Don’t do the hard stuff! Just focus on the easy stuff that comes to you naturally and easily.
If anything goes against the grain of what you already know, just toss it aside and go back to your comfort zone.
Why learn? Why improve!? Just stay as you are and you’ll be fine. Keep it up with the Same Old, Same Old strategy and you’ll be cruising along at the same constant speed, along the same path, and get to the same destination again and again.
Think of the consistency you’ll create! The expertise in continuing to do only what you know–you’ll be the top expert in that exact field! Don’t distract yourself with things you don’t yet know–what a waste of time! Keep focused on where you’ve been and how you can stay that course.
There you have it. Your guaranteed guide to staying as you are. Whew! Isn’t it simple? Congratulations!
This is almost what I’d like to hear when today I thought about plot. Sure, it’s a pretty common term in a writer’s world (the plan or main story (as of a movie or literary work). Sure, I got a main story! I got it right here! But if you dig a little deeper (which you wouldn’t do if you listened to the advice above), it can get a lot more complex a lot more quickly.
- How To Create A Plot Outline In 8 Easy Steps — How would you like to create a plot outline for your novel in less than an hour that is emotionally compelling and dramatically sound?
- 7 Steps to Creating a Flexible Outline for Any Story — Mention the word outline in a room full of writers, and you’re sure to ignite a firestorm of passionate debate. Writers either love outlines or they hate them. We either find them liberating, or we can’t stand how confining they are.
- How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method — Writing a novel is easy. Writing a good novel is hard. That’s just life. If it were easy, we’d all be writing best-selling, prize-winning fiction.
See what I mean? Since I’ve decided to go all in on the writer thing, this is honestly fun for me. I get to read articles like this, I like it, I enjoy learning.
But then I have to apply what I learn to what I do.
That’s the hard part. Take basketball. I like my jump shot. It’s worked for me for years. But what if I wanted to take it to the next level and I had a basketball camp where the coach said I should change my shot and even showed me how to do it. He told me that if I didn’t change my shot, I probably wouldn’t get to the next level.
What’s a guy to do?
It depends on where you’re heading and how fast and seriously you want to get there.
I’m not kidding about this writing career. I kid about most things, but this is one place where I want to accel. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean we can’t get there having fun and making light of it. But I’m willing to hunker down, do the work, and get better at it. Because I know there are people out there who are already better at it than I am and I want to get better and they can help me get better.
Did you get that last bit? Let’s take it apart.
- There are people out there who are already better at it than I am,
- I want to get better,
- they can help me get better.
If you don’t agree or subscribe to all of these three tenets, you can just head back up to the top of this article and start from there and stop before the horizontal line. No judgment here. No, seriously. Not everyone wants to improve, get better, change, transform. I get it. I’m honestly completely good with it. It’s just not me.
So I’m reading the books on plot, I’m working it into my books so that I will improve, my writing will improve, and the readers will connect better with my stories because they will be told better.
That’s all I want. It’s not much. But I want it and I’ll get it. Stay tuned.
