Set Your Story!

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope you all had a fabulous weekend and are ready to start the awesome week ahead. No? Well, grab that coffee and let's talk about setting. You know, that place in your story where your characters dwell.

There are two ways to go about giving setting:
1. The old way of bogging people down with pages and pages of "what the character sees."
2. The more interesting way of putting the character IN the setting and letting the reader know how it feels.

We're, obviously, focusing on the second way.

Why? Because it's more interesting to read and keeps folks from paging through your book really fast.

So, what's the difference? If you aren't sure, I ask you to recall a book you read in some time and space where your eyes glazed over as the author described the trees, flowers, and sun.

Now do you know what I mean?

Let's get the hell on with examples, shall we?

Example of style 1:
     Juniper sat on the stone bench and stared at the water after her breakup with Harold. Red roses bloomed in abundance, their thorny stems intertwining. Next to them were pansies in every color of the rainbow. On the water floated boats with giant, white sails billowing in the wind. Across the water stood the poor houses. She used to live there. People were standing outside or sitting in chairs, doing nothing. A couple of children were playing in the many puddles on the street. Broken down cars with weeds growing out of them were scattered here and there.

And so on, and so forth.

Now, let's give style 2 a try:
     Juniper sat on the bench, the cold of the stone seeping through her shorts as she stared at the water, wishing it would bring calm with its lapping sounds. Red roses bloomed near the shoreline in abundance, their thorny stems intertwining like lovers in a secret embrace. She couldn't help but think how, just hours before, she was in a similar embrace. While the roses would be strong, her love was broken.
     Why did it have to be that way?
     Through the ship sails, she could just make out the poor houses on the other side of the river where her family lived. Once upon a time, she was one of the dirty children playing in the puddles and around the abandoned cars--those weeds growing out the windows and doors gave her hay fever more times than she cared to mention. But she'd gotten out of there.
     What about that didn't Harold understand?

This isn't a vice I suggest you use often. Page after page of anything like that will get old. However, if you're in a key scene, you should get your reader invested in the story by pulling out all the feels.

In the first example, you're looking at the scenery as an outsider; in the second, you're feeling how it might impact someone.

There's the key to engaging the reader in a show, don't tell, situation. Again, telling is for the parts where not a lot is happening and you don't want the reader to slow down and pay attention. More on showing vs. telling in this post.

Care to give it a try? Revamp a scene and share with us!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Pick Up the Pace

Happy Monday, everyone! Today, we're talking about ways to increase the pace in your novel. I assume you've used the tools in my previous post on measuring pace and scene writing, so now I'm going to give you ways to speed it all up. Tomorrow, I'll tell you how to slow things down. Grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

You hear folks talk about how a novel dragged on and on, right? To keep your readers interested, you have to have the right combo of a fast pace and a let's-look-at-each-and-every-flower-and-tree pace. Those novels that dragged had more of the second kind. *grin*

Let's fix that.

• Word usage. This is the most basic way to increase a novel's pace. Shorter words and sentences make reading and processing easier. Seek out places you can cut a sentence to six words or fewer. Oftentimes, you can remove introductory words: Then, However, Often, etc... Independent clauses can come out if they aren't helping the sentence. MS Word has a checker that will seek out wordy sentences for you. You can highlight the section and tell the program to look at it. Easy peasy.

• Dialogue with few to no action tags. If you refrain from giving description of the characters' movements or expressions during dialogue, it'll help. Stick with invisible tags (tags readers see but don't actually have to process): Said, Asked, Answered. Don't go down the rabbit hole, and keep the back and forth going.

• Action! This is where you can leave off the telling and show. You aren't trying to increase tension, just give the character some kind of goal and get him or her there. If it's a battle scene, you want to do a little telling and describe a few things, but don't go into paragraph after paragraph of description. Action happens quickly, and you, the writer, can just sit back and watch as the beauty unfolds.

• Suspense. Yeah, that's right, keep the reader turning the pages to find out what the heck is going on. You'd think dragging something out would slow things down, but it actually engages the reader's brain and makes them read faster so they can find a solution to their twanging nerves.

• Scene cut/breaks. This is where there's no transition to a new scene. You can end the previous scene on a cliffhanger or not, but your story makes a leap into something totally different. Keep in mind, you can also create a scene cut by cutting out some of the tale where the prose is dragging.

• Summary paragraphs. Your character just spent three months getting to know the people around them? Awesome. Readers will be fine with a summary now and then if nothing significant happens during those three months. Cut the scene and summarize.

You can use some or all of these techniques. Either way, you're guaranteed to pick up the pacing of your story if you follow the suggestions above.

Which one(s) did you know about, and which are new?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Stealing Characters

Happy, happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Wow. I'm totally late again. But at least I got something written and posted today, right? So, we're gonna talk about this lovely thing I like to call imagination. Basically, I'm going to tell you where you can steal characters and it be on the up and up, and how anyone that tells you otherwise is full of mahoney. Grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Where do characters come from, anyway? You can say they're all figments of the author's imagination. You can say they're everyone and no one at all. Heck, you can even say they're people the author knew/know.

And you know what? You'd be right on every count.

There's no such thing as an original character.

Are you ready to rip my face off yet? Good. Now, let me explain.

Your characters will all have an inherent piece of you. Yes, all of them. When you have to write anger, you draw on your own experiences with anger. In this way, it's impossible to write what you don't know. If you happen to come upon a feeling you've never had, chances are you'd have to ask someone else what it's like. Therefore, your character takes on a few basic traits of that person.

Writing that woman you watched in the airport who was oozing emotion through the phone at what you could only guess was a man? She's totally unique and not you, right?

Sorry. No.

Because what you've seen of her brings you to certain conclusions of your own about who she is. You draw upon experiences you've had in the past to fill in the rest of the proverbial sketch of her life.

But what about that character that came from nowhere? You just sat down, chose a name, created an identity, and drew them from thin air, right?

Let's think about that for a moment.

While that character in the book may have purple hair, pointy ears, and a forked tongue, you have to create a personality from somewhere. If you don't use your resources: yourself, a friend, a stranger you spoke to, a family member, a character you once read about that stuck with you in personality, an old classmate you hated/loved, etc..., you're setting yourself up for failure and flat characters.

There's no such thing as an original character. Even if the man or woman in your book has one small piece of you, it's not 100% unique. They must have some part of someone to be real.

But characters aren't real, Jo!

Aren't they? Don't they talk to you when you're writing them, telling you how to write their story so the world sings along? Don't they force your hand sometimes?

I don't know a writer anywhere who says, "My characters do exactly what I tell them, and my story doesn't suffer for it." Yeah, that's not the way it works.

We create these people, and they go with us everywhere. I'm almost convinced those crazy people who walk around mumbling things to themselves aren't crazy at all; they're retired authors talking to the characters that refuse to leave.

They're in your head. You formed them. You breathed life into them. They're all going to have a piece of you, no matter how miniscule.

Guess what that means? If you're a lot like author ABC over there, and the two of you have had similar experiences/pasts, your characters might just act and sound alike.

Nothing wrong with that.

So, the next time friend A asks you if they're in your book, smile at them and nod your head. Chances are, there are enough pieces there to make it the truth.

But never, ever be afraid to steal bits and pieces of those folks you meet on the street or watch on the sly. They'll inject your characters with new traits.

What do you think? Have you written a character who acts/sounds like someone you know (accidentally)?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Creating Feelings Workbooks

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! It's writing tip day, and I've got some great exercises that'll keep you on the edge of your seat, and they'll keep you writing; that's the most important thing. If you've read my post titled "Indescribable, and Why it Cannot Work for a Writer," you'll be one step into this process already. So, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Have you ever been in a rut? One of the ones that have you pulling your hair out and wishing you could meet that deadline with great words instead of mediocre ones you slapped on the page out of haste?

Sometimes, all you need is a little muse push. This exercise can help you frame your writing for drawing on later.

What the heck do I mean?

Stay with me.

If you're feeling something, anything, that's a great place for any novel to grow. Even if you're overwhelmed by the size and pressure of the task ahead.

Here's what I want you to do:

• Open a new document
• Center your cursor at the top
• Think about how you're feeling in the moment
• Type that word in
• Hit enter
• Left flush your cursor and use a cliche (angry = mad as a mashed cat)
• Now hit enter again
• Highlight those two lines (the one with the cliche and the blank one) and click numbered list
• Create more than twenty-five sentences that tell how angry feels
• Save the document as: Feelings_YourEmotionHere so you can find it when you need it later

I know what you're thinking. Twenty-five, Jo? Twenty-frikkin-five! You must be smoking crack.

But I'm not. Plus, I asked for more than twenty-five. *grin* If you stick with it, expand upon your few word descriptions to great phrases. I'll get to when and where this will come in handy in a few minutes. I think it goes without saying that I don't want you to worry about being grammatically correct. Just let it flow.

Let me go with depressed as an example.

1. Empty nest
2. Wrapped in a shroud
3. In a dark place
4. If the world explodes, I'll be one lucky bastard
5. Rocks in my stomach
6. Lead weights on my shoulders
7. Fog obscuring my every thought
8. Windows blackened so I can't see daylight
9. As though a bat has wrapped me in leathery wings, stealing my breath
10. Tiny and insignificant
11. If I weren't around, no one would notice or care
12. Numb all over
13. Brain in a cloud that prevents me from thinking happy thoughts, as though I'll never find joy again
14. Everyone is out to get me because I'm like the buzzing fly puking my acid on their food so I can slurp it up in my misery of short life
15. Desire to step out of my mortal shell and walk where I might get a glimpse of the light my heart craves but has been denied for so long
16. Scum on the top of a pond that only exists to be feasted on by parasitic insects determined to suck every ounce of nourishment out of me to feed themselves
17. Hands shaking, brain racing, heart dead and unfeeling
18. Life sucked out of me through a hole in my heart made, ripped, and gaping because of the cruelty of the people in my life
19. A dark cloak descending from the sky, fluttering down delicately, inviting me in, promising me warmth and safety, only to choke me when I accepted its black embrace that siphoned the will to live
20. Blank stares filled with thoughts of everything lost throughout the years is all my mind can focus on
21. Tingles rushing through my fingers, up my arms, twining around my heart as they beg me to let go of my own soul; to free my spirit so it can glide away through the ether, leaving me in peaceful nothingness
22. Weight pressing down on me, and a twenty-ton monkey on my back who insists on dragging me the wrong way--away from the success, happiness, and assurance I crave
23. Back cramps that slowly make their way around my ribs, creating pressure on my abdomen I can't release, suffocating me as my breath is stolen and my lung capacity closing down inch by inch
24. Heat in my head threatening to burst forth from my eyes in the form of tears I'm convinced will be crimson if allowed to flow
25. No desire to move, breathe, or think as my senses shut down, one by one, leaving me bereft
26. Every reflection of myself making me want to lash out at the person on the other side, because I know she's worth nothing

You don't have to stop there. Keep going until you can't. This is just to show you it can be done. It only took me about twenty minutes, so it's not a terribly time-consuming exercise. Yeah, I'm feeling a little depressed right now. Why? Because I had to step into it to make it come out. What I'm asking you to do is write about it when you're feeling it. You can probably see the progression above, yeah?

Now, I bet you're wondering how this can help you in your writing, huh?

This is the awesome part. If you ever need a way to describe how a depressed character is feeling, you just created more than twenty-five descriptions of depression you can copy and paste into your manuscript. Never just say your character was feeling depressed. Use what you know to bring that feeling to life on the page for your reader.

It can also help you by becoming an outlet, like a journal, where you know you can write stuff down honestly. If you get it out, it'll help you deal with those feelings in a positive manner.

Don't just write about being sad, depressed, or overwhelmed. Be sure you're sitting down to fill out pages for happiness, excitement, or curiosity. You need everything in your writing arsenal.

What do you think? Do you use methods like this to help your writing? Tell me, and other readers, how you do it and how it helps!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Writing Caves or Coffee Shops - Writer Groove

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm gonna chat about the different ways writers get their novel creating groove on. Similar to NaNoWriMo, but when every day should be about words. So, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

What's a writing cave?

Well, a writing cave is your zen space. Think of it as the place you go when you need to bang words out on the keys of your laptop, bringing yourself to a place of complete relaxation and creativity. When you enter your writing cave, it should feel like it's begging you to create.

Many writers have a bookshelf in their writing cave. What's on those tall, dark, handsome slabs of wood varies depending on what tasks the wordsmith takes on when in the room. For example: Mine is a short table with design how-to and editing books stacked on it. My issue of the CMoS is right on top, staring at me. It inspires me to do more and be more, and it's a handy reference shelf I access often.

Some writers have novels lining their shelves. Others have mementos, photographs, or other items to spark their creativity. It depends on the mood you're trying to set.

What else should be in your writing cave?

• A visible schedule
• Nail clippers (yeah, ever tried to write with a hangnail?)
• Notebooks (for those ideas you get)
• Pens 

You might also want to have a printer for those scenes you need to work out. Trust me, stepping out of the writing cave with scene in hand can make a huge difference.

I know one writer who prints images of her characters and a snatch of their bios, then hangs them on the wall where she can see them as she writes. When I asked why, her answer was: Because they speak better when I'm looking them in the face.

If you write romance, light a candle or two. Paranormal? Try some posters of otherworldly things.

Or, maybe you prefer to write at a coffee shop. Does the hustle and bustle, or conversations of other people, get your spark moving? Here are a few things to watch out for when choosing to write in public:

• Fluffy chairs (they tend to make typing difficult and staying awake even more of a challenge)
• High-traffic areas (you don't want to get bumped a lot)
• Wi-fi (if you don't need it, turn it off so you aren't distracted by social media or e-mails)
• Bad coffee (yeah...)
• Chatty people

Regardless of where you choose to write, make it your zen space.

Whatever you do, be sure the mood is right for you and your process.  It's your book, and you need to make sure your surroundings are conducive to the creative side of your brain.

Where do you write?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

#UtopYA2015 Time Warp Tuesday

Happy Time Warp Tuesday, everyone! Today's post is all about #WriteYourOwnFuture and talking about your past. Because I love the heart and soul of UtopYA Con, I'm gonna share some things about the event and give some advice to those wanting to write or the writers that are thinking of giving up. I'll also include some of my pictures from UtopYA 2014. Ready? Let's get rolling!

First off, let me pop in a reminder that tickets to the most awesome author conference on the planet go on sale NOVEMBER 28, 2014. That's right, Black Friday.

GET YOURS HERE

There are so many things I could say about UtopYA, but that would be a huge blog post. Now that I've gone, I know I won't be able to stay away. It'll take wild horses (and maybe chains) to keep me from returning to experience the camaraderie and spirit I found in Nashville.

Once a city I thought of as the Country music hub, it's now morphed into something magical and bookish in my mind. Readers lurking around every corner, mystical creatures peering from behind drapes, and a certain something that lights a fire in my writer self.

I'll get into Nashville and the Millennium Maxwell House more next month, for my UtopYA post in tandem with the other three bloggers: Shana, Maria, and Ashley. Watch out for those.

If you want to read about my experience at the con, I have a post here on my blog and a resolutions post here on The Paisley Reader that'll tell you what my goals are/were.

For fun, I'm including a couple of awesome photos from the con! Misty Provencher is with me in the first one, and Tia Silverthorne Bach and Toni Lesatz are in the second :)

Because those two posts are in place, I'd like to focus on the up and coming writer, or the one with serious doubts, in this one. I'm going with two of the prompts provided by Janet Wallace.

Q1: What would you say to someone who wants to write a book, but has doubts and fears?

"This one's easy: keep writing. No matter what, if you have the fire burning inside you to put words on a page in a cohesive manner, keep going. Never stop. Not even when that last word hits the page and you declare your first novel finished. Write another one. Put them out there for the world to see. Most people don't write 30k words in their lifetime. You're doing something awesome. Why would you ever let that go? WRITE ON! It's not just a meme."

Q2: What would you say to someone who's written a bunch of books, but haven't had the success they thought they would, and are thinking of giving up?

"Define success. First of all, you have to know what your idea of success is before you ever publish that first book. Are you after fame? Fortune? Notoriety? Supplying readers with great books? It's imperative you understand what you're trying to accomplish before you set out to get 'er done.

For example: My success is when someone leaves a review on something I've written that says how much they loved the story, or when someone comments on my blog saying how much they learned or appreciate the information I put here. I get all gooey inside knowing I entertained someone, moved them, made them feel something they might not have before, or brought them a little knowledge. I have pride in educating people. There's not one of my novels that doesn't teach the reader something. Even if it's just where Ringing Rocks Park in Pennsylvania is, and why it's such an interesting place to visit.

After you've given success your personal definition, move on to how you've achieved those goals.

If you're still feeling like you haven't done what you set out to do, try a different angle. Do something new. Keep going. To give up on yourself is worse than others giving up on you. Always drive forward with a goal in mind."

I hope that helps someone, somewhere, who's either thinking of writing a novel or giving up writing to forge ahead.

Did you post for Time Warp Tuesday? Leave us your link to check out!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Length of Novels - It Matters

Happy Friday! Welcome back to the humble ablog! Exciting things coming for you next week! Here's the current lineup: Monday - Author Interview with Christina Mercer, Tuesday - Your First 100 Words, Wednesday - Book Review: The Fly House, Thursday - Crypt Keeper Tour K. A. Young, Friday - Fractured Glass Cover Reveal. Yeah, so you wanna come back for all that.

Also, I'll be putting together the official reading list for UtopYA. A page will be dedicated to that endeavor. Be sure you check that out, as well as voting for the official poster design (coming soon)!

Today, we're gonna talk about the length of your novel and why it matters. Remember that post on genre from yesterday? We're keeping with that theme. So, grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Let's begin by thinking about why page count plays into your novel writing. If you write epic fantasy, your books will be really long (think LOTR) because you'll be taking time to explain things and build characters and worlds so the reader can see and feel them. You can't label a book that's 100k words in length as epic fantasy and not expect backlash from fans of the genre. In contrast, you don't want a contemporary romance to end up with a 300k word count, either.

So how to know?

Your research lies in the best seller list. Go look at the most popular books in your genre and see how many pages they have. I'll get to the math on factoring an approximate page and average word count in a moment. Write down the top three best sellers and navigate to their Amazon pages. See how long they are.

Now for the math.

I'm gonna use some numbers I grabbed really quickly from the Young Adult list here:

320 pages: If I Stay by Gayle Forman
337 pages: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
306 pages: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

See a trend? Yeah... So, we now have a page count that we'll average. Add all the numbers together:

320 + 337 + 306 = 963

Divide by three:

963 / 3 = 321

For every four pages, you have about 1k words. So, divide by four:

321 / 4 = 80.25

Multiply by one thousand:

80.25 X 1000 = 80,250

Now, I don't know about you, but I've heard Young Adult books range from 35-75k. Our number is slightly more. Go figure.

So, you can gather readers of Young Adult enjoy a length of around 80k. 

This matters because you don't want to try and sell a 300k word novel to a crowd that enjoys, on average, 80k words. You won't do well. After all, you write so others will read your work, right?

I hope this helps you in some way.

What do you think? Did you try it for your genre?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Story Designs

Happy Tuesday! Wow. We're into day two of the week and already it looks like it's gonna be five days that feel longer than they should be. But, as always, we must continue to press on. Today's post may lighten your mood a bit. I'm discussing plots. That's right, those timeless things we all have to consider when beginning to craft our novels. NaNoWriMo is right around the corner, and I know we're all gearing up to take part in the most fabulous writerly collective to ever happen. Maybe this post will spark some ideas for you. So, grab those pens and pencils and let's get going!

There are several structures you'll see used in novels. I'm gonna go over the most common ones.

1. The Boy She Can't Have - A female meets a male, and something is keeping them apart. We read on to the end to find out if they can ever resolve the obstacle and end up together. Many variations of this have happened, and there could be more than one thing the two need to overcome before they can be together. A sub-plot often includes another male the female may have an interest in, and she ends up having to choose. As an aside: This can also be male meets male or female meets female (LGBT romance). It's becoming more popular, and shouldn't be overlooked.
2. Taking Down the Bad Guy - Your society has a tyrant in control and he/she must be brought to justice somehow. This can also be Taking Down the Regime.
3. All Grown Up - How the protagonist matures to find inner strength through the span of life. A twist on this could be they can't die and end up having to live more than one life. May be physical or emotional aging.
4. Oh! The Grass is Greener. . . Right? - Your protagonist dreams of a brave, new world where everything is rainbows and butterflies, and everyone thinks he/she is the best. This person is probably feeling trapped, ostracized, or enslaved. But, once they get to their salvation, they realize what they had before wasn't so terrible after all, and they long for nothing but to return to life the way it was.
5. The Cinderella Syndrome - Poor girl/guy comes to fabulous riches through some means. It can be hard work, a fairy godmother, or a stroke of luck (like a winning lottery ticket). Your protagonist must be rewarded greatly. Be sure it doesn't turn into a Grass is Greener situation.
6. Cold to Hot - When the bitter heart of another is morphed into love once again. We all like to think people can be saved (even when at their worst), so this tale is about the most terrible villain brought to love once again by the most unassuming thing. Usually works best with something you never thought could bring a baddy to his/her knees.
7. The Little Engine that Could - Someone from humble beginnings sets the world right again. Basically, you're crafting a future hero for the people. 
8. Obtaining the Unobtainable - Many people have tried, and failed. But your protagonist succeeds. Think of lost treasure or a super power/bit of knowledge others have died trying to own.

As you can see, there are many structures for novels. When you get crazy fun, you can twist the plot to look like you're taking down the bad guy, only to have the worst person not be the one in the line of fire.

I suggest letting that happen organically. If you see it coming, your reader will, too.

No matter what structure you use, be sure you're writing in the genre expected by the reader. You don't want to bill it as a romance then kill off the lover at the end, or have your heroine running for her life while being chased by a mainiacle killer the whole time. Make sense?

What's your favorite structure/plot? Are you a Boy She Can't Have fan, or do you tend more toward The Cinderella Syndrome? Inquiring minds wanna know!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Reversal Word

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! As you can probably tell, I'm going into word reversal in novels today. What the heck am I talking about? Well, I'm not gonna beat around the bush. Grab your pens and notebooks, slurp up that coffee, and let's get going!

When I say word reversal, what I mean is using the difficult path to convey an idea to your reader. One of the things I do when I'm editing is check readability. Your words should flow for the eyeballs moving over the page. One of the acronyms I love is:

K. I. S. S.

It means: Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Never speak over your reader's head (we know you're smart, but making someone feel stupid isn't a good idea), and try not to reverse your words. If you do, be on the lookout for awkward sentences in your first round of edits.

Time for some examples!

Rob looked at me, and I inwardly cringed.

First off, you don't need that adverb. Taking it out would simplify the sentence and make it more reader friendly. But let's say we want to leave it in there. As an editor, I try to apply a lighter hand when suggesting changes. I'll suggest a blanket change to remove most of the adverbs when I run across the first one. Mentioning it again becomes cumbersome. If the author enjoys adverbs and I leave this sentence alone (thinking it'll be fixed later), I'm doing them a disservice. Why? Because it will read/flow better if the action precedes the modifier. That's my job. There are two possible fixes if we leave in the adverb:

I cringed inwardly when Rob looked at me.
Rob looked at me, and I cringed inwardly.

Put the action first.

Here's another one that needs some rearranging:

I'd heard about the relationship being messed up between them, but I knew it wasn't also damaged on my side.

A small move will make a big difference. Like this:

I'd heard about the relationship being messed up between them, but I also knew it wasn't damaged on my side.

Make sense?

Yes, there's always more than one way to fix a sentence. Remember to KISS your reader, and you'll be fine.

When in doubt, read it out!

Do you ever catch yourself making those kinds of mistakes?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Shying Away in Your Writing

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Wow! It's hump day. We're halfway to the weekend and have a ton of awesome stuff done already, right? Well, you have just two more days until you get a couple off to lounge around and soak up some sun (don't forget your sunscreen!). Today, I'm gonna be talking about those hard to write scenes and why you should write what you feel; not what you think your readers want to read. Ready? Grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going.

As you probably know, I review a good number of books here on the blog (at least twelve a year by Indies, and that number tends to go up as my favorite authors - both Indie and Traditionals - release new works). One thing I notice in the books I read is the author holding themselves back from writing a scene that may seem too graphic for their audience. No, I'm not talking about sex. I'm talking about violence, gore, and death.

If you're writing Young Adult, you do have to keep it toned down. That's not the genre I'm talking about here. However, you may reconsider your target audience if you come upon a scene you know will launch your story into a whole other realm. You feel me?

Most writers I know see the story take shape in their head as they put the words on the page. Things happen, characters act in their own way, and unexpected situations arise. Remember: A book isn't prime-time television, and you can write what you're seeing in the moment.

Let your fingers communicate what's in your head. If you see it on your inner-movie reel, put it on the page.

I can't stress this enough.

Here's some examples of lead-ups to scenes that you may shy away from writing:
Tiffany spun around the dark room; her eyes searching in the inky blackness for a visual to accompany the sounds her ears were picking up. Shuffling, grunts, and heavy breathing assaulted her most active sense. Arms out, she waves her hands through the air like she's swimming. Her heart is pounding, and she can smell metal. Something hard, cold, and rough is found. A wall. It must be a wall. Feeling her way along, she finds what she hoped for and pushes the switch to the on position. As the light fills the space, and her eyes adjust, her hands fly up to cover her mouth and muffle the scream building behind her lips.

Now, this can be a myriad of things:

• People being eaten
• A group of men ready to attack her
• A group of women ready to attack her
• Zombies
• Vampires
• Rats
• Giant spiders
• Clowns

I think you get the idea. Whatever happens next, you've built up that tension for a reason. Readers are waiting for what Tiffany is surprised by. Give it to them, and don't be shy. Go into detail about what she sees, smells, hears, feels, and tastes. If she's murdered, go into how. Torture? Give it raw. Write it exactly as you see it in your head.

Clark walked through the flower field, letting his hands graze the soft tops of the tall blooms. A breeze tickled the back of his neck and caused the tiny hairs there to stand on end. He's lost with thoughts of Delia to pay too much attention to the fact that the sun is setting, but the clearing is getting brighter by the moment. His ears pick up a whisper on the wind, and he freezes in place. Delia fades from his mind as a beautiful woman steps from the treeline and holds out her arms to him. Icy puffs of breath come from his mouth as it falls open. Heat spreads through his body as he takes in her form, and his fingers twitch to touch her alabaster skin--around which long, black hair twists and flows like a silk sheet in the breeze. Red lips that need no lipstick, blue eyes the color of the clear sky, and a Romanesque nose sized to perfection all beckon to him with promises of fantasies come true. If only he'll step into those open arms.

Again, you can take this in a million directions:

• Death by haunting vixen
• A quest
• Ghostly encounters
• Witches
• Vampires
• Myth and Lore

You get the picture, eh? Again, this is a tense scene. You've told your reader something big is coming because you've painted with your words. Bring it on. Don't leave them hanging and frustrated. Go where the wind takes you (hey, there's another idea!).

What I'm trying to get across here is: Don't let the audience dictate what you put on the page. If you end up with a novel geared toward an older, more mature audience, let it go. However, if you think Clark will end up whisked away to a land of fantasy and the story is supposed to start there, let it be so. But if another idea strikes you, let it come out. Write it two ways if you must and choose your favorite.

Whatever you do, don't shy away from the gore, death, or violence if the story calls for it. I'd be willing to bet that your YA brain already went with a quest (if that's what you write). Listen to your inner writer.

Have you ever ended up with a book totally different from the idea you began writing?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Most Popular Posts of 2013

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I know, I know, I'm late. But, I have good reason. This morning, I had a meeting with Ms. Sandi Tuttle, a dentist appointment, and a very sick child to contend with. Onward and upward! Today, I'm going to give you all links to some of the posts on my blog that have had the most traffic. They're probably the most useful posts, too. Strap in, get your fingers ready to do some clicking, and let's get going!

Because all posts are better with a cute baby with cake on his hands and feet.

Up first, I'm gonna give you my two free PDFs. These have been downloaded a lot and are free for you to keep and share, providing you don't change any of the content.

This one is on Branding Yourself.
This one is a A Novel Checklist.

Now, we move on to the posts!

Monkey Wrenches
Dialogue Tags vs Action Tags
Pesky Pronouns
Human Nature Series (last post)
Enneagram Personality Types
Comma Part 3 (links to part 1 and 2 included)
Timeline Tips
Common Editing Errors
Templates for Using MS Word for Print
He Said, She Said, Who Said What?

Love those? Here's a page with them all (plus others that didn't get as much traffic but are still just as useful). I even categorized and summarized them. Yup, all for you readers.

Thanks for making 2013 awesome. I hope to bring just as much great content in 2014!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

5 Ways to Avoid Insta-Love

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Man, am I ready for the weekend. I'm hoping this crud flushes out of my system all the way by Monday. Not sure what you Floridians are cooking up down there, but this is one nasty as hell cold. Yeah, I've had it since my (cold) trip south. Fun, right? Anyway, enough about that! Today I want to give you five quick and dirty tips to avoid portraying insta-love in your novels. Readers generally hate it when there's no buildup to a feeling of all encompassing love. So grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

1. Give Your Characters Empathy for One Another. This easy to implement angle gives your characters some reference when they meet again for the first time. In The Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta have a bit of history together. It made the love he had for her more realistic.
2. They Have so Much in Common. Again, this is rarely revealed when the characters only spend a few days together. You have to solidify the bond over time. But having things to talk about will help you write the story and show your readers how well your two lovers get along.
3. Make One of Them an Ex. Perhaps one of them dumped another and a number of years have gone by in which each character matured. This builds on the previous relationship. Think about the movie Sweet Home Alabama. Melanie wanted to marry Jake from childhood. It was a great backstory to work in.
4. He or She was the Best Friend's Best Friend. Maybe your two lovebirds eyed each other over their significant others years ago but kept it friendly. Now, they're single and things are heating up where they couldn't before.
5. Friends Forever. Often, the best romantic tales begin with the two lovers being friends without realizing how they feel under the surface. Or, maybe one of them does and is afraid to tell the other on the off-chance that person doesn't feel the same way. Hell, there's a reality TV show that's made millions off this exact scenario.

I'm betting you're noticing a trend in the list above.

If not, I'll give you a moment to read it again and see if you can find the common denominator.

...

...

Got it? Yep, that's right, it's always a love that develops over time. Whether past or present, these people don't meet one moment and spend the rest of their lives all googly eyed over one another. While that might be lovely to experience, it rarely happens in the real world (if at all) and you have to be careful of falling into that trap as an author.

Be sure you're figuring out why these two love one another the way they do and you're letting your reader in on the big secret.

By all means, feel free to describe the butterflies, tingly palms, loss of words, and shortness of breath that occur when one is physically attracted to another human. Apply caution and try to remember: That's not love.

Love is complete trust in someone else to not betray your secrets, a great deal of caring about the well being of that person, and faith they won't leave your side when you need them. In other words, it's two people knowing one another inside and out; and adoring each other just the way they are.

That's why it takes time to develop; even in books.

What was your best and worst case of insta-love (either in something you read or something you wrote)? Share with us!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Writing What You Don't Know

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Wow, what a busy couple of weeks here on the blog, eh? For the next few posts, I'll be talking about some of the things suggested on day ten of the twelve days. If you missed that post, just click the name and you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. So, today we're gonna discuss writing what you don't know. I have some posts on writing what you know and using a memory bible to keep track of places you've visited and things you've seen. But what about when you want to put your characters in a fantasy land or have them visit a place you've never been? I'll give you some tips and tricks on how to keep that straight. Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

I've said it a lot here on the blog: The best fiction is based in fact.

That will be a constant. No matter if you're writing science fiction, fantasy, or anything that requires you to think outside the box.

Rules:
In most works of fiction, the same rules that apply to the world around us hold true. Gravity, human survival (we need food, air, and water), human nature (reactions to things, love, betrayal, etc...) hold pretty constant, and other such things that are seen as everyday (sky is blue, leaves are green, etc...).

But what if you're writing about a world you've made up where the sky is pink, leaves are silver, and people no longer need air to breathe?

Well, you're gonna have to explain why those things are possible. What changed? How did it change? When did it change?

Here are a few tips that will help you when you're writing about something that isn't:

• Use your imagination to get an idea of the rules that will be broken in this world and make copious notes. If the sky is pink, write that down and say why.
• Google is your friend. Do research on why the sky is blue and what might change to make it perma-pink.
• Hunt down fantasy images that fit your vision of your world. If you can't find any, sketch out a few (don't try and be Rembrandt, no one is gonna see them but you). Keep them where you can see them as you write.

To give you an example, one of my works in progress is called M. In that not-so-distant future (2024ish), my characters get around their city on sidewalks that move at incredible speeds and are powered by the sun. Before I wrote that little bit of information, I did a lot of research. It seems there have been a number of attempts at making these fast moving sidewalks and detailed descriptions of just how they would work. Score! I could explain to my reader exactly how people would use it because I had a full grasp myself.

Make sense?

If you're going to break a "rule," be sure you have a reason and an understanding of how your fantasy idea could happen. Even if on another planet, be sure and explain why the world is the way it is or how we can survive there.

Now, if you're writing about a place that actually exists, you need to do some of the same research with a little modification here and there. Try these tips on for size:

• Pull up photos of the place you want to write about and curate them to a word document.
• List common temperatures of the area during the day and at night.
• See what other people are saying about the location and copy/paste those tid-bits into your document with the photos.
• Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the midst of the place. Without looking, type everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel into your word document. What do you think would be fun to do there? Write that down.

In The Bird, Stormy visits a place called Ringing Rocks National Park in Pennsylvania. I'd never been there, but I did a massive amount of research about the area and imagined how I would act if I were in her shoes. Turns out, I'm kind of a big ole kid. And she has that playful, whimsical attitude as well. I had her click the nails in her boots on the rocks to make them ring out.

Even though I'd never been there, I made it seem like I had. I was writing what I didn't know, but learned about.

What it all boils down to is this: If you're writing what you don't know, you must make it something you know before you can write about it.

It's all kind of an oxymoron.

You have to immerse yourself in the world and know every possible outcome of every action. If someone jumps and your world has light gravity, how much further will they go? Things like that. Be sure and keep a word or notepad document on every book. Yeah, even those that are based in fact. Dates and descriptions are important, too!

You don't want to say the sky is pink because there was an increase in dust and pollution in the atmosphere that causes the light of the sun to refract differently, only to contradict yourself in the next chapter.

What have you written that you didn't know?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Painting with Words

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Today, I'm gonna be talking about art. Not with colors on canvas, but with words on paper. I know you've all heard me go on and on about too much description. Well, today I'm gonna talk about imagery. You can still give great description without going into minute details. Wanna know how? Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Look at the image above. See how it's all over the place? What works for art, doesn't necessarily work for a book. You could write long passages about the image, but what will your reader see in their mind? How do you describe something so chaotic so the person devouring your text gets a good idea of what the scene looks like? You don't. They can decide for themselves. I bet you're scratching your head, huh? Keep reading!

Let's go for an example or two, shall we?

Using description:
On white canvas that covered an entire 8'x14' wall, splatters and thin lines of black, pink, magenta, yellow, orange, green, purple, blue, brown, peach, teal, cerulean, hunter, and ocher overlapped. In the top left corner, pink, hunter, and magenta were deeply concentrated, set off by large spatters of black. In the center, only thin lines were present, drawing the eye in and allowing for a central concentration of the viewer's mind.

Now, I took an art class (okay, I took many art classes) in college, and that's what they want you to write when you're describing a painting. Note that word: "describe."

If I came across a passage like this in a book, I'd become bored as the writer went into every detail of the scenery. Did you read every color word? Probably not. Rather than tell your reader what to see, leave it to their imagination. Books are good at activating that little node in the back of your brain that paints its own pictures. Let's try again.

Using imagery:
It was a riot of every color in the rainbow covering the whole wall. Colors danced together in thick and thin lines, overlapping like freshly fallen leaves on a snowy lawn. I became lost in the chaos of it all as I tried to ascertain what the empty space in the middle was trying to tell me. Reminiscent of a Pollock painting on steroids, it drew me in and left me breathless.

Now, your reader's brain is activated. They paint the image in their head as they read. You aren't telling them what to see, you're letting them decide for themselves. Is it exactly what you see? Probably not. But, that's what's beautiful about it.

Paint vivid pictures with strong verbiage and allow the reader to feel the scene, rather than just be a bored onlooker.

• Riot
• Chaos
• Reminiscent
• Breathless

Those are all words that make the second passage much stronger than the first. Needless to say, I got fussed at a lot in design school for my creative briefs. I would launch into something like the second passage and not be succinct enough. They wanted straight and to the point. Blah. Bland. Phooey!

Let's not be bland. How about we strive to be artists of a different kind: Authors.

What about you? What do you prefer when reading?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Measuring Your Novel's Pace with MS Word

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today I'm gonna let you all in on a really cool tip having to do with MS Word. This tip will help you adjust the pacing throughout your novel in snippets. According to what I've seen, you can use up to twenty-two scenes to see how your story maps out. Are you dying to know how to do it? Well, grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

I'm going to use a scene from I, Zombie where Trixie finds her dog.

Every scene has three parts: Beginning, Middle, and End.

You can graph the pace of a single scene by using a three-point scale that ranges from forty-five to one hundred and a nifty tool you have in MS Word. I'll get to that in a moment.

Go ahead and make your graph now. It might look something like this:

Choose your scene from beginning to end within your novel and copy it out to a new document so we don't have to worry about screwing anything up.

Now, mark the scene between the beginning and middle and the middle and end with a couple of asterisks or other symbol of your choice.

You'll need to get two numbers: The Flesch Readability score and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score.

Here's where MS Word has a feature you may not know about that will give you those two numbers. Do the following:

• Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.
• Click Proofing.
• Make sure Check Grammar With Spelling is selected.
• Under "When Correcting Grammar in Word," select the "Show Readability Statistics" check box.
• Click Ok.

Each readability test bases its rating on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence.

• A Flesch score will be between 0-100.
• A Flesch-Kincaid score will be a decimal. It tells you the grade level someone should be on to comprehend the document (a nice gauge for all you children's book writers, eh?).

Okay, now, go to MS Word and click on the Review tab. Highlight the text in the scene from the beginning to the first break and click the "Check Grammar and Spelling" button in the top left corner. Go through the prompts. It'll ask if you want to continue with the rest of the document. Click "no."

Be amazed at what pops up.

Write down the numbers next to "Flesch Reading Ease" (mine was 86.8) and "Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level" (mine was 3.6). Subtract the second number from the first (mine comes to 83.2).

Add a dot to your graph. Like this:

Wash, rinse, and repeat for the other two sections. Connect the dots. You should have something like this:

As you can see, my scene has an end peak. This heightens tension when moving into the next scene. A peak at the beginning isn't good because you go in with tension and folks can get bored. Chances are, those scenes will drag. Try for a middle or end peak.

"So what?" you ask. "How will this help me?"

Well, the real measure comes when you do a bunch of these scenes and compile them together. You'll get an idea of the pacing throughout the story rather than just one scene. Because, after all, a story is a group of scenes all put together.

If you take the time to do a set of congruent scenes, make sure your novel has nice highs and lows (not below forty-five) and isn't a flat-line of death. It'll help show you where your work needs improvement.

I'm just giving you the tool. It's up to you how you use it. You may want to add some graph paper to your writer's toolbox!

What did you think of today's little lesson? Did you know about this measure?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Your Supporting Cast of Characters

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Just two more work days until the weekend! I hope you all have something awesome to look forward to. Today, I'm talking about your supporting cast of characters. These are the folks that make your world seem real, the ones your character will interact with on a limited bases, and/or minor characters we aren't supposed to give two shakes about. If any of you have downloaded my free PDF, A Novel Checklist, you'll know there's a whole section, printable on its own, to assist you in creating dynamic characters. But you can, and should, also use it for minor characters. Before I digress too far, grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

There are three basic character types:

Major Characters are the ones your story is about. I'm sure, if you've been around the blog a while, you have a good idea of how to create awesome characters that your reader can connect with. So, I'm not going to spend any more of your time on those. If you haven't been around a while, you can catch up on all the posts on characterization HERE.

Moving on...

Minor Characters are the ones that support the major characters, but people your reader isn't supposed to care too much about. These folks may help move the plot along or be assistants to the big action, but they're always disposable. Now, I've had minor characters assert themselves and become major characters, but they didn't start out "life" that way. These entities show up, perform one or two things in the plot, then disappear. We don't expect them to come back later and take over the spotlight.

Just in case they do, you should have a character bio on them.

Now, these characters can jump out of the story and yell, "Ta-da!" to announce themselves; but they should do what they came to do and get out. Make them eccentric, bigger than life, or obsessive. Readers will notice the person, expect action, and be glad when they leave.

Walk-Ons and Placeholder Characters are exactly what their name implies: temporary. They're background noise that allow you to create a realistic world. If you want them to be forgotten, don't give them a name and don't make them anything other than a stereotype. These will be clerks in stores, delivery drivers, mailmen/women, doctors, nurses, etc... Every person you'd find in the real world, that lives in the background and goes unnoticed, are your walk-ons and placeholders. Don't give them traits that make them stand out.

If one of your placeholders starts to make themselves a nuisance, cut them from your text altogether or change what it is about them that's making them like glue. Perhaps it's wardrobe choices, maybe it's a larger-than-life personality. No matter what it is, find it and eradicate the character. Don't give your reader unnecessary distractions.

I hope this gives you all something to work with. I'll be back tomorrow with some prompts to help your brain along.

What story have you read lately where a walk-on was overdone or a minor character stole the spotlight?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Checklists for Novels - Part 1 of 3 - Plot and Structure

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! I hope you all had a great weekend and are looking forward to the week ahead. On an awesome note, I managed to land exhibitor space at UtopYAcon 2014 and will be sharing a table with a writer I greatly admire, Ms. Tia Silverthorne Bach. I'll pass on more news to you about this awesomeness as it becomes available. For the next few days, I'm giving you all checklists you can run down and tick items off of that'll help you with the construction of your novel. I'm creating images out of the lists so you can save them and print them out. Today will be plot and structure. No pens and notebooks needed; just bring your printer and mouse. **NOTE** You may save and print these as you wish!** Let's get going!

Plot:

• Critical Elements - Do you know what they are?
• Strong Lead - Is your protagonist deeply layered?
• LOTE - Do you have the following: Lead, Objective, Trouble, and Enticing Ending?
• Identification - Can readers identify with your protagonist in one of these ways: Sympathy, Likeability, Inner-Conflict, or Power?
• Objective - Is it strong and will people care? Ask yourself, "So what?" It must be something the protagonist must have to live a happy life.
• Ending - Does it make your reader feel satisfied that all loose ends were tied up?

Structure (3 Act):

• Beginning - Does it introduce your protagonist and the world they live in? Have you had the reader shake hands with the antagonist? Is the threat eminent? Has your character passed through the doorway of no return?
• Middle - Have you deepened the relationships and character of the protagonist? What will the antagonist do to make life more complicated? This is where the action happens. Do battles rage? Have you set everything up for the final bang? Is there a revelation?
• End - Have you wrapped everything up? Was the final battle full of enough tension? Do readers believe the ending could've happened?

Tomorrow's checklists will go into elements of the plot and structure.

Make sure you come on back for that!

Do you use any kind of checklists once your novel is done?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Dashing Dashes and How to Use Them

Happy Hump-Day, good people of the blogosphere! I bet you think you know all there is to know about dashes. Well, I'm here to tell you, you may not know as much as you think. This is a post you don't want to miss! So, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

There are so many ways to use hyphens and dashes. This post is going by the rules outlined in The Chicago Manual of Style 15th Edition. First, I'm gonna show you what each one of the five looks like, then we'll go into how they're used.

Hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes are the most commonly used.

Hyphens

Hyphens are used to separate numbers or group numbers, in compound words, names, and for word division.

A little known use of the hyphen is in dialogue when referencing American Sign Language.

Examples of hyphen use:
Would you believe she wore a box-hat to the party?
Please call 1-800-888-8888 to find out more.
My book's ISBN is 978-1477489031.
My niece can sign A-P-P-L-I-C-A-T-I-O-N very quickly.

Going into names and compound words is best left for another day. It's a whole section in and of itself.

En dashes

It literally means "between" or "up to and including." It's used in dates or times or in place of a hyphen when one of the elements of a compound adjective is open. Some people would use a slash, but an en dash works as well. It can also be used to separate a college name from the city if there are more than two in the state with the same name. There are no spaces with en dashes unless indicating something is ongoing.

Examples of en dash use:
I went to Columbus for four years, 1995–1999, loving every minute of it.
My life has been long (1977– ) and I can't wait to have more fun. *Note the space after the en dash.
He went to the University of Tennessee–Chattanooga, not the University of Tennessee–Knoxville.
We went to Mexico as non–Spanish–speaking people.

Em dashes

This one is for setting off elements in novels. Some people use parentheses, commas, or colons to do this; but an em dash works as well. It will also separate a subject from a pronoun, indicates a break in speech when someone is cut off (unlike when someone trails off—those are indicated by an ellipsis), or replaces a comma. You can use them with other fun punctuation as well—like exclamation points!—as a tool to set off the phrase.

Examples of em dash use:
Should I—can I?—go to the party tonight?
"I was thinking we should—" I cut her off with a lift of my hand. "No. Probably not a good idea because she'll be there."
When the old man walked up—and he was walking really slowly—we showed him the way to his seat.

2-em & 3-em dashes

2-em dashes are used to represent something left out. The rule here is: If it replaces a part of a word, don't leave space on either side; but if it replaces a whole word, leave space. A 2-en dash is most commonly used to block out profanity. Oftentimes, these are shown by using four hyphens.

3-em dashes are used in bibliography to indicate this name is the same name as the one before, but it's a different title or work. These are shown by using six hyphens.

Examples:
2-em: She let loose with many words like —– and they blew my mind.
3-em: ——, Yassa. Jo Michaels: CreateSpace, 2012.

I hope this helps straighten some of the confusion out. I find these errors quite a bit when editing.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo