Last week I attended the Algonkian Writer's Workshop. I signed up for the conference in February, naively believing that my novel The Sea Knife would be finished by June. By May, I stopped working on my novel, except for small tweaks. My first draft was not working. For my second draft, I decided to let the conference dictate the way my novel would go. And it was a good thing that I did.
One of the main messages of the conference was "let your pitch be the tail that wags your novel dog." The pitch, as defined by the conference, is the catchy one or two paragraph summary of your novel. and the point is that if you can't write a good or sellable pitch - your novel is probably too boring, too confusing, not marketable or has already been written. My pitch was jumbled. I had pieces of plot intermingled with a world that I hadn't yet figured out.
So for the last week, I have been world building on www.mindmeister.com.
I didn't start by using a mind map. I started by first pulling ideas out of my head with no structure, then using a questionnaire that I pulled from http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/ , and finally organizing things on mindmeister.
There are a lot of good reasons to just world build:
1. A fantasy world needs consistency and rules - otherwise it won't be believable.
2. How can I immerse my readers in a world that I have not immersed myself in?
2. World building is helping me see the overall meta plot that I want to achieve. It is an investment for the future.
3. It is helping pinpoint an antogonist because she is actually defined by the rules of my world. What is the worst way possible to to use the world rules? It is also helping me define my hero, my mentor and the other players of my plot.
4. I now can understand the groups of people in my world and why they might have issues with each other.
I used to get frustrated every time I wasn't directly writing. Now I understand that the actual writing is a just piece of a much bigger process. Writing is the way to communicate how mind-blowing my concepts are, but if I don't understand my concepts, neither will anyone else.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Killing the writing that doesn't match my log line
The first draft of my novel is so flawed that I plan to read 101 writing books, blog about them for at least a year and then maybe sign up for some therapy in order to fix it. But if I'm going to pinpoint my first draft's biggest wound, the one that would cause the most pain for its reader, I'm need to discuss log lines.
What is a log or story line? It's that one sentence that nails what your book is all about. It's the line that you would recite to an agent if you meet one in an elevator.
So what if you don't have one? According to Writing Fiction for Dummies by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy that might be OK . You just won't be publishing your book by reciting one line. But, beware, if you are lucky enough to be published and haven't thought of a story line, you will be given several because everyone, from your agent to your marketer, will think of one for you and they all might be different.
There is another reason to write a log line. According to Ingermanson and Economy, the main reason to write a storyline is "that it can serve to focus your own creative efforts during the arduous months when you're planning and writing your novel." p.136 I completely agree. For me, the process of creating my novel's log line was as important than the log line itself.
After reading Writing Fiction for Dummies, I sat down to write a log line for my story. The sad truth was that even my initial efforts didn't match what I had written so far. I wanted The Sea Knife to be about family and relationship boundaries, particularly in a divorce situation, but in my first draft, my protagonist, Kristian, dealt more with his nightmares than his parents. There were other distractions in the draft as well: a female character who spent chapters needing Kristian's comfort, carefully edited paragraphs about Kristian's difficulty learning Finnish (hey, it is a damned hard language to learn) and another supporting character whose narrative arc merited its own book and theme.
So here is my current logline:
In order to find a magical object that may save his parents from divorce, a popular high school student uses his new found and fragile ability to influence monsters' minds.
This is about the 10th , no 11th, no 20th (I just changed it again) attempt at a log line. I expect that there might be others in the future. But I don't mind thinking of them. It really keeps me centered.
What is a log or story line? It's that one sentence that nails what your book is all about. It's the line that you would recite to an agent if you meet one in an elevator.
So what if you don't have one? According to Writing Fiction for Dummies by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy that might be OK . You just won't be publishing your book by reciting one line. But, beware, if you are lucky enough to be published and haven't thought of a story line, you will be given several because everyone, from your agent to your marketer, will think of one for you and they all might be different.
There is another reason to write a log line. According to Ingermanson and Economy, the main reason to write a storyline is "that it can serve to focus your own creative efforts during the arduous months when you're planning and writing your novel." p.136 I completely agree. For me, the process of creating my novel's log line was as important than the log line itself.
After reading Writing Fiction for Dummies, I sat down to write a log line for my story. The sad truth was that even my initial efforts didn't match what I had written so far. I wanted The Sea Knife to be about family and relationship boundaries, particularly in a divorce situation, but in my first draft, my protagonist, Kristian, dealt more with his nightmares than his parents. There were other distractions in the draft as well: a female character who spent chapters needing Kristian's comfort, carefully edited paragraphs about Kristian's difficulty learning Finnish (hey, it is a damned hard language to learn) and another supporting character whose narrative arc merited its own book and theme.
So here is my current logline:
In order to find a magical object that may save his parents from divorce, a popular high school student uses his new found and fragile ability to influence monsters' minds.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Killing the Wandering Protagonist
A week ago, my novel's second chapter sucked. I felt that hopelessness that all but the most cocky fiction writer's sometimes face. What was I doing wrong?
I edited my way through the chapter and realized that minor edits were not going to save my meandering mass of words. My MC, Kristian, needed something that I was not giving him. He needed a "scene purpose." He needed to attain it or not attain it, not just wander around Helsinki, meeting a vast array of interesting characters.
A "scene purpose", defined in the book Plot &Structure by James Bell, on page 114 is "may be anything that is a step in achieving the story goal." So I took this advice. I gave Kristian an idea how to stop his dad from keeping him in Finland. This idea pulled the chapter together like string. In giving my MC a purpose, I had, inadvertantly, given myself one too. I knew which characters needed to be chopped. I knew why Kristian needed to visit his cousin's house.
Now this chapter needs more work, but the rambley, "why am I reading this" feeling was gone. I am back on track - Thanks, Mr. Bell.
I edited my way through the chapter and realized that minor edits were not going to save my meandering mass of words. My MC, Kristian, needed something that I was not giving him. He needed a "scene purpose." He needed to attain it or not attain it, not just wander around Helsinki, meeting a vast array of interesting characters.
A "scene purpose", defined in the book Plot &Structure by James Bell, on page 114 is "may be anything that is a step in achieving the story goal." So I took this advice. I gave Kristian an idea how to stop his dad from keeping him in Finland. This idea pulled the chapter together like string. In giving my MC a purpose, I had, inadvertantly, given myself one too. I knew which characters needed to be chopped. I knew why Kristian needed to visit his cousin's house.
Now this chapter needs more work, but the rambley, "why am I reading this" feeling was gone. I am back on track - Thanks, Mr. Bell.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Killing the Dream Sequence
My MC, Kristian, is a dreamer. I don't mean that he is a visionary or that he has wishful thoughts. I mean when he lays down to sleep at night he dreams - about monsters. And get this- he can read the monster's minds. In one dream, he even tastes his own blood via the monster's thoughts. Overcome, with the coolness of this concept, I wrote scene after scene of Kristian's dreams.
What is about authors and dreams? Why do we LOVE them so much? I think its because there is so much freedom in the dream. We can write a crappy stream of consciousness and feel justified. We can make deep insights about our character without having to weave these insights into obstacles like character motivation or plot. We can introduce characters who are dead. We can visit backstory without awkwardness. We can have our characters talk to God. WE CAN DO WHATEVER THE HELL WE WANT.
That is why when I read The Nighttime Novelist: Finish Your Novel in Your Spare Time by Joseph Bates, its point about "mistaking inaction or digression for suspense" hit home. I needed to let go of the amazing concept of my MC tasting his own blood, at least when it is included in a dream.
According to Bates, "every scene must seem like an attempt to solve the problem or question at hand. " p.51. Kristians dreams were fluffy, directionless fun for me, but did not help the book's plot or theme.
It is also very common for an author to open their book with a dream. BECAUSE IT'S SO FUN. As Bates points out, generally this is not a good idea because it may be disorienting or boring to readers. (Gasp- really?!) I confess that some of my initial rough drafts contained dream openers.
Overall, I've decided dreams in a novel are like adverbs. They are guilty until proven innocent. Most of my MC's dreams are guilty of self-gratification and some laziness on my part. I've chucked 1st draft Kristian's dreams. 2nd draft Kristian fights with monsters when he is awake and he is made more real for his efforts.
What is about authors and dreams? Why do we LOVE them so much? I think its because there is so much freedom in the dream. We can write a crappy stream of consciousness and feel justified. We can make deep insights about our character without having to weave these insights into obstacles like character motivation or plot. We can introduce characters who are dead. We can visit backstory without awkwardness. We can have our characters talk to God. WE CAN DO WHATEVER THE HELL WE WANT.
That is why when I read The Nighttime Novelist: Finish Your Novel in Your Spare Time by Joseph Bates, its point about "mistaking inaction or digression for suspense" hit home. I needed to let go of the amazing concept of my MC tasting his own blood, at least when it is included in a dream.
According to Bates, "every scene must seem like an attempt to solve the problem or question at hand. " p.51. Kristians dreams were fluffy, directionless fun for me, but did not help the book's plot or theme.
It is also very common for an author to open their book with a dream. BECAUSE IT'S SO FUN. As Bates points out, generally this is not a good idea because it may be disorienting or boring to readers. (Gasp- really?!) I confess that some of my initial rough drafts contained dream openers.
Overall, I've decided dreams in a novel are like adverbs. They are guilty until proven innocent. Most of my MC's dreams are guilty of self-gratification and some laziness on my part. I've chucked 1st draft Kristian's dreams. 2nd draft Kristian fights with monsters when he is awake and he is made more real for his efforts.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Is writing YA really THAT different from normal fiction? Really?
Book #3: Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks
On "The Office" yesterday, Pam told her audience that she is writing a Young Adult paranormal book about unicorns. OK, if I'm competing with Pam, I need help so I turned to Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks.
This book is a mix of general writing and publishing advice with some pointers specific to the YA author. For instance, young readers have even less patience for setting description than adults. They are less tolerant of ambiguous endings and epilogues should be avoided. POV should be from a teen and the MC should experience life changing events.
Here is a brief summary of Chapter 1:
1- Don't be a phony - convince your teen audience that you are one of them. To do this, dredge up the angst you experienced as a teen and inflict it on your reader.
2-Avoid the preach and teach; don't be condescending
3-Familiarize yourself with today's YA market (I've been reading YA lately and it is different than I thought)
.4- Silence your worries about how marketable your book is (Is this advice exclusive to YA? Really?)
5- Lastly, go ahead and write that book about crack smoking, boy-friend smacking, bulimic teen girl who turns into a mermaid at the full moon. YA is a genre that forges new paths.
Oh, and one more random tip from this book: Surf facebook.com and visit teen profiles. I have actually done this with my friends' teen sons and but it did help me visualize my MC.
I love writing YA and will continue to read books about how to write it properly. I'm fascinated at how inbetween teen agers are. How they can act strikingly adult at one moment and act hopelessly immature the next. Give me a well written teenage characters and I have instant conflict and angst - a good start to any book, no matter what the genre.
On "The Office" yesterday, Pam told her audience that she is writing a Young Adult paranormal book about unicorns. OK, if I'm competing with Pam, I need help so I turned to Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks.
This book is a mix of general writing and publishing advice with some pointers specific to the YA author. For instance, young readers have even less patience for setting description than adults. They are less tolerant of ambiguous endings and epilogues should be avoided. POV should be from a teen and the MC should experience life changing events.
Here is a brief summary of Chapter 1:
1- Don't be a phony - convince your teen audience that you are one of them. To do this, dredge up the angst you experienced as a teen and inflict it on your reader.
2-Avoid the preach and teach; don't be condescending
3-Familiarize yourself with today's YA market (I've been reading YA lately and it is different than I thought)
.4- Silence your worries about how marketable your book is (Is this advice exclusive to YA? Really?)
5- Lastly, go ahead and write that book about crack smoking, boy-friend smacking, bulimic teen girl who turns into a mermaid at the full moon. YA is a genre that forges new paths.
Oh, and one more random tip from this book: Surf facebook.com and visit teen profiles. I have actually done this with my friends' teen sons and but it did help me visualize my MC.
I love writing YA and will continue to read books about how to write it properly. I'm fascinated at how inbetween teen agers are. How they can act strikingly adult at one moment and act hopelessly immature the next. Give me a well written teenage characters and I have instant conflict and angst - a good start to any book, no matter what the genre.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
4 Hooky Thoughts from The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
http://www.amazon.com/First-Five-Pages-WriterS-Rejection/dp/068485743X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1306372139&sr=8-3
In this book, Noah Lukeman, a successful agent, describes why many novels submitted for publication are rejected before an agent finishes reading the first five pages. He has a lot to say, but I'm going to concentrate on Chapter 14 which is about "hooks."
So in the contest that I just entered, the contestants were required to write a piece that generated tension or story interest using 300 words or less. In other words, we were required to write a hook.
Clearly it is important task to get a reader (and hopefully an agent) interested in your novel with just a handful of words. Often, a reader will evaluate your entire novel on them, but be careful...
Here are some of Mr. Lukeman's observations:
(1) Avoid the "overexcited hook," If your hook line is intense, your entire manuscript will have to live up to its promise.
(2) Avoid dialogue as a hook. According to Mr. Lukeman, it "is hard to pull off and almost never works." Most of the time exposition is needed to establish a story. When dialogue is used as a hook, it often verges on the melodramatic in order to make up for story set-up.
Also, opening dialogue may be missing essential parts of the story so it doesn't make sense. On the other hand, the dialogue may be clogged with information so that the story does make sense, but then overloads the reader.
(I was actually surprised to note how many YA books I admire avoided using dialogue as an opener - The Hunger Games, Pretty Little Liars, Wither, Matched, and Harry Potter and the Socerer Stone. However, Wicked Lovely, which I loved , does open with dialogue so the lesson I come away with is just be careful.)
(3) Your hook should NOT stand alone. It should be integrated into the entire story. Remember your hook serves to establish the tone and voice of your entire novel, not just to catch a reader's eye for a brief second.
(4) Pretend that every line in your novel or story is a hook and that each paragraph needs to be crafted as a work of art. That can really change the way you write - for the better.
Thanks Mr. Lukeman (his tone is so formal that I don't feel like I should call him Noah without permission) for some damned good points.
In this book, Noah Lukeman, a successful agent, describes why many novels submitted for publication are rejected before an agent finishes reading the first five pages. He has a lot to say, but I'm going to concentrate on Chapter 14 which is about "hooks."
So in the contest that I just entered, the contestants were required to write a piece that generated tension or story interest using 300 words or less. In other words, we were required to write a hook.
Clearly it is important task to get a reader (and hopefully an agent) interested in your novel with just a handful of words. Often, a reader will evaluate your entire novel on them, but be careful...
Here are some of Mr. Lukeman's observations:
(1) Avoid the "overexcited hook," If your hook line is intense, your entire manuscript will have to live up to its promise.
(2) Avoid dialogue as a hook. According to Mr. Lukeman, it "is hard to pull off and almost never works." Most of the time exposition is needed to establish a story. When dialogue is used as a hook, it often verges on the melodramatic in order to make up for story set-up.
Also, opening dialogue may be missing essential parts of the story so it doesn't make sense. On the other hand, the dialogue may be clogged with information so that the story does make sense, but then overloads the reader.
(I was actually surprised to note how many YA books I admire avoided using dialogue as an opener - The Hunger Games, Pretty Little Liars, Wither, Matched, and Harry Potter and the Socerer Stone. However, Wicked Lovely, which I loved , does open with dialogue so the lesson I come away with is just be careful.)
(3) Your hook should NOT stand alone. It should be integrated into the entire story. Remember your hook serves to establish the tone and voice of your entire novel, not just to catch a reader's eye for a brief second.
(4) Pretend that every line in your novel or story is a hook and that each paragraph needs to be crafted as a work of art. That can really change the way you write - for the better.
Thanks Mr. Lukeman (his tone is so formal that I don't feel like I should call him Noah without permission) for some damned good points.
The Speech Contest
SO HERE IS MY ENTRY INTO A TENSION BUILDING CONTEST hosted by:
http://callyjackson.com/
http://www.rachel-morgan.com/2011/05/power-of-tension-blogfest.html
THE SPEECH CONTEST by Tina Lindsay
Fifteen minutes prior to his second attempt at winning the world speech championship, Claude wasn't sure what he was going to talk about.
Two years ago he placed fourth in the competition. He limped around the stage covered in bandages, improvising life lessons about his near death experience. For this second contest, he had no such advantage. His polyester suit didn’t fit him that well and his scarred face shone with sweat. He was desperate and his desperation was not going to win his sick step-daughter, Ryder, a liver.
He considered getting up on the stage and speaking (no, begging) about how Ryder needed the $10,000 prize. But he needed to buy a liver off the Mutant Black market. That wasn’t inspirational. That was illegal. Talking about it might alert the authorities.
Claude sat with the rest of the contestants in the front row. He turned around and picked out Ryder in the audience. It was easy to do. Her jaundiced skin had yellowed in the past few months and to make matters worse, she wore fuschia lip stick and blue eye shadow – the make-up colors that any eleven year old would pick out if given a choice. What was Misty thinking of when she gave Ryder access to her box of cosmetics? Then again, maybe Misty wanted Ryder to have a taste of adulthood - in case he didn't win.
He cleared his throat. Words would come. They always did. But this time he had to pick the ones that would blow the judges away.
The speaker on the stage finished and bowed a little at the foot-stomping applause. The announcer called Claude’s name.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Killing off Barbie
Book #1: How Not to Write a Novel - 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them - A Misstep-By-Misstep Guide by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman
Note to self: "Many love interests are skin deep...Blonde, red heads and brunettes are not personality descriptions." p. 77
This book is LOL funny - not a quality found in your typical writing tome. One point in this book is that your protagonist's love interest can't be Santa Claus. Another point is that she can't be Barbie either.
My novel contained the more typical Barbie problem.
How I created and killed a love interest Barbie:
Duh...I know Barbie's not an interesting character, but amateur authors commit writing faux-pas with all the good intentions in the world.
I wanted to use Barbie (aka Tabby in my book) as an initial love interest to show how MY FIRST DRAFT PROTAGONIST was shallow and then deepened.
Nonetheless, on a re-read of my second draft, I realized that my Barbie was missing tear ducts, not in a good and interesting way which might result in a conflict, but rather in a bad and shallow way because she never cried or for that matter, had any emotion worth writing about.
So MY 2ND DRAFT PROTAGONIST is now dating a girl called Shells. She tried to bleach her freckles with Chlorox when she was in sixth grade. Sometimes her lovely blue eyes cross inadvertantly. I love her like I never did my tearless Tabby. I can't believe that I will be the cause of her terrible heartache (sob).
Muhahaha...right where I want to be.
.
Note to self: "Many love interests are skin deep...Blonde, red heads and brunettes are not personality descriptions." p. 77
This book is LOL funny - not a quality found in your typical writing tome. One point in this book is that your protagonist's love interest can't be Santa Claus. Another point is that she can't be Barbie either.
My novel contained the more typical Barbie problem.
How I created and killed a love interest Barbie:
Duh...I know Barbie's not an interesting character, but amateur authors commit writing faux-pas with all the good intentions in the world.
I wanted to use Barbie (aka Tabby in my book) as an initial love interest to show how MY FIRST DRAFT PROTAGONIST was shallow and then deepened.
Nonetheless, on a re-read of my second draft, I realized that my Barbie was missing tear ducts, not in a good and interesting way which might result in a conflict, but rather in a bad and shallow way because she never cried or for that matter, had any emotion worth writing about.
So MY 2ND DRAFT PROTAGONIST is now dating a girl called Shells. She tried to bleach her freckles with Chlorox when she was in sixth grade. Sometimes her lovely blue eyes cross inadvertantly. I love her like I never did my tearless Tabby. I can't believe that I will be the cause of her terrible heartache (sob).
Muhahaha...right where I want to be.
.
Amateur Hour
When I started writing my novel, The Sea Knife, I approached the process like any good lawyer. I researched the books that told me what the rules were and then tried to use them so that I could build my case (aka novel).
A year later...
My novel is full of all the mistakes that I read about beforehand. Here are some brief things, though, I learned from writing books to keep me motivated.
1. Just consider your first draft recycling.
2. The simile "writing fiction is like learning an instrument" is overused and true.
At one point, I decided to stop reading books about how to write. I told my friend about my commitment, but I couldn't stop myself from checking out just four more writing books from the library. It was at that point that I decided that I was "coming out." I would transform my fetish into blog fodder.
Afterall, many successful authors are lawyers. Maybe it's because we know how to read the rules. And then learn how to get around them.
A year later...
My novel is full of all the mistakes that I read about beforehand. Here are some brief things, though, I learned from writing books to keep me motivated.
1. Just consider your first draft recycling.
2. The simile "writing fiction is like learning an instrument" is overused and true.
At one point, I decided to stop reading books about how to write. I told my friend about my commitment, but I couldn't stop myself from checking out just four more writing books from the library. It was at that point that I decided that I was "coming out." I would transform my fetish into blog fodder.
Afterall, many successful authors are lawyers. Maybe it's because we know how to read the rules. And then learn how to get around them.
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