Noticing Newbies

Welcome, Cadie Laine - Happy 24th WDC! !

Matthew Frederick gave you some lovely suggestions! I wanted to share my own personal experience as taking journal entries is essentially how I started my novel.

I'm not a journaler - well, I journal in my head, but never write it down - but I started with my life (with kids) and added a thought/theme/question: There is no edit-undo function in life...but, What if There Was? So I created a mom who had a pretty good life who woke up from a coma as a single, young woman in a different reality. From there, the story has developed (and continues to develop), but I've taken a lot of things from my current life and worked them in. You can take a look here: "Invalid Item"  Chapter 1 is essentially a mix of events from my life. Chapter 2 is when the big "event" happens to change Tessa's life.

Over time, the first chapter has morphed from a step-by-step (read: journal entry) of a typical day to including plot points, structure, and foreshadowing...but that's taken almost a year of being at WDC and learning about story development, creating tension, and dropping the non-essential bits among other things. And it's still not done! But it's a far cry from where I started with no idea where I was going. Over time, characters started to take on personalities and lives of their own - they have helped me create a much more involved story out of a simple idea and a basic understanding of a mother's life

I've found that through reading other people's works here and engaging in conversations with people of all skill levels in various genres and at different stages of their writing (from just starting to multiple published works and everything in between), I've gained a ton of knowledge and been able to stretch myself, bettering my writing in small increments. But it's been a fun journey! I LOVE being here and being part of this community.



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1UppyEar

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