Work In Progress

This 9x6 book began as a personal project: a collection of questions mined from the far reaches of the internet and my brain to help work through some roadblocks in my own WIP. It was never meant to get far. This is your new literary laboratory. If it's neat and tidy by the end, you've done it all wrong.

If it's a scribbled mess of ramblings, cross-outs, amendments, and notes in the margins, then you're off to a good start. Wreck this book. Break the spine. Fold it every which way. Its sole purpose is to get your thoughts flowing and your hand moving. This book is not a test. There is no correct way to answer and you are not meant to go in knowing the solution to every one of these questions.

Terry Pratchett once said, "the first draft is you telling yourself the story," and that's what Part 1 is designed to do: get your story out of your head and onto the page.

Part 2 has genre-oriented questions. Since many of these chapters might not apply to your story, feel free to skip them. Many genres have some degree of crossover, however, so I recommend popping into each for a look-see in case they might have some helpful elements.

Part 3 is oriented around story progression, using a beginning-middle-end structure for simplicity. The questions here are to help you design out how your story will unfold. Visit each section as you reach these milestones to reorient yourself and resist getting lost in the creative doldrums. Or don't- I won't tell you how to live!

As I said, you should not know the answers to every one of these questions, and not every one of these answers should find its way into your final product. The point is to get you thinking about the answers, sit them in the back of your head, and provide a broader sense of your world and characters as you write. If you don’t know the answer, do your research and find one. Only then can you present your reader with an immersive experience.

Spiral bound and hard cover option available in the shop! If a physical copy isn't your thing, check out the *new* digital edition of WIP now available to download.

Now, don't you have a story to write?

- Moira