Brian MacLearn's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"

I'd love to hear from you on how you write. As for me, when I write it's by the seat-of-my-pants. I don't do outlines, but sometimes think they would help. It makes me wonder if the character voices that talk to me would be mad that I have constrained them. Even when I know how the chapter is going to start, and what I perceive is the direction, it still changes. The rest of my thoughts fall to the wayside and the story unfolds with every keystroke. The picture in my mind is stop-n-go as I write. I test the direction and then put it to paper. In my last story, I planned on Kirk being a bad guy, now he has a big role to play. It never would have happened in an outline. What do you think?

I have heard back from my advanced readers--and I listened. They wanted a more concise and happier ending. The whole story continued to crescendo until the very end. I wanted to leave that feeling in place and only write a short summation of what happened next. It was realistic and gave some hope to a brighter future. However, the readers felt it needed to be more positive, and they asked some great questions about unanswered issues in the story. I added a couple of short chapters to tie up the loose ends, and eased into the ending, even changing my initial direction. Now they are happy…me too! Thank you for your help!

I recently submitted "Ridicule" to the Reader's Favorite contest in the Fiction/suspense category. I'm hoping it will score high reviews and move on to the finalist group. This is my third novel and in no way is it similar to the other two. Those who have read all my books made similar comments, "This is different, and it's not like your other books." They also said how much they enjoyed it. As an author, when you write such dissimilar genres it makes it difficult to judge whether or not you are improving in writing ability. I wonder what my true voice is. I believe that in all my stories I have used strong characters, moral characters, and true and descriptive emotions. This will never be more so than in my next novel "Isolation." I feel like the first three novels were preparing me for the journey that I am currently on as I write this next story. If it works out the way my mind envisions, then the reader will finish the book and say, "Oh my god, I never saw that coming." And…then proceed to reread the story to find all the clues they missed the first time. We all (writers) have a great book inside of us, and something is telling me that this might be mine. I only hope that I am up to the challenge of making it as good as it deserves…

The editing continues on "Ridicule" which is now called "Against the Current." The original story received a 5 star review from Reader's Favorite and is a finalist in the category of Fiction/Intrigue. One of the things I've learned from the previous two novels is to listen to the readers and the professionals. Ridicule was a suspense story with manipulation and abuse as the backdrop. The general opinion was that it was more suspense and should move faster. After several (favorable) critiques, I began the process of condensing the novel to make it flow faster. This isn't as easy as you might think. It actually feels like I'm writing a new story. It will all be for the best…I hope. My mind wants to drift back to "Isolation," and continue writing where I left off. I've even started hearing from Jason and Allison recently. There are too many ideas and not enough time in a day to do it all. Hopefully, you will be able to see "Against the Current" in print this fall or early next year.