Tag: Writing

  • Wiley Wednesday: Mapmaking

    “No, put it there.” “No, over there.” “On the bureau, can’t you see?” “What bureau?” “The one in the bedroom!”

    Discussions about space sometimes plague us. Where do we file that client information? Where do we put the new hire? Where do we store all the books that we bought? We just bought a new TV, now where do we put it? What about the bin for recycled goods?

    This is true for our characters too. The worlds we create for them to inhabit are places that need to be as real to us as our own home. If we put a tree in the front yard in the morning, it better be there in the evening when our character comes home from work – or a neighbor cut it down, it fell over in a storm, or the city came and trimmed it. It can’t just go “poof.”

    So… How do you keep your trees from going poof? Because, after all, tree poofage is a leading cause of stress among writers, according to a recent poll.

    Maps!

    That’s right, I said maps. Draw a map of your space. You can draw a map of a room, a house, a street, even a planet. Even if you can’t draw very well, you can at least sketch in the main points. Where IS that pesky tree, anyway? Who lives to the right of the house? The left? What’s the name of the street?

    This is an old trick of fantasy authors, to draw maps of their worlds for readers to use. Some of them are quite elaborate and beautiful. But it can be useful even for “regular” world building. For example, in our upcoming release of BURNING BRIGHT, Rachel and I have a restaurant and bar called the Factory. We sat down and drew out how many tables there are on the main floor, where the bathrooms and kitchen are, the stairs, elevator, back door, and other elements are. That way, when our characters move around in the space we know what direction to turn them, what they see when they do it, and how to avoid walking them into walls.

    Try it with your house. Take a piece of paper out of your printer, and a use a pencil. See if you can’t draw your home, starting at the property line. Mark where the driveway is. Where do you park? Imagine coming home from the grocery store, and follow yourself from the moment you shut off the engine. Do you go in the back or front door? What’s the room you enter when you first come inside? Where’s the kitchen? Bathroom? Bedroom? What’s in the back yard? (A tree?) Fill in details as you go and don’t be afraid to erase and start over. It takes practice, and it doesn’t have to be pretty – it just needs to be clear.

    Tell me in the comments if you tried it, how did it go? Or, alternatively, how do you manage your imaginary worlds?

  • Wiley Wednesday: A Useful Tool

    After taking a creative writing class last quarter, I was introduced to an interesting website that I think many people will find helpful.

    It’s called Duotrope’s Digest.

    It’s free to sign up and you can essentially shop around your story for mainly online publications, I think. It allows you to shop by genre (really specific genres, too). You can also track your submissions, when you submit, where and when you get a reply (you, of course, have to input that all yourself). It also gives you details on the publication, such as when/how often they publish, their acceptance to rejection ratio, what type of stories they accept and average length of stories they publish.

    I think it’s very useful for the aspiring writer. And someone could probably just use it to find stories within a specific genre they enjoy using the search tools, as well.

  • Wiley Wednesday: In Defense of the Pen

    How many of you use a pen and paper to write? A handwritten journal? Post-it notes??

    Yeah, I thought so. Not very many of you. I’ve learned in doing Prompt Group meetings for the last couple years that modern Americans don’t seem to write much anymore. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; after all, I am a Technorati of the first order, a modern-day “power user.”

    Yet, philosophically, I have a lot in common with Luddites.

    What’s a Luddite? They were a sect that shunned technology and modern contrivances. As I type this on a laptop in a friend’s home whilst using her wireless, for use on a group blog the authors of which reside all over the planet, I can’t in all honesty claim to be a Luddite, but still. I love me a pen and paper!

    And here is something I’ve learned: there’s something alchemical that happens when one sits down to write that doesn’t happen in the same way when one sits down at the keyboard. I believe that it’s the kinesthetic process of one-handedness.

    Say wha?

    Bear with me. Kinesiology is the study of muscles and how they work. “Kinesthetic learners” learn, literally, by doing: by working with their hands or bodies. When we write, we do so one-handed – even if we are the rare ambidextrous person, when writing, we’re not doing so with a pen in each hand. We write with one hand, one pen, on one surface. When we type, we do so either with one finger of each hand, or we know how to touch type and use all ten fingers.

    We know from the treatment of Epilepsy and cognitive developmental theory that things that bridge the left/right brain hemispheres helps, literally, to teach the brain to think. That’s good, right?

    I believe, though, that writing with one hand can, if done for long enough, help us to bridge the hemispheres in another way: by literally giving one “side” voice to the other side. We can, over time, get to know ourselves better and to even start to communicate with our own subconscious minds. This happens more easily, I’ve observed, by the tool of handwriting and not the tool of typing. I don’t know why this is so, but I’ve seen it happen so consistently that I’ve accepted its reality even if I don’t understand all of the methodology.

    My long-time readers have heard my arguments on Morning Pages, an idea put forth by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way and others. Three pages of longhand writing, done in the morning, can alter our waking reality. I have seen this to be true in my own life as well as others that I’ve known that have used the tool. What’s more, at the end of a Prompt Group, where we write to prompts for two hours, I see it happen in the writers who attend. (For more information on the Prompt Group, please visit our website.)

    I urge you to try it for yourself: try writing three pages a day, or hand write a letter or card to an absent friend. Postcards are good, too. Try writing the response to a story prompt (if you don’t have one, just Google “writing prompt” and pick one). See if you can unlock the magic of the pen for yourself.

  • Dead Battery

    Sitting in a rainstorm with a dead car battery, I can’t help comparing this situation to my writing. For various reasons, work stress among them, I feel too drained by day’s end to write. It’s like my characters have abandoned me.

    However, I’m not calling it quits. I knew what number to call for help today, so there is surely some key to storytelling locked inside me. First, I need to sit down and make the effort to write whether I feel like it or not. Taking that step is one hundred percent more likely to produce words on the page than not trying.

    Perhaps I’ll start now while waiting for my savior with the jumper cables.

    Then again, I have my “Artist’s Way” book by Julian Cameron. It’s designed to enable higher creativity without forcing oneself.

    Rather than speaking of a drained battery, Ms. Cameron would probably tell me that I need to fill my creative well. There are many fun ways to do that. This week five of “The Artist’s Way” advises collecting images of postponed pleasures and desires. I think it’s time to go through a gardening catalog. Then I can head over to a garden center when the weather warms and put my artist’s eye toward shaping my yard into some fresh new visualization.

    Weekly artist’s dates, times spent all by myself doing something fun, are another big tool from Julia Cameron’s arsenal. The visit to said garden center would make a great date even before time to plant.

    What about you? Is it time to charge that battery or fill your well? What interesting venture might aid you in the goal?

  • Size Matters

    Just like a lot of things in this world, stories come in all sizes. When I was younger, nothing short of a novel length tale really got my juices flowing. Whether it was because I had more time for such an investment or perhaps my imagination needed more time and complexity to take flight, I suppose I’ll never know.

    Once I started writing, I became drawn to more succinct pieces. A whole serial came out of my imagination before I even realized how short each segment turned out. Now I enjoy reading short story collections more and more, too. It’s as if I find more of a powerful punch in brevity.

    The trick with authoring such material is finding a publisher. I understand that the endeavor, while not impossible, can be especially tough depending on the genre. That said, a very encouraging mentor suggested I write my own short story anthology. The challenge is intriguing. Selling a collection as a fledgling artist might be a real trial in its own right, but the reward of writing cannot be discounted. I hope you’ll wish me luck.

    What about you? Whether as a reader or a writer, do you have a preference about the length of story you would rather read?

  • Lucius’ Wiley: Naming Characters

    It was Juliet Capulet (via our friend [enemy to some] Billy Shakespeare) who first asked: “What is in a name?” Well, the answer is nothing.

    And everything.

    If you’re writing, then you need to make sure that the name is one that you can live with, because you’ll be spending Heaven knows how many hours working with that character and that name. If you just choose randomly that you don’t care for, you might grow to hate the name and, by association, the character. If you’re working with a protagonist that is supposed to be likable in some way, then you are failing as your personal feelings may find their way into your writing.

    Other names just don’t fit the character. For example, if the character is larger than life, a lady’s man, witty, a real man’s man and an intergalactic hero, responsible for saving humanity from unspeakable evil and that man’s name is… Bob. Just Bob.

    No, Bob is your coworker. It’s probably why one of the most badass characters in film, Snake Plissken, has only one mentioning of his real name in two films. It’s because his first name is Bob. Probably also why he goes by Snake.

    If you hadn’t noticed, I put a lot of thought into naming my characters and it shows. I wrote a few hundred word short last September and two of the three comments mentioned how they liked the names I gave the characters.

    I tend to choose names that apply, in some way, to the characters, and who I want those characters to be. Sometimes it is literal, other times it is ironic. But it is always something that I like and think works well for the characters. Take, for example, the names of the characters from the aforementioned story (I should also take this time to note that I’m using that 400 word story as an opening for a longer yarn).

    The main character is Anshel. It is a Yiddish diminutive for Asher, meaning “happy” or “blessed” in Hebrew. For a man who, at the start, is very happy and feels blessed it fits rather well. It is also ironic as he spends a great deal of time feeling quite the opposite.

    His best friend is Katsuo, which is a Japanese name meaning “victory” and “hero, manly.” I specifically searched for a Japanese name, as I wanted him to use Japanese weaponry, and show diversity amongst the characters in the two cities where the action takes place.

    Anshel’s right hand is Eulalia, a Spanish/Ancient Greek/Italian/English (I forget where I was looking when I found the name) that means to “talk well.” Later in the story, she needs to use her ability to “speak well” to convince Anshel to act. It was also just a name I kind of liked and that worked for the character. That was also one of the hardest names to find for that story.

    If you are curious, I use Behind the Name to search for names, usually by country/region, and to find the meanings.

    However, I don’t use that site, alone. I also use names that I just like from other sources, as well.

    The final character in that story was a cat named Alfador. That came from one of my favorite video games of all time: Chrono Trigger. One part of the game had a character (Janus) who had a cat named, you guessed it, Alfador. Because it is one of my favorite games (and a cool name) I took it and used it for myself.

    I’ve also named at least two characters “Plissken” after our good friend, Snake, as well.

  • Motivation & The Dreaded Middle

    This week we are taking a look at motivation and the dreaded middle section of a story. I find it ironic that this title is, relatively, the middle of this series. What’s up with the middle being a bad thing? Let’s take a look.

    So far, we’ve covered getting those ideas firmed up and starting to write out shiny new wonderful story idea. This is always an exciting time – fresh new idea, exciting new plot, new characters, new conflict.  The key word here is new.  Once we get tot he middle, the idea is no longer new and fresh, we know the plot far better than we did at the start, the characters have been chattering in our heads so long now we sometimes tune them out like we do a buzzing fluorescent light, and we begin to wonder if there is enough conflict, or perhaps too much that we should just kill them all and be done with it. Welcome to the Sagging Middle!
     So what do we do now? Well, first up, step away from the keyboard.  Killing off all your characters will drastically change both your category, turning your novel into a novella (or short story), and likely your genre as well. So unless you intend to make it a horror story, a little perspective is needed. It’s likely not that bad, just that you’ve been sleeping, eating, and breathing this story for a while and need a break. It’s okay to take a day or two. Trust me, your characters won’t hate you and run off to another story. Well, I have one doing this but it is a horror story and he has evil intentions.  You don’t have to worry about that.
    Take a little time to catch your breath, get some perspective, then take a look at where you are.    The middle can be a quagmire if you lose track of your story arc.  The thing to do here is look back over what had happened so far. Is the story still on track? Does the conflict help develop the story and characters? If it’s a mystery or suspense, have you dropped enough clues so far that it still fits together? If not, perhaps one of your characters needs some fleshing out, perhaps something you think is clear to the reader but isn’t needs a little more illuminating.
    Sometimes it all in how you look at it. Instead of seeing it as the boring middle part, think of it as the top of the hill. Your setting is fleshed out.  Your characters are all set and doing their thing. The story is humming along.  You get to the top of this hill and realize, you are halfway home. That’s great news!  From here, you can look at your word count and see the ‘words left to write’ shrinking daily. Not only that, but this number is smaller than  the number of words you’ve written! I don’t know about you, but that really gets me going. It’s like the end id actually in sight, though still somewhat distant, for the first time. You can see that this thing might actually come together.
    This all ties directly into motivation. Writing can be a solitary endeavor, so much of our motivation comes from within. What excites us? What keeps us going for the long haul? Sometimes it’s nothing more than that I’ve covered above.  A wonderful new idea that insists on being written. A character that just refuses to leave your head and won’t stop talking to you. A great plot idea. Those will usually get you started, but it’s often sheer determination that keeps you going even when things seem stalled. Keep your eye on the goal and you will get there. Even when things seem to be going awry, there’s something of value there, we just have to find it and push through. Before we know it, we are off and running once more.
    As they used to say in the 70’s, Keep On Truckin’!

  • Wiley Wednesday: Completeing A Draft & Scheduling

    Last post I discussed beginning a new story, how to begin, and what tools we use.  I mentioned a often-used acronym, BICHOK.  Butt in chair, hands on keys. Here’s where that little mantra really becomes important. Learn it, know it, use it.
    First step.  How long will it be?  Is it a short story? Novella? Full-length novel?  The difference is the length, but the process is the same. At this point, you have made this decision and written your outline (or not).  Everything’s ready, it’s time to get the words on the page.  This means two things: goals and sticking to them. That’s how a draft gets done.  So how do goals work where a first draft is concerned? It’s time to do a little math. (I can hear you all groaning now!)

     The first step, once you have decided what the overall length will be, is to decide how long you want to take to write it.  When do you want to add The End to your draft? Obviously, if you are submitting for a specific  publisher’s call, you will have a deadline date to shoot for.  If not, then it’s more a matter of personal choice, and your comfort level regarding speed and  amount of work per day. Once you have your own ‘deadline’ decided, there’s where the math comes in.  Figure out the number of days till you want it done, divide your total projected word count by that number of days, and there you have it.  This depends, also, on how many days a week you plan to write. Do you take weekends off? Are Mondays the pits for you?  Are you out of town every Thursday?  Adjust your number of writing days accordingly and you’ll have a concrete number of words you  need to write each writing day to reach your daily and total goals.  And you thought this would be hard.
    Actually, the math is the easy part.  Now comes the real work.  The writing. Reaching those goals.
    I got a real ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’  experience with my first NaNoWriMo. that stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it takes place every  November. The basic idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. A friend of mine had mentioned it to me years ago, and I finally decided to give it a shot.  50,000 words, 30 days. Approximately 1666 words every day. Sound insane?  Yes, it is. It was also one of the most exhilarating and fun things I have ever done. I met with a local group of fellow insane writers and we all went at it. And I did it. All because I kept an eye on my goals constantly.
    I knew the total daily breakdown/minimum I had to do.  That gave me a weekly number, and a running total as I went. I made desktop wallpaper that had a calendar with my daily word count on it. I  crossed off each day as I went. The sense of accomplishment was huge, and that visual prodding and feeling of success is what kept me going.  This is the key.  Find a system that works for you, that will inspire you, push you when you need it, and keep your goals in front of you. Have some sort of  tracking system, a visual so you can see that you are being successful.  And every day that  you accomplish your number will make you feel that much more successful and determined to keep it going.
    That’s the real secret right there to getting that first draft written. Make a plan, stick to it, and track it.  Congratulate yourself on your successes along the way. And before long?  You too will be typing THE END.
    Happy writing!

  • Starting a New Story

    So, we’ve got all these wonderful characters talking in our heads, a fabulous plot, a gorgeous setting. We may or may not have an outline, depending on whether we like that sort of thing or prefer to wing it. Now it’s time to sit down and start banging out the words, right? Absolutely! We  sit down, open our word processor of choice and there it is….the blank page and the blinking cursor. Blinking at us.

    Non-stop.
    What now?
    Starting on the shiny new story is always exciting and often comes with no small amount of trepidation. Will it be any good? Will I  come up with the right words? Do I have enough plot to make a whole novella/novel out of it? I love the start of a new story.  By the time I sit down to actually start writing, I’ve usually had these characters talking to me for a while and know them as well as I know the people who live in my house. They are getting pretty bossy by this time and insisting I get going. Since I am a panster, I don’t write outlines and timelines and such before I start. I do, however, have a general idea of the plot arc and know the main events  that will get us from  beginning to end. How I get to these points of interest along the way is always a surprise and there lies the real excitement for me  in a new story. I can’t wait to see what surprises the characters will spring on me, what secrets they will reveal, what action develops, how the relationships among them evolve.
    But that all happens once I have actually started writing. How do I actually get started? Here’s a little bird’s eye view of (cue dramatic music) THE BEGINNING.
    If you’ve read my earlier posts, prior to this series, you will have seen one about my schedule change to being an early riser so I can get my writing in before the kids get up. If you haven’t, now you know, so the scene is set. My alarm invades my sleep just before 6 AM. There is always an momentary  wish to sleep in, which gets tossed out, then I climb out of bed. I get dressed and  head to the kitchen.  Today is  easier since I am finally going to start on that new story idea that has been bugging me mercilessly for weeks. That’s pretty exciting and once I have coffee (or hot tea) in hand, it’s off to the computer.
     So now we are there with the blank page and cursor.  What happens now? There’s a popular acronym in the writing world: BICHOK, i.e. butt in chair, hands on keys.  I start writing. Whatever comes to mind.  This may  stay, or may get edited out later but  the important and essential first step is to get the  writing flowing, prime the pump.  Chances are that I will eventually  come back here to  polish up this beginning, make it stronger, more enticing, but for now, the main thing is to get started. And keep going. Not everything you toss into this first draft will stay, but it is essential to get the thoughts moving, get the words on the page and don’t worry about perfection at this point. Once you get the draft done, then you can start to edit and polish, since you will have the whole plot arc done to reference when ‘fixing up’.
    And whether you use extensive outlines, note cards, storyboards, novel writing programs, or go simple with just a word processor of one variety or another, or paper and pen, the important thing is this: start writing. Keep writing. Don’t look back. Stay consistent, and the story will flow. Keep at it till done. The formula is pretty simple, but what it can do it absolute magic.

  • Research

    This week we will take a look at researching stories. First up, what exactly does research encompass?  Quite a lot actually. Of course, there are historical facts. Names, dates, places, major events. It also covers social and political ideas of the time, demographics, setting, geography, climate.  How about equipment?  Technology? Mechanical facts?  Then there’s clothing and food. Native languages. Well-known disasters. Wars. Exhausted yet?

    Research can be a huge chunk of your story, start to finish.  Some prefer to  do it all in painstaking detail before  they start chapter one, some would rather do it as they go. I  fall somewhere in-between. I want to have a good sense of what the world and time period was like, assuming I am using a real world setting.  However, I don’t  spend months  looking into it.  I want a good basis and then I will look up things as I go. Even those who do a lot of research ahead of time end up doing more during the course of the writing. Something always pops up that you have not planned on, requiring you to go back to your sources.
    Which brings us to the main point here – sources. Of course, there is the internet. Google is often a writer’s best friend. So is Wikipedia, but that one requires some caution in that not everything is always accurate. Historical websites, special interest associations, encyclopedia sites… the list is endless and ever-changing by the day.
    But what about other sources? In other words, how in the hell did we research anything before we had the internet? There is always the library.  In my case, that is generally not that useful given I live in a tiny town with a tiny library.  Some other favorite sources are books on the subject. I continually comb through used book stores, both online and brick and mortar. Newspapers are invaluable. When I was researching Victorian London for my Victorian vampire story, I came across all sorts of wonderful books on the era. My big score, however, was several editions of the Star, a London newspaper, all from the summer of 1888. I was ecstatic for weeks! In addition to  actual news of the era, the advertisements were great for giving a good feeling for the times (I also picked up a book printed in the 1800’s about lice and rats in London – very interesting look at the cleanliness issues. It got me some weird looks!).
    I also tend to collect good source material as I go along for times and locations that interest me and that I may want to use at some point, or places that I already envision for a story idea brewing in my head.  I may use them one day, I may not, but digging through them can be invaluable if I do. And sometimes, I may not use that particular thing, but it spurs an idea of something I do end up using, which can be just as good.
     The first week we talked about being observant and stretching our creative muscles to make use of what we see. Research is a great place for that as well, whatever form it takes. You never know what will be lurking in those pages, whether they are in a book, newspaper, or website.  Happy hunting!