Repost: 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.

Crafting Voice and Building Tension

For me, the biggest draw into a book is the voice. If I don't connect with the narrator or care about what he/she is saying, I'm not going to finish the book. I'm too slow of a reader to go through a whole book about a character I don't particularly care for. (By the way, how many pages do you read in a book before deciding whether or not to finish it?)

So, I thought I'd share one of my favorite posts on voice. Nathan Bransford is, well... amazing when it comes to helping writers understand what agents are looking for and this is no exception. How to Craft a Great Voice is a must-read for authors, especially if you keep getting rejections that say "the writing didn't grab me" or your query letter gets you partial requests, but you never get past that point.

A lot of young writers struggle with building the right mood in their scenes. Sometimes, in a fit of frustration, we'll just write some inner dialogue like, "Wow, this was tense." (And when we go back to revise it, we wonder what we were thinking.)

So, to help us all out, author Janice Hardy posted Setting Up the Tension where she gives a list of ideas to give your scene that extra tension you may be looking for.

And finally, where would we be without the Bookshelf Muse and Angela Ackerman's encyclopedia-esque lists for writers? As always, she came through with her Symbolism Thesaurus Entry: Instability & Turmoil.

By the way, a friend of mine is encouraging his fellow writers to start posting short stories for the public to read online. I'm considering adding a tab at the top of this blog for that kind of thing. Is this something that would interest you?

Voice

Today's (second) post is on voice. In my opinion, if you get one thing right, this should be it. So how does one develop a great voice? Agent Rachelle Gardner says, Write What You Know. It's like acting. You put yourself into your characters, even though you're NOT the character.

QueryTracker always has great posts. It's a shame they don't happen very often :) Here's their post called Don't Use That Voice With Me. A few tricks that should shed some light.

And finally, all great authors read. I've talked about choosing my "magical books". This post tells you how to analyze great writers and how to find out how they do it. Including how they develop a fantastic voice.

If You Write for Younger Audiences...

Have I got a post (or two) for you!

I was wandering around, looking for goodies to share with my fellow-writers when I found a couple of posts specifically for YA/middle grade authors. I know these genres aren't the same, but I figured you probably write for one or the other if you're reading this blog. (Maybe not. Let me know.)

So first, a pretty funny and enlightning post on parent archetypes found in young adult (and I'd like to add: middle grade) books. It's amazing, but 99% of parents in YA books fall into one of these categories. Granted, there are a lot of categories, but still.... I thought it would be nice to know what the categories are, so you can use them at appropriate times (or deviate from them if you can).

And here is an invaluable resource: Market My Words interviews young adults about what they like, what they buy, and what they're sick of in Guest Post: Michelle Zink shares her Teen Data

And if you write for middle grade readers, Kristi Holl has compiled an article on knowing your audience and what exactly goes on in middle school kids' brains (and what's been done to death).

A Helpful Loss

Well, I didn't win Query Tracker's Elevator Pitch Contest, which is a disappointment BUT I did notice something that may help me. One of the winners wote a pitch for a YA novel about a girl who has a crush on a ghost! It's so similar to mine that I don't feel quite so bad.

I looked at the pitch itself to try to figure out why it had won rather than mine. The thing that hit me the most was the voice. This author, though she used only one or two sentences, sounded like a teenager.

I never realized it before, but I think my word choice and tone are a little mature for Young Adult. My main character in Shadows is pretty mature for a high school senior, come to think of it. I always told myself that she'd have to be if she were facing the things I'm throwing at her!

Still, I may be hurting myself. I think this is something I need to work on.