In Need of Some Help
Here’s a question for you.
You know how on a movie DVD there is the “Special Features” section that has commentary, bloopers, edited scenes, making of stuff, etc? Well, if you were looking for some special features for a novel what would you look for? Commentary on the editing phase of writing? The “story behind the story”? Character spin-offs? Photos of real life places the stories are based on? Links to research sites used during the writing?
Help me out here. I’m wide open for suggestions.
What special features would you be interested in seeing for novels in general and my books in specific (The Hunted, Scream, and Darlington Woods)?
Posted on April 28, 2010, in Writing Life and tagged Special features, Writing a novel. Bookmark the permalink. 9 Comments.
MIKE DELLOSSO 
Those all sound good – especially the photos idea, and maybe some info about the place. Kathy Herman put a few photos on line of the place she based her last series on, and I thought that was a really cool idea.
LikeLike
I’d really like to see special features on the writing craft itself. You mentioned on your blog while you were writing during Darlington Woods that you had a strategy you were using to finish it, but you kept it under wraps. I’ve been curious what that strategy was.
LikeLike
Where did the idea of the Wax Man come from for Darlington Woods?
Videos of you taking us on a tour of some of the settings that inspired your books (think YouTube).
Did you change the beginning paragraphs or sentences of how the books began? What were the originals/alterantives, and why the change?
How do you do research? (for each book)
LikeLike
Would enjoy hearing about the editing process. And the names of actual places that inspired locales.
LikeLike
I’m a story behind the story kind of gal! I want to know what inspired the story and what realities it reflects from the writer’s life.
I like to know how the story ministered to the author?
I want to know what the author hopes his book will accomplish in the lives of readers once published.
LikeLike
Kim hit the nail on the head. These are the things I would like to know also.
Where do your ideas come from?
LikeLike
I’d like to see the things (people, places, history, events, etc.) that triggered your creative juices into writing your novel. The research that you had to do to make your fictional world as believable as possible. The things that you learned while doing it, and the ideas for future novels that they might have spurred.
LikeLike
yea! all of that!
website, page numbers, links… pictures, video, author reading to us – the parts that were edited out…
hm.
LikeLike
When watching movies, I am always intrigued by “alternate endings,” although they usually don’t pan out to be worth the time. However, I would think, in my very elementary knowledge of writing, that during the process there has to be a “struggle” for the writer as the “end nears.” I would think, in those crucial moments, there has to be a time when the fork in the road is met and a decision, a major one, is made. Perhaps an alternate ending would allow a little liberty in taking the same book in two directions? Or maybe a writer is only willing to settle for one?
LikeLike