In Today’s Journal
* A New Epiphany
* TNDJ Challenges for 2025
* The Kris & Dean Show
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A New Epiphany
As I picked up where I left off and started writing on the novel yesterday, I had a new epiphany.
I started writing fine, but only a few sentences in, the story stalled. Now I’m deep into the story, and I suspect it will wrap in the next couple days.
So when it stalled, I fell back on my old standby: You’ve heard me say it before:
When the Story Sags, Just Write the Next Sentence.
In other words, write whatever comes. I did that. Only there wasn’t a next sentence.
When that’s happened before, it meant I’d written to the end of a scene or chapter without realizing it.
In that case, I usually read back a few sentences, find the end of the scene or chapter, then start the next scene or chapter and the story starts flowing again.
Only this time, I knew that wasn’t it because I was smack in the middle of a scene.
But it felt like something was missing, like there wasn’t a reason for the scene at all. Only I knew there was. Otherwise the characters wouldn’t have led me into it.
So I scrolled back a few chapters and started cycling through those while asking the characters what I’d missed.
Sure enough, when that cycling session was finished, I’d added around a hundred words to the previous four chapters. And when I reached the white space again, the story started flowing.
So when your story sags, now you have another option to get it flowing again:
1. Just write the next sentence. This remains my primary go-to, and most of the time this will get the story going again. It’s a way of reminding yourself to trust the characters to tell the story that they, not you, are living.
If that doesn’t work….
2. Read back a few sentences to see whether you’ve written past the end of a scene or chapter. When a story sags, this is often the culprit. It happens more often than you realize.
If that isn’t it (you’ll feel it if it is)….
3. Cycle back a few chapters (or to the beginning) and read the story thus far. Read strictly for pleasure, but allow your fingers to rest on the keyboard so the characters can fill in what you’ve missed.
You’ll be amazed.
I think I’ve probably done this before in other novels and stories, but this is the first time I’ve realized it.
Of course, I write into the dark, but I constantly hear about “story sag” or a story “bogging down in the middle” from writers who outline, plot, etc. before they write the story.
To each his or her own, but the above tips might help those writers too if they trust the characters just a little to tell the story that they, not the writer, are living.
However you choose to write, I hope it helps.
TNDJ Challenges for 2025
(You might want to save this email for future reference.)
Challenges help you grow as a writer.
Challenges naturally help you put more new words on the page, and when you’re putting new words on the page you learn more and become a better storyteller.
Here are the TNDJ Challenges for 2025:
- The Bradbury Challenge (1 short story per week) is ongoing. NEW! If you stay in for ten consecutive weeks, I’ll design a free cover for your 10-story collection.
- The Bradbury Challenge on Steroids (2 or more short stories per week) begins on January 1. NEW! If you stay in for ten consecutive weeks, I’ll design a free cover for TWO of your 10-story collections.
- The Stephen King Challenge (1000 wpd) will run in February, April, June, September, and November (with prizes).
- NEW! The Run With Harvey Challenge. I’ll do this in every month (other than December) that has 31 days: January, March, May, July, and August. The challenge will be to write 2033 words per day (average) for the whole month. Your goal will be to meet or exceed 63000 words on the month.
Prizes for the new Run With Harvey Challenges
Upon successful completion of the challenge, you may select from among the following:
- Any four of my nonfiction books on writing, or
- Any two of my audio courses (view the list at Audio Courses), or
- Any two of my video DVDs (view the list at Video DVDs), or
- Any four of my novels or novellas, or
- Any one of my omnibus collections or complete series. Those include
- Blackwell Ops: Soleada Garcia (the complete 7-novel crime-thriller subseries),
- Stern Talbot, PI Omnibus (the complete 9-volume Stern Talbot series)
- One-Off Mysteries Omnibus (the complete 7-volume one-off mysteries series)
- The Nick Spalding Saga (the complete 4-volume action-adventure saga)
- The Journey Home (the complete 10-volume SF saga)
- The Wes Crowley Saga (the complete 22-volume Wes Crowley saga)
Am I out of my mind to offer such prizes? Sure, okay, but why not?
- All book prizes will be awarded via email as ebooks in your choice of epub, mobi, or PDF files.
- All audio course prizes will be awarded via email as MP3 attachments.
- All audio DVD prizes will be mailed to your PO box or physical mailing address. (So let me know that.)
If you can think of any other challenges you’d like to see/participate in, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
The Kris & Dean Show
If you signed up for The Kris & Dean Show Does ‘Die Hard,’ the videos are all up on Teachable now. If you haven’t signed up, you can still do so
There are 31 videos, most running from 6 to 8 minutes long. Especially if you’ve never taken a class from Dean before, I recommend it. (It’s only $50.)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Disrupting Book Marketing One Venue at a Time
Writer’s Digest Live Events Calendar [First Quarter] I recommend scrolling down to February and looking at “Establish (or Improve) Your Email Newsletter” including “pros and cons of using … Substack.”
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 990
Writing of The Waller Files (a Stern Talbot PI mystery)
Day 1…… 2094 words. To date…… 2094
Day 2…… 4654 words. To date…… 6748
Day 3…… 3594 words. To date…… 10342
Day 4…… 3087 words. To date…… 13429
Day 5…… 3163 words. To date…… 16592
Day 6…… 3910 words. To date…… 20502
Day 7…… 3721 words. To date…… 24223
Fiction for December………………… 62556
Fiction for 2024………………………. 808656
Nonfiction for December…………….. 19550
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 382120
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,190,776
Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3680
2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 18
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 102
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 269
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.