Why don’t you do writing posts anymore?

I think most of us go through stages in our professional life.  It’s a little cycle that goes likes this: I learn things -> I know things -> I need to explain things I learned, because they’re awesome ->Wait a minute, I don’t actually know anything ->I learn things.

I’m at the point where I’m back to the learning stage and I don’t feel pressure to share what I know, because my knowledge is subjective and my tricks of the trade work for me, but they may not necessarily work for anyone else.  If you ask me a specific question, I will answer to the best of my ability, but again my answer may not work for you.

M writes,

What do you do when you’re feeling creatively empty? Not necessarily writer’s block, but just lacking inspiration completely?

And here comes a specific question.

Warning: read at your own risk.  You may not like the answer.

The question to ask yourself is why do you feel the pressure to write?

For some people, it’s something they must do.  Writing, like most creative pursuits, is addictive.  When a writer is telling a story, he or she are almost like a locomotive on the rails.  Sometimes it’s fast and furious, sometimes it’s slow and plodding, and sometimes the locomotive stops for a while.  But the goal is always there, just beyond the horizon.  It draws you in; it beckons.  That’s why stopping is so annoying. When the train stops due to a writing block, the inability to produce eats at you. You become listless and irritable.  You sit and stare at the page, and you’re annoyed because nothing is happening.

Occasionally the creative train derails.  The locomotive flies off the tracks into the bushes.  Sometimes it explodes and sometimes it just lays there in a crumpled heap.  That’s when inability to write turns into hate for writing and books in general.  It’s a painful thing to experience and to watch.  Creative crashes aren’t fun for anyone, whether they happen to you, your spouse, or your friend.

But for some people, writing is just a hobby.  They don’t feel the compulsion.  They think it’s cool and the like the idea of being a writer.  Or they simply have less of a pull and are able to walk away from it easily.  I like to knit.  I don’t feel the need to knit all the time.  It strikes me once in a while and I can leave it alone for weeks.

Not that long after we started trying to get published, I was hanging out on one of writer boards and this woman posted a question.  It went something like this, “What do you think a good genre would be for me to write in?  Also what kind of story should I write?  Like what kind of characters and what they should do? I want to be a writer.”

I, being a smartass, replied, “Why do you want to write, if you don’t have anything to say?”

Mean, but true.

So the problem here is, are you a locomotive or are you a casual knitter?  Does the inability to write interfere with your quality of life?  If it doesn’t, then no need to stress.  It will return on its own.  If it does, and you need a fix right now, I have one, but apply it at your own risk because it may make you miserable in the immediate future.  It doesn’t work one hundred percent of the time either, so your mileage might vary.

I assume you’ve already tried the writing block fixes.

We, the human beings, are emotion junkies.  We read for that emotion: we wants to experience a wide range of it, from suffering to triumph.  Writing is a response to life and the writing locomotive runs on emotion of the writer.  That’s our fuel.  In a sense, we vent our emotion on the page, and the readers live it through our writing.  When a writer becomes emotionally flat, the inspiration vanishes and the locomotive derails.

Yes, I’ve beaten the metaphor into the ground, leave me alone. 

The key to getting unstuck is finding something you feel strongly about. You need two things: brain food and a trigger.  Do not do this if you are severely depressed or have suicidal tendencies.  This is a last resort fix and by clicking the Unstuck button below, you agree to absolve me of any responsibility for the consequences of your emotional distress.

“…An important plot point in the very first scene mentions that the character has so much business she can’t handle it all thus she might need to take on an apprentice.  Then eight chapters later the same character says business has been slow lately…. I’m writing you … wondering if this IS the sort of detail that is generally caught by editors or beta readers or is there someone else that maybe does a cold read at the end of the editing process? ”

It should have been caught.  In theory.  In practice stuff like this gets through.

There two possibilities here: either CE didn’t not see this or the author chose not to accept the correction.  I have learned that no matter how many passes you make, you will still find errors in a manuscript.  In general though, the more eyes see the manuscript prior to publication, the better.

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P. writes

“I know the best advice given to new/young writers is read, read, read and write, write, write. So, I read and read, but while writing I’ve discovered a block I can’t seem to get past. While writing short stories or fables this doesn’t bother me so much, but when trying to put an idea for a longer story on paper, I try to stay away from emulating the authors of the genre I’m trying in – that is, I try to write in third person :] – but somehow I can’t find the voice I’m looking for. I can’t decide how to narrate my story. The narrative decides how you explain the characters and how you unfold the story, right?  So, my first question – how did you find your voice? How did you KNOW it was the right style to write your story in?

Emulating other authors is normal.  I’ve pointed it out before – almost every successful writer goes through a stage where he or she writes a derivative work.  That’s how we learn to write.  :)

“…That is, I try to write in third person” – does it feel “right” writing in the third person or is this a choice you are making to distinguish yourself from other writers?  If it’s the second, then your voice troubles might be happening because you are forcing yourself into the pattern you don’t subconsciously feel is comfortable for you.  Here is a secret: at the end of the day, nobody really cares if the narrative is in the first or third person.  The questions that an agent or editor will ask themselves when reading someone’s work: are the characters engaging?  Is the worldbuilding unique?  Does the narrative move well?  Third or first doesn’t really enter the evaluation process.  :)

“The narrative decides how you explain the characters and how you unfold the story, right?”  

No.  The point of view character determines how the story is told.  We read for the characters.  The style of the narrative is always determined by the character, whether the character speaks directly (1st person), indirectly (3rd person) or the author becomes a character himself (omniscient.)

Therefore, your point of view character creates the style in which the story is told.

“Pia was blackmailed into committing a crime more suicidal than she could possibly have imagined, and she had no one to blame but herself.

Knowing that didn’t make it easier. She couldn’t believe she had been so lacking in good judgment, taste, or sensibility.

Honestly, what had she done? She had taken one look at a pretty face and forgotten everything her mom had taught her about survival. It sucked so bad she might as well put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. Except she didn’t own a gun because she didn’t like them. Besides, pulling the trigger on a gun was pretty final. She had issues with commitment and she was so freaking dead anyway, so why bother.”

-DRAGON BOUND,  Thea Harrison

(I started it last night.  Will let you know how it is.)

This is Pia talking.  Pia the scared, shifty thief, who is having regrets and is mad at herself.

“Moon. Glorious moon. Full, fat, reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy. Bringing too the full-throated call of the tropical night, the soft and wild voice of the wind roaring through the hairs on your arm, the hollow wail of starlight, the teeth-grinding bellow of the moonlight off the water.

All calling to the Need. Oh, the symphonic shriek of the thousand hiding voices, the cry of the Need inside, the entity, the silent watcher, the cold quiet thing, the one that laughs, the Moondancer. The me that was not-me, the thing that mocked and laughed and came calling with its hunger. With the Need. And the Need was very strong now, very careful cold coiled creeping crackly cocked and ready, very strong, very much ready now—and still it waited and watched, and it made me wait and watch.

I had been waiting and watching the priest for five weeks now. The Need had been prickling and teasing and prodding at me to find one, find the next, find this priest. For three weeks I had known he was it, he was next, we belonged to the Dark Passenger, he and I together. And that three weeks I had spent fighting the pressure, the growing Need, rising in me like a great wave that roars up and over the beach and does not recede, only swells more with every tick of the bright night’s clock.”

DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER, Jeff Lindsay

Dexter Morgan, serial killer.

The Angel

In which our hero experiences Hope, the greatest gift * The bacon sandwich of regret * Somber reflections on capital punishment from the hangman * Famous last words * Our hero dies * Angels, conversations about * Inadvisability of misplaced offers regarding broomsticks * An unexpected ride  * A world free of honest men * A man on the hop * There is always a choice 

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.

The man going to be hanged had been named Moist von Lipwig by doting if unwise parents, but he was not going to embarrass the name, insofar as that was still possible, by being hung under it. To the world in general, and particularly on that bit of it known as the death warrant, he was Alfred Spangler.

And he took a more positive approach to the situation and had concentrated his mind on the prospect of not being hanged in the morning, and, most particularly, on the prospect of removing all the crumbling mortar from around a stone in his cell wall with a spoon. So far the work had taken him five weeks and reduced the spoon to something like a nail file. Fortunately, no one ever came to change the bedding here, or else they would have discovered the world’s heaviest mattress.

GOING POSTAL, Terry Pratchett

The author is talking. The long-suffering, wise, secret god of Ankh-Morpork.  :)

Think of your characters as a compass or a tinted window.  We, the readers, perceive the world through that character. He or she determine if we view other characters in a positive or negative light and his life experiences and temper dictate how the story sounds.

Kingsley was short and sort of plump. He needed a haircut and his big gray moustache was untrimmed. He had on a green and black plaid woolen shirt and a leather vest. His half glasses were halfway down his nose so he could stare over them while he talked. He looked like an overweight Titus Moody. He owned and edited the third largest newspaper in the state, and he had more money than Yoko Ono.

Parker, Robert B.. Pale Kings and Princes (Spenser) (pp. 1-2). Dell. Kindle Edition.

I was at the downstairs bar in the Parker House drinking Killian Red Ale with Rita Fiore, who was an assistant DA from Norfolk County and, myself excepted, the best-looking law person in Boston. In point of fact I wasn’t exactly a law person anymore, and in point of more fact Rita wasn’t drinking Red Ale with me. She was drinking Glenfiddich on the rocks and smoking long Tareyton cigarettes.

“The DEA guy’s name is Fallon,” Rita said. “I’ve known him two, three years, he’s okay.  Just don’t talk too fast.”

“Or use big words?” I said.

Rita nodded. Her thick reddish hair lay on her shoulders, and her tailored black suit fit snugly. Her stockings were patterned with flowers. Everything was nicely proportioned, very trim.

Parker, Robert B.. Pale Kings and Princes (Spenser) (p. 9). Dell. Kindle Edition.

 What do we know about this character?  He is older – he makes references to Yoko Ono and not Bill Gates.  He evaluates other man on the basis of their threat potential: he notes that his opponent is short, soft, and has poor eyesight.  He evaluates women on the basis of physical beauty – he notes woman’s hair color and her clothes.  He is neat in his attire and physically trim, because he finds those qualities attractive in others.  He is self-aware – he knows that the woman is not there because she is besotted with him – and is prone to self-deprecation.

Think about your character.  Your character will determine your narrative voice.  :)

You know how you get a song stuck in your head and it’s cycling over and over? You don’t even have to like it or pay attention to it, but you heard it in passing, when the kids laughed at it, and before you know it, you’re trying to cook dinner and Eden Wood is singing in your brain. “I’m a cuuuutie! Cuutie Patoootie!”  My brain in obsessive mode is kind of like that, except it’s not a song but a scene that keeps cycling and cycling.

On Friday I gave up and wrote some of it down. I had reached the point where the obsessiveness prevented me from working on anything else. I have about 7,000 words.  Not sure how many of them will be kept.

There is a structural hurdle with this sequel.  Most of our plots are problem resolution plots: there is a problem or its symptom and everything the character does is dictated by the need to resolve this problem. The reader never forgets that the problem exists.  Problem resolution plots tend to move fast and accelerate toward the end of the story, ratcheting tension until it explodes in a big finale.  RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, for instance, has a very definite problem-solving plot – Nazis must not get the Ark of the Covenant. Everything Indiana Jones does serves to prevent them from reaching their goal.

Silent Blade II is turning out to be a slice of life story, in a sense that no overarching plot conflict exists.  This type of plot structurally consists of shorter stories, woven together and united by the main character.   What keeps the storyline together is the progression of the character as he is going through various adventures.  STARSHIP TROOPERS is a good example: we watch Rico go from spoiled kid to seasoned veteran.

These plots can occur in any genre.  Most mysteries have a problem solving plot lines, but it’s not always so – you could have a slice of life mystery where the resolution of the problem is secondary to character growth.  A lot of romances tend to be a slice of life, but many of them can have problem solving structure.  I just read Meredith Duran’s A LADY’S LESSON IN SCANDAL, which was a kind of re-imagining of Shaw’s Pygmalion.  In the story the hero was driven by the need to claim inheritance, which he could accomplish only by finding a lost heiress and presenting her to society.

Silent Blade II is definitely a slice of life SF romance, and it’s forcing me to slow down.  When the heroine meets the hero, the effect on her is explosive, but at no point does she think she have any chance of actually being with him.  The story just sort of follows her life.  On one hand, it’s making me nervous. The story’s success hinges on whether the people will like the main character and she is very nice but she kills people with her brain.

On other hand, I’m kind of curious if we can pull it off.

I had this brilliant idea of making a screencast to demonstrate Scrivener features.  After seven attempts, I’m happy to report that I suck at screencasts.  It took forever, my accent is atrocious, and I apparently tend to mumble when screencasting, even though I do not mumble during public appearances.

Anyway, here is my lame attempt at showing how I set up my Scrivener.  It has a weird grey space in the front, and I am not editing it out because I am exasperated. The screencast  is long and lame.  Anyway, if you want to ask any questions in the comments, I’ll do my best to answer or find someone who can.

PS.  This is the Mac version.  The Windows version does mostly the same song and dance except I do not see a Quick Reference option.

Ahem.  I usually use him as a modern model for either Kaldar or Raphael, but since J is my BFF, I am willing to let her borrow him just this once.

Meet Tarkan.

I know that you must get this a lot, but if it isn’t too much trouble, could you give me some advice? First, I wanted to say – I’ve never written a novel/book in my life. Having said that, I just recently started writing a novel(or at least trying to ). But when I was doing some online research for it, I found conflicting statements on different sites. How do you know when that information is authentic? Could you name a couple of sites that you used the most when researching(other than Google)? Thank You!

Hey May.  Research is tricky and time consuming, but there are a couple of ways of approaching it.  First things first, internet is a fast way to get information, but it’s not always accurate.  You need to start building your research library.  That can get expensive, so I would get a library membership or find a good used bookstore.  Libraries are writer’s best friend.

If you are researching something that you know nothing about, don’t start with the websites.  Start with  books for children.   You can pick up a ton of kid titles at the library on just about any subject. Books for children are great for a number of reasons: they are usually scrutinized for accuracy, they are cheaper, and they have lots and lots of pictures, but most of all they parse the information in easily digestible chunks.

If the library fails you, which it shouldn’t, I’d raid used book stores or Barnes & Noble (and right now, sadly, Borders) and look at the discount/remainder sections.  You can sometimes pick up a decent resource book for $10.

For example THE AGE OF SAIL cost me $7.00, but it has a lot of information and great illustrations (click to enlarge):

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Once you get the basics down, it’s time to move on more advanced knowledge.  By now you should have the general idea of the subject and you sort of know what you’re looking for in terms of information.  I would recommend getting at least two books on the subject.  If the library is good, I’d suggest four or five.

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But at least two.  This way you can cross-check them against each other.  Unless we are dealing with straight facts, such as honey is made by bees or pure table salt (NaCl) is 40% sodium and 60% chloride by weight, you may come up against several different versions or interpretations.  Books, even scholarly books, do contradict each other. Especially folklore books.

If you have Version A and Version B and can’t find any other information on which one is correct, pick one and go with it.

Don’t use fiction as resource!  Fiction authors take liberties with facts.

Now armed with some books, you can go to websites.  If you see a glaring error, don’t use that particular site.

Don’t use Wikipedia as the only source, except as a starting point.  Most of the information in Wikipedia is accurate, but sometimes idiots edit it to insert nonsense.

Let’s say I am researching Jewish mysticism.  Typing this into Wkipedia leads me to the page on Kabbalah.  Scroll the article down to External Resources.  These are the primary resources used for the article.  If you want more in-depth information, this is where you will find it.

Are there any shortcuts to this process?  No.

Since I don’t know what you are researching, it’s difficult to make recommendations. Here are some random websites from my bookmarks:

Horse Colours and Patterns – has many pictures, yay.

How Stuff Works, Human Decay – in general History Channel, Discovery Channel, Science Channel, and A&E are usually a solid bet.  I still double check.  For example clicking on the author of this article gives me his bio – Tom Scheve is a freelance writer with background in newspaper.  I’d be happier if he was a forensic specialist.  I will double check his facts.

Wolf Country – I was looking for some descriptions of the wolf body language.

Atlanta Airport Google Map – if you can “drive” by it on Google, do it.

The story of Grettir the Strong – If you can find the original folkloric source material on the web, go for it.

The best resource is not books or websites.  It’s people.  Find somebody who is an expert in the subject you’re researching and ask them.  If I want to know about anime, I’ll ask Kid 1. If I want to know about 80′s music, I’ll ask Gordon.  If I want to ask about orchids, I’d ask Mindy.  If I want to know about Atlanta, I’d ask Jana Oliver.

Talk to people.  They will love telling you about their interests and passions.

And, if you are serious about writing, let go of the idea that your research will be correct 100% of the time or that everyone will accept your research as correct.  People argued with me about Russian language/history/customs before, because they’re read something in a book and they feel they know better.  I usually respond in Russian.  That shuts them right up. 

I hope this helps.

K writes:

I’m working on a book …  I just really love your world building, and now that I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on who my characters are, I need to flesh out the world they are in.

How did you create the Kate and Edge worlds?  The world building drew me into both series, and then the characters grounded me, making me care about what was happening. Any hints would be appreciated. If you can’t get to this until June, or ever, I understand.  :)

I’ve been mulling this over for a couple of days and I am not sure how to answer.  The problem lies in this phrase:

now that I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on who my characters are, I need to flesh out the world they are in.

It sounds as if the worldbuilding and characterization have been treated as separate entities.  They are not.  The world shapes the characters, influences them, dictates their strength and weaknesses.  The setting and the characters evolve simultaneously for me; I am unable to separate the two and honestly, I don’t see how such separation could work.  Sherlock Holmes can’t be French; Sookie can’t be a New Yorker; Spenser can’t be raised in Pacific Northwest, Conan couldn’t have been born in the 21st century.  The characters are extensions of their world.  They sprout from it like seeds.

So I am at a loss.  I can only give very vague, general advice.  Here are some things I learned along the way.  They may or may not work for everyone.

Overall philosophy.

In speculative fiction, the worldbuilding/character relationships  usually fall  into one of two categories: an extraordinary person in mundane circumstances or an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances.

For example, Sherlock Holmes is an extraordinary person in mundane London.  He is a person of unique abilities and although he is rooted in that world and is through and through a product of his time, her peers view him as an eccentric genius or, occasionally,  a madman.  He creates a disturbance in his environment, and it’s fascinating to watch him work.

John Carter, an ordinary southern soldier, is in extraordinary environment of fantastic Mars.  He is thrust into intrigues between fantastic races,  he’s surrounded by strange creatures and odd races, all of whom view him as an oddity.  He also creates a disturbance in his environment, but for a different reason.

I found that when writing a novel it’s best to pick one or the other. A fantastic person in fantastic circumstances gives the reader no chance to relate to the characters of the novel.  If the reader doesn’t feel relate to the characters, they will get bored and stop reading.

That’s why, in a fantastic world of larger that life legends, Tolkien chose hobbits as his main protagonists.  Hobbits who live happy mundane lives, who like to have tea, eat a little too much, and generally don’t go looking for trouble.

Most novels connect with the reader not because of the shock value of their fantasy but because of their portrayal of the ordinary.

Mythology

I strongly suggest picking one mythology per book and sticking to it.  There are several reasons.

First, if the author is using a completely new mythology, the readers don’t know it.  If the author is using real folklore, the readers may not be familiar with it either.  The audience has a nearly limitless capacity to learn, but at the beginning of the narrative it knows nothing.  When an author assumes a certain level of knowledge from his audience, he immediately limits it.

“Two missile-armed starships charged straight towards one another, their launchers in continuous rapid fire. Kersaint was handicapped by the TFN practice of carrying no antimatter warheads in peacetime lest a fluctuating containment field blow a ship apart. The enemy cruiser was under no such constraint, but at least it seemed to mount only first-generation AMs, not the vastly more destructive second-generation weapons. The range flashed downward, and both ships staggered as hits got through, but Kersaint‘s initial salvo had given her a crushing advantage, and she exploited it savagely. A dozen more of her missiles scored direct hits, lacerating her enemy, in return for only three hits of her own, but the enemy cruiser didn’t even try to break off. It came straight for her, and both ships went to sprint-mode fire as the range fell to five light-seconds. …”

IN DEATH GROUND, by David Weber and Steven White

http://www.baen.com/chapters/indeath1.htm

Unless you are a military science fiction junkie, the passage above makes no sense.  This isn’t from the middle of the novel, this is from the first chapter. The writers, who are veterans of the genre and are extremely successful, are clearly aiming for a very specific segment of the SF audience.  The rest of the readers would bounce off this narrative.

So if the reader knows nothing in the beginning of the narrative, then the author has to reveal  and explain the mythology without making the narrative into a textbook.  That’s difficult to do and the less the author has to explain, the better is the narrative.

Second, if mythologies are mixed too much, the narrative begins to resemble a patchwork quilt.  He is a Judeo-Christian fallen angel.  She is a vampire-valkyrie.  Together they must defeat Tiamat, the chaos dragon of ancient Babylon.  While in theory this sounds exciting, if silly, in practice it ends up being a kitchen sink mess.  Each mythology has its own rules.  When the mythologies collide, the rules get tangled, the readers get confused, and the world of the book loses its unique flavor.

Every day life.

The most important aspect of the wroldbuilding is the every day existence of the characters.  Without grounding the characters in the mundane, they will seem disconnected from the narrative.  Historical romances generally do well, but writing one requires a metric ton of research.  And let me tell you, some historical romance readers are vicious.  I’ve seen authors ripped to shreds for fudging small details such as champagne flutes.

There is an industry term for historical romances where the setting is researched very lightly and drawn in broad strokes: wallpaper historicals.  Wallpaper historicals fail to deliver the authenticity; their characters often exhibit anachronistic tendencies, such as showing a young woman of a regency period strolling in the park without a chaperon, because she is a progressive rebel or showing an aristocrat who finds a loudly giggling, forward heroine charming.  Here is how an aristocrat would react to such lack of decorum:

Mr. Darcy: [pause] It was clear that an advantageous marriage would be the worst option possible…
Elizabeth Bennet: Did my sister give that impression?
Mr. Darcy: No! No, there was, however, the matter of your family…
Elizabeth Bennet: Our want of connection? Mr.Bingley did not seem to object…
Mr. Darcy: No, it was more than that.
Elizabeth Bennet: How, sir?
Mr. Darcy: It was the lack of propriety shown by your mother, your three younger sisters, and even, on the occasion, your father.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Film adaptation, 2005

So how do you ground the character in the narrative?  How would do you get the small details right?  You daydream.

That’s it, that’s pretty much my answer.  If an author sits down to have fried chicken for dinner, perhaps the character does to.  If the author has to take out the garbage, deal with cat puke, or witness a woman screaming at her child in the check out line, than perhaps the character does too.  Of course, in the narrative, the cat might have wings, which would result in hair balls deposited into the glass chandelier.  Or the garbage might be eaten by a lizard.  A very large lizard.  Like Komodo dragon sized.

Or maybe dragon sized.

Okay so how would this work?  The dragon would have to be at the garbage dump.  Perhaps it eats garbage and produces very fertile manure.  When I go to a recycling center, I have to sign in and I have to have my trash sorted out.  And I would probably have to pay a fee to the city. These are details that an audience can easily relate to.

Also some trash dragons would probably melt the metal.  And glass.  That can be recycled.  If your job is to handle a fire breathing dragon, you’d have the fire retardant gear.  Also you might be a bit surly.

So:

The trash dragon keeper pushed back his soot stained helmet and gave me an evil eye. Behind him the enormous shape of the garbage dragon loomed behind the electrified fence.  The dragon raised his horned head, the sun reflecting of the ruby scales, and spat a jet of flame, melting a heap of metal into glowing lava.

The trash dragon keeper shook his head.  “It says here your permit has expired.”

“That’s bull.  I paid the bill.”  Damn Trash Management.  “Look, I have it right here!”  I pulled the bill from the glove compartment and showed him the Paid In Full stamp on it.

The Dragon Keeper shrugged.  “Look, lady, the computer says your account’s suspended.  When it says something different, I’ll let you in.”

I waved at giant pile of metal scrap in the back of my Dodge.  “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do with all that?”

“It’s not my problem.  You can do whatever you want with it.”

Fine, you ass.  I put the truck in gear, pulled a U-turn, and headed out.

Everyone at some point had to deal with some sort of utility that had been paid but had not be updated.  Everyone had driven to either garbage dump or a recycling center.  Everyone had met a surly government employee.  By inserting these details, the fantastic narrative gains real-life details, which give it a certain authenticity.

To reiterate: daydream, let your environment shape the characters, and don’t make it too complicated.  That’s all of my advice for today.

]]> http://www.ilona-andrews.com/2011/01/25/on-worldbuilding/feed/ 48 http://www.ilona-andrews.com/2010/12/17/five-mistakes-of-a-beginning-novelist-part-1/ http://www.ilona-andrews.com/2010/12/17/five-mistakes-of-a-beginning-novelist-part-1/#comments Fri, 17 Dec 2010 17:50:27 +0000 Ilona http://www.ilona-andrews.com/?p=7161 A while ago we received an email from someone who read a book profiling the most common mistakes of  amateur writers and she wanted to know what mistakes we considered to be the most debilitating.  I was under deadline pressure and couldn’t answer.  Now I have a little bit of time, but profiling writer mistakes is a boring.  We all know what they are : show don’t tell, passive sentence structure, etc, etc.

How about five mistakes of the beginning novelists instead?  The original plan was to have them all in a convenient list, but this post turned out sort of long, so we will just have to do a series of posts with a summary at the end.   The problems described plague aspiring and established novelists alike.  They never go away, but at least if the writer knows they exist,  they can remember to self-evaluate.  Woo, I am entirely too formal for my own good.  Okay, so the first issue.

Have Hammer, Will Nail.

This problem manifests itself in two ways.

First, the writer found something they like. Somewhere at some point the writer received a compliment or really liked a turn of phrase or a rhetorical device and now the writer is sticking it into the narrative at every available opportunity.  Watch an episode of Castle (love that show) and count how many times they “reach out” to someone.  Warhammer’s Space Wolf lobes grenades.  A lot.  And yours truly likes when things are ripped:

The leg was ripped wide open.
From what Aunt B said, he didn’t just kill her, he ripped her to pieces.
Sleep bomb or not, if someone had ripped up the wards, the guards would’ve woken up.
first my aunt ripped it up, then the marathon of fights to the death that made me the Pack’s alpha female nearly did it in.

Rip is a good strong verb, but there is no reason to pull it out of my pocket every time something gets destroyed.

The more distinctive is the phrase, the more noticeable the repetition is.   I had produced a manuscript in which people peeled themselves from the wall six or seven times.  Once is a great turn of phrase.  Seven is obsessive.

The danger: repetitive narrative. Our minds tend to work in established patterns, so if you described something once, you are very likely to describe it with remarkable similarity a hundred pages later.  This mistake happens unconsciously and it will slip by you unless you are being alert to repetition.

The fix: there are several programs that will analyze your manuscript for you and deal with overused words, but none are the substitute for a writer’s brain.  If you use MS Word and suspect a word is overused, here is a quick tip to find out the number of times you might have used it.

Click Replace.  Type in your offending word into Find What Field.  Click More.

Click Replace field and select click Format in the left hand corner.  Select Highlight from the menu.

Click Replace All.  This will give you the total number of times the word is used in the manuscript and conveniently highlight it for you.

To remove highlighting in one blow, press Ctrl+A to select the entirety of the manuscript, click Highlight tool and select No Color.

To quickly find highlighted word:

1. Click Find
2. If you don’t see the Format button, click More.
3. Click Format, and then click Highlight.
4. Click Find Next.

Once again, this is not a substitute for the writer’s brain.  I never use this function.  If I suspect I repeat a phrase too much, I write it down in a separate file and when the editing time comes around, I will click Find, enter the word, and simply cycle through the occurrences of it in the manuscript to see if using it is warranted in every case.

Second, the writer found something they don’t like. If you spend any time in a workshop environment, you are likely to run across this manifestation of the hammer.  The writer is working on a particular technique.  They might be trying to eliminate adverbs or reduce instances of show and tell, or remove everything but “said” from their dialogue tags.  Whatever the issue is, the writer is so wrapped up in it, that they develop tunnel vision.  The writer embarks on a crusade to rid the world of this terrible writing sin, and every single critique they do will feature the same complaint, whether the issue is there or not.

The danger: your critique partners will want to strangle you.

The fix: there is no fix that I know of.  You just have to let this malady run its course.  It will go away eventually.

This is the first year I signed up for NaNoWriMo and I’m having troubles and looking for inspiration. I was just curious about your schedule, as in, how many words a day do you write and etc. I work three twelve hour night shifts so that’s what I’m blaming my lack of words on, but if I remember correctly, you had a full time day job at the beginning of the Kate series. How did you do it? I can’t even manage 2000 words a day!

First, 2,000 words a day is ridiculously high.  Let’s get that right out of the way.  I can maintain this kind of pace for no longer than a month or two and at the end I am burned out to the point of not remembering words like “cup” and names of our pets.  That’s when I say things like, “No!  Don’t brush your hair like that.  Bad dog!”  and hear back, “Moooom!”

A thousand words a day is comfortable for me personally.  Sometimes it’s 200 words a day.  Sometimes  it’s -500.

I have friends who love Nanowrimo.  Some people swear by it.

::takes a deep breath::

I don’t think Nanowrimo is beneficial.

::holds up shield against the volley of rotten tomatoes::

Hear me out.  Most people, professional writers or professional-writers-to-be, can’t write at that pace and produce good copy.  Seventy five percent of writing is thinking – thinking about the characters, about situations, about plot and setting.  When you ( generic you, not any you in particular) are vomiting 2,000 words on the page daily, you are spent.  You don’t have the mental fortitude to think about the story. The word count is putting pressure on you, so you feel the need to put something on the page, doesn’t matter what it is.

In other words, you are writing crap.  Why in the world would you want to write crap?

Let’s say we’re making a dress. We make a sketch.  We measure.  We get fabric and make a paper pattern and we get the right tools for a job.  We iron the fabric, pin the pattern to it, cut it out – carefully – and sew it together.  Now let’s say we’re doing a Nanowrimo dress: we don’t have a sketch, we didn’t select or develop a pattern, we get the crappiest fabric possible and then we sew it together as fast as we can.  Would you wear that dress?  Furthermore, what is the point of making that dress?  You won’t even learn anything from it.

I’ve heard an argument that Nanowrimo manuscripts are written with the idea that heavy revisions would follow.  There is a Russian proverb that goes along with this: a young seamstress is sewing a seam and the older one comes up to her and points out that’s it’s crooked.  The younger woman says, “It doesn’t matter, I will rip it up anyway.”  The older woman says, “You’re wasting your time then.  Why not do it right the first time?”

In fiction, there is no such thing as “do it right” but there is such a thing as “give it your best” or “work at it until you are happy with it.”  Why not start with a good idea, a solid outline, and give yourself time to develop the scenes?   You have to be at least satisfied with your work or it will eat at you.

Most people also have an internal indicator that tells them when they are writing crap.  The more crap you write, the worse you will feel about it.  Because you know it’s not your personal best.  Each new page will make you more and more unhappy.  You’re tired of the word count, you’re miserable because you are writing something of poor quality, and you know huge revisions are looming on the horizon.  That’s a recipe for writer’s block.  A lot of people who do Nanowrimo, can’t write for weeks afterward, because they are fatigued and six months later they come back to that crappy manuscript and go, “OMG, this is awful.”

Writing is not about how many words you write.  It’s about how many words you keep.

Here is how I did it: I’d get home, make dinner, hang out with the kids and then write from about eight till ten.  That’s it.  I wrote what I wrote, however many words it was.  No big secret.

I’m not trying to talk you out of Nanowrimo – as I said, I have friends who swear by it – but if you’re having trouble,  try it my way instead.

Let go of the need to produce X amount of words.  Let go of the idea that you are writing complete crap or that it has to be perfect.

Think about your story, about the conflict of the characters, about the plot.  Think about it until you can tell it to a friend and it will make sense as a story.

Then write for an hour every day.  Write things that you like to read, things that are interesting to you.  And I do mean write, not check email, play online, or read blogs or do research.  Write.

Who knows, it might work.

Update: From the comments, it seems that those who do Nanowrimo and find it a positive experience, actually don’t stress out about making 50 K a month goal.  They just write.

The trick to making the setting and scene realistic lies in adding just the right amount of detail.  The internet is very helpful here, because it offers a wide variety of images.  You can find the right one and describe it.  Most of the time, unless I’m naming a specific product, it’s not necessary to get every detail right.  I just need to provide enough clues for the reader and they will construct the image in their head.  The beauty of writing is that every reader will have a slightly different image in their mind and that makes the novel personal to them.

This scene involves Rowena, one of the Masters of the Dead. We need to describe Rowena herself and her office.

Rowena is in the Casino, working. She is a woman who is always put together.

Google: designer business suit women
Click on Women’s Suits Italy link

I like the Prada business suit. Except I need to make it blue, because that’s the color Rowena would like.

I stopped at the service desk and asked to see Rowena. Ten minutes later she came down the stairs. She wore an elegant business suit. The dark blue fabric of the blazer hugged her tiny waist, betraying a glimpse of a white silk blouse. The pants slimmed her legs and her

Google prada shoes

Click first sponsored link

Click fall collection

Middle shoe, second row

shiny leather pumps added another five inches to her height.  Her fiery red hair fell down her shoulders in a carefully styled cascade.  She looked impeccable, elegant and powerful, yet unmistakably feminine.

At this point, the reader is wondering why Kate is noticing all this detail.  We need this detail for contrast.

She didn’t look like a woman with blood on her hands.

Reinforce the contrast:

Her face reflected nothing except hospitality, but her eyes looked haggard.

“Kate, what a pleasant surprise.”

Define pleasant.  “We need a place to talk.”

Blah-blah-blah, skip, skip, skip.

We’re now proceeding into Rowena’s office.  Here it’s critical to consider what sort of woman Rowena is.  What does she want?  What decor appeals to her?

I think Rowena would like a beach home.  That means little clutter, clean lines, light palette.  A nice contrast to Ghastek’s office, which is decorate in rich color and is cluttered.  Also a nice contrast to the horror of the vampire stables.

Google beach getaway house

Click Images

Scroll, scroll, scroll

Page 7, second row, fourth image

I like this image.  It seems like Rowena, so I’m going to incorporate it.

The floor was muted, sand-colored tile.  The walls offered an off-white shade.  A cream rug lay on the floor, flanked by blond-wood couch and two chairs supporting pale soft cushions.  The place was simple and free of clutter.  An aromatic candle floated in a glass dish, sending a faint vanilla perfume into the air.  To the right, a beige drape framed the floor-to-ceiling observation window.

Now I want to nudge the reader toward the right association.

You half-expected to pull the drape aside and see white sand and crystalline blue water of the ocean instead of the concrete box full of undead chained in their cells.

The end.  Must go write more.