Updates:

What’s up, my nugs! I can’t believe it’s already April. I don’t know about you, but I was hoping to have a lot more done by now. How are you doing on your 2023 goals? Do you need to adjust? Or are you still on target? I hope it’s been a good three months for everyone and hope you’re ready for what April will bring. Here’s what I’ve worked on in March.

Short Stories:

I finally finished my one short story that turned into something a little longer, but it was a mythology story that I created a unique set of deity’s for. I’ve completed a science fiction short story with the working title of Slicing and Dicing, and a horror short story with the working title of Enlightened Forgetfulness. Both stories were based on writing prompts from The Story Engine, a collection of ever-changing prompts by the turn of a card. Now that we’re reaching April, my plan is to review the short stories I’ve written this year, and maybe some I wrote in college, and work through the editing phases. It’s been fun to give short stories a try again, because I’d never written a short story before and well after I finished college. I’ve found I enjoy them more now that they don’t feel like a requirement. Do you write short stories?

Novel:

I’m just wrapping up the 1/4 mark of the book at 47,487 words! I’m trying a new process with this book, and I’m going to go back and read what I’ve written to see what gifts I’ve given myself and creating a story bible so I can keep them straight. One thing I didn’t think about when I set out to write an Epic Fantasy was how important a story bible was going to be. Learn more about Story Bibles in today’s brief article below. The first draft is always me trying to figure out exactly what I’m trying to do with each story, and where I already plan on this being a series, I’m trying to take some extra care to flesh out the details early. I thank my readers for being patient and checking in every month to follow the progress.

Serial Fiction:

Please Subscribe‘s first draft was just completed on the 29th. I hit some parts towards the end of the draft that made me stumble, but I’m going to tuck it away for a couple of weeks before I try to reverse outline and write an even better version of the story line. I find I’m already trying to re-write in my mind the day after finishing, so I think some space will allow me to come back with fresh eyes and mind.

For those of you wondering how I break up my writing schedule. I’ll spend the first part of my writing time working on these weekly posts. It gives me a moment to prepare my mind for my fiction writing. Then the second part of my writing sessions is to work on my short stories/serial fiction. During my work week, I’m working on the serial fiction and on the weekends I work on my short stories. This keeps my mind fresh and always working through different story/writing problems. Then the third part of my writing session is working on my novel. This whole thing may slow down my writing process for one piece of work, but it works for me at this point in my life. I’m sure it will change as time goes on and I develop my craft more each day.

What to expect?

April will bring the close of the Writing Tips posts on Elements of Plot. I hope everyone has enjoyed and learned from these posts. I would love to hear some feedback that I can take into consideration as I continue to improve those and future posts! So, don’t forget to check in next week for the last post, Elements of Plot: Resolution. After that, you’ll get introduced to the next part of your writing craft, setting. As usual, we’ll start with an overview of setting as a literary element, and then dive deeper into the parts of setting. The posts you should expect are: The Craft of Writing: Setting, Types of Setting: Physical, and Types of Setting: Social. Please let me know if you have questions on setting you want addressed or would like some more research on!

Thank you for checking in on this month’s Myers Fiction Newsletter! Please like and comment below. Don’t forget to check out the below article on Story Bibles!

Story Bibles

A quick preface. Story bibles are a new concept to me, though I’ve always had stark resemblances to them in word documents and such. So, a lot of what I go over today is me learning with you, and I’m more than happy to hear how you’ve created your own story/series bibles to help with the writing process.

What is a Story Bible?

A story bible is the place where you hold all of your notes, plans, and ideas for a story/series. Think of it as the one place where a reader could go to find all the nuanced details that don’t make it into the book. In the story bible, you’ll find all the laws and regulations of the lands, magic systems, and technologies. You will also find things like races, animals, species, and levels of technological intelligence. You may also keep a list of your setting details, key areas, or key items that play large and minor roles in your story. Essentially, it’s everything that’s bouncing around in your brain in a central location for your reference to write a more solid story.

Why you May need one:

Large stories, multiple points of view, or if it’s a part of your process. Honestly, it’s something that I’ve wanted to practice using more. I think it would have helped with my consistency issues throughout my previous drafts of Extoria. And now that I’ve started on a project that’s word count goal is 160,000, I’m realizing that I’ll need some good notes as I get further into my book.

How about you?

Do you find you’re getting lost in who’s who, and where they are at all times? While you may not write it in the book, if a character travels across the country in an hour, then there’s got to be a good explanation. Or, like I did in Extoria, I forgot a Xeno Team’s name and ended up using a name from an older draft. This would have been fine, but I forgot about it halfway through my second or third draft. My beta readers caught it and I was a little embarrassed.

So what do you need?

Your story bible doesn’t need to be anything fancy. It could be a spiral-bound notebook, a word document, or something formatted in Scrivener that you can use to keep track of everything. The “everything” you need to keep track of is all dependent on your book, but can include: Characters, creatures, groups, societies, religions, setting, plot, notes. How you format and what notes you take will all depend on your preferences and purpose of the story bible.

Thank you for reading all the way through if you’ve reached this point! I appreciate your continued support. And as always, keep writing, keep learning, and stay fresh, my nugs!

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Next Post: Elements of Plot: Resolution