Hello Ladies! Today I have a special treat for you! I am partnering with Julia from Julia’s Journal for the month of August! We are doing 4 different posts with 4 different Categories. This week it is Writing! Julia is a novelist who has self published 2 fabulous books! Ashburn and Diamond. (click on the links to take you to her amazon pages) I am her self acclaimed no. 1 fan!

  About a year ago, her exploits encouraged me to re-break out my pen and paper and dive into the literary world once more. I have loved writing stories since I was little. Dreaming up plots. Filling pages with handwriting. There is something so special about seeing a notebook filled with writing of your own imagination and creation.

  So here are two things that have helped me immensely in my writing endeavors!

Outlining

I was originally what they call a “pantster” I wrote off the cuff with very little planning in the beginning. This resulted in what I thought were weak endings or no endings at all. I just couldn’t seem to finish them! I had great beginning ideas but they never came to fruition. That ever exciting “The End” moment seemed to elude me like a lost earring. You know, those ones you drop somewhere and can’t find ANYWHERE!?

Julia encouraged me to look into outlining. Basically laying the facts and all the plot points down before actually starting the writing. I never wanted to outline, thinking it would stall creative juices and keep me from getting into a “groove” or rhythm with my story. I had an idea for a story I thought was really good. So I tried outlining and OH MY WORD! Where has it been all my life?! It works! All the good things they say of it are true! It didn’t inhibit me from the creative process at all! It was great! My novel is a mystery so it needed the plan before hand. Mysteries are like puzzles. If I hadn’t done an outline, there was NO way I could have EVER fit all of the pieces together.

  ~Questionnaire/Backstory:

One other SUPER helpful thing was this cool questionnaire. It was a list of questions to ask yourself about your characters. For instance:

~ What do they fear?

~ What calms them down?

~ What is their vice?

~ What is their greatest hope?

These types of questions really helped me solidify the characters and now they have such awesome personalities and actual reasons they behave the way they do.

Also, writing them a Backstory helped as well. Filling in their life before the book takes place also gave them reasons for their thoughts and actions.

With these two or three things, I have a lot of confidence that I have the ability to finish a Novel! I have dreams of publishing it ya’ll! I felt so weird saying that. Sometimes dreams come true right? Praying God will use this book for his glory and allow me to finish it.

Be sure to check out Julia’s Partner Post here!

By His Grace,

Victoria