Author Gabrielle Lord shares her top four writing tips:
Read books about writing, especially screenplay writing, or better still, do some courses in this area. To develop good knowledge of structure, pace and narrative, there’s nothing better than understanding how a story works and that’s what happens with screenplay writing.
Storyline your story – that is, write down in order, how the scenes will flow. You can always change them later, reorder them, etc, but how else will you know where you’re going? When people complain to me about writer’s block, it’s usually because they don’t know where their story is going because they haven’t undertaken this basic craft skill. Your plan is your map – you can always deviate from the map, but you need it to get started on the journey.
Research the areas you need to and you’ll find great treasures unearth themselves as you talk to the experts. You’ll get wonderful anecdotes that you can pinch and disguise for your book – gifts that you’d never dream about normally.
Remember that there isn’t The Muse who will descend with your story fully evolved for you. Well, very rarely! And as Bryce Courtney says, a writer needs lots of “bum glue”!
