many clauses that the sentence required lots of commas and semicolons and even a parenthetical remark or two (just to get it all in), so that by the end of the sentence you forgot where the sentence began and what the writer was trying to tell you in the first place? 

I have. As a writing coach who often works with academics, I see sentences that make my 66-word creation above look stunted. You can easily improve your writing by shortening your sentences. (Not all of them—that would sound choppy.) Keep your longer sentences to 25 words or less. If you’re not sure about a sentence’s length, read it aloud. If the sentence leaves you gasping for air, shorten it. Your readers will thank you!

WANT TO USE THIS TIP IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Write Now! Coach Rochelle Melander teaches professionals how to write more, get published, establish credibility, and navigate the new world of social media. Get your free subscription to her Write Now! Tips Ezine athttp://www.writenowcoach.com and sign up to be a member of her Write Now! Mastermind class for professionals at http://www.writenowmastermind.com

The Writing Buddy

I like this John Steinbeck quote: The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.


I always encourage my clients to set aside time to write whether they believe that their work is the most important thing in the world or not. For me the best solution has been to behave as if my writing is the most important thing in the world. Belief follows behavior.


Not always. Some days, I write all day and still think, “Why am I wasting my time?” On other days, it is difficult to take time to work on a project that I doubt will ever make it into print.


Writers, when you doubt yourself and your work, hang out with a fellow writer. This one small action will inspire you. Writing is a solitary profession. It has to be. But getting up and facing the blank page every day is easier when you have friends who do the same and can share your pain!


Recently, the new field of network science has begun to examine how our social connections influence us. In 2007, Harvard professor Nicholas A. Christakis and UC-San Diego professor James H. Fowler published a study suggesting that obesity is contagious. They found that having a single obese friend increased by 57% one’s chances of being obese. Scientists are discovering that many emotions and behaviors spread through our social networks, including happiness and regular exercise. I wonder: would having a friend who was a productive writer increase by 57% one’s chances of becoming a productive writer? Why not try it and see what happens?


I’ve been making more time to hang out with writer friends. Here are some of the questions I ask other writers:


*What books have inspired you? What works in them? What would you do differently?


*What trends do you see in the field? How is writing different than it was ten years ago?


*What are you working on? What challenges are you facing? What excites you right now?


*How can we help each other be accountable? This question has led to sharing informal deadlines, weekly email reports, and writing days.


*How can we help each other move forward? From time to time, I will exchange manuscripts with friends for critique. I find it helpful to get feedback from another person writing in the same genre. And, it is an honor to be able to think critically about another person's manuscript.


This week as you are planning your writing time, schedule a walk or coffee date with another writer. No doubt you will leave your meeting inspired and ready to write. 


WANT TO USE THIS TIP IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Write Now! Coach Rochelle Melander teaches professionals how to write more, get published, establish credibility, and navigate the new world of social media. Get your free subscription to her Write Now! Tips Ezine at http://www.writenowcoach.com and sign up to be a member of her Write Now! Mastermind class for professionals at http://www.writenowmastermind.com

Plan B

I'm in the process of creating a new and improved blog. In the meantime, I want to share with you my tip from last week's Write Now! Tips. If you are interested in receiving these in your in box, you can sign up at the Write Now! Coach page.

The most successful people are those who are good at Plan B. —James Yorke

I set aside last Monday and Tuesday to finish my Art Fellowship application. My daughter, husband, and son got sick. Because Tuesday was a primary election day, the phone rang every six minutes. Candidates and their supporters stopped by the house to see if we were voting for them. Of course, since the whole family was germy, I got to be the phone-checking, door-answering diva. By noon on Monday, I was ready to chuck the whole thing. Then I remembered plan B.

Plan B is what you do when ideal doesn’t happen. Plan B allows you to get real and write what you can, when you can, no matter what. Here’s how to make your own Plan B:

Loosen your grip on ideal and get real. Often writers tell me they can only write in the morning or at night or when the moon is full. Some tell me they need to set aside a whole day to get anything done. Others need just the right paper or light or chocolate. Here’s the thing—ideal rarely happens. Sometimes when we have the ideal circumstances, we can’t get the words right. Or we do not write as much as we wanted. Let it go. Ideal is for television and movies. Accept that ideal rarely happens and get real about what you can do. Whew. Now you’re ready for Plan B.

Plan ahead. Interruptions happen. Part of getting real is getting ready. Look back on the kinds of interruptions and roadblocks you have experienced in your writing over the past year. What sort of Plan B would have helped you to solve them? Examples include: writing less, working on a shorter project, writing in a different location, researching instead of writing, or turning off the phone.

Get specific. Most writers I work with have a global idea of what they want to do during the week. For example, I went into last week with this on my to-do list: “finish fellowship application.” That’s too big, even without interruptions. Take your big goal and break it down into really small steps. For my plan B list, my small steps looked like this: write list of current interests in work, write sentence about how art exhibit influenced current work, add recent publications to CV. Each of these steps I could do in 15-minute slots. Many of them I could work on while cuddling a sick child.

Get creative. Do you remember the old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention?” Crazy, challenging situations stimulate our creativity. Use your interruptions as an opportunity to get creative and design a fun plan B. When author Madeleine L’Engle was in her 20s, she did more acting than writing. Her plan B was to write between scenes. Barbara Kingsolver wrote her first novel in a closet, in the middle of the night, while pregnant with her first child. Keith Donohue wrote his first novel as he commuted to and from work on the train. If these writers can write without all the time in the world, you can too!

I managed to complete my writer’s fellowship application in between delivering doses of pain reliever to my children. My days did not turn out the way I had planned. But my Plan B worked just as well. Now I’ll never go into a week without a Plan B (and C and D)!

WANT TO USE THIS TIP IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Write Now! Coach Rochelle Melander teaches professionals how to write more, get published, establish credibility, and navigate the new world of social media. Get your free subscription to her Write Now! Tips Ezine at http://www.writenowcoach.com and sign up to be a member of her Write Now! Mastermind class for professionals at http://www.writenowmastermind.com

The Happiness Budget: Sidewalk Chalk