Is Your NaNo stuck?

Okay, so we’re about a week into NaNoWriMo. Stuck yet? Here are a few ideas to get you going and/or motivated.

1) Mind Map. Have a problem? Can’t figure out why a cat keeps popping up in your scenes? Maybe your character received a letter in the mail and you don’t know what it is. (Been there.) Try putting whatever “it” is in the middle of a piece of paper (or a program like http://bubbl.us) and ask yourself questions about it. Write whatever comes to mind. It’s worked for me countless times.

2) Try a Timer. Set it for 10-20 minutes and write NON-STOP until the timer goes off. Write about your problem or whatever comes to mind. Just make sure you don’t censor yourself or edit. When you’re done, look back at what you wrote. Do you understand your problem a little better? Did you discover a new angle or viewpoint or solution?

Did it work?

How to Get Great Ideas and What to Do With Them

Each of us has a creative side. You wouldn't be reading this if you didn't. It's that little voice in the back of your head that throws out ideas. I call mine my Muse and I've talked about her before. (Yes, my Muse is a she.)

I was thinking about what makes my Muse "sing". Typically, if your creative voice is on, your cognitive, logical voice has to be turned off. If you're familiar with right-brain, left-brain research, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Your left brain has to take a back seat if your right brain is going to have any say. (Sometimes transition is pretty quick. There are exercises you can do to help with this.)

So how do you hand the microphone to your Muse? How do you turn off the left brain?
By doing something mundane, everyday, or mind-numbing. Sounds fun, right?

My Muse hates to be bored, so when the left-brain turns off, she steps forward and tries to make things interesting. (This is why TV usually isn't a great way for me to brainstorm. My Muse is already entertained.)

So if I need some good ideas, I have to do something like fold laundry, go for a walk, rake leaves, stare at a blank computer screen, or try to fall asleep. (Unsuccessfully. Usually. I do get some awesome dreams on occasion.)
It's darn inconvenient, but I get my best ideas as I'm drifting off to sleep. (A great reason to keep a notebook handy on my nightstand.) For example, last night I was trying to sleep while my husband was reading with the light on. And a voice came into my head. Not a literal voice, just words that had personality. And the personality wasn't mine. I had struck gold!

Unfortunately, my daughter had run off with my notebook. I didn't go and look for it and of course, I don't remember the whole thing. But I'd like to share my train of thought and the words that I do remember.

I was thinking about how to begin my story. I have a premise in mind and several scenes planned out, so I wasn't starting from nothing. My mind drifted to books that I love. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine is my favorite and it's young adult fantasy, just like Phantom. Ella Enchanted started just outside the story with the first-person narrator talking about something that happened before the story actually begins.

The other book I thought of was The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. I loved this series. It was the series I wish I had written. Anyway, the book starts with Percy (the main character, also in first person) talking directly to the reader. He tells us something about the main theme of the book and beautifully melds his world with ours.

So then I moved back to my book. I'm pretty sure I want to do first person. I write better characters and cleverer detail that way. I wanted to begin my books like Riordan and Levine did.

That's when my Muse sang. (Not literally. I'm not crazy.)

The words for the beginning of my story popped into my head. My memory only recalls bits and pieces, but here's what I have:

My school is haunted. They should have seen it coming, building a boarding school where a prison used to be.

That's all I remember. Sad, huh?

So let that be a lesson to you. It's always worth getting out of your nice warm bed to go get a pen and pad when an idea hits you. Make yourself do it. You won't be sorry.

How to Get More Writing Done

I'm back from my little experiment. I took off nearly a week from the internet in order to get more writing done.

First, if you think you might want to do this, you need to realize that if you shut down your internet access (and, as I did, your computer access) that a bunch of other things will try to fill in your time gap. I had no idea how many things I wasn't doing. Seriously.

But, not having the distraction of the computer did help my writing. No question. I revised a huge chunk of my book and wasn't pressured by my goal of fifteen pages a day. I hit the mark with ease :)

I was more focused when I wasn't working, too. If I was doing something else, my mind was a little clearer and I could think about my writing and what I wanted to change, and all that good stuff, so I was more efficient when I did sit down to work.

And when I came back? I turned on my computer and sorted through emails, checked (and read) the blogs I follow, checked and replied to a slew of forum posts, checked facebook, etc... all in about three and a half hours! Over the course of five days, I usually spend closer to ten hours doing all that stuff. An amazing time saver, though I may have missed some stuff.

So, I'm halfway done with the hard copy edit of my ghost novel. My goal is to finish by the end of the month, then do my soft copy edit. (Basically, going back and typing in all the edits and notes I made on the hard copy.) That leaves me with querying agents. I should be done with plenty of time to plan my phantom novel for November.

So, my next post will be on revising a manuscript. I've searched for different methods in preparation for what I'm doing now, and I'll share the best of it with you.

Tomorrow. I'm exhausted.

Hope all is going well with your writing!

Great Place to Revise: Bookstores

Revising is exciting. I keep telling myself that anyway. The first thirty minutes or so are enjoyable, but then I get bogged down in a character issue or weak dialog. I can't seem to keep myself editing for more than an hour and a half straight.

Yesterday I went to Barnes & Noble in the mall to do my revisions. The change of scenery was just what I needed! I browsed some books to get myself in the right place mentally, then sat down at a little table and spread my work out in front of me. I worked for an hour and a half straight. There are a couple of fun little things about doing my work in the bookstore, rather than at home:

1) I'm surrounded by people who love books. I love hearing people comment on what they see on the shelves, or watch how they move from subject to subject. This lady came to collect her husband, telling him she was done and they could go, but when she saw the bookshelf next to him, she became interested in some craft books.

2) The music can be inspiring. When I first arrived, some teeny-pop songs I had never heard before were playing. This is great, since I'm writing young adult.
Then, it gradually changed to some very old-fashioned music. An older gentleman who sat nearby hummed quietly along with "You Are My Sunshine". It was so cute! What's particularly wonderful about this is that the guy was right around the age of a couple of characters I was editing. (Talk about coincidence.) I added "You Are My Sunshine" to my book because of this. I think it adds nice detail to the characters.

3) I can test the markets while I work. A girl (maybe 15 years old) came in with her mom and began sifting through some books on display. She said, "I'm so tired of vampire novels."
Seriously. She said that.

Now, I do my share of research. Not a lot of marketing, but I get bits and pieces. Vampires are still (surprisingly) very popular. I've been under the impression that they'll soon be on the decline. (There are SO many vampire books out right now, the market is flooded.) But, hearing it from a potential future customer was so cool! Think of all the things I might pick up on if I go there regularly. I'll definitely hang out in the teen section more often.

By the way, according to my sources, zombies are going to be the next big thing in teen fiction. (Who knew?) I'll probably shy away from this trend, but it's good to know.

Other conveniences:
It's close, there's food and hot chocolate if I need a break but I'm not ready to go home, I have the whole mall at my disposal, and I can pick up a book if I feel so inclined. (That last one may be a little dangerous to my pocketbook.) :)

Endings Are Beginnings - How to Write an Ending for Your Book

I realize that my post about Endings may have been confusing. I found a video that elaborates a little more on how endings should be connected to your beginnings:

What Every Writer Needs to Know About Plot and Structure, Part 4

Beginnings:

Grab your reader with a killer opening line. Some may tell you never to open with dialogue, others will tell you...

well, there's an amusing article (more of a rant) that lists a number of ways you should not start a story. Read A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: How Not to Write a Story.

Joe Konrath makes some excellent points and explains each one (for the most part).

So how should you start a story?

• First and foremost: introduce conflict. Conflict is the bread and butter of fiction. Without it, fiction is boring. If no one in your first scene has a need, then you need to cut that scene. Start somewhere else.
• You also need to show (and I do mean SHOW) your character(s). Just the main ones for now. You don't want to overwhelm your readers with a bunch of characters at once. You do want them to connect to the characters that will be central to your story.
• Show genre in your beginning. If you're writing fantasy, show some magic or paranormal elements to give your reader the right expectations. It doesn't have to be big. I once started a story with a paragraph about a bully with some unusual talents. (Making my heroine's hair stand on end, for example.)
• Sensory details. Imagery. Give the readers details. There's a piece of paper on the counter. Is it rolled up? Folded? How big is it? Is it notebook paper? Parchment? A sticky note? Give smells. (That's a hard one, but it can instantly bring your characters into the setting.) The trick is to provide as much setting in the fewest words possible. If you give too much all at once, you'll boor your readers. Sneak those details in as you unfold the plot, character, and conflict.

Middles:

This is the hard part. The part where all your ideas have to come together, in an interesting way, to set you up for your ending.

You needs lots of conflict here. Make your characters work hard. Make them suffer. I know it's hard, but trust me, as soon as things start to go right for your characters, your readers will put your book down. You need to constantly be stirring the pot.

If you've read my posts on sentence lite, you'll know what each scene (whether beginning, middle, or end) needs: protagonist (that has needs and is interesting), antagonist (who also has needs and is interesting), conflict (how their needs conflict with each other), a setting, and a twist. The twist is something unexpected. It moves the story forward.

In Heidi Thomas' article Prop Up Your Sagging Middles, she discusses some key questions you should ask yourself about each scene.

If you find that your middles are slim and/or your word count is too low, you'll love Dani Greer's article on Plumpers.

Throughout your book, you'll need strong scenes. This is crucial. I have to recommend Holly's Create Page-Turning Scenes Clinic. (Yes, I know I recommend her a lot, but she's the best I've found.)

Endings:
This is where pantsers seem to have the most trouble. If you plan out you novel well, know where your novel's pulse is, and know your themes, then you should already know your ending. All you have to do is write to it.

But, here are some pointers:
Your ending, wherever it is, whatever happens, needs to connect back to your beginning. Somehow. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. If there isn't a way to connect your ending to the first three pages of your story, then maybe you didn't begin in the right place.

At the beginning, you made your reader a promise. You told them, "This is what the book is about." Now you have to deliver on that promise.

For example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone begins with the headmaster and a teacher discussing the fate of the boy who lived. How does it end? The boy who lived fought against the same villain and lived again. Some consider the first chapter to be more of a prologue, but it's still there in the second chapter. Uncle Vernon notices a number of strange happenings that are related to (surprise!) the boy who lived and the celebration of his conquest over the dark lord. Trust me. Your beginning needs to be similar to your ending.

BUT

Your characters need to be different. They need to change throughout the course of the story. Their needs changed, they've learned something about themselves, conquered a weakness, whatever. They can't be the same person they were on page one. Otherwise, there's no point in telling the story.

For clarification, I've posted a video on how endings are like beginnings here.

If you want to read this series from the beginning, here is Part 1 of What Every Writer Needs to Know About Plot and Structure.

What Every Writer Needs to Know About Plot and Structure, Part 3

When I first got bitten by the writing bug, I found an excellent series of articles, the first being: Does Your Novel Have a Heartbeat?, by Holly Lisle.
They're directed at those who already have a novel written out, but it would be helpful, in my opinion, to read them before you've typed 100,000 words and devoted a year of your life to a piece of your soul.

Read these articles, and create something with a heartbeat from the beginning. Create something real and meaningful to you. Love your work before you even start writing it.
You can find the other articles of this series at this page (scroll to the bottom).
Yes, it's a lot of reading.

As if that wasn't enough, I have some free resources for download. These tools (along with others from the same source) have made a bigger impact on my writing than anything else.

Holly's Create Your Professional Plot Outline Mini-Course is a free, completed mini course on developing a plot, starting from any number of places: a character, a twist, world building, a structure (like the ones I listed in Part 1 of this series), or questions. This is a rough sketch of one of the techniques you can use to create a workable plot. She explains the process, gives a demonstration, and then provides an exercise for you to build part of your plot.
You can download this mini-course in PDF format here.

If this is something that works for you, you can get more in-depth instruction from Holly's Create a Plot Clinic. I have the first 52 pages of it here for free.
The full course can be found here: Create A Plot Clinic, by Holly Lisle

Seriously, this has everything you need to know in order to plot out an entire novel. Last I checked, she had an updated version of this for $9.95. But she also has it available at a discount in a bundle, with building characters, cultures, and languages: Clinic Writing Bundle. They're all good, but the plot and character ones are the best (unless you do a lot of world building).

Part 4 will cover beginnings, middles, and endings.

Part 1 was on classic plot structures, and Part 2 covered getting down to creating a story that matters to you, but will keep your readers interested.

What Every Writer Needs to Know About Plot and Structure, Part 2

So, now that you know how plots used to be structured, how does today's writer plot out a novel without repeating the same-old, some-old?

Liz Strauss says the number one thing readers want from writers is for you to use an idea that is intrguing to you.

"If it intrigues you, I’m likely to be intrigued by it too. At the very least,
I’ll be curious about what it was about the idea that captured your interest and intrigued you. "

Read the rest of the article here.

This is vitally important. So many writers are overly concerned about "what's hot", what's selling, or what agents and publishers are looking for. While you should know your markets, don't let trends decide what you're going to write about. There are two good reasons:

1) The trend will most likely be old news by the time your manuscript is ready for publishing. (Getting a book to the shelf usually takes several months after you write it.)
2) If it sells, and you don't love it, you're going to hate being a writer. You'll be expected to write more of what you don't love. This job is way to hard to be worth it unless you're passionate about writing.

Create, Complicate, Resolve: The Keys to Keeping Your Readers Interested touches on the art of gripping your readers without letting them down by "cheating". (We've all seen it before--'and then I woke up.') Her advice:

Create a believable story where actions are followed by consequences. In real
life, situations happen this way, so don't hold back in your stories. It may
seem cruel, but your audience will actually thrive on how much trouble you
can heap on your protagonist while watching him drag himself over broken
glass by his lips to save the woman he loves.

Read the rest of the article here.


In Part 3 of What Every Writer Needs to Know About Plot and Structure, I'll post some freebies and other resources that helped me with plotting.
Part 4 will be on beginnings, middles, and ends.

You can read Part 1 here.

Improved Scenes Done!

Hurray!


I finished my Sentence Lites! I can't tell you how good this feels. But at the same time, I’m itching to jump right in and start editing my manuscript. I want to take a good two week break to clear my mind. This should help to prevent burnout. (But we’ll see.)

What does this mean for the blog?


Lucky you, you don’t have to hear about my progress each week! Instead, I’ll compile lists of helpful links and tools to help you with your writing journey. I guess I’ll have to live vicariously through my readers.


The first series of links is all ready to go. It's about conflict. This is something I’ve had to focus heavily on, since conflict is the bread and butter of scenes. I hope these articles and tools help you as much as they’ve helped me.



By the way, here is the last improved scene:

Improved Scene: Answers for Protection

It took me some time, but I finally sliced my way through to another sample scene. This one went from info dump to a hostage situation. (Okay, not quite as exciting as that. Nathan keeps information hostage.)

Improved Scene: Lisa's Crush

I made a lot of progress today with my Sentence Lites. (I'm past the halfway point!)
And I edited another sample scene:

(The old sentence is at the top)

This isn't a great scene to begin with, but it's short and necessary. I'll make a note to add more suspicious activity to make it really worth it :)

My Muse knew it all along

You know that creative voice inside you? Some people call it the right-brain. Others (including myself) call it a Muse. (You know, the singing demi-gods that inspire artists?)

(It's okay if you think I’m crazy, personifying my creative side. I’ll wait for you to stop laughing.)
Anyway, I was working on my scenes, rewriting my Sentence Lites when a problem I’ve been struggling with just solved itself.

Basically, without giving too much away, my main character has issues. And those issues drive a wedge between her and Nathan. Well, in my rough draft, these issues seem to pop out from nowhere. That's a problem.
But I wasn't even thinking about this problem while I was working.

So, I’m reworking some scenes, changing around the points of view for some of them, and then I get to the scene where Rachel first starts to have problems. Guess what? She hasn’t held the point of view for several scenes. Not since before the incident that's causing her issues! So it isn’t coming out from thin air; it's been developing this whole time and we never really notice it because we’re too focused on the other characters’ problems!

My Muse is brilliant. I think she's known about this for a while now but decided not to tell me until just now.

Improved Scene: Car Crash

I got through my 17th scene today, including one of my sample sentences:


Mostly, this was just a bad scene. A lot of getting ready, talking, and traveling. When I boiled it all down to the real conflict, I realized that the scene was really just a lead-in to the next one: The Car Crash. So I shortened it, got rid of the boring stuff and used only what I needed to carry the bare minimum of the little pre-conflict into the big conflict. Here's the new card with the Sentence Lite:

The protag, antag, etc are really just my thought process as I came up with the new sentence. I'll go back and fix them later. The important part is that I have a focus for my scene when I come back to revise it.

Improved Scene: Mom, Meet Nathan

Okay, I have about ten Sentence Lites done. (There are a lot of really short scenes in Chapter 2.) One of them was a bad sentence that I posted earlier:

So as a reminder, here's the old Sentence:

And here is my new card:

Not perfect, but switching the POV definitely helped. At least there's a conflict now.

First Three Sentence Lites

I started working on revamping my scenes' sentences today. Finishing three scenes took a lot less time than I thought. If I maintain this pace I'll be done in three weeks, but I'd like to finish sooner.

I've been using Liquid Story Binder to make "note cards". Each "card" can be used to track my scenes, sentences, sequencing, and the elements that each scene should have. LSB also has some nifty tools that make the process more fun.

These actors are Colleen Dengel, XiXi Yang, and Dyllan Christopher, who I think look like Rachel, Lisa, and Nathan. Just something to make note carding more interesting.

The pictures represent the point of veiw character. If you can read these (I know it's tiny guys :( I'm sorry.), I have the scene title, the old sentence (if it's an old scene), what I've changed (if it's a new scene), the protag, antag, conflict, twist, and setting, and then the new sentence.

The process is actually fun and seeing a well-put-together sentence gives me chills :) It's exciting to see this come together.

Okay, New Plan

I just finished Lesson 8 of How to Think Sideways and, to be honest, I'm a little overwhelmed. Basically, the lesson says to write a sentence (called the Sentence Lite) for each scene that describes the protagonist, her conflict, the obstacle/antagonist, the twist, and maybe the setting. If you don't have these, then the scene is incomplete. Thinking back, I'm glad I have SOME scenes with all of these elements, but there are a lot of scenes that don't.

So, I need to go back, make a plot card for each scene with the complete Sencence Lite on each one, and figure out how much I have to revamp.

This is really going to help my writing. Now that I'm more aware, the scenes with all of these elements are the best scenes in Shadows. Now I have the tools to make every scene just as good. This is going to be a challenge.

I knew I'd have a lot of work to do. Don't get me wrong. But now that it's time to get crackin' I'm nervous. How much will I have to cut? How much will I need to rewrite? Will I have enough time to plan my phantom novel before November?

Stay tuned.

A Problem and a Challenging Solution

Okay, so I've got an interesting problem to deal with. I'm almost done with my first draft. I've got two very short scenes, one really long scene (the final battle!) and then another quick one to wrap it up. Only problem is, this was supposed to be a 60,000-word novel and I'm only at 32k!

A little tip for other writers: filler is bad. I don't want to use filler.

So what do I do?

Fortunately, I've already planned to go back and insert entire chapters from Nathan (my hero's) point of view. This will add depth to my love story, a new voice, maybe a little history (because he is a ghost after all), and we can see the heroine from another perspective.

(I expect the unexpected to happen when I do this. My muse likes the throw some cool stuff on the page when I do stuff like this. )

And then I'll add a romance for poor Lisa, who has desperately wanted a boyfriend since chapter 1.

I'll also rewrite some of my current scenes from his perspective and see which is better. Then, I'll go back to the beginning and add rich detail, a LOT more conflict (I've decided life's been way too easy for Rachel), and a ton of showing (vs. telling).

I should get my words in, but this is going to take a lot of planning.

First of all, when I finish the first draft I'm taking a break! Maybe two weeks. I'll work on my phantom project, maybe catch up on my reading, stuff like that. Then I'll go through what I have and write out what I'm hoping to get out of each scene. What do I want to tell the reader? How do I show it instead? What's the conflict? What could make it worse? How would EACH character (present or not) react? What are my characters seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, tasting, thinking, doing, and saying? What do they want to hide from the other characters? What other motivation might they have?
etc...

Yeah, it's a long process, but the product that comes from it is more than worth it!
Then, I read through a hard copy of my book, writing in comments, suggestions, thoughts, and nit-picky edits. THEN I go through a soft copy and actually MAKE all those edits. (By now I'll be exhausted.)

I'd like to get all of this done by October 1st. (I know, good luck, right?) That way I'll have a full month to plan my phantom project in time for NaNoWriMo.

Think I can do it?

We'll see.

By the way, the Writing Tip of the Day is:
Never resist editing, because your writing isn't etched in stone and can always be improved for the reader.

How appropriate.