Writing guides

May 07

Photo by: Stephen Coles, http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewf/

Research is important for a successful novel regardless of your genre. When I first started writing, I figured research was only necessary for historical fiction or Michael Crichton-type thrillers. I was certain that fantasy and futuristic writers didn’t need to bother with research. I mean, they build their own worlds. What’s there to research?

But boy was I wrong.

Research, Research, Research: Examples from the Real World

Think about the last novel you read. Now think about the details. As an example, I will use one of the last novel I read, Wondrous Strange. In this urban fantasy, the main character, Kelley, is an actress in a Shakespeare play and fairy lure is laced throughout the book. There are also other fantastical characters. To write this book, Lesley Livingston needed to be familiar with fairy tales from different cultures. She also needed to be familiar with a variety of Shakespeare plays and other fantasy creatures and the folktales that accompanied them.

My current WIP is set in the future. Like it or not, writing a book set in the future also requires research. While it is not a hard sci-fi book, readers will expect some sci-fi elements. What does the future look like? What new, amazing technology have they developed? To figure this out, I have to spend time looking at trends in technology and science and, based off of these things, make educated guesses about what these things will look like in the future.

Where do I go to Research?

Two of my main sources of research are TechCrunch and Mashable. TechCrunch blogs about technology startups and Web 2.0. Mashable is a news blog that explores web technology, news, new websites/social networks, etc. I also skim the technology and science sections in several online newspapers and follow NASA and Astronomy Magazine on Twitter. A lot of days, I don’t see anything that sparks my creativity. But sometimes, I get a little nugget that grows into an amazing idea.

Take my current WIP. The main premise came from a news story. I occasionally listen to a podcast called Mysterious Universe. I was listening to it one day and they were talking about solar flares and underground homes that are being built to protect people from these flares. So I went to the internet and started researching these things and the idea took off. What if there was a solar flare that destroyed earth and the wealthy escaped in a space ship and return years later, thinking Earth was uninhabited only to discover that people had been living in underground safety pods. Cue conflict.

No matter what genre you are writing in, you will always need to do your homework.

How do you research? Do you use research for inspiration?

Dec 29

The New Year is rapidly approaching and, while I’m not usually one to make New Year’s Resolutions, I decided, why not make some writing resolutions this year.

I don’t consider finishing my book to be a proper resolution. This is something I work on all the time. In my mind, resolutions should be about trying something new. So this year, I am resolving to start entering writing contests.

Why writing contests?

I’ve resisted writing contests for a while. I thought they would distract me from my book. But then I got a new writing exercise book from my writing buddy, The Daily Writer: 366 Meditations to Cultivate a Productive and Meaningful Writing Life, by Fred White. The book has one exercise for every day of the year. Being the go-getter that I am, I thought I’d get a head start and check out the exercise for Jan. 1. And I found myself stumped.

The exercise asked me to write an allegory. I’ve never taken a creative writing class so I’ve never really had the opportunity to sit down and write an allegory. And I was a bit shocked to find that I had no clue where to start.

But what about the Writing Contests?

In thinking about how to complete this exercise, I realized that I was being forced to stretch my imagination, to look at stories in a way I don’t normally look at them. I may subconsciously think of things as being allegories, but thinking something is an allegory and trying to write your own allegory are two very different things. In thinking about this exercise, I also started thinking about my WIP in a different way. Instead of stifling my creative energy, the exercise was expanding it.

Writing contests are similar to this exercise. They give you parameters (even if it’s just a word count) and they give you a deadline. Both of these are good skills for someone looking to turn writing into something other than a hobby. And, if writing contests are anything like this exercise, they will help my creativity soar. Another good thing for a writer.

In addition to helping to foster new skills, writing contests also lead to exposure. I may not win any contests, but I will be getting my name out there and meeting others who are entering the same contests, or at least meeting their writing if they win. And if I do win a contest, all the better.

Back to my resolution

I don’t want to overwhelm myself. After all, I work a full-time job and am trying to finish my WIP. But I also don’t want to let myself off too easily. So this year I’m going to enter 3 writing contests. Why 3? Well, 4 seemed like too many and 2 seemed like too little, so 3 it is.

Now I just need to figure out which contests to enter. Maybe I’ll start with this Highlights Fiction Contest that I learned about over at MiG Writers…

What do you think about writing contests? Have you ever entered one? Have you ever won?

Oct 25

Assignment: Create a plot sketch using this photo as your inspiration

What follows is a quick and dirty plot sketch based on the photo to the left. The plot might be shoddy, but note what I have done here. There is a beginning, middle, and end. There is an MC, a love interest, and a villain. I do not waste time on too much back story, though I note things I may want to research. When I don’t know how to get from a to c, I leave b vague, providing only the most basic of information. I can go back later to fill in the gaps. By creating a short, quick sketch of the general flow of action, I at least have something to work from.

My Quick & Dirty Plot Sketch Example

MC returns from a trip. She has been living a few towns over, working as an apprentice (research ideas for what type of apprenticeship). When she returns to her village, she finds it empty. There is no one anywhere. A stillness fills the air
MC has no clue what happened. She did not hear any reports. There were suspicions of possible trouble because there had not been a word from her family for a few weeks. That is why she was given leave to return.
MC wanders down the empty streets, and arrives at her parents home. It is empty. There is no sign of life. She goes to her room and finds it just as she left it. Nothing is out of place. It’s like everyone just disappeared.
MC is walking through the ghost town. She walks to the statue garden, her favorite place, and breaks down. She cries out of fear, out of loneliness. Everything she knows is gone, and she doesn’t know why. She hears a noise and it startles her to silence. She pulls a knife (she always carries a knife – maybe this has something to do with her apprenticeship) but finds nothing threatening. A man is standing there, arms held out, showing her he has no weapons.
MC lowers her knife, but still keeps a firm grip on it. She doesn’t know this man or whether to trust him. Maybe he has something to do with what happened here. But then, he might know what happened here too.
Man asks MC who she is and what she is doing here. She is offended. He has no right to ask her. This is her home. After snapping at one another, she learns that he has seen something like this before. This is not the first town to vanish.
MC and man return to town and find some mildly stale bread and cheese in the local tavern. They eat a solemn meal and man asks if she has anywhere to go. She says she isn’t going back to the apprenticeship until she learns what happened here. After an argument, the man agrees to take her with him on his travels to learn what is happening to their world.
Travel — see stuff. Learn about one another. Uncover clues to what happened. Run into some danger. Find more and more villages that have disappeared.
In the end, they discover that some evil wizard is responsible. He has been transporting the people to his realm to serve as slaves. They defeat him and everyone is returned and lives happily ever after.

Creating Your Own Plot Sketch

In creating my actual plot sketch for NaNoWriMo, I began in a similar way, writing down bullet marks for moments that progress the story. I then went back and filled in additional information or made changes where necessary. For example, in my NaNoWriMo project, I realized that the conflicting love interest (yes, I am using a love triangle) should be someone from the MCs past. This worked better than providing two new characters. It created a stronger emotional connection and helped to create motivation and tension. Because I have not yet started the novel, all I had to do was go back to a few places in my plot sketch and make a couple of changes. This was much easier than rewriting an entire chapter.

By laying out the plot in this way, I can easily see where the story is going. I can also make sure that I have a story arc (see my post from Oct. 13 for more on story arcs). When November 1 roles around, I won’t have to waste time deciding what I am writing or figuring out how to make my story work. I can just open up my short plot sketch, glance over it, and then get down to some serious writing.

Now it’s your turn

Do you have an idea for NaNoWriMo? Have you created a plot sketch/outline/etc.? Do you have another method that works for you? If you answered no to 2 or more of these questions, get cracking. November 1 is fast approaching.

If you need more help thinking about your project, be sure check out Wednesday’s post on choosing a genre.

Oct 24

With NaNoWriMo 2010 fast approaching, I’ve got one question for you. Are you ready?

For first-time participants, you may be thinking, ‘but isn’t preparation against the rules?’ Having an idea, an outline, character sketches, etc. is not cheating. You are only cheating if you add words to your word count that you did not actually write during NaNoWriMo.

As a 3-time failure, I will let you in on the secret to my lack of success. I was unprepared.

If you do nothing else…

Have at least a general idea about your story. My first year, I wasted valuable time day 1 trying to figure out what in the world I was going to write. As I’m sure many of you have noticed, November 1 inconveniently falls on a Monday this year. Unless you are taking the day off of work or school (which I am considering), you will have precious few hours on day 1 to add some progress to your progress bar. All the more reason to come in with a plan.

Your NaNoWriMo Story Plan

Having a plan does not mean you need to have a fully developed, beautifully outlined plan. For many, that would take the fun out of NaNoWriMo. A plan can be as simple as knowing your general plot and the name of you MC. This year, I have decided to go with a slightly more detailed plan, but it is by no means the fully sketched out plan suggested by Karen Wiesner in her book First Draft in 30 Days (a great book, by the way).

Because everyone loves an example

To help get your juices flowing, I thought an example was in order. One way I get ideas is through pictures. A picture really can say a thousand words, or in this case, 50,000, if you know how to look at it. Look at the photo and let you imagination flow. Think of some stories you could create from it. The scene in the photo does not even need to be included in your story. You could base it off of the emotion you get from looking at the photo or what the photo makes you think of. Post your ideas and come back tomorrow for an example of a short plot sketch I created based off of this photo.

Oct 13

As it turns out, I am having a harder time giving up on my WIP than I thought I would. Even though I’m ready to put it aside and ignore all of its problems, I can’t let it rest. Instead of working out the details for my next project as I lie in bed at night, willing myself to sleep, my mind keeps wandering back to my WIP. How can I fix it? How can I make the story I know is in there work?

Story Arc

The other day I was browsing the blogosphere and I came across a post by Alexis Grant titled Learning by doing (or the importance of story arc). This post got me thinking. It’s not that my story is a bad idea. I think the concept is there. The characters, with a little bit of editing, have the potential to be quite lovable. The problem lies within the story arc.

Now this is something I’ve sort of known. Every time I sit down to work on my WIP, I find myself stuck on the flow of action. But it isn’t the flow so much as it is my inability to pick my inciting incidents. I have thrown so much in there, the reader doesn’t know where to look.

In researching story arc after reading Alexis’ post, I came across this very familiar diagram. You may recognize it from middle school English classes. I know I used to sit and stare at it, wondering how this was going to help me to dissect Lord of the Flies or get the lead in Antigone. As a reader, it didn’t seem too useful. As a writer, though, it is quite useful.

If you are not much of a graphs person, the explanation of story structure that goes with the graph was pretty clear and concise. Between the graph and the explanation, I feel like I now have a pretty solid grasp about what makes a successful story arc. And that brings me back to my WIP, which pretty much lacks a story arc.

And so, I am picking my WIP back up and working out the story arc. I’m sure there will be a lot of shifting and deleting, but if it leads to a book that people are excited about reading, isn’t it worth it in the end?

Sep 25

So my secret is out. I’m a huge Project Runway junkie. I can’t get enough of it. While I was watching it the other day, I guess my subconscious was trying to tell me that I should be writing instead of watching t.v. because I could not stop comparing participating in the show to writing a novel.

Here are my comparisons:

Start with a plan. The designers that don’t have at least some idea of where they’re going before heading off to Mood to buy fabrics usually waste valuable time trying to figure out what to do with what they’ve got. Writing is much the same way. You dive in to an idea or a character without knowing where you want to go and then you spend a significant amount of time backtracking.
Edit, edit, edit. Having too much bling on your garment will generate a lot of negative criticism from the judges. Having too many useless words, characters, scenes, subplots, etc will generate negative criticism from agents and publishing houses.
Don’t over-think it. 9 out of 10 times, the designer who over-thinks his/her design gets the boot, or at least ends up in the bottom 3. If you over-think your writing, chances are you won’t end up in the bottom or anywhere else for that matter because you will not have a finished product. Over-thinking something can be the death of creativity. Of course, putting zero thought into something is equally as bad, if not worse. See my first point in the list.
And, most importantly, to directly quote Tim Gunn, “Make it work.” If you love your idea and you believe in it, then do whatever it takes to make it work.

Sep 06

I read this great blog post yesterday on YA Highway about passive vs. active sentences. The post, Sentence Strengthening Sunday – The Passive Sentence, provides a clear description of passive vs. active sentences and how to spot them in your own writing. As a major offender of passive writing, I highly recommend checking out the post.

Aug 22

There was a great guest blogger on Ask the Publishing Guru the other day. The post, Using Strong Verbs for Strong Writing by Jose M. Blanco, explored the difference verb choice can make in your writing and included several examples. The suggestions provided in the post will prove to be extremely valuable when I get to the editing stage. The main suggestion was to underline any use of “Be, Is, Are, Was, Been, Being, Were, Has, Have, Having, Had.” These verbs are generally weak verbs. By underlining them, you can pinpoint where you are using them and then see if you can find a stronger verb choice. You should definitely check it out and bookmark it for your future editing needs. Once I get to that point in editing, I will let you know how this exercise works for me.

Aug 12

I was reading this great blog post from the Adventures in Children’s Publishing blog and thought I would share (I’ve also had a migraine for three days, so can’t come up with anything original). The post is a summary of the Workshop on the Middle Grade Novel from this year’s SCBWI conference. It’s a really great post full of tons of things any writer of middle grade novels needs to know.

Aug 07

I’m nearing the editing phase (or so I keep telling myself), I’ve been looking for some helpful tips on how to successfully self-edit. During my stint in publishing, I had no problem telling an author that a section slowed down the reader or that a sentence was too wordy. I’ve even been known to throw out entire chapters. When it comes to my own writing, I do not find it to be quite so easy to pinpoint these errors. In short, I either think everything I write is awful and beyond repair (enter the trashcan) or that unnecessary characters/scenes/sub-plots, you name it, are integral to my story.

Before shelling out several hundred dollars to pay a professional editor, I would like to feel that I’m giving said professional editor my best work. It’s the same concept as cleaning up for the maid. You want a maid to spend his/her time cleaning the things you hate cleaning. You don’t want to pay her/him to put your shoes away, which you can easily do for free.

In an effort to start thinking about cleaning up for maid, I have stumbled upon some good blog posts about editing. My favorite post I’ve found in the past few days was from MiG Writers, A Revision Tip, posted by Carmella. In her post, Carmella suggests printing the book out, not how you would print a normal document, but formatted the way it will look in print (horizontal, not vertical). By reading it this way, it will feel like you are reading a real book. You will see the book how a reader would see it. This should help pinpoint problems you may have otherwise missed (see her blog post for specifics).

Because of some tricky plot points coming up, I’ve been thinking that now would be a good time to read through everything I have so far to make sure it is all lining up. I think I will give this trick a try. I’ll keep you updated on how it works out.

*Just read this blog post that I thought I would add: 10 Steps to a Better Story. Good things to keep in mind while editing.

Researching the Novel

Research, Research, Research: Examples from the Real World

Where do I go to Research?

Resolutions and Writing Competitions

Why writing contests?

But what about the Writing Contests?

Back to my resolution

Quick & Dirty Plot Sketch: Counting Down to NaNoWriMo – Part 2

My Quick & Dirty Plot Sketch Example

Creating Your Own Plot Sketch

Now it’s your turn

Are You Ready? Countdown to NaNoWriMo – Part 1

If you do nothing else…

Your NaNoWriMo Story Plan

Because everyone loves an example

Story Arc – The Life or Death of a Novel

Story Arc

How Writing a Book is like Project Runway

Passive vs. Active Sentences – How to spot them

Strong Word Choice

Writing for Middle Grades

Cleaning up for the Maid, or Editing before hiring an Editor