Jen's Writing Journey

Write Fiction Faster: A Review of Novel Shortcuts by Laura Whitcomb

When Laura Whitcomb began writing her second young adult novel, The Fetch (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 9780618891313), she was under contract with a tight deadline. Her experiences writing that book led her to create various shortcuts to the writing process that made her first draft better so that she didn’t have to revise 10 times before it was ready to submit to the publisher.

During that experience, the idea for Novel Shortcuts (Writer’s Digest Books, ISBN 9781582975672) was born. Whitcomb provides 10 major tips throughout the book, with useful tidbits sandwiched within.

1. Find the Core of Your Novel

Writers need to use a central premise to guide their writing, and Whitcomb provides exercises to help identify the who, what, and why of the story. From writing jacket text to “interviewing” your story, asking it questions and demanding hard answers, Whitcomb’s tips will help ground writers in their story.

2. Decide How to Tell Your Story

A story needs a point of view, and this chapter helps identify the narrator and his or her tone and voice. Whitcomb uses selections from other works to make her points. The gem in this chapter is the discussion of devices (e.g., a journal, travel tips, mock play excerpts) that create a format for the story.

3. Crosshairs Moments

The crosshairs moments are the pivotal scenes in a novel and in each chapter. This chapter provides essential tools for recognizing and building those moments.

4. Shortcut to the Scene

Before entering a difficult scene, Whitcomb suggests pre-writing exercises to help build focus. She writes lists of what will happen, what the characters will say, and how things will look. Keeping those pieces handy, she then enters the scene with an idea of how it will play out.

5. Balance Scene, Summary, and Reflection

Scenes are the action of a novel. Summary and reflection are the moments when the characters react. Whitcomb helps find the balance that works for the story.

6. Plan your Plot

Yes, Whitcomb suggests outlines and other tools to ensure that the novel progresses. She doesn’t mean that all writers have to use straightforward written outlines. Visual tools and concept maps are faster and easier for many writers to assimilate and follow. But the key is to plan so that time isn’t wasted following dead ends.

7. Steal Tricks From the Best

Successful, multi-published writers must be getting something right, and up-and-coming writers can learn from them. Whitcomb suggests reading classics, commercial fiction, and genre pieces, taking note of the devices the authors use to build emotion, explain events, illuminate their characters, and lead the reader through the story.

8. Fast Track to the Deeper Emotion

Whitcomb reminds writers that they need to put themselves into the right emotional frame to write their stories. She suggests using art and music to build the right feel, then writing what feels right.

9. What to do When It Stinks

Sometimes no matter how hard a writer is working, the current project just doesn’t work. Whitcomb believes writers should follow their instincts – if something doesn’t feel quite right, it probably needs to be fixed. Assess the problem and either fix it, delete it, or move on, coming back to it later.

10. Goals and Miracles

A catch-all chapter that addresses the importance of routines and deadlines. But the meat of this chapter is Whitcomb’s focus on success. She suggests play-acting at the success points—getting an email from an agent, attending a book signing, and so on – of a writer’s career. Envisioning how those things will feel can keep a writer’s spirits up so he or she can remain productive.

Novel Shortcuts is a great tool for writers looking to be more productive. It assumes a high level of knowledge of writing terms and techniques, so it is not the best choice for a first writing book. A writer of intermediate knowledge will get the most use out of this guide.

Whitcomb’s major categories have been covered to some extent by other writers, but the hidden gems based on her own experience make the book worth the purchase price.

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