July 2021

Just Do it. (2)

July 29 2021

Why the Best Writing Style is Your Own

Abena Sankofa On The Writing Process How to Write a Novel, Writing Style, Writing Tips 3

First things first — you have a collection of paragraphs from the most iconic, key parts of your story — the rest are still in your mind, and you’re waiting for the right mood to put them on paper.

But how to structure your writing style? Here’s where I’m going to be controversial with my answer:

Don’t.

At least in terms of what works for me, that’s the worst thing you could do with your writing in the beginning. It’s about capturing those random flashes of insight that make you remember later what excited you about this story-concept to begin with.

It’s like that moment in Avatar where those floating, magical seeds come to land on Jake’s arm. He would be ill-advised to shake them off and go,

“Look, guys. I’m trying to complete my mission. Why don’t you come back later?” Chances are, they wouldn’t. And there goes the story.

So here’s what I’d say about my writing style—

When the spark came back to me, perfect phrasing and all, I’d just often drop everything I was doing & write. And luckily, I did — and here’s a good example:

It turns out to be a good job I took the time right then and wrote that down — it turned out to be one of the more iconic scenes of the story.

Now, I don’t mean to say it’ll never come back to you as good as it did the first time — that, again, is possible, but why give it the chance?

In my next blog, I’ll get down to the nitty-gritty of how I (with help!) pulled together some of those random ideas into larger chunks of text, and then how I structured them into some form of sequential story — a novel-timeline, if you will.

And after that, we’ll get into the juicer stuff: When and how to work the Snowflake method to your benefit (what I have learned so far in my writing journey)…

Can There Be Too Much Editing? The pros and cons of editing your precious ideas half-to-death (yes, you are beginning to guess where I stand on this)…

And, even more: How to Capture the Essence of a Lost Era (my favorite! And possibly yours too — for all the historical novel fans out there).

Cheers,

and Keep Writing!

Abena

July 9 2021

Hi. My Name is Abena Sankofa.

Abena Sankofa On The Writing Process 1

I Really Do Have Too Many Notes

Hi. My name is Abena Sankofa. I am a 20-something-year-old fiction author. And I have too many notebooks. Way too many notebooks.

Many of them are journals. But some of them are books reviews, film reactions, or just things I’ve found interesting, that will go on to fuel more of my own novels.

In them as well, over time, I’ve managed to chart the progress of writing my first novel, from idea, to outline, to manuscript.

So, with all this material on my hands, I thought: Why not share these with you, so you can learn tips and strategies, best advice, and hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls one can encounter on the way to writing your first novel.

Cheers!

— Abena

Music: https://www.bensound.com

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