Written on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by haleigh
Tuesday June 30, 2009
I'm back from a very long week of traveling and school, and am soooo happy to be home. But I also learned a ton, most of which will hopefully make it's way onto my blog over the next couple weeks.
So today's great little tidbit - the rule of 20. This is from an article Debbie Macomber wrote, which was generously passed on to me by a very awesome class-mate.
The rule of 20:
If you're stuck (and this works for anything -- for motivations, conflicts, plots, etc), list 20 possible options.
The first five will be ones we've all seen over and over again in novels
The last five will be too absurd to put in a novel
The middle ten, however, will be bursting with possibilities. And chances are, one of them will set your imagination off and point you in the right direction.
So I gave this a shot. I'm a at a point in my WIP where I knew what had to come next, but not how to get there. So I took a blank sheet of note paper and wrote across the top, "How do Kersey and Naomi get back to the castle." And I numbered it 1-20 down the side of the page (and felt a bit like I was back in school, taking a pop quiz ;)
So I started jotting down options. And you know what? It worked. The first few were plain and boring, and the things that had been floating around in my head that I knew just weren't quite right. The next few were a bit better. But then the ideas started getting more and more creative until BINGO! I got it.
This is my new "How-to-get-unstuck" trick. Hope it helps!
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Written on Friday, June 05, 2009 by haleigh
Friday, June 5, 2009
On the pirate ship today, Janga mentioned the Paramedic Method of revision, which piqued my interest. And man, oh man, is it good. A simple, easy concept, but one that I think will make a huge impact on my grammar and sentence structure. Check it out!
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Written on Friday, May 29, 2009 by haleigh
Friday, May 29, 2009
For our last day of the "How they Write" series, we have the ultimate power house in writing, Ms. Nora Roberts herself. Also from the Crescent Blues e-mag. The whole interview has lots of great info on how romance publishing has changed since she started in the 1980's.
Crescent Blues: Do your characters ever surprise you by turning out very differently from who you thought they would be? Which character (or characters) surprised you the most?
Nora Roberts: My characters always surprise me. Once they've taken on a life in a book, it's wise to let them go their own ways. I can't remember ever having a character turn out precisely as I'd imagined them before I started the book. That's a good thing.
Crescent Blues: What are the differences you find in writing so many different types of books? Do you prepare for them differently? Do they require a different level of research?
Nora Roberts: I don't prepare for the actual writing any differently. Work is work. The research depends on the subject matter, not the type of book. But I have to know if this is a hardcover romantic suspense and craft the idea in that way. If it's a trilogy, what is the common thread, what binds these people together?
Crescent Blues: Where do you start when you write a book or a story? For example, do you start at the beginning and write through? Do you prefer to toy with character or plot?
Nora Roberts: I start at page one chapter one and write straight through, generally a fairly quick and loose first draft. Then I go back and do another draft from the beginning, fixing where I went off, fleshing out the characters (as I'll know them better by this point), seeing if the story holds. It'll take at least one more draft for polishing, maybe two. But I don't edit my work as I go. I like getting the story down first.
Wow, she starts over? I must say, I was surprised by this. As fast as she writes, I just assumed she only did one draft per book. Fascinating! And notice her direct contridiction to Mary Jo Putney's advice yesterday. LOL!
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Written on Thursday, May 28, 2009 by haleigh
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Up today on our "How they write" series -- Mary Jo Putney. This is from an interview from the website Crescent Blues. The whole interview has tons of good info for anyone who's a fan of her characters!
How she writes:
Crescent Blues: How do you create characters whose strengths and weaknesses complement each other to achieve transformation? (Is it a conscious process, or does one character suggest its own complement?)
Mary Jo Putney: As you suggested, it's usually a matter of developing one character who is the natural complement of the other, so that it will be convincing that these two people are right for each other as no one else could be. Or if I start a book with a plot idea, the characters must be ones who will explore the potentials of that plot as well as suit each other.
Crescent Blues: Which comes first for you: the hero, the heroine or the plot?
Mary Jo Putney: It can be any of the three, though it's more likely to be the hero or the plot than the heroine.
Crescent Blues: How does the story grow from there? (Are you a linear writer, an outliner, a plug-n-play?)
Mary Jo Putney: I'm very linear. I start at the beginning and inch my way through to the end. If I don't know what happens next, I tread water and edit until I figure out how to proceed. I can't even imagine writing in pieces and stringing them together; to me, the writing process is organic, with each section growing out of what happened previously.
Crescent Blues: Do you decide the story's issue in advance or does it develop from your characters?
Mary Jo Putney: It's a combination of both. I suppose that if I start with a plot, I also have a sense of the issue. Whereas if I start with a character, the issue grows out of him.
Crescent Blues: Who's in control, you or your characters?
Mary Jo Putney: Me, without question. I think that anyone who says the characters took over really means that they didn't know them well enough at the beginning. Once you know them inside and out, they don't surprise you.
I find this interesting, especially the last part. My characters seem to come alive and take over part way through the book. I'm not sure if it's because I don't know them well enough before I start, or if I just need them on paper to really get a sense of them. What do you think?
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Written on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 by haleigh
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Up first this week on our "How they write" series, is JoAnn Ross, who writes romance and romantic suspense. See her whole interview on her website, which includes great info on publishing.
Her writing process:
Since I love writing, while it’s not always easy, it never feels like work. (It’s hard to complain about a job I get to do in my jammies.) I’ve written nearly every day since 1982, approximately eight hours during the week, usually less on weekends. I used to set goals of twenty pages a day for category, ten pages a day for single title. These days, because I tend to keep rewriting as I go along, it can get too demoralizing to set specific goals, so I just keep an eye on the calendar. Also, because I spend all that early time revising, by the last third of a book I pretty much have events set up and have a better idea of where I’m going, so the writing goes much faster.
I did character studies for a couple early books because I read in Writers Digest I was supposed to. They may work for other people, but they didn’t do a thing for me except waste time. I tend to think about my characters for a long time, sometimes years, so by the time I write their stories, I know them well enough to trust them to carry my story for me. Because I’ve often thought it would be nice to have a roadmap, I’ve tried, but simply cannot do outlines, although I usually have an idea of a pivotal scene somewhere toward the middle of a book, and a vague plan for the ending, which can, and usually does change.
I don’t necessarily recommend this method; as with everything else about writing, process is a very unique thing and we all have to find what works for us. My process has changed a lot since I began writing, and can often change during the course of writing a book.
Yesterday revealed a wide range of writing processes. Anybody write like this?
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Written on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 by haleigh
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
There are probably as many ways to write as there are ways to clean a house. Some people like to vacuum every day, some people iron their sheets, some are lucky if the dust balls don't eat them in their sleep. It's all a matter of comfort, preference, skills, ability, time etc.
Writing is the same way. How you write -- what system works best for you -- depends on your goals, your genre/sub-genre, your time constraints, and your financial constraints (contests bills add up, not to mention the maid and personal chef so I have more time to write. A girl can dream, right?). It also depends on your skills and abilities. The more we write, the better we get at spotting what's not working and knowing how to fix it.
Some people like to edit as they go, some need to vomit out the first draft and fix it later. Some plot, plot, plot, some fly by the seat of their pants. Some try to get it all down in one go, others write in layers.
So a short series this week: how to do they write? Lots of published authors talk about their system for writing and what works for them. So this week, I'll post some great interviews from romance authors.
But for today, how do you write? What's your system?
I'm a plotter, and a fairly fanatical one at that. If I don't know exactly where I'm going with each scene, and what the goals are for that scene, I freeze up. I've tried to pants it -- it always backfires for me.
So my system is to plot, plot, plot. Then I forget all about all of that and just write. I don't re-read it, don't fiddle with it, just write. The next day, I'll start my day by reading over yesterday's work, and fiddling with it then. I compare it to my plot - did I go where I meant to go, or just go off on a tangent. Did I show the necessary characterization? Did I show evocative emotions? I'll layer in more emotions, more plot, or a deeper POV. Then I start fresh on the next scene, forget all the rules and plotting, and just write. Tomorrow, I'll go over the stuff I wrote this morning.
But that's just me. Nicole Jordan, in an interview in April's Romance Writer's Report, said "There’s no point in doing scads of plotting or characterization prep unless it actually helps you write the story better and faster. For some writers, too much prep work is actually detrimental."
So what do you do? Are you a plotter or pantster? Do you write every day, or when inspiration strikes? Do you edit as you go, or come back later? Write in layers, or try to get it all down at once?
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Written on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 by haleigh
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
Ever used the weather to create a scene? I think most of us have, or will. I wrote a scene last week that was going fine until I realized it had no real setting, no mood. It was my hero and heroine taking a hike through a forest.
Uh, boring.
And I realized that I was missing this HUGE opportunity. Here they were, in the middle of a night, in an N. Irish forest, full of spooky noises and obstacles. There would have been drops of water falling from the canopy above them from an earlier rain storm. There'd be some stray, rolling thunder from the storm that had moved out over the ocean. Scurrying noises from little forest-dwelling creatures.
Now, I realize that's not all weather. But my point is that my characters wandering through the woods was boring. My characters picking their way through a spooky forest as thunder rolled above them rain splattered down is much more interesting. All because of the weather.
Ever seen a picture of weather that just put you there?
I stumbled across this picture when researching what kind of storms they get in N. Ireland. And it instantly put me in Belfast. The rain, the lone streetlight, the fence. There's undertones of something sinister in this picture, much like the city itself and (hopefully) my WIP.
Ever had to go back and add more description? More weather? Any types of weather that just put you in a certain mood or take you somewhere?
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Written on Saturday, May 16, 2009 by haleigh
Saturday, May 16, 2009
So as most of you know, I have an unhealthy obsession with craft books. So I thought I'd start posting tips that have been helpful for me on here, in the hope they become helpful for someone else. If they're straight out of a book, I'll list the info so you can get the book for yourself (if you also have this obsession :)
This week's tip........showing vs. telling
Shocker, I know. Something none of you have ever heard of :) Clearly, we all know that it's important to show things instead of telling our readers. It creates more investment in the story, more empathy for the character, and overall, that brings that elusive dream of hearing a reader say "I just couldn't put it down."
And there are tricks galore for how to do this. But I inadvertently stumbled across a way that seems to be working well for me, so I thought I'd pass it along.
I have a secondary character named Josephine. I love this character, and adore writing her. It's become such a love that I'm toying with the idea of writing her story as a sequel. But because she's a secondary character, very few of my scenes are in her POV. Only one, so far, in 120 pages. And there will only be a couple more, I think.
So because I am never in her head, I don't really have the option to telling my readers anything about her. I'm forced into showing it. I have no thoughts, no internal emotions, nothing. Only her outward dialogue, facial expressions, and actions.
And those reading the MS got it. I was really surprised, but I kept getting comments about how much Josephine loved the main character, or how hardened she is, or how dedicated she is. All these little insights to her character, without me ever telling any of it. And frankly, I'm surprised just how well I've gotten to know Josephine, without ever going into her head.
So this has turned in to a trick for me. If you're having trouble getting to know your character, or showing things about them instead of telling, try writing a few of their scenes from another character's POV. How do they react, what do they say. What are those little, tiny micro-expressions and actions that give away what they're feeling deep down. What are the little things they do when they're trying to hide something?
For instance, I have this scene in my MC's POV. And he says something truly asinine to someone else. Josephine doesn't react, doesn't say anything. But she drops the box of cigars she's holding. And the cigars are rolling across the floor in this moment of sudden quiet after the crash of the box.
And that was it - there was no dialog, no frantic thoughts on Jo's part. Just the cigars. And those reading got it. If I'd been in Jo's POV, I would have been tempted to over explain it, to beat it to death to make sure reader's understood why she reacted the way she did. But because I didn't have that option, I was forced to leave it at just showing, and it worked.
Now clearly, I don't think we should stop writing in deep POV, but if you're struggling, this has been a way that's helped me really force myself to only show. One caveat thought - I will say that reader's interpreted Jo's reason for dropping the cigars very differently. Their view and understanding of Jo influenced what they took from that scene. But you know, those little nuances can be part of the fun of writing.
Anybody ever tried this to work on showing instead of telling? What other tips do you have for forcing yourself not to tell your readers what's happening?
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