Category: writer development

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The Sort-of Outline

  By current projects, writer development, writing life

http://www.sxc.hu/profile/tijmenI’ve mentioned many times that I’m not really an outliner…much more of a discovery writer. I like to know the general shape of the story but not its entire geography before I start–if I know too much, the writing of it doesn’t actually interest me anymore. I doubt that that much will ever really change.

However, I set out to write a new story recently (well, I began it back in August and then that pesky September hiatus things happened) and I wondered if, especially since it’s a sort of a mystery story, I should have a few things mapped out. Just about the same time, I was going through some documents on my hard drive and came across a method for Outlining Three-Act Structure with Turning Points.

Okay, I do know that I found this somewhere…on the Internet. Where, I now have no idea. I am going to do some hunting, but a preliminary google failed to turn it up. So if you, dear reader, happen to know where this helpful thing originated, please tell me so I can point others in that direction and give credit.

At any rate, this helpful method breaks the outline into (obviously) three acts. Act 1 includes two things: 1) Setup and 2) The Initiating Event. You introduce your main character(s), get a feel for setting and situation, and then have something happen that sets the plot in motion. “The moment when everything changed,” as I like to think of it.

In Act 2, there are five–not sure what to call them; steps or turning points or elements–that move the story along. I’ll list them:
1) External Conflict Emerges. The main plot driver happens and the main character must make a decision to act. Now the MC has a goal.
2) Antagonist Arrives. This could be a person or an obstacle, but it will make the main character’s goal harder to reach.
3) Conflict Rises. Things get progressively more difficult. Maybe solutions are attempted and fail.
4) The Reversal. Something really bad happens and circumstances are radically changed for the MC and his/her struggle to attain the goal.
5) The Point of No Return. Something happens, or the MC makes a decision, that means there’s no turning back. The only choice is to move ahead.

That’s a lot of stuff going on in Act 2, but remember, this is really the bulk of your story. This is the “middle”, which is where a lot of writers get stuck. I think having this guide would make it a lot easier to figure out all the stuff that has to happen in that middle. (NaNoWriMo planners, I’m looking at you!)

Act 3 has just four points or parts. They are:
1) Crisis. The worst happens. It seems that there is no chance of success or that the price of success is going to be too high.
2) The Dark Moment. The MC thinks that all hope is lost, and must draw upon his/her deepest reserves of courage to succeed. The decision made here leads to the action that culminates in…
3) The Climax. The finale. The final confrontation or struggle. The MC attains the goal–or doesn’t.
4) The Resolution. Loose ends are tied up and the world and the MC come back into balance. We see what has changed (or not) in the course of the story. The end.

So, I printed out this list down one column on a sheet of paper, then went through and scribbled in the events or ideas I had for each step. Voila! A very general road map of my story, but not so much that I don’t feel like writing it. And the added bonus is that I could see where I needed to do some more thinking, or where I might run into roadblocks when writing.

I know, I know, that’s what outlines are supposed to do.

Now, not all stories must or should follow this structure, of course. But I think for plot-driven stories it’s a nice general guide–not formulaic, lots of room for variety, but a good structural guide.

Maybe I’ve found a good middle ground that will work for me. Let me know if you give it a try!

Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/tijmen

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The 1000-Word Diet

  By current projects, personal & miscellaneous, writer development, writing life

Alphabet_soup by strawberryblues [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsYou know how “the experts” advise folks who are going on a diet to tell their friends and family that they’re doing so? The idea is that because the prospect of public failure is so much more daunting than that of private failure, the act of telling folks your plans adds more fuel to your motivational fire.

It could be true; it does seem to make some sense. But no, I’m not going on a diet. I’m talking about writing.

I tend to keep a lot of my writing plans to myself (or to share them mainly with my friends who are also writers, and understand the pale fragility of writing plans). I learned this the hard way long ago when I was writing my first novel and made no secret of the fact. Thus there was that one acquaintance (you all know the one) who brought up the health of said novel every time we met, over the course of years. Not an experience I’d like to repeat. So even now, with a decent number of published stories and a public persona as “a writer”, I tend to keep my plans close to my chest.

I’ve also generally shied away from the idea of quotas in my writing. The attempt to make daily or weekly word quotas would have been a very bad idea for me for most of my previous writing life, said life being largely prey to the vagaries of kids, pets, extended family, other committments, and the whims of mischievous fate. I knew that setting quotas would be an exercise in futility that would leave me more depressed than inspired. (Except during NaNoWriMo, of course, because I simply decided that everything else, for one month of the year, could wait.)

Now, however, I think I’m going to ditch both of those old notions in one go. I’ve decided to try setting myself a 1000-word per day quota for a while (probably weekends excluded, because I still don’t have a whole lot of control over those), and here I am, telling you all about it.

I think my timing is perfect, because during October I’ll be very inspired to do it since it’s something new, and then we’ll be into November, when hopefully I’ll be hitting more than that to make my NaNoWriMo quota. By that time it will be a two-month habit and hopefully well-established. No doubt Christmas will come along and smash it to pieces, but I feel it’s worth a try.

I’m happy to also have a project underway that’s moving along at a pretty snappy pace so far. After a September when the most I could do was manage a few blog posts a week, and then the wheels fell off even that meagre attempt, I seem to have passed some unseen barrier and be back on track.

Here’s to experimentation, anyway. Hell, I even — sort of — wrote an outline for this new story. Will wonders never cease? But more about that later.

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The Five Stages of Novel Revision

  By current projects, editing, projects, publishing, Uncategorized, writer development, writing life

Pick an emotion…any emotion…

The other day I watched a video by James Andrew Wilson, called The Emotional Stages of Writing a Novel. It’s both funny and true, so if you’re a writer (or even if you’re not) you should go and watch it.

Having recently been asked by an editor to revise a novel*, I think there are several stages to that process, as well. Here they are:

1. Elation Disappointment Disalation? I don’t know what to call this stage. Someone likes your novel and has said nice things about it! They think it has promise! Hurray! But you have to change things. It’s not perfect. The road ahead is paved with hard, hard work. Wah! It’s wonderful and horrible at the same time. You need a drink, some ice cream, or (insert favorite comfort item here) while it all sinks in.

2. Despair You don’t know how to do this. You can’t do this! Those changes won’t work! They’re too hard! They’ll wreck your novel! You can’t cut that subplot because then no-one will understand why the vagrant had to be blind. You can’t cut the busboy character because wasn’t it obvious that he was the one who saw the murder and reported it anonymously to the police? And how can the novel work at all without the circus? *headdesk*

3. Planning Okay, you just need to take a while and think about this. Think, and make a lot of notes. Maybe buy one of those huge whiteboards and diagram the entire novel on it. No! Better still, paint a wall of your office with chalkboard paint and diagram it there! Also, print out all the editor’s comments and highlight them with different colors according to level of importance, then glue them onto giant pieces of bristol board and brainstorm revision ideas around them! Oh yes, the pieces are all going to fall into place now…

4. Actual Work Half the time allotted for the revisions has now flown past. You’ve started seven different methods for working out how to fix your novel, but they’re all too much work or are too confusing. Finally you sit down with a printout of your novel and a red pen, and start reading and making notes. When you’re done, you start typing in your changes. It takes you all the rest of the time you’ve got and you have to alienate your family and friends to get it finished, but you do it. You think it stinks.**

5. Collapse You’ve sent in the revision just in time. By now you hardly care if the editor likes it or not–all that matters is that it’s done and you don’t have to look at the horrible thing any more…at least until the editor emails you…

*more details on that another day
** or you think it’s brilliant. Don’t worry, that won’t last.

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[Process] The Story Idea (Part 1)

  By current projects, projects, writer development, writing life

I’m in the process throes of creating a new short story this past week, so I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the mechanics as I move through the process. Every writer has his or her own way of doing this, and sometimes even different processes for different stories, so this is certainly not a “how-to” as much as a “this-is-how-I’m-doing-it-this-time.”

My process has changed over time. I used to come up with the start of an idea—maybe even just a first line, or a first scene, or a character in a setting—and sit down to start writing. Over time, I learned that in general, this was a bad idea for me. I have a LOT of story beginnings (let’s say anywhere from two to ten pages) that fizzled out, tripped up, or bogged down and never went any further. I’ve even found stuff on my hard drive that I don’t remember writing, or have no idea where they were going or what I thought the story was going to be about.*

There’s not a huge market for story beginnings. Just like there’s not a huge market for standalone first chapters.

After a while, I learned the first lesson about me and the way I write stories: don’t start too soon.

I need to allow time for an idea to percolate before I start putting words on paper (or virtual paper—you know what I mean). Although I often want to sit down and start banging out words, I consciously make myself wait until I have thought through more of the story. I’m not an outliner, but I do often make notes as I’m thinking about the story and the shape it will take.

For this new story, I knew I had a certain theme to consider, because I’m writing it for a themed anthology. The first thing to decide was how I wanted to incorporate the theme—what kind of story did I want to write? I mulled that over for a few days, trying out numerous bits of idea flotsam and jetsam before I realized that I want to write a humorous story. Could that work with the theme? It would be a little unusual, but it could work. Good. Now I knew the tone of the story.

Next I needed at least one character, and ideally two, who would be the main players in the piece. They stepped onto the stage quickly, now that I knew what kind of story I was writing. Only one had a name yet, but that was all right. I put them both onstage in my mind, and thought about their relationship.

Now, maybe you’re picturing me sitting in my tidy, inspiring office, staring out the window or into the middle distance while I put all my concentration and creative energy into this bold and invigorating hunt for story. Sorry to shoot down that lovely little image, but that’s not how it’s happening this time around. I’ve been travelling, on a family vacation, as I’m working on this story idea, so my thinking time has been 1) while we’re driving, 2) when I’m falling asleep, 3) when I’m in the shower, and 4) when I’m awake in the middle of the night listening to all the unidentified noises in and around our cottage and trying NOT to imagine what could be making them.

In spite of this, after three or four days of thinking, I have some characters, a mood, and a general idea of the story problem (also known as a little thing called plot**). No notes yet, but that’s okay; I haven’t come up with any details or plot twists that I’m likely to forget. Also no title yet, but a couple of ideas.

I’m off to a good start. And this is getting long, so I’ll pick up the process (and hopefully have more to report) in Part 2…

*This experience is scarier than you might think.
**Not vital to all stories, but definitely so for the ones I write, and like to read.

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Influences – L.M. Montgomery

  By books, personal, reading, writer development, writing life

I could hardly come to Prince Edward Island on vacation without taking a few moments to reflect on Lucy Maud Montgomery and her influence on me as a writer, and as a reader.

I grew up reading Montgomery. The big bookshelf at my grandparents’ house, which offered an absolute cornucopia of reading bliss, was well-stocked with Lucy Maud’s books–not only the ubiquitious Anne, but also the Emily books and others. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Anne well enough and read her series quite thoroughly; but it’s the later Anne books I particularly enjoyed, and I think Anne of Windy Poplars is probably my favorite of them.

It was always Montgomery’s lesser-known works that were my favorites overall, though. The Emily series–Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily’s Quest–they spoke to me far more than Anne did. (And before you ask, no, it’s no coincidence that my daughter’s name is Emily.) Emily is the creative one–the writer, in fact, and probably my very first introduction to the notion of the long, slow path of a writer’s life. I think having that understanding has been a great help in finding my own way as a writer.

The Story Girl was another perennial favorite (and its sequel, The Golden Road), as was Pat of Silver Bush, and A Tangled Web.

Looking back, I think the appeal of the books to me as a younger reader and teenager was Montgomery’s deft hand at characterization. These were not thrilling adventure books with complicated plots (although A Tangled Web has a beautifully complex and interwoven storyline), but the characters came to life on the page with vibrancy and color, and their problems, big and little, mattered to the reader as well. They were, overall, “happy ending” stories, but not syrupy–Anne and Emily are both orphans, to start with, and the stories in all the books reflect both the lighter and darker sides of life in the time periods in which they are set. While the Anne books are more romanticized, many of the other titles explore more realistic themes and aspects of life. They are probably, as a whole, the most re-read books for me.

It saddens me somewhat that these stories have gone out of fashion for young readers with the passage of time. But I guess that kind of sentiment makes me sound old and crotchety, so I’ll just end by saying–thanks, Lucy Maud. You made my reading life much richer, and my writing life easier to navigate.

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The Multi-tasking Blues

  By personal, projects, writer development, writing life

Hello, my name is Sherry, and I’m a multi-tasker.

It’s true–I love multi-tasking. I love having two monitors and a fairly fast computer, because it means I can have so many things on the go at once. Right now, for instance, I’m writing this post in one browser tab. Other open tabs hold Gmail, some affiliate link things I’m working on for The Scriptorium, a couple of articles I want to read later, and a map I used earlier today. (Okay, I can close that one now.)

In addition to the browser, Evernote is open, as is Photoshop, two twitter clients, Skype, and Outlook. I also have a widget for my four favorite RSS feeds.

Sure, I’m only looking at ONE of those things at a time, but it’s somehow comforting to me to know that I can pop over to any one of them at any time. I feel busy and productive and WOW, like I’m really getting a lot done.

Except.

Except that I’ve read a few things lately about how multi-tasking is really not that good for us. That it leads to less productivity overall, and shortened attention spans, among other things.

My first reaction to these claims was “pshaw!”. Well, I didn’t actually say “pshaw,” because who really does that these days? But my feelings were the equivalent of “pshaw!”. I mean, that couldn’t be true, could it?

And yet now that I’m thinking about it, I am beginning to wonder. It’s very easy, when one has so many options, to hop back and forth between them, tinkering a bit and then hopping off to something else when the first thing gets difficult. And even when things eventually get done, I’m starting to wonder if they’re suffering from my lack of focus. Are they actually somewhat diluted because I haven’t given them enough of my undivided attention?

I also notice that I skim/skip a lot more magazine articles. The only magazine I read with any diligence is New Scientist, and I used to devour almost every article, cover to cover. Now I tend to skim through, sampling first lines here, reading a paragraph or two there, and then moving on. That can’t be coincidence. Science news hasn’t gotten more boring, certainly.

While I wrote this post, I answered a tweet, looked at a notification, and checked a note in Evernote (that was not related to this task). That’s not too bad, I suppose, but would this post have been even better if I’d had nothing else open on my screens while I wrote it?

I’m seriously considering cutting back on my multi-tasking to see what effect it has, if any, on my concentration and focus. I’ll report back on this entirely unscientific investigation in due course. If I remember, that is!

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Nests, Noise, & Vacuuming (or, Writing Rituals)

  By personal & miscellaneous, writer development, writing life

I wonder if one of these would help?

I recently ran across this article on writing rituals and found it really interesting. You should definitely go and have a look at it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Back? So wow, some folks have some interesting writing rituals, huh? And although a lot of (non-writing) folks would consider some of these behaviours odd, weird, or outright bizarre, apparently they are a good thing. Rituals for writers, the article says, help reduce anxiety, increase our sense of control over the writing process, and increase fluency.

Which made me think–what are my writing rituals? (And if I don’t have any, should I get some?)

So I’m sitting here thinking. And thinking. Do I have any writing rituals?

Do I require a tidy desk? (OOh, ouch, I actually hurt myself laughing there.) Okay, maybe I require a messy desk? No, not really, I can write in either of those two states. However, sometimes before beginning a big, new project, I do give my desk a good cleaning. It’s cathartic, and it makes me feel better. I’m not sure it’s a ritual, though.

Do I perform any ritualistic motions or tasks before writing? Hmmmm. I make a lot of coffee…I do like to have a fresh cup of java to start a writing session. It’s not necessary, though. The need to vacuum the house? (More painful laughter ensues.) And no lucky shirts or socks. Or pens. Rats.

Special music? Well, I do enjoy music when I write, although I don’t always put it on. When I do, it has to be instrumental only, no lyrics because they’re too distracting. All my characters would be spouting lines from the latest top ten if I wasn’t careful. I particularly like video game soundtracks. Assassin’s Creed II. Halo. Skate. Command and Conquer. And movie and tv soundtracks. You get a nice mix of moods and themes. But as a ritual…no.

Sigh. I’m starting to doubt that I’m a real writer!

You know, I used to have a ritual. I used to play games before I started writing. Tetris. Mah-jongg. Solitaire. The problem was, I wouldn’t just play a game “to relax.” It might have started out that way. But then it changed. Suddenly I had to win a game before I could write. And you know what that meant–I’d hardly ever get to write, and spend all my time playing games. My brain tricked me that way for a while before I caught on (because, of course, playing games is so much easier than writing). Bad, lazy brain. I discarded that ritual, although it was difficult.

Okay, wait, I’ve got one. It’s small, but I think it really is a ritual. When I am starting a new project, I always set up the title page just as it will be when I’m submitting the final piece. For a short story, name and address in the top left corner. A line for “Approx. word count” although of course for now it will be blank. Space down to the middle of the page, center the title in all caps (fortunately I usually have a title by the time I start writing. If not, a placeholder will have to do, although it’s not as satisfying.) For a novel, a proper title page, too.

That’s it. That’s my ritual. Wow, so boring. Maybe there’s something I’m not even aware of…I know one thing–if I can’t think of something more interesting, I’ll have to invent one. Or risk being more anxious, less in control, and less fluent. There’s a lot at stake, here.

What about you? Do you have writing rituals? What are they?

Photo By MalcolmLidbury (aka Pinkpasty) (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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The S-Word Again

  By editing, projects, publishing, writer development, writing life

So first, a project update–yes, I’ve been working on my summer edit. I’m about ten chapters in, and it’s going well, if a bit slowly. Not because there’s a whole lot to mark up–a relatively small number of pages actually look like the one in the photo–but because, well, it’s summer. There’s a lot going on. But I don’t want to let Bare Knuckle Writer down, so I am plugging away.

However, the sad realization struck me the other day that once I finish this editing pass, I’m going to have to write a synopsis. I could wail and moan a bit about that, but I won’t, because it is part of the writing process (well, if you want to submit your work anywhere, it is) and simply a Thing That Must Be Done. Instead of griping I thought it would be more productive to offer some advice on writing one.

I’ve found that there are two things about writing a synopsis that I really find difficult. One is starting. The other is holding the whole novel in your head in the proper order, so you can distill out the important bits. Fortunately, I’ve hit on one method that effectively deals with both these problems.

Note: if you are an outliner, you probably don’t have either of these problems. You already have the bones of your synopsis in your outline, so you just need to flesh it out. I might hate you a little bit, but I digress.

Since I never have an outline that’s an actual outline before I start writing (I might have pages and pages of story notes, but that is not an outline that’s of any use in creating a synopsis), I’ve learned to outline as I go. I’ve mentioned before that I use Writer’s Cafe Storylines for this. I write a scene or chapter, and either when I finish it, or at the end of the writing day, I create an index card and jot down just a couple of sentences about what just happened. I note where the scene or chapter takes place, and who is present. If I have multiple storylines/subplots, I might have cards going for each of those, too. I do the same thing for the next scene or chapter, and the next, etc. If I go back and insert a missing scene, I insert the appropriate card(s) for it, as well.

In this example, I have three rows of cards going. The dark purple row is the scene-by-scene breakdown. The light purple row tracks which characters appear in which scenes. (That helps avoid that “whatever happened to character X?” question.) The green row tracks the time and setting of each scene. Each column is a scene, and the black headers show me where the chapters break. (I have the wrapping option turned on, so that’s why you can see a second set of colored cards.) You might also note that some scene cards bear a checkmark–those are the ones I’ve marked up in this editing pass. I can see my progress at a glance.

So, the outliners out there are probably wondering how this helps me write the story–it doesn’t. But what it does do is twofold: it shows me at a glance an overview of the arc of the storyline (very helpful when I start revising), and later, it gives me a jumping-off point when it comes to writing a synopsis. Because I can run a report in Storylines and export the information from the cards that I want, and I have a rough outline of my synopsis. All the important stuff is there…because that’s what I’ve jotted down on the cards. The bones are good.

The rest–well, the rest is mostly rewriting it in coherent and well-formed sentences, and polishing it until it’s intriguing, explanatory, and shows the editor that you’ve got a solid story told in an engaging fashion. Yeah. That’s the easy part.

Note: You can use this method perfectly well via the low-tech method of real paper index cards, too. But I’m a big fan of Writer’s Cafe and all the other things it can do as well.

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The 1901 Eaton’s Catalogue

  By books, ebooks, publishing, reading, writer development, writing life

One of the coolest finds in the saga of clearing out my grandparents’ house (for me, at least) was this: the 1901 catalogue from the T. Eaton Company Limited. It’s actually a reprint of that catalogue, produced in 1970, which accounts for its exceptionally good condition. However, it is a faithful reprint of that catalogue, and what I love about it is the wonderful window it opens into the past. I mean, historical/steampunk writer’s reference, anyone?

Browsing through the catalogue is a ton of fun. It’s also an eye-opener in many ways. Yes, we seem to have some weird ideas about what constitutes the ideal feminine form these days. However, this is obviously NOT the first time in history that that has been true. Wasp waists, and oddly low-hanging, ample bosoms seem to have been the ideal of the day. One would think, looking at the corsets in the catalogue, that everything north of the waist would have been pushed dramatically up…but perhaps it’s a function of artist’s license, as well. At any rate, I am prfoundly thankful that I was not shopping from this section.

It’s also kind of mind-boggling to think that almost everything in the catalogue had to be drawn by hand, from all of these household items, to flowers you might want to order.

But what really struck me as I thumbed through it today was this little section: “Paper-covered Books for Summer Reading.”

As you can see, it’s a minuscule selection, when you compare it to the sprawling websites offering books for us to order today (there are other pages to order books in the catalogue, but it’s still a pretty limited number). There’s also nothing to tell you what any of the books are about. You want to know what House of the Wolf by Stanley J. Weyman or What Gold Cannot Buy by Mrs. Alexander are about? Pay your money and take your chance.

Which brings me to my real point. These books are “Printed on Heavy Paper” and cost “7 cents each; postage 2 cents extra.” When I read that, I can’t help thinking about all those .99 ebooks out there. Comparatively, that means that they cost about fourteen times the 1901 paperbacks. (Yes, yes, I know that some folks are going to accuse me of comparing apples to oranges because ebooks have no cost for physical materials, shipping, etc.–but bear in mind that those costs are a relatively small percentage of print book costs today.)

When I browse through the catalogue and see that most other items have increased in cost anywhere from twenty to fifty times (or more!)…I really wonder how we have come to this point. It seems such a devaluation of years of hard work on the part of the writer to say that the story is worth less than a dollar. When we’ll pay two to three times that without blinking for a cup of coffee, and ten to fifteen times that to watch a two-hour movie, it seems to me that something is severely skewed.

I think we need to think about this both as writers and as readers.

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Summer Project

  By current projects, editing, writer development, writing life

So, that Bare Knuckle Writer really knows how to pull the strings and make me dance, whether intentionally, or not. She’s got me blogging more often (almost, like, regularly), and yesterday she threw down a gauntlet. (Yeah, she’s a little confrontational, but in a very endearing way.)

You really should go and read her entire post, because it’s fun and quirky as usual, but here’s the gauntlet part:

Every writer’s got one. That project whose time never comes. All it needs is a little love, but somehow it keeps getting pushed back in favour of new things and shinier ideas…This is its time. Dig that thing out, take it out to the back deck or the beach or the patio with you, and get to work.

And…she’s right. Of course she’s right. Who doesn’t have one (or more) of those projects, whether it’s a half-finished story, a novel, or something else? Honestly, I have more than I care to admit, but I’m not going to think about that or I’ll start crying into my keyboard. Or start a new chocolate binge. Possibly both. But I digress.

After reading the challenge yesterday, I printed out the manuscript you see in the photo above. It’s so close to being done that you can almost smell the done-ness on it. One more line-edit pass, that’s all it needs. It’s already been rewritten, revised, substantively edited and mostly line-edited.

Why has it been lying around for so long in this state of almost-finished-ness? Because it’s a bit of a strange project. A bit unclassifiable. A mash-up of genres. In plain words, I have no idea who might want to publish it.

But that’s not really the point, is it? The problem of what to do with it is not a problem until it’s done. So I’ll finish it. And then I’ll worry about what to do with it.

Sounds like a plan. BKW, I hope you’re reading this.