Friday Funday

Happy Friday, everyone! The weekend is almost upon us and I figured I'd give you a few things to do in your downtime that will help your writing skills. Just a little weekend fun to keep your writerly brain engaged and on target for the workweek ahead. I know you don't really want to think about Monday, but it behooves us all to be prepared. I'll begin by giving you the name of the exercise, and then move on to how you can accomplish it (and maybe have some fun, too). Grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going.

Exercise #1: Dialogue Dissection
Grab a friend or family member and chat with them. Be sure you have a recorder of some kind running (voice notes on an iPhone work great for this). Give yourself ten to fifteen minutes then shut the recording device off. End the conversation and move to a room where you can be alone. Play back the recording and recall what each of you were doing as you spoke. Mentally add commas and periods where you think they belong. Listen to it again. Pay attention to the words used, pronunciation, and inflection. Think about how you might write the conversation out. If you feel so inclined, you may do so; but, this is more of an exercise to get your brain thinking about dialogue in general.

Exercise #2: Title Trivia
Sit down with a friend or family member and grab a couple of sheets of paper or 3.5"x5" index cards. Cut them into pieces and have everyone write one word on each piece. Fold them up and throw them into a bowl. Take turns picking out two pieces and sticking them together. Pretend it's the title of a book and come up with a synopsis to support it. This is all verbal, so no need to write anything down (unless you hit upon the next great novel idea!).

Exercise #3: What's That Word?
This, again, is a two or more person game. Grab a sheet of paper and write down a sentence with at least ten words in it. Exchange with others. Now, try and come up with as many words as possible in place of the ones written. Whoever has the most variations (accurate ones) wins! Don't cheat and use a thesaurus! I find chocolate is a great motivator as a prize for this game.

Exercise #4: Acting Gone Awry
Take a character from one of your favorite novels and pretend to be them for the day. Respond to other people the way you think the character would, do things you think they would do, and really try to walk in their shoes. Take little notes as you go if you want. At the end of the day, reflect on your actions and try to flesh out the character in your head. Were there circumstances that made you wonder about the character's personality or how they would react or did it all flow very naturally? What part of the book let you know that? Use this knowledge the next time you're building your own characters (or when writing scenes of discovery).

Exercise #5: Cover Collection Craziness
Go online and take a look at other books in your genre. Save images of the covers. Print out a quick copy on regular paper or pull them up in a photo editing program. Make notes about what you like and don't like about each one. If you wanna get crazy, cut them up and glue together a whole new cover with some of the elements. Kids love this one.

These are just a few games you can play with your friends or family members to help you become a better writer. An added bonus is: You get to spend time with your loved ones while sharpening your skills!

Which one of these sounds the most fun to you?

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

Jo

When the Muse Steps out of the Room

Well, it's Thursday yet again, good people of the blogosphere! Today we're gonna talk about the Muse and what to do when she steps away from your side to go tend another author, songwriter, or painter. Tips and tricks to tempt her back, if you will. So, grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

What do you do when you feel the Muse upon you? Do you hurry to your computer and quickly boot up and begin to write? What happens when you're at the store or at church when she pays you a visit? Do you rush home and leave your buggy or excuse yourself from the chapel to go to your car and write?

Of course not. We don't have lives like that, where we can drop any task and write when we need to.

But what about when your Muse has abandoned you and refuses to return? There are a couple of things you can do to help yourself in this situation.

• Write at the same time every day. Muses are busy, they don't have time to hang around with everyone on the planet. Seriously, when you write at the same time every day, your brain will get used to the creative cycle you put it on and you'll find words flowing more easily over the course of just a few weeks.
• Read a book. Books are a writer's fuel. We consume them because they engage our brains and make us think.
• Exercise. Believe it or not, exercise stimulates your brain. It gets your blood flowing and your neurons pumping.
• Read a good writing blog (like this one!). Sometimes, just reading about writing helps you out of your funk and allows you to put down new words.
• Take a walk or call a friend. Walking and having a seat on a bench, watching people, can be a huge booster to your brain. Sometimes, you'll find an interesting character that way. Talking to a friend and letting them vent will also give you book fodder. Maybe not exactly, but you can pull from life.

Before you know it, your Muse will be right there with you all the time.

Those are just a few suggestions. I'm sure if you do a Google search, you'll find many more.

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

Jo

Slimming Down

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! I can't believe I missed my hump-day post, but working too much is never something I complain about. Today, we're talking about slimming down an overweight novel. These are just a few things you can do to cut out the drag. Remember, a good editor will tell you when it isn't working and give you suggestions on how to fix it. Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going, shall we?

When you're writing a novel, you generally have three acts. The first is to introduce the doorway and the challenge/opposition. By the time you get to the third, you're ready to bring things to a head and give your novel an ending. What a lot of writers struggle with is the journey, the middle, the part where you are heading toward the end. Sometimes, it ends up with no excitement. On Tuesday, I gave you ways to add to your skinny tale. Now we're gonna talk about ways to slim it down if it's too heavy.

1. Cut out the boring. If you find the story lacking tension, take some of the scenes out. These can be reaction scenes, dialogue, or scenes lacking conflict. If your editor might lose interest, cut it down or cut it out.
2. Take away a subplot. You can absorb a subplot into the main plot to strengthen it, or combine two subplots into one to make things more interesting for the reader.
3. Kill someone off. That's right, kill them. Maybe they're stealing the spotlight from the main character or maybe you just decide their motives aren't for the purpose of good. As an alternative, you can combine two secondary characters and make them into one strong character.

If you craft act two well, you have the opening for a killer ending. You can put your protagonist through hell only to have them be rewarded for their struggles. Or, you can always have your protagonist fail. Some of those endings make a so-so book one that's remembered.

What exercises do you use to trim the fat?

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

Jo

Is Your Character Sexy or Beautiful?

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, let's talk about sexy vs beautiful. There is a difference! You need to consider how your character is going to be portrayed to the world because each of these gives them different characteristics. So, grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going, shall we?

First, a couple of definitions:
Sexy: sex·y /ˈseksē/  Adjective 1. Sexually attractive or exciting. 2. Sexually aroused.
Beautiful: beau·ti·ful  /ˈbyo͞otəfəl/  Adjective 1. Pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically. 2. Of a very high standard; excellent.

As you can see, they have different meanings. One can be sexy and not beautiful; or, one can be beautiful and not sexy. As we interpret language, we often confuse the two or use them interchangeably. But your character can be one or the other, or both. It's a difficult decision sometimes. You want to avoid the 'I'm perfect in every way' character because they're boring.

Examples:
I read Pride and Prejudice and thought of Elizabeth as beautiful but not sexy. Her sister, Jane, was both. Why? Well, Elizabeth held herself well but put off an 'I'm better than you' vibe toward men. It wasn't sexually exciting but her face was pleasing to look upon and her mind could stimulate another of the same caliber. Jane, on the other hand, was pretty, carried herself well, and excited men in a bashful, shy way. She was mysterious, sexy, and beautiful.
When I read Beautiful Disaster, I saw Abby as sexy, but not beautiful, because she had confidence. Her looks, as described by the author, were middling to fair.

Think about yourself for a moment. Do you wear pretty undergarments to make yourself feel beautiful or so you look sexually attractive in the mirror? One thing I do, to make myself feel beautiful, is keep my toenails painted. Always. Even in the winter, if you see me without shoes, my toenails are cute. These are things you have to consider when building a character because it's part of who they are. It gives you opportunities for discovery throughout the book. Like fairy dust sprinkled in to make magic, details like these make your character feel more real to the reader and allows a connection to be formed.

What character have you developed that was one or the other? What did you use as discovery tools?

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

Jo