The wonders of prewriting

Well, I'm feeling generous today. After all it is easter. (Though the only way i celebrate is with chokolate and alcohol :P )
Anyway here you have my second writing tip today :D

The wonders of prewriting:
At first I was utterly scared of this. I would be like ‘if I write the future scenes in my head I’ll pour all my creativity out.’ I was afraid my creativity would be satisfied by writing these future scenes in my story, and that I would never get to write the parts in between these scenes. But one day my head was too full of all these delicious future scenes that I simply had to write them down to get them out of my head. They were filling too much and taking up all my RAM. I couldn’t stop thinking about them, afraid I’d forget them. So I put the pen to the paper. Or actually my fingers to the keys and started typing. Now I have close to 100 pages of prewritten scenes.
And back to my last post Keeping track on previous and future chapters (ealier today). With all this material for future scenes I have to make a plan for when they happen, and how my characters reached those scenes. Simply to get it all braided together to one lovely braid instead of the day after a too wild party hair, with wild bobby pins and stiff leftover hairspray. It all have to fit together on a higher level, and that needs to be planned meticulously. Some scenes must be cast away, some needs to be edited, and some are just on the spot. But the better you know your characters the less are the chances of prewriting scenes that doesn’t fit the story, and needs to be deleted. I suggest you take a look on my post Character development/evolving: (And apparently my opinion on The Hunger Games. Don’t know where that came from? - posted 24. january) - But both previous writing tips can be found under the tap 'Writing Tips' :) 

Keeping track on previous and future chapters:

Though I have written every word myself, I simply can’t remember everything. I like to have a little ‘reference’ that mentions the key points in a chapter, along with date, day in the story, and place. It helps me a lot along with the plan for future chapters that hold the exact same information. The key points of what I have planned for the chapter, date, day in story, and place. It’s easy to work from, and allows for a certain amount of freedom. Sometimes I have to change, or move the key points, but it’s a great guideline. We all at first write senselessly because we have so many ideas spawning in our mind, but at some point you have to sit down and wonder where you want this to go. What obstacles will they be facing? How do they overcome them (and their fears)? Where will they end? So you have to sit down and plan like you were about to get on a 3 hour, with 4 shifts public transport journey. Remember this is a guideline, you are the master of your little messed up universe you’re creating. You’re basically your characters God! So start acting like it. What will you put them through, and what do you hope they’ll learn? And if you have a scenery or event planned, then you make sure you get your characters there.
The chapters isn’t the only think I keep track of. I also keep track of some utterly minor details as my characters whole wardrobe, so I don’t end up giving one of the characters a blue top/shirt without them having one. Also scratches, cuts and bruises along with distinguishing marks. But I’m addicted to making lists and stuff, so I might overdo it. But you get the point – keep track on the important stuff. 

The Hunt series

 Okay, so I've thought about some things, and now I want to enlighten you in my thoughts.
You know I have planned that 'The Hunt' to be a triology.
Well, after some heavy editing on the first half of book 1 I can see that book one is going to be around a 1000 pages when printed in book form. In Denmark we have a saying for novels that big, they're called 'brik novels'. I'm pretty sure you can guess why, otherwise write to me on my facebook page and I'll explain - https://www.facebook.com/aurorafleurauthor/

So I have decided to divide the first book of The Hunt into two.
My plans for the 'original' second and third book looks much a like the one I made for the 'original' book one, So they'll have to be divided as well. But I won't know how and where until the books are written (I will at some point, perhaps next time, explain how I plan my books along the way. From idea to book. So I won't go into detail here.)

I have a feeling of where and how I want it, but a lot can still change. So The Hunt isn't a triology anymore. It's gonna be 5 or 6 books.
So technically I'm writing book three now.

Just wanted to let you know.
I'll soon be back with some writing tips, there's just a lot going on in my personal life along with easter holiday. So even though I don't update or write her I'm still working on The Hunt. Shit going on or not. Holidays or not. You can count on me writing every minute possible of my free time.

Talk to you soon.

Follow up on a wrting tip - The art of a varied launguage

Check the post 'The art of a varied language' - posted sunday, February 7th, 2016. As this is a follow up ;)

Short summery: The art of a varied language talks about how to expand your vocabulary (Both as a English speaker, but also for people of other nationalities that wants to write in English.)
The way I expand my vocabulary is I have a document actually named 'The art of a varied language'. And everytime I come across an English word I know I don't use in my own writing I put it in the document. And then read the document every day before I start writing. Plus I use it as a 'reference-document'.

I just wanted to simply tell you that dividing all the words in your own 'The art of a varied language' into categories. I did that, plus I made each category a heading, meaning it shows up on the navigation pane in word. (And holy freaking shit it took me a long time to figure out how I could make headings!) Which makes it so much easier to navigate around the document and find exactly what you need.
I'll also encourage you to really put some effort into your own 'The art of a varied language'. Especially if English isn't your mother tongue. Because in the end you'll be so much happier and so much better at handling the English language.
Especially Danish people have a hard time making their English varied. Because we are used to only very few synonyms for one word, where English have 3 times as many as in Danish.
- Thesaurus.com is also a good supplement to your own 'The art of a varied language' document.

Back to the point:
I'm super glad for my document. It's extensive, easy to navigate around in, and 100% customized to me.
But I also spend a considerable amount of time creating this document. And to give you a feeling of how much time effort means in this case I'll tell you how much time I spend on it:

1029 minutes.
That's equal to 17.15 hours
I know that sounds like a lot. But remember I haven't spend 17 hours straight working on this document.
Some days I have gatered 100 words I have to type into it, other days it's just a few. But bottomline if you just work a little on it every day ot every other day it'll slowly expand and be super nice as time passes.
Now I usually gather a lot of words and then type them into the document. It takes a couple of hours.
But hypothetically if I had spend some time on it each day it wouldn't be much.
Let's try and calculate it.
The document was created 11-10-2015. That's 152 days.
1029 minutes divided in 152 is equal to 6.7 minutes a day. See that's instantly more tangible ;)
(Word - my version is 2013 plus - have this super awesome function that it counts your total editing time in the document)

I hope this helped ;)

Fight scenes and sex scenes

These are some of the scenes people are having trouble writing. They can be wild, compassionate, confusing, you name it.
So let’s start off with fight scenes. I’ve never done karate, or actually been in a real fight in my life. (Bitch fight obviously, but no fist fight.) It’s kinda hard to describe exact actions when it’s all so messy and fast-happening, and try to not lose the reader halfway through. But don’t cut down on the details. As I know nothing about fighting I have studied fight scenes from movies, and series. Every time an awesome fight scene comes along I’ll write down what movie/series and where, and then later study it step by step, while I write it down to learn the hang of it as an exercise.
To slow down the ‘time’ to be able to get the details right you could use phrases like:
- Several things happened simultaneously (then description)
- he ____, at the same time I ____
- I ___, but it was too late, he had already ____

Sex scenes:
They can be dirty, passionate, kinky, fast or slow or everything mixed together. Here it’s always a good idea to have some ‘experience’ to go after. Or just watch a lot of porn. Anyway, some find it embarrassing to write dirty sex scenes, so the details come to a minimum, and the whole act is too short. Don’t be afraid to get wild and find your inner kinky side and bring it out to the light. Live in the moment, close your eyes and imagine how it feels. What are your characters ‘sweet spots’? What are their kinks? I always enjoy a beer or two to be honest when I write most of my sex scenes, but it isn’t a must. It’s more for the coziness of it. Some sex scenes just come naturally, others start as a less detailed run through of the events, and then later comes the dirty details.
 There’s many ways to do it, find out how you’re most comfortable writing them. Here it can be an advantage to be ‘in the mood’ actually. Let yourself be carried away when he bites his lower lip in that special way, his tongue running hungrily over it too while he has that dirty gleam in his eyes, the way his hands runs over the others skin, that appreciative and slightly involuntary moan that leaks his lips when she let her lips brush over his sweet spot… got the point yet? I’ll say this much, if your panties/boxers ain’t partying when you write it, it isn’t good enough. If you don’t get turned on by creating this romantic or dirty environment, how’ll the reader be? Not everything is for everybody, but if you don’t put passion into it, the reader can feel it. But they can also feel if you pulled your panties down, and found the vibrator (boxers down, and found the lotion, for guys) while you’re at it. As simple as that. Don’t think how your mom or siblings will think or react when they read it, write it like no one in the world were supposed to see it.

A few tips to have in mind while you write sex scenes:
- Details, details, juicy details!
- Where are their hands? At all times.
- Looking at each other?
- Moans, cries, and grunts.
- Kisses – how are they? There’s lot of variations to kissing. I think we’ll take this in a separate section below.
- Position?
- Sweat, if you’re really going at it there’ll be sweat, and sweat is sexy as hell.
- Dirty talking. Yes, this isn’t for everybody, but just a few classic lines like “You’re so wet.”, “You’re so big.”, “Yes, right there.”, “Yes, like that.” will do fine.

The kissing:
It can be soft, wild, long, short, with or without tongue, including teeth, be all over the body.
The line ‘He kissed me.’ is actually just as boring as ‘He said.’ (Check my post ‘Said is dead’. You can also find it under ‘writing tips’)
Was it long, short, soft, harsh, blah, blah, blah. You know the drill. Be creative, feel it, let go and run along with it. To peek your creativity I’ll give you 10 examples from ‘The Hunt’. (Copyright, please do not use these exact phrases, they’re meant as an example and help. Be creative, use your own words, and gestures/behavior fitting your character.)

- “Let’s get back.” He whispered, kissed me softly, and then his body left mine.
- He harshly and suddenly broke off the kiss. 
- My surprised exclaim had given his tongue access, and firmly dominated the kiss.
- And then he fiercely kissed me. The sudden attack on my lips almost paralyzed me.
- His body shuddered against mine, and he moaned into the kiss with me.
- I lifted my head, and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on his lips.
- She kissed and bit my neck, and the skin around my right ear, I couldn’t help but moan.
- Now where my hands were free I stared to caress her, and kissed her neck all the way up to her ear.
- His lips kissed me softly one more time.
- He felt my mood, his grip on me tightened, and suddenly his lips and tongue took over the steering, and kissed me back with such strength he would have made me take a step back if it wasn’t for his arm around my waist.

I hope these 10 juicy sneak peek kisses have peeked your creativity, but also your interest in my book series ‘The Hunt’ where we follow Val and Jakes journey through their abusive relationship, and their hunt for vampires. Especially Sinanima, who killed Val’s mom, and tried to kill Jake when he was only 10 years old. You can read an excerpt from the first book in ‘The Hunt’ series under the tab, obviously called ‘Excerpt from The Hunt 1’

I need this shit (left), instead of this shit (right)

Lists, lists, and finally lists!
I love making lists of everything that can be listed. But sometimes it’s a curse. But that’s what you gotta do when your memory isn’t top tuned.
Sometimes when I edit I have a list over key things I need to get into the story, and then make a key list of things I forgot which are being implemented in the next round of editing. And then things starts over and I’m back at the starting point, but someday I must’ve listed myself out of this problem and hope there isn’t any more things to write on the ‘forgotten’ list.