Category Archives: Ideas & Plotting

Writing in Color

Character Craft & Skills Jace Killan Storyline The Writing Life Writing Tools No Comments

Black and White Rainbow

My writing started to get good when I learned how to write in color.

As children we are concrete thinkers; we see the world in absolutes, black and white, good and bad, likes and dislikes, right and wrong. As we grow and develop we begin to comprehend abstract thought, such as, just because Jonny does something bad doesn’t necessarily mean he is bad, and just because Sally does something good doesn’t necessarily mean she is good. Abstract thought leads us into a new world of judgment and emotion. As we try to understand our existence and reality, abstract thought helps us wrap our head around those complicated, even contradictory themes life presents.

My early writing portrayed much of this concrete thought. My protagonists were all good, and my antagonists were all bad, right and wrong, loved and hated. I soon discovered that my stories lacked conflict. Oh, there was plenty of opposition between the good guys and the bad guys, but real life conflict isn’t so easily defined and identified. My writing in black and white created predictable plots, boring dialogue, and failed to solicit an emotional response. In short, my writing was forgettable.

As I struggled to understand why, I thought back to all of the stories (written and film) that I remembered from my youth. Stories like “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs and “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury caused my mind to stretch, mainly because there wasn’t a happy ending, a resolution that I could forget. My mind continued to replay the plots, over and over, thinking of alternative actions, alternative endings in search of resolution.

Movies like “Old Yeller” and “Against a Crooked Sky” provoked me the same way. I found myself days, weeks, even months after watching the films, trying to rewrite the plots for better, happier endings. If only the protagonist could go back in time and do it right, then the ending could be different.

A couple of years ago, I attended a workshop where I read a short story I had written.  I was complimented for my fine piece of horror. Shocked at the assertion, I argued that my story couldn’t possibly be considered part of that genre. The instructor smiled and said, “You are definitely a horror writer.”

I decided to read some horror to prove her wrong, and sure enough, I am a horror writer. I enjoy reading it, and love to create it.

As a horror writer, I take the reader to an uncomfortable place. Instead of forgettable, happy-ever-after-type endings, my writing allows me to dwell in the horrific, the sad, the hard, the pain, and the unthinkable. Through that experience, I invite the reader to return to the story in search of a better resolution.

Character development is a crucial part of unforgettable writing for it is their choices that often create the dire circumstances in which we find ourselves. Nathan Barra wrote something to the effect that a good character is someone that you’d like to sit down and have a drink with but you’d also like to punch in the face. Great characters like Javert and Gollum won’t fit into good and bad molds, they do good things for the wrong reasons, and bad things for righteous reasons, and do terrible things for terrible reasons. To err is human. I love experiencing such characters and their choices as they create worlds of desperation, loneliness, bitterness, and fear allowing me as the reader to feel, empathize, pity, and relate, all along searching for resolution whether it comes or not.

For a story to truly be unforgettable, it needs to be written in color.

 

 

 

The Gift of Scorched Earth

Character Craft & Skills Editing First Drafts Gregory D. Little Motivation Rewriting Storyline The Writing Life 4 Comments

BookToday’s post is going to cover two gifts for the price of one, both intangible and tangible.

I began my first novel manuscript in January of 1999. There were three of us then, and during our winter break from college, we set out to write the greatest epic fantasy novel known to man. I probably don’t have to tell you our plans didn’t quite pan out. But flash forward four or five years, and that book, the first thing I ever tried to write with a serious intention of publishing it, was nearly the reason I quit writing for good.

My co-authors dropped out early in the process. We enjoyed talking about our story’s awesomeness more than actually working on it together. But I’d continued plugging slowly along on the book throughout college. And by the time I was graduated and then married, I had a couple of hundred draft pages. That seems like a tiny amount to Present Day Greg, but at the time it was by far the longest thing I’d ever written. The trouble was, I’d basically stopped working on it.

I told myself I was just busy. Working at a full-time job and commuting three hours daily left me very tired by the end of each week. But that wasn’t it. In truth I no longer believed in the story I was writing. I was no longer excited by it, because there was a dissonance between the plot and the protagonist. I didn’t believe that this protagonist would be responsible for the acts of his recent past that formed the foundation of the plot.

I’d be willing to bet a lot of writers don’t consciously decide to give up writing. It just sort of happens bit by bit, day by day until they look back and realize it’s been months or years since they’ve written. The point of no return is when this thought no longer bothers them. I came pretty close to that point. A more experienced writer would have just tossed the idea and started on a new one, but that wasn’t how I looked at it. The germ for this story had been in my head for a decade. If I couldn’t even see it through, what hope did I ever have of being a writer? But the Sunk Cost Fallacy had me in its claws. For those unfamiliar, the Sunk Cost Fallacy is the human tendency to “throw good money after bad” and continue investing in something that isn’t working just because you’ve invested so much into it already.

I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but I gradually gave myself permission to scrap what needed scrapping in order to the save the story. It started with rewriting the protagonist into the antagonist, but by the end I trashed every single word of text and started over. Some of the characters’ relationships to one another and some of my original world-building concepts would survive, but every bit of the prose was fed into the furnace of reigniting my excitement for the project. It was total scorched earth, and as much as I’d dreaded the concept, it was surprisingly liberating once I’d committed myself to it.

Eventually I finished my monster of a first manuscript, An End to Gods. The final product is infinitely better than the project was originally shaping up to be. I’ve gotten much faster and trimmer as a writer since then, and the book is still too big and too Byzantine to publish as a novice writer, but I love it for all its messy complexity. My cousins even collaborated to get it printed and bound in leather for me several Christmases ago, complete with custom chapter icon artwork (Ben and Duncan, you guys still rock!) and it is still the coolest gift I’ve ever been given. It’s sitting on my shelf behind me as I type this (and in the picture at the top of this post). I don’t mind telling you I got teary-eyed when I first laid eyes on it, and I still plan on publishing it one day, however many rewrites that takes. I’ve already done it once, after all.

So there you have it. Two greatest gifts for the price of one. Kevin J. Anderson likes to use the phrase “dare to be bad (at first)” and that’s excellent advice. But if that first draft is so bad it’s discouraging you from continuing to write, it may be time to tear it down and start again.

There Are Ruts…

Character Craft & Skills Ideas & Plotting Outlines POV Storyline The Writing Process 1 Comment

So the theme for September’s posts is supposed to be about getting out of the rut, or taking it to the next level.  Well, there are ruts, and there are ruts.

There are the ruts where the well has run dry, and the words are not flowing.  Judith Tarr talks about those times here.  As it happens, I know exactly what she is talking about.  I’ve been there, recently; I’ve felt those feelings; I’ve known the grief.  I was very fortunate to come out of it after a year and a half, but even now I have not finished recovery to where I used to be.  I’m not going to rehash Judith’s article.  She does a much better job of discussing the issue than I ever would.  But I will say this:  if you are in that place, or if you ever find yourself in that place, know that there have been good writers—some of them very good writers, indeed—who have been in that same place, and eventually came out of it.  You’re not alone.  And it can be done.  But it will take time; it will take perseverance; and you may have to change some things about you, about your surroundings, or about the company you keep to come out of it.  Your true friends will support you, but only you can make those choices and walk that walk.

I could stop there, and have an article worth posting, I think.

But I actually want to talk about another kind of rut in which we as writers can sometimes find ourselves.

Do you ever feel that you’re growing stale?  I mean, have you ever stopped in the middle of writing a story or a novel and realized that you’re not having fun; that you’re not excited about what you’re doing; that as B. B. King would sing, “The thrill is gone, baby…”?

Sometimes when that happens, it’s the normal and almost inevitable result of working in the middle of a long project where you’ve dug yourself into the hole but you’re not entirely sure yet that it’s going to turn into a tunnel.  And the only solution for that is to simply keep putting out the words until you get through the middle and can see the progress that’s been made.  Perseverance, in other words.  That’s actually one of the most important tools in our writer’s toolkits; the ability to keep plugging away at a project until it’s completed, no matter how long it takes.

But other times that may be the back of your mind saying, “Dude, this is a whole lot like the last story you wrote.  Can’t you write something different?”

Now formulas and templates for writing fiction have been around for generations.  Most popular children’s series during the early and middle 20th Century were very rigidly formula based.  And I can point you to a few series of fantasy and science fiction even within the last generation or so that have done that.  And those series have their fans, who seem to like that each new story or each new novel seems to follow predictably the outline of the previous works.

But for writers, especially writers who want to grow in their craft and strive for art, I suspect that falling into the formula rut is absolutely one of the worst things we can do.  It might make us money, but we won’t continue to grow or develop as writers as long as we’re in that rut.

Have I been there?  Yep.  Do I have some thoughts about how to get out of the rut?  Yep, and here they are:

1.  Make yourself use a different narrative style.  If you’re consistently a third-person limited viewpoint writer, write something in first person.  Or vice-versa, as the case may be.  That may shake up the way you view characters and characterization.

2.  Make yourself write something with a different story construction.  If your previous works have all been single-thread-of-continuity stories, try writing a story with multiple story lines running in parallel.  To really challenge yourself, you should make them non-interrelating until the end.  Pull that one off, and you’ll feel a real sense of accomplishment.  This will also widen your thinking on plotting.

3.  Make yourself write something in a different genre, or at least a different sub-genre.  After writing several of what amounted to comedies of manners with romantic overtones, I actually had a friend challenge me to write something different.  So after thinking about it, I started writing a series of police procedural stories.  Wow, did that stretch me!  Although I’m a moderate fan of mysteries and procedurals, learning to write them really taught me things about characterization and plotting that I had never considered before.

4.  If you’re primarily a novelist, try writing shorter works.  Challenge yourself to write something good under 5000 words.  When you succeed at that, challenge yourself to write something good under 2000 words.  Then try under 1000 words.  That’s barebones storytelling.  Every single word has to be weighed in the balance as to whether it’s really necessary to tell the story.  You’ll learn discipline from that one.  I have exactly one 2000 word story that I think works.  I have yet to manage a 1000 word story that I think is good.  I keep trying.

5.  And if you’re primarily a short work author, try writing a novel.  You may or may not like it, but it will force you to consider plotting and world-building issues that just don’t arise in a 7000 word story or a 12,000 word novelette.

I have a novel coming out from Baen Books on October 1, entitled 1636: The Devil’s Opera.  It’s a collaboration with Eric Flint.  And I’m convinced that I could never have written that story without having put myself through 2, 3, and 4 above.

You want to be a better writer?  Challenge yourself to move out of your comfort zone, and write things you never imagined you’d write.

Jump-start Your Writing Routine with NaNoWriMo

Craft & Skills First Drafts Kristin Luna Storyline The Writing Life Writing Tools 3 Comments

If you told me that I’d write my first book in a month, I’d say, “Thanks, and here’s the beer I promised you for saying that.” Because, in truth, I had already worked on one book for three years, and in that time, I’d given it more treatments than a Beverly Hills housewife. And I hadn’t even finished writing it.

If spending three years writing one thing sounds a little nutty to you, imagine how I felt, especially being an impatient person.

It occurred to me that I had been looking at this writing thing all wrong. Well, wrong for me.

So I wiped the slate clean. I postponed writing short stories, put the labor of love novel on hold, and started outlining a new story. By piecing the new story together as a YA novel, I realized it would be easier to cut my teeth on than a dramatic literary fiction piece (which will be The Next Great American Novel… just give it time).

Instead of slaving through paragraphs, scrutinizing word usage and generally trying to make the labor of love perfect, I put all of my energy into preparing my new story. I used National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) as my diving board– no more dipping my toes in the water.

I wrote approximately 57,000 words in 28 days.  More importantly, I finished writing a book.

But I couldn’t have done it without a game plan.

How to Jump-start Your Writing Routine with NaNoWriMo

Realize what writing a book in a month actually means.

Yeah, sounds like a doozy. I know. But lets do some MATHS (even though we hates it, the filthy mathsies).

Let’s say you’re planning on writing a young adult novel. The average young adult book is between 50,000 and 60,000 words. This isn’t a rule, and you’ll find plenty of books that aren’t. But it’s easier to do the MATHS if we just say 60,000.

    •  There are 30 days in November.
    •  If you write every day in the month of November (spoiler alert: you should), then you need to write 2,000 words a day.
    • Don’t worry, dude. You can do that.

Realize what writing a book in a month means for you.

Clear your calendar, bro. Do not agree to take Taekwondo classes with your boss in November.  Do not schedule voluntary surgical procedures during this time. What I mean to say is: make writing your top priority (or one of your top priorities). Let your boss know what you’re going to be doing. Tell your family and loved ones. Buy lots of snacks and make a little squirrel stash at your writing desk. Create a good headspace for yourself. For example, I didn’t drink alcohol during the entire month (I missed you, beer! We had a tearful reunion at the end of November).

Realize what writing a book in a month means for everyone you love.

You may daydream about November – you, all hunched over a laptop wearing your sexy, hipster bifocals with two fingers of scotch in a glass next to you while you brood at the screen. Or, this may just be you.  In any event, this is what your family and/or loved ones will see: an angsty hobbit creature J.D. Salinger-ing it in its office.

You may think, around the 10th of November, that you are still speaking clearly and concisely to your wife. To her, your words are nothing more than animal-like grunts, and when you look at her, your eyes are a permanent, gazed-over haze. This is why the planning phase is so important: tell loved ones you’ll become a hobgoblin in advance.  Make them promise they won’t get mad at you, leave you, call the cops on you, or burn all of your clothes.

Plan for everything.

Some important things to consider before November rolls around:

  • What time of the day will you sit down and write?  If you don’t make that appointed time, when is your Plan B writing time?
  • Your in-laws are visiting? This is your one opportunity to say (and mean) “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Okay. We all know that’s not going to work, so instead, explain that you’re writing an entire friggin’ novel in a month, and you’ll need some quiet and alone time every day for at least an hour.
  • Crap. You missed a day.  How will you make up for those 2,000 words? Write 4,000 the next day? Spread it out over a couple of days?
  • Outline your entire novel in September and October. Take as much time as you need on your outline. Know the story you are going to tell so you don’t get stuck during November.

Use the tools that are available to you.

Take advantage of the NaNoWriMo website, which sends you helpful tips as the month goes on, provides tools to help you track word count, and connects you with other crazy writers NaNoWriMo participants.

NaNoWriMo may not work for everybody.  But if you’re looking to jump in to your first book, finish writing a book, or set up a daily writing routine, it’s an extremely efficient practice.  Remember, it’s never too late to start, and it’s never to late to try something new. You may find that concentrated bursts of writing help you complete projects and help you establish a routine that works for you.

 

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Kristin Luna is a Marketing Consultant by day and writer by break of dawn. She sings to one of her cats, but the other cat doesn’t care for her voice. Kristin, a descendant of the 74350infamous Dread Pirate Roberts, is currently working on a Young Adult fantasy trilogy. When she isn’t contemplating marketing campaigns or writing, she’s designing handbags for gerbils, playing board games, tasting craft beers, teaching her cats sign language, reading, or getting in cabs saying, “To the library – and step on it!”. She is kidding about only two of those hobbies.