Tag: writing

Finished and Starting Again

Essay / Writing

I finished my Urban Fantasy novel a couple of months ago, and incorporated some beta reader comments, cut 8000 words, tweaked grammar. All the things you need to do to finish and finalize. Finished, finished, finished. Awesome, right? Now it sits as the query letter is being smoothed over. Comp titles are a bit flummoxing. I have some, then I reread the comp book, and I wonder if it is really as close to what my story is about as I think it is. All this second-guessing makes for writing frustration.

So I started another book.

I even outlined it first. In a couple of past posts, I yammered about outlining, and being a pantser, not a plotter, before I realized why yes, I actually do outline my work. I just wasn’t calling it an outline. I wrote 8 pages of ‘This happened, then this, then the character did this, and oh, yeah, this is how it all turned out.’ 8 pages of outline. Then I wrote some scenes that came to mind after reading the outline and taking a deep breath, I opened Scrivener.

Scrivener is a word processing program and outliner. I let it intimidate me before, writing chapters in Word then dropping them in the program. It’s got a bit of a learning curve. This time, I read tutorials and played around a bit. Then I started. I used the Index card part to plug my 8-page outline into digestible chunks. It forced me to sum up what was going on, chapter by chapter. The good thing about the cards is I can move them around. My brain while reading continuous pages of text insists that’s how it should be, linear, like a novel.

Virtual 3×5 Cards

Index cards with summaries helped me see the overall flow of the novel much more easily. I sized it to nine cards on a page, out of 34 chapters, so I could take things in at a glance. (So this was storyboarding? I could work with this.) I can rearrange index cards, but figuring out how to add a blank one took me a bit. Learning curve. I did like color coding each chapter so I know whose Point of View it’s in. I found out the bad guy needs more time on the page.

Each time I opened Scrivener, I wanted to flee back to Word, but I resisted the impulse. I do a lot of my writing in Google Docs and Word because they are familiar. How many times do we stick with the familiar instead of branching out? I promised myself I’d try writing chapters in Scrivener. I do like the ability to have nothing but a big, blank page showing on the screen. (For some reason, Word’s ribbon feature draws my eye. It has toys. My downfall.)The blank page has never intimidated me. I just jump in and worry about organization later. Pantser instincts never die.

Is my outline finished? Urm, no. Every time I read it, I tighten it up, add things in, and try to pinpoint conflict. Little by little, I become more comfortable with outlining, and it’s even helped me on the previous Urban Fantasy query letter. The only drawback I see to this is carrying all those characters from multiple books in my head. I guess as long as no fistfights break out, I’ll be able to finish one book and write the other. Writers out there, have you tried a new process? How did it go? What’s your outlining method?

Links to Past Posts on Writing:

This is Your Brain on Writing

Pulling Words Apart

Ignoring Writing Advice

Revising 101 (Housekeeping)

A Few Words on Revision

Link to Scrivener

Links to outlining methods:

Finding the Novel Outlining Process That Works for You

7 Ways to Write a Plot Outline

12 Great Ways to Outline a Novel

Genre Reading and Writing. Arithmetic Free.

Essay / Writing
Book Love

When it came time to choose a genre to write in I chose fantasy. As a longtime reader of Fantasy, Scifi, and everything in between, it seemed a natural fit. I was a latecomer to women’s literature and romance. It didn’t hold me the way fantasy did, although I like some romance in my fantasy, and not just Mage/queen/plucky necromancer meets heroic other, falls in love, and produce intrepid little sorcerers. 

I love the big, sprawling messiness of a good fantasy story. The world so different from ours, yet populated by the same type of people with the same problems. How to escape evil, which magical academy to attend, how to pacify rampaging dragons, and oh yes, love among the smoking ruins of a just razed village. 

Not a big fan of dystopian fiction, I must admit. It’s depressing to think of all the ways civilization could go wrong. The survivors – because it’s always lucky by birth survivors – trudging through a ravaged landscape, rummaging through hollowed-out Wal-marts for food and bullets. Fighting off others of their kind to rise to the top of their pathetic food chain. No groups ever join together to try to make their lot in life better, to try and jump-start an improved civilization unlike the one that got them into this mess in the first place. Are we that narrow-minded a species?

Don’t answer that.

I do have a space opera novel I worked on and it’s sitting in limbo. It falls prey to the things I hate about dystopian novels, hence my reluctance to go on with it. Time to strip it down for parts. Apparently, though, doom, doom, doom makes for good reading. I do like exploring other worlds and cultures in sci-fi also. Big problem there is the vastness of space and zooming around in it. I get hung up on the technical (im)possibilities because I know just enough science to be skeptical, but not enough to make everything plausible. Which is probably why I chose space opera rather than hard science sci-fi. Much easier to hand-wave the science like a Jedi excusing droids than get lost in the physics. Even though I do love me some physics. 

Romance novels both fascinate and repel me. There’s something to be said for the formulaic model and a HEA (Happily Ever After) at the end. Maybe it’s the optimist in me, wanting the world to turn out for the better. The cynic whispers in the back of my mind, you think real life is like this? Ha! Have I got news for you. Romance dies under the weight of children, laundry, and whose turn it is to mow the backyard. 

Which leaves women’s fiction, formerly called ‘chick lit’. About women, mostly written by women. A lot of it is depressing as hell, chronicling modern-day problems in a long, and death marchy manner. Dead/missing children, cancer, parents with dementia. Why do I subject myself to that? Because it’s real. I guess I can’t live on fantasy alone, and sometimes need to come down from my dragon-patrolled castle and deal with life before I scurry back to my fairy fortified citadel.

All of these genres figure into my fantasy writing, however. I like building worlds, I like creating creatures, but I also like my characters to want love along with their magical abilities. Perhaps love helps or hinders their abilities. Or captures the unicorn. Or saves a kingdom. Or destroys it utterly. The people in fantasyland have the same problems you and I have; we just can’t use magic or a sharp sword to solve them. Although it would be oh so satisfying to turn your boss into a spotted hog-sloth. 

My heroines and heroes are your everyday folk who just happen to be caught up in something bigger than they are. Reluctantly shoved into saving the world, they rise to the occasion or give it their best shot while dodging death. This is what I want out of the real world. Since we, as a society, currently can’t have nice things, I want to write stories about a world where it can happen. And once my letter from Hogwarts gets here, watch out. I’m going to change the world.

On Berating My Obstinacy and Resolving to Try Something Different

Essay / Writing
Mule

I reread my last blog post and thought, man, what mule-headed stubbornness. Is that really me? Turns out it is. So my goal the past few weeks was to do some research into what I disdain in writing advice, and find a way to give it a try. I researched some authors I like, that offer classes and books on the very things I don’t like to do. I read through every page of their website, read their philosophies, and picked one I thought I would be able to work with.

Cautiously optimistic, I bought a writing e-book by the author and dug in. Right in the first chapter I ran up against my prejudice. It had exercises. Exercises that were intended to make me do things. I think exercises are useless, I should be using my limited writing time to work on my novel. Write, write, write, right?

Turns out there is a reason for these exercises. To make my pea brain stretch, and think beyond my novel to the future. Where I want to be instead of where I am, and drill down to what my novel is about. When did I get so prejudiced against homework? I was a book and art nerd in high school, doing my homework and even extras for the sheer joy of learning. When did I lose that?

Turns out it wasn’t lost, just buried deep beneath a layer of inexperience and attitude. In trying so hard to convince myself I could do this, I convinced myself I knew HOW to do this. One of these things is not like the other.

So I cautiously printed out the exercise pages from the pdf, and began to read the damn directions. I did the exercises. In order. (A first.) I actually got excited to write a scene to the specified criteria. (Of course I had to stop in the middle to research exactly what shade of brown I needed to describe. For the record, it was Raw Umber.) I was pretty happy with the scene I wrote. So happy I’m thinking it needs to go in the novel and I know just where to put it.

You’ll be pleased to know, I’m 2/3 less stubborn about writing advice than when I started. There’s some things I still have a difficult time believing is going to help. But I won’t discard the advice, until I give it a try or two. What works might not be readily apparent at first impatient glance. If it still doesn’t work for me, why then I’ll fold the exercise into an origami mule, and place it by my computer as a reminder.

Sometimes you just have to slap your own hand, loosen the reins, and gallop wildly forward, careening over half-baked, rainbow hued obstacles until you crash through the brick wall.

Or is that just me?

Ignoring Writing Advice

Essay / Writing
Pencil

Ignoring Writing Advice

I’ve never been much for following the rules. Which may or may not be why it takes me a year or more to write a novel. There is so much advice out there on how to get started, how to write, how to edit, etc. that is sometimes contradictory. I’ve sifted through the Internet, bought books, and quizzed author friends. Worksheets abound on outlining, beats, plotting, character development, character motivation, scenes, POV, world building, query, synopsis and more story ideas than you can shake a computer mouse at.

Eh.

I’m a pantser. I tried being a plotter, I really did. It didn’t work for me. I went back to pantsing, and I’m much happier. I prefer to do all my organizing afterwards. Which may not be the best way, but it’s the way I like, and it may take longer. It works for me. It may drive me crazy at times, because conventional advice insists you do certain things at certain times in the noveling process. Good luck with that.

I jump right in, feet first, without looking to see if there are rocks below. I have an idea, it’s usually is in my head a year or two before I start writing. I ponder the characters, run scenarios through my mind, over and over. I play the ‘What If’ game. I love the What If game. I love circling around and around ideas until the story firms in my mind. Or turns to Jello.

Then I write.

I sit down and write frantically, from beginning to end, seeing where the story takes me. Then I rewrite. Then I do a third draft, fine tuning. I’ve been informed this is not the way to do it. That I waste a lot of time with the rewrites. I probably do. For me, it’s like building a sculpture. I smooth layers of clay over the foundation, and little by little the form emerges. Sometimes things jump out at me like a boogeyman from the closet. Other times it’s the drip-drip of a leaky faucet.

In my current novel, the first draft was in first person. Reading it through, I realized the story wasn’t solely about her, and another character needed his time on stage. Demanded it. Since I hate multiple first person POV novels, I changed it to third person, and immediately felt more comfortable. My other novels are in third person, that’s my happy place. I always wanted to try first person, and now I feel I can do it. When the right character comes along and is greedy enough not to share stage space.

So, rules. Like making up a character sheet for each character—I don’t do them. I carry the characters in my head, (it gets crowded in there). The problem with character sheets, is, they’re not made for fantasy characters. I suppose you could twist them to fit, but the character’s magic ability, and what effect it has on them and the world needs to be addressed. So I made up my own character sheet of sorts for fantasy folks. And quit using it as soon as I figure out the elements that fit the story. Yes, they are useful for things like height-weight, eye color, hair color and the like. But I’ve never ‘interviewed’ my characters, or built a character arc step by step according to formula. After a year of thinking, I know what they want, where they start, and where they should end up. Figure out what works, and go from there. Doesn’t work? Toss it in the cut file. For me, it’s all about the journey.

What am I trying to say? To quote Fleetwood Mac, “Go your own way”. It could be messy, it could explode in your face. It could take time. It could be a hell of a lot of fun. That’s why I’m in it, for the fun of creating my own world, and populating it with characters I like. Or hate. And guess what? Most of my characters don’t follow the rules, either.

Imagine that.

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