Write Better Dialogue

I've had stories come to me (via Musefire-like inspiration) in two ways.

1) A really cool situation and/or plot twist comes to mind
2) A really cool character comes to mind

If the character comes first, usually it'll be in dialogue form. Lines of dialogue form in my brain like I'm having a thought about what I want to eat for lunch.

But if I start with a premise, it's harder to develop characters that are real. And dialogue is part of that.

So of course, I did some digging.

10 Creative Techniques for Creating Character-Specific Dialogue come from Emlyn Chand and compiles a list of ways to personalize a character's dialogue, from specific vocabulary choices to catch phrases.

Have you ever read over your work and said something like My Dialogue Sucks? The Creative Penn comes to the rescue by reminding us of the Functions of Dialogue and showing us how to keep the reader from getting bored or distracted.

How to Write Effective Dialogue in Your Novel talks about the ever-important beats: small units that have an action and a reaction. I personally found it was easier to craft good beats while writing longhand. But that's another post.

Need a Story Idea? You Need a Creative Boost.

Getting good story ideas can be hard. Sometimes all you need is a creative boost. For me personally, I get my story ideas when the "creative well" is full AND I'm doing something boring (like trying to fall asleep, doing dishes, folding laundry, or waiting in line). So I have to make sure my creative well is always full to take advantage of the boring parts of my life.

Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner always gives good advice. She has a list of things you can do (when you're not writing) that will feed your book-writing later in her post: How to Become a Better Writer.

Routines for Writers is a great resource for any writer. Shonna Slayton has multiple posts on boosting creativity, including this one on Daydreaming. She gives a few methods to get the creative side warmed up.

Have you ever heard of the Rule of Twenty? Upstart Crow writes that your first 5 or 10 ideas may not be gold, but keeping trying.Creative riches lie ahead!

Get a Good Story Idea. And make it better!

It's time for a round of helpful links! (I know, I know. It's about time.) Continuing with the 'Building and Creating Your Novel' theme from my last post, here's what I found:

Agent Sarah Davies (of Greenhouse Literary) wrote A Recipe for Writing the Breakout Novel on Ingrid Sundburg's blog. She gives tips for making your story stand out from everyone else's. It needs to be different. Original. Your characters need to be vivid, unique, but not obviously constructed.

Building a Better Novel Premise is doable. Martina at Adventures in Children's Publishing wrote her query first, using it as a guide to make sure her story was an attention-grabber from the beginning. She also goes into the difference between a "good premise" and a gimick.

Middle Grade Weremonkeys. Agent Holly Root explains why she loves off-the-wall crazy ideas.

Writing a Novel that's Better (and maybe easier)

Wrapping up this series of posts on Creating and Building a Better Novel, I wanted to first share with you what two authors learned for themselves while writing the novel that got them published. (Because what writer wouldn't kill to know that?)

Author Holly Cupala did a guest post on The Other Side of the Story (great blog, by the way) on what she learned about writing. She asked questions and did research on other authors, but this post on What She Learned while writing her book Tell Me A Secret has some real gems in it.

On the same blog, Janice Hardy writes about what she learned while writing her first published book The Shifter and how it differed from her previous books.

And a couple of little tidbits that I think I worth reading: How to Avoid Pantser Pitfalls (in case you're not much of a plotter) and How to Create a Template so you don't keep having to adjust your margins and font and paragraphing for each book.

Good Story Ideas: Where do they come from?

Helpful writing tips and links have been sparse lately, and I apologize for that. I'm trying to redirect this blog so it has a piece of me in it. I want this blog to be helpful for writers, but I also want it to be MY blog. I'm still trying to find that balance. (Any feedback is appreciated.)

So, getting back that helpful stuff, I thought I'd blog about getting good story ideas.

I haven't been published yet, but I've already been asked The #1 Question Writers Get: "Where do you get your ideas?"

Um... I don't know. They just come to me.

Okay, okay. I've given it some thought. The first decent answer I came up with was: my story ideas come to me just like any idea comes to any person.

Inventors come up with incredible gadgets. Usually, when they answer The Idea Question, they talk about a problem they were having. Then, they'll say,  "So I invented the doohicky-o-matic!"

So... you got your idea from a problem? Didn't the idea come AFTER you had the problem?

Seriously, I think that's how our brains work. We see a problem, and we try to come up with a solution. Some of us are better at it than others. (But is it possible that it just takes practice?)

When I want a story idea, I have to define my problem, with specifics. And no, the problem isn't just 'I need a story idea'. My problem is: I need a character that lacks something, in an interesting setting, with the potential for a lot of problems to happen around him/her while he/she struggles with her own problems. And it needs to be entertaining.

But how can your brain work with garbage like that?

Be more specific!

I want a 70,000-word YA novel with a spunky female protagonist who doesn't know what's good for her, who finds herself in a situation with a fantasy element in it.

Usually, the more specific I am, the faster the ideas come to me. I analyze each idea until I find one I'm excited to work on. (Because, let's be honest, sometimes my ideas aren't all that good.)

Of course, there are other ways I get ideas. I got my idea for Ivy Thorn because friends challenged me to approach writing from a different angle. I wasn't looking for a story idea then.

And I got my idea for my zombie book from the voices in my head a dream I had while I was awake. I wasn't looking for a story idea then, either.

So my Top 4 pieces of advice for coming up with good story ideas are:
1) Be specific with what you want
2) Read a lot
3) Try new things with your writing
4) When an idea does come, pick it apart to see if it has "great idea" potential. If it doesn't, keep trying.

More on story ideas to come...

My Guest Post, complete with Ivy

I just did a guest post on Liana Brooks' blog. It includes an except from Ivy's novel, Roses and Mirrors.

Writers: Rejection is a Good Thing

I'm closing in on the end of my fairy tale book. This draft, at least. I'm just itching to get it out into the world. With every book I write, it's hard not to think: "This could be the one."

"The one", of course, is the book that lands me an agent and a publisher and a check. I'd continue to write, even if I knew I'd never write "the one", but it's nice to have validation, you know? Besides, my stories need to be read. They need to be shared.

Anyway...

So I'm getting closer to finishing this book. This is Ivy's book. (She deserves it. She's been a great character and so entertaining. For me, at least.) And I've already built my agent list. A list of several agents that I think would be a good match for my book, my future books, my career, and me.

And I can't help but think about rejection. It's part of the biz. You query for the "yes", but you have to prepare for the "no" (and the "no thanks" and the "sorry" and the "this is a subjective business" and "I'm going to have to pass" and "this isn't quite right for me").

But rejection is good. Rejection means you're trying. I think of my rejection letters as battle scars, badges of honor. Every query I've sent is a little ping that I sent out into the world. And every rejection was a response. Not the response I was looking for, but it was a response.

And with every response I get, the closer I get to the one that's going to make me jump up and down, run and scream like a kid playing freeze tag, and then collapse on the floor with a smile on my face.

Because I may not be very good at math, but I know a bit about statistics. I was a psychology major and we're all about statistics.

Daryl Sedore did a guest post on the blog Write to Done on Why Rejection Letters Are Great and I completely agree. They're great.

He writes:

Years ago I worked as a door to door salesperson doing cold calls. We’d go knocking on doors all over the neighbourhood and eventually get in. Sometimes it took ten minutes, sometimes an hour. Once in a while it took all day. I learned quickly that it was just a matter of knocking on doors before I got in. What I mean is, the more doors I covered, the faster I got in a house to do a presentation and possibly make a sale. So I ran. That’s right, I ran from door to door. It kept me energized and fired up so when I finally got in, I was ready to present and sell. I outsold my team month after month. The rest of the salespeople got depressed when a door slammed in their face. Not me, I loved it, because I was one closer to the door that would welcome me in.

And he makes a great point later in the post:

[...]You miss out on 100% of all literary agents that you don’t query.

Of course, the quality of your book is what really counts. You can't just query 300 agents for the same book and expect the law of averages to work for you.

But still.

I'm writing the best book I can. And I can't wait for it to get rejected. Because that means it's that much closer to becoming "the one".

How to Create Better Characters

Yes, of course I have more on characters. (Because what writer doesn't need better characters?)

Miriam Forster did a 6-part series on character building, but my favorite is the Edward/Bella dilemma. How much better would the Twilight series be if it were told from the POV of a character that struggles with larger-than-life problems?

Arguably one of the best posts by The Great Nathan Bransford: What Do Your Characters Want?

More on Creating Great Characters

While trying to find out how to make a character sympathetic, I found a few good more character-building goodies.

Inner Dialogue is vital. K. M. Weiland has 5 Ways to Write Character Thoughts Worth More Than a Penny.

Beth Hill says The Psychology of Character shows us that every time a character makes a choice, he’s revealing who he is.

What do Frodo and the evolved Superman have in common? You can relate to both of them. How to Make a Great Leading Character by Seth Frederiksen.

Creating Sympathetic Characters

Even though your characters seems to do everything right, you hate them. Or your beta readers hate them. What went wrong?

Two things: your character must be interesting and your character needs to be sympathetic. Whether he's a good guy or a bad guy, he should have those two qualities.

So how do you make a character more sympathetic?

Mary Lynn Mercer at Why Stories Work posted a thorough answer in The True Nature of Sympathetic Characters. She also covers a few things to avoid like a character that whines.

Darci Pattison posted a couple of really great ones: 9 Traits of Sympathetic Characters and then you can use those traits to Make Your Character More Sympathetic.

Every hero needs his fatal flaw. Apparently, there are nine types. I didn't know this, but it's pretty cool. Laurie Campbell's Creating Your Hero's Fatal Flaw

And finally, J. Timothy King gives 3 Steps to Sympathy that makes inappropriate behavior okay.

Revision Tips and Tricks

What do you look for when you revise?

As a start, here are The 4 Most Common Mistakes Fiction Editors See. This post stressed me out a little. There's just so much in there that I need to be doing!

Sarah Enni has a terrifying suggestion for revision: delete everything! Okay, save it first, but then delete it. I can vouch for this method. I've tried it. I hate it, but it works. Not only do you get better words when you start over, but you get over your fear of the dreaded blank screen!

Oh, and did you know there's a Golden Rule of Writing? I didn't think it was possible, but there is one rule that applies to all writers, no matter when or how you write, no matter what you're writing. There is one rule you must follow. (But I won't tell you what it is. You have to click the link. Sorry.)

And I just love this post by Ginny Wiehardt on Cliches and Description. Sometimes we as writers forget to be original with our descriptions.

Next Post: The nitty gritty!

RePost: Build a Setting that Pulls Its Own Weight (and then some)

So I'm finally getting to a craft post! I found some great stuff on setting. It's something I used to not think about on the first draft. I used to forget about it or my setting would just have a few token descriptions sprinkled in and they were ordinary. Boring.

How to Revise Your Novel helped me to take a step back from my story and really see where my characters were and why I'd picked these particular locations. (Maybe you've heard that the setting needs to be the only place where the story could take place? It's true. Sometimes I did it subconsciously, but other times I had to work to make my setting count.)

As I work through the first draft of my WIP, I'm noticing that I'm SO much slower than I was with my other novels. Then I went back and read what I wrote and you know what? There's setting! Real setting. Meaningful. The setting helped build tension and character.

Katrina Stonoff wrote a fantastic article that really made an impact on me called Make Your "Where" Memorable. She helped me to see beyond the typical and bring out those details that you wouldn't expect, but that really draw the reader in.

Enrich Your Descriptions by learning how to develop you writer's eyes. There's more to a setting than what you see with the naked eye. How would you see a scene if you were a child? If you were in a hurry? If you were objective? This post goes deeper to even discuss connotation, which is definitely worth a read if you're not familiar with it.

Cynsations had a fun guest post by Deborah Halverson last week where she asks: what ever happened to description? It seems to have all but disappeared, what with writers worrying about pace and character and plot.

And this week, Greenhouse Literary posted How to Write the Breakout Novel Part 5: A Vivid Setting.
If you haven't delved into The Bookshelf Muse, I highly recommend some exploration. Scroll down the right-hand column for a list of settings. Click the link for "Forest" (or whatever is relevant to your story) and you'll be taken to an extensive list of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures you might find there. I use this site all the time to make my scenes pop.

Just a little goody for those of you who may write traditional fantasy: The Middle Ages, Chivalry, & Knighthood is an amazing go-to source for terms, time lines, maps, culture, food, history... you name it!

Writing Descriptions

Descriptions are underrated. I mean, it used to be you could get away with writing pages of description, but today's books need to be fast-paced and action-packed. There doesn't seem to be any room for description.

One problem we face in today's world is that we don't sense things any more. We're so busy multi-tasking and getting to the next thing on our list to even notice the sounds and smells around us. I hadn't given this much thought until I read Paying Attention by Shutting It Off by Cambria Dillon.

How do you write description without it boring your readers to death? Make it part of the story. Theresa at Edittorrent shows Julia London's brilliant example in the post Setting by Example.

And of course, no post on description would be complete without mentioning Bookshelf Muse--my favorite free online writing resource. Angela Ackerman has yet another post worth reading: The Writer's Bane: Describing a Character's Physical Appearance. She tackles a big problem and uses examples to illustrate a much more interesting way to describe your characters.

Repost: Getting Your Novel Pitch-Ready

I mentioned in an earlier post that CJ Lyons gave an amazing seminar on pitches. Basically, she told us to whittle our books down to as few words as possible. This helps us to understand what our book is really about.

There are different kinds of pitches. I gave a ten-minute pitch at the conference to an agent. That's a pretty long time. With those, it's important to let the agent ask questions and let it be more like a conversation. Otherwise, the agent will probably lose interest. (I'm not sure I would want to listen to myself for ten minutes straight.)

But you may have also heard about elevator pitches. These are pitches that are so short, you could give them to an agent if you were caught in an elevator with them--maybe 15 seconds. The goal is to give them just enough that they want to know more. CJ said,

The trick with elevator pitches is to use something universally known (like Indiana Jones) or something current and trendy. You need to use comparisons your audience will understand, nod their heads and say, oh yeah, that sounds like something I'd read

Start with your tag line/log line/hook. This is one sentence, as few words as possible, while evoking as much emotion and imagery as possible. If you're familiar with archetypes, this would be perfect. For example, we had one guy give his pitch, which included "creationism" in it. CJ said "God exists" is more powerful. Everyone has some idea of what God is, where creationism takes thought. Many don't know what it means. Keep it simple.

The hook that CJ helped me make for Shadow Bound is:
A ghost comes back from the dead to save the girl he loves.

Okay, so you have a hook line. Sometimes that's all you need, the conversation will evolve naturally from there. [It did for me.] Other times you use it simply to attract attention and move into a more detailed description. This is where that 15-25 word story summary mentioned above comes in handy. The hook line hooks the reader into wanting (or asking to hear) the short summary.

CJ Lyons loves to help writers, so she gave us a handout with a ton of useful resources. First, she listed some books (the comments in parentheses are from me):
Noah Lukeman THE FIRST FIVE PAGES (read it. loved it.)
Stephen King ON WRITING (a must-read)
Christopher Vogler THE WRITER'S JOURNEY
James Frey THE KEY
Donald Maas WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL (another must-read)
Dwight Swain TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER (this, for me personally, is my all-time favorite, most helpful book.)

Next, she gave some great websites:
Association of Author Representatives (check out the FAQ for great questions to ask potential agents)
Publisher's Lunch (industry news)
Buzz, Balls, and Hype (book marketing advice)
Backspace (writers forums and articles)
Publishers Weekly: news, blogs, features, deals, reviews
QueryTracker (an absolute must for anyone submitting to agents and now publishers!)
Nathan Bransford (an agent at Curtis Brown, great blog, wonderful links to everything!)

About CJ:
As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her award-winning, critically acclaimed Angels of Mercy series (LIFELINES, WARNING SIGNS, and URGENT CARE) is available in stores now with the fourth, CRITICAL CONDITION, due out December, 2010. Her newest project is as co-author of a new suspense series with Erin Brockovich. Contact her at cjlyons.net

Conference Time!

Spring is right around the corner and that means writing conferences!
(I'm going to Pennwriters in Pittsburg, which is in mid-May.)

Conferences are great for writers for so many reasons. You can get an opportunity to pitch your book to agents and editors (which is great practice for when you have to market yourself), you can meet fantastic authors, and you can take seminars on a hundred helpful topics (from craft to promotion). You get to meet people interested in the things you're interested in. Being around writers and those in the industry is exciting, it's rejuvenating. It reminds you of why you do what you do (and that it's perfectly normal).

Donna Bowman Bratton has put together a great Dos and Don'ts list for conference-goers. It had some things in there I hadn't thought about before.

Diana Rowland guest posted on Inkpunks about How To Network at conferences (an absolute must)

And Kerry Gans at The Goose Quill posted about an Epiphany she had while battling her nerves at a conference.

Repost: Building Conflict

Lately I've had conflict on the brain. How do you get more conflict into your story? How do I milk this conflict for all it's worth? Where can I get ideas for a new conflict to plague my characters?
So, as always, I did a little research and found some helpful articles and tools for building conflict and making sure it's rich, interesting conflict.

What is Conflict? -- A great article on writing deep, meaningful conflict and how your characters show it. She gives a great example to illustrate.

The Conflict Test -- A nice little test to see if your story has enough conflict.

External Conflict Worksheet -- "This is an exercise to help you connect your external conflict with your internal conflict."

Eight Questions for Writers -- Questions to ask yourself when you lack conflict depth.

Prop Up Your Sagging Plot Middles -- How to use conflict to keep those middle scenes strong.

Conflict Makes the World Go Round

A good story has conflict. That's Fiction 101. So how do you come up with juicy conflict on every single page?

That can be a difficult concept to grasp: conflict on every page. A conflict doesn't necessarily mean a fight. It can be a moral dilema or a really hard decision for one of your characters. The important thing is that (whatever the conflict is) it drives your character to act.

You want a problem or decision that makes your character DO something. Ideally, you want that action to cause more conflict. (That's the good stuff, in my opinion.)

Jason Black from Show Some Character says you can create twisty, mind-boggling, drool-inducing plots full of conflict in 3 steps to a breakout story. (Hint: the key is giving your character a good goal.)

Jane Friedman's blog, There Are No Rules, has a great resource, too. Bring the conflict closer to home. (By the way, if you haven't read Jim Adam's series on The Strengths of the Harry Potter Series, it's worth some of your time as a writer.)

Janice Hardy from The Other Side of the Story helps writers dig into their characters' pasts for good conflict. Basically, going back in your story to find the good stuff you may have unintentionally left behind. Let the Past Haunt You.

Finally, there's a neat little ebook called How To Write Page-Turning Scenes. It gives you the 5 types of conflict that keeps readers hooked and a great trick that lets you show something go wrong, and your reader knows it's gone wrong, and makes them NEED to keep reading to find out why. While it's not a free resource, it's one of the best I've found.

The YA Writer (Part 1)

I love YA. I don't know why. Maybe it's the voice, it could be the problems they face, it may help me reminisce about my own teenage years, it's probably all of the above, plus other reasons that don't occur to me right now.
There's definitely something that's pretty great about young adult books, because it's really hot right now (and has been for years). So today's post is about YA/teens. If you don't write YA, you can ignore these posts, but you may pick up some useful tidbits on voice and about writing younger characters. So, unless your books take place in a retirement home, read on!

So simple, yet so important. What's the number one element in a YA book? Voice! Also in this article: WHY it's so hot. YA is red hot right now: tips from 3 top agents

YA Author Magge Stiefvater gives her opinion on what's wrong with so many attempts at a teen voice in Dude: Teen Voice, My Problems with It, and Obi-Wan.

Something I struggle with, especially in the first draft, is writing convincing emotions in my characters. I may have mentioned this. Forgive me. But Beth Revis comes to the rescue! Some Observations covers how teens act, and how boys and girls are different.

The Networking Writer

You may or may not know about the vast (vast, vast) writing community out there. As a writer, you should know about it, but the question is: how much should you network? You can have too much of a good thing in this case. One can spend countless hours talking with other writers online and not get a single word of fiction done.

On the other hand, networking is great. It lets your voice be heard and you make connections you might not otherwise make. You build friendships, you practice your writing voice every time you say something out there. You can learn a lot about writing on blogs and forums. I learned a TON this way.

So, if you're interested in expanding your network, here's a link to QueryTracker's blog post on The Writing Community. They list a few of the big sites you should at least know about.

And then there's Twitter. You either love it or you hate it. My personal opinion is: if you enjoy it, do it! But if you drag your feet every day, making yourself say SOMETHING, then it's probably not for you (and your tweets will reflect that).

You should give Twitter a try, if you haven't already. (And even if you have) here's a Writer's Starter Guide to Twitter (or: everything I wish someone had told me when I first started using twitter) by Justine Musk.

Writing with Romance

So... I posted this on time, just not on the right blog. Sorry for the delay. Pregnancy is taking over my life, I'm afraid.

Character relations are important; we all know that. A romantic relationship can make or break a novel (especially in YA). So how do you write romance?

YA author Gail Carson Levine gives some tips on how to write Un-Sappy Romance.

I thought this post by Beth Revis was so inspiring. I'd never given much thought to Love Triangles and what makes one good/bad, but she (and her readers) really nailed it. Make sure to read the comments!

JJ on Uncreated Conscience has a different veiw on romance. She's not into sappy or cliches. Here's what's made an impact on her.

For adult romance, the Knight Agency has a guest post on Loving a Love Scene, for those of you who have trouble with sex scenes.

And finally, Apryl Duncan tells writers how to avoid common, blase description when describing romantic feelings in Emotional Rollercoaster: Writing Love.