(Heeeey, 20% done!)
There are few things harder than writing a boring story.
Well, actually, there are a lot of things. Giving birth, moving, and watching
someone suffer all come to mind. But writing a boring story is frustrating. It
is supposed to be this wonderful time, something exhilarating, and instead it
falls flat. You are bored, and everything is terrible, and why are you wasting
your time doing this again?
One of the best pieces of writing-related advice I ever received
was that if you are bored writing it, people are going to be bored reading it.
There is absolutely no point in writing something that bores you. This does not
mean to quit, though; rather, it means to re-examine where your story is going
and whether you are taking too long to get “there”.
Why the quotation marks? Because “there” can usually be
altered a little bit. To give an easy example, let’s talk Harry Potter. Now,
there are a number of reasons why Jo needed winter to pass while the trio were
in the tent. She needed the students at Hogwarts to fight for a while, she
needed the wizarding world to change, and she needed Voldemort to search for
the elder wand and for Harry to get some hints. So there were so plot-ish
reasons for what is usually considered to be a boring part of the story.
So what did she do? She added some interesting things to the
story. She added parts about Dumbledore potentially going evil. She added Ron’s
departure. She made sure that there were other bits and pieces that were
interesting in every chapter. That is how you are going to make it to the
interesting parts. You have to keep yourself entertained and engaged, and that
means throwing curves balls.
The other option is to bring your “there” up, which is what I
will discuss tomorrow.
TODAY’S PLOT DEVICE: A kiss! Who with? Randomly? GO FOR IT.
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