Dos Scribblings Weekly: What do I write next?

Hello!

Another apology is in order for forgetting to write anything yesterday. But hey... this'll happen a lot until I get used to this haha.

Anyway, I decided to make this a short post about plotting.
There are two kinds of writers when it comes to plotting: Pantsers, and Plotters.

Plotters: These authors plot everything down to the very detail of every word before they write very much.

Pantsers: These authors fly by the seat of their pants when they write their stories.  No direct plotting in any sense.

I consider myself somewhere between the two. I tend to really only plot any book chapter by chapter, as for the rest of it, I keep the rest of the book in my head. Just the general outline of it.
No matter the type of writer though, I always recommend plotting to a little extent. The least would be taking notes and jotting down your ideas. ( Most authors do that anyways though ha-ha )
The way I roll when I plot out each chapter in any given book I'm writing is to write it out scene by scene. Many months ago I started out with yellow notepads and wrote it all down on there, but now I use a free writing program called yWriter which was brought to my attention via the blog Go Teen Writers.
 Sometimes I find that what I plot down doesn't always fit into one chapter, but this is the way I write because I write almost to much sometimes, and if you find that something does not fit into the chapter at all story-wise you can just skip the part you wrote down and continue on happily writing.
Before you start plotting it out though, I recommend getting everything straightened out so you know the general line you want to go before you start plotting it.
I find that it makes it a lot easier in the long run when you actually start writing the scenes to plot it out. The great thing is that you never have to be bogged down by anything you write in your plotting notebook (or yWriter). I'm always adding or deleting things I write down, and I believe that it'll pay off when I start the second draft of some of my more recent books.
I already have to deal with the monster book I want to publish someday, and that was long before I found out about the many great tips of writing.
I hope you found this post helpful in any way, not one of my best posts but oh well!
I say plotting out - at least - chapter by chapter helps you keep your story in a straighter arrow towards writing THE END.

Love,

Jazmine

Dos Scribblings Weekly: Writing in the smiles and laughter

Hello again!

So I have to make an apology. I totally failed in blogging on Monday and Friday, but I suppose my excuse is that I was on vacation haha. Anyway... I thought today, an appropriate subject would be writing humor into the things we authors write. And what's funny is that I only just came up with this subject a few hours ago after I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring because of the more humorous scenes. To quote one: "I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox." Gimli has an arrow pointed in his face after he speaks. The elf captain steps forward. "The dwarf breathes so loud we could've shot him in the dark." (Yes, I did just quote that from memory, and yes, I have watched it that many times. Can you tell I'm a fantasy fiction nutball yet? Teehee!)
As I've gotten more involved in the writing world I've realized the importance of humor in writing. Though unconsciously I've always strayed towards movies that always have just a dash of humor in them if not more. Humor makes everything. Humor adds a lightness to the otherwise darker parts of the stories we read and write.
If you are a writer trying to write more of a darker story, I wouldn't put to much humor in your story, of course, but coming from a readers point of view if there isn't any humor at all that might cause a smile or a giggle then it might be to bogged down with to much of the darker and heavier emotions in the book. I am a firm believer in balancing everything in a work of literature; no matter the genre.

Now writing it into your story may be a bit difficult if you think about it to much. Though I'm not a professional writer or anything, I have realized over the 8 or 9 years I've been writing stories that you can't try really hard to put humor in. Otherwise it will come out really... plastic.
This may not happen with everyone, but I find that any humor I have in my book usually just comes to me as I'm writing a scene. I see how the scene is being lain out and usually the words of my characters or the POV of my main character flows perfectly into the scene.
So whenever you're writing and you need humor, it's not a good idea to over think it. It will just cause problems with how the scene reads.
The best advice on learning what's funny if you're having trouble with that, however, is to just watch and read whatever you think is funny. Don't try to appeal to any particular persons funny bone. I have found that if it doesn't make me laugh I can't flesh out the humor as I normally would be able to.
Like I wrote in my last post: find things that inspire, or in this case, inspire the funny in you.
After a while of practicing at writing humor if you ever have trouble with it, you should be able to get the hang of it for the most part.
And if anyone is interested and you're having trouble trying to make something amusing or humorous leave a comment and I'll do my best to help ya!

 I'll be stopping here for now, but check back on Friday (7/12) for another blog post of Dos Scribblings.

Love,

Jazmine