I've pulled a muscle in my shoulder and I'm not suppsed to be on the computer for the next three days (yeah, right... like that's gonna happen..).

Anyway, in an attempt to pay at least lip service to my doctor's orders, I'm going to cheat (i.e. cut and paste) and repeat some advice I posted on another board recently in answer to a question about developing a storyline.

My advice is this:

Before you start writing, know how your story is going to end.

All books are a journey. Think about the point you want to start. Why that day, and not the day before or the day after? The book should start with the catalyst that starts your main character's journey (be it an "actual" journey or merely one of self-discovery) and you need to know the destination.

If you don't know where your story is going, that's when you fizzle out half way through because you can't figure out where the story is going next. If you have a destination in mind, however (by the end of my book Fred will be able to walk... will have killed the monster... will have saved the world... whatever) then at least you know what direction the story is going and you don't end up getting lost.

The story should take you from point A to point B. The plot is all the stuff that happens along the way.

*winces in sympathy* Take care of you!

If you do get "lost" you can use the "then I woke up" plot device. Big hit with slush pile readers, I hear.

You too re: the shoulder? I'm in agony after pulling a muscle between the shoulder blades yesterday. And my first job next week is to pack & mail all the shiny new copies of Andromeda Spaceways #27. (But then again, that's what kids are for ...)

*HUGS*

I have to fold (and sometimes bag) nearly 600 newspapers every Tuesday night so I know all about the sore back/arms thing, but what gets me is the arthritis in my left hand, more so than the right, and if there's an insert in the paper I keel over at around 300.

And I don't have kids to help!

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