A Writing Exercise to Refresh a Scene

How to Use Light Imagery to Get Out of a Writing Rut

It’s officially been six months since I started Craft with Kat, and it has been a wild ride. I started this blog because I’m happiest when I’m talking about writing, and this community we’ve made here has brought me so much joy over the past six months. Thank you for being here. Thank you for leaving such thoughtful, kind, and supportive comments. And, most importantly, thank you for writing your stories.

Today, I’m answering all of your brilliant questions from April. Before we jump in, I have a quick update for our schedule for May. My parents are visiting me here in Seoul, and I have some travel plans ahead of me. All that said, I’ll be taking the next two weeks off from the blog’s free content. But don’t worry; all of our paid content (the craft lesson and AMA) will happen at the end of the month like always.

Here’s what you can expect in May:

• May 7th and May 13th: Kat’s break (no free newsletters)

• May 21st: Turn into Act II craft lesson

• May 28th: May AMA

I look forward to seeing my family and recharging before coming back with some fresh, new content for you all.

Without further ado, here are the questions we’re covering in this month’s AMA:

1. Where can I find a list of all of the craft lessons? Do I have to read them in order?

2. What is the light imagery writing exercise you mentioned in this novel revision post?

3. Why don’t you like writing on your lunch break?

4. In your post about third drafts, you said that plot is a chess table and the characters are the pieces. What do you mean by that?

April 2023 AMA

1. Where can I find a list of all of the craft lessons? Do I have to read them in order?

I’ve updated our About page to include the links, and I’ll keep updating the list there. The latest craft lesson is always pinned at the top of our homepage.

Here’s a list of the craft lessons in order of publication:

• Freytag Who? A New Plot Diagram (Available for Free)

• The Four Elements of Character Goals

• How to Create Conflict and Antagonists

• How to Write a Character-driven Climax

• How to Write a Query Letter

• Act I: Three Beats to Start A Story

• Act I: Three Beats for Creating Conflict

For the most part, it’s not necessary to read the lessons in order. If you’re just now joining us, I recommend starting with the first craft lesson because it’s available for free and can help you see if these lessons are useful for you and your writing interests. 

That said, I am repurposing these lessons from the novel writing course I taught at the University of South Florida, so there is a bit of a logical flow between them. You’ll likely get the most value out of them if you read them in order. But it’s also easy to jump around and read whichever lessons interest you most.

2. What is the light imagery writing exercise you mentioned in this novel revision post?

When working on a novel or a short story, I always develop the same problem halfway through my first draft. All of my characters are constantly shrugging, sighing, and looking at each other. Usually when I’m writing my first draft, I don’t worry too much about the repetitive actions because my goal is to just get the broad strokes of the story down. But in revision, when I come back to these repetitive scenes, I sometimes have a hard time telling if I should cut the scene because it’s ineffective or revise the scene to deepen its action and imagery.

Here are three questions I ask myself to determine if the scene should stay: