The next DIY MFA prompt asked us to talk about a writing “best practice” that just never worked for us. This was a tricky one for me, as I am constantly trying new approaches, drawing on a new how-to book, or whatever. I probably don’t try things long enough to know how well they really work. But here’s what I came up with on the Facebook group for DIY MFA.

I have never bought into the idea of creating lengthy character biographies, background files, etc. I need to make more efficient use of my time than that. I like to maybe jot down a paragraph or so about each significant character and keep a lot of other information in the back of my mind while I write. This gives me more flexibility, but more importantly, it gets me actually writing the story sooner.