My writing "Secrets"

My Stone Garden Publishing editor Shirley Ann Howard (and she's an author, too, of Tales Out Of School) wrote a Gather article about writing and I made my comment.  I decided to repost it as an article because I'm an unholy point whore, and I also want to change it a bit ...

On detail:

Use just enough detail, but not too much... KEEP IT MOVING.  Never forget that people aren't stupid and they know what common things look like.  Don't describe what you don't have to.  It really is nice when your "visuals" have meaning to add to, or even replace, dialog or thought in the story.  "Sets and Props" are important - if nothing else they give your reader things to "see".

KEEP IT MOVING.

On getting it all done:

I sometimes write the beginning and end, or end and beginning, and then fill in the middle. Then I'll need to change the end (and usually the beginning, too), to finally fit it all together. It gets crazy but that's the fun in it that drives me.  I never outline.  I always want it all to be a surprise for me, too.

With my Tinseltown Trilogy,

Hollywood Sinners was written straight through in order, beginning to end.

The Joan Crawford Murders was written all out of order.

Bad Movies was written all out of order.

When I'm done with my first draft, I call my first read through a "comb through", since there's things here and there that need changed to make it all fit with itself.

If I run out of ideas then I read what I've written and then take a long hot bath in the dark and I get more ideas in there than I know what to do with.

(there - I just rewrote it so it probably, now, makes even less sense !!!!)

Do you have any writing tips that help YOU ???