Writing Into The Dark at 20BooksTo50K Las Vegas 2022

If you didn't get to the 20BooksTo50K Las Vegas 2022 conference, Panzer discovered some of the presentations have been uploaded to YouTube.

We read his book he talks about.

Dean Wesley Smith's presentation, Writing Into the Dark, is available. He's a bestselling author who has been writing and selling short stories and novels since the mid-1970s. His presentation is called Writing Into the Dark because he writes without an outline. He writes one draft and it's finished. In the presentation he tells how he does it.

 

The presentation is free for viewing and is 48 minutes long.

 

To watch the presentation tootle over to Writing Into the Dark

The Dirty Dozen: 12 Ways Not to Write a Mystery Novel - Anne R. Allen's Blog

On Panzer's trip into the Catosphere today he was looking for information on mystery writing. His search took him to Anne R. Allen's Blog. Our big bad kitty pilot found a guest post there by Jacqueline Diamond with information about what he was looking for. Jacqueline Diamond is the author of 101 novels published in several genres including mystery, so he couldn't wait to read what she wrote about mystery novel writing.

Plot is important.

According to the post, while researching for her newest mystery Ms. Diamond read several cozy mysteries. She discovered twelve do not do's in some of them. When writing a mystery novel these twelve were definite turn-offs for her as a reader. These do not do's run the gambit from do not have incompetent police to do not under plot to do not over plot. There are nine more she found in her research and they're all important do not do's for as writers to learn.

Panzer says, "Hmm ... Pay attention ... Plotting seems to be a frequent problem in cozy mysteries."

Note: This is a long post, but worth your time. You'll need a cup of tea, a muffin, and a doughnut for today's selection.

To read the post, tootle over to mystery

Anne R. Allen's Blog: How to Plan a Novel without Actually Outlining: 3 ...

To outline or not?

Panzer was over at Anne R. Allen's blog today. He found a guest post by author Nathan Bransford How to Flesh out a Vague Novel Idea Before You Start. My bad boy was doing the happy cat dance because he's always wondering about how others write their novels.

You see, when Panzer writes he outlines the first third of his story. He already has an idea of what he wants the end to be. So after he starts the actual writing and reaches the end of the one-third outline, he has a good idea of what needs to happen to get to the end. But my bad kitty knows that many writers don't even outline that much.

Turns out Mr. Bransford is one of them. No outline for him. In Mr. Bransford's post he explains the three steps he uses to expand the story idea into a full fledged framework (not an outline!) to base his novel on.

To find out how Mr. Bransford writes a novel, tootle over to Anne R. Allen's Blog: How to Plan a Novel without Actually Outlining: 3 ...: