The Dread Monastery

Oooh... Lesson 10... sounds ominous. Okay, maybe not to you, but it does to me. Lesson 10 means the Monastery.

(To read more about my HTRYN lessons, click here. To get to the course page, click here.)

Okay, so let me explain what the Monastery is. Basically, you shut yourself up in a cave. Seriously. No writing, no reading, no writing blogs, no forums, no tv, no contact with anything that might give you feedback or inspiration. Because the Monastery is all about what's already in your head--your story.

So you shut off everything around you and find a quiet place. (Fortunately, I can schedule my blog posts ahead of time, so you were unaffected. Lucky you.) And then you write, scene-by-scene your entire book. From memory and whatever else may pop into your head and catch your fancy.

Sounds basic.

It's not.

My story took shape during this lesson. It changed my book completely. More conflict, more tension. My characters are acting for themselves, instead of relying on others or circumstance. The book is now character-driven. I can't express it.

Also, my book got longer. I think this exercise helps you to get your book closer to its perfect length because some students were saying their book got shorter. But I write short. Sometimes very short. I think my current draft of Shadow Bound is just over 50,000 words. It was 68 scenes if I remember correctly.

After the Monastery, I had 112 scenes**. It's absolutely amazing.

Have I mentioned how much I love this course? I thought I was a thorough reviser. Ha. This course could cut the time it takes for me to get published in half. I feel like I've learned things that would have taken a decade to learn on my own. I really hope these lesson reviews are helpful.

I'm not allowed to post much more than this on a public website, otherwise I would.

**Note: I did go back later and combine some scenes, cleaned up a few threads, etc.. Now it looks like Shadow Bound will be closer to 100 scenes.