Category Archives: The Writing Life

Keeping the Ball Rolling

Craft & Skills First Drafts The Writing Life The Writing Process No Comments

So, once you have the work started, how do you keep the words flowing?

Sometimes, of course, you don’t have that problem.  Sometimes you have to hustle to keep up with the flow.

But sometimes, eh, you might have to encourage things a little.  This isn’t going to be an essay on the art of encouragement.  Rather, it’s a short list of things you might find useful in keeping word productivity up.

First, some general tips/rules/suggestions:

#1 – Write.  This may seem silly, but if you don’t plant your posterior in the authorial chair and exercise your fingers on the keyboard, nothing is going to happen.  Really.  (Unless you’re one of a handful of writers that I know of who dictate everything.  But even then, the principle holds.)  Good intentions, well-laid plans, “gonna get around to it” generate no words.  Only the actual act of writing can do that.

#2 – Write consistently.  Most of us, whether we want to admit it or not, are creatures of habit; we do better at our craft if we exercise it on a regular basis.  (Okay, I’ll grant that there are writers who seem to be “burst writers”, who will produce a book or two or three almost in a blur, then not do anything for weeks or months.   But they are the exception to the rule.)  There is validity to the idea of “being in practice.”  It’s easier to slip into the creative trance if you’ve been there recently.

#2A – Be organized about your writing.  This is especially important for folks who have kids at home, or who have a day job, and therefore have to manage their time closely.  Try to write every day, but if that’s not possible, then at least set up your schedule so the back of your brain knows when you will be writing.  You almost have to have a minimum of an hour per session in order to give your mind time to get back into the flow.  Whether it’s early in the morning, late at night, three nights a week, or all day Saturday, your mind will be more prepared to write if you’ve got a regular schedule worked out.

#3 – Do as much of your research as possible before you start writing.  Those two activities require two different mindsets, and if you have to stop in the middle of the creative flow to look up something you need for a plot or character point, you can blow yourself right out of the creative trance.  If you’re lucky you can get by with just throwing in a NOTE TO SELF at that point and moving on and doing the research in the edit pass.

#4 – Another potential mindset conflict:  don’t go into editor mode while you’re in the middle of the creative flow.  That’s another case of two different mindsets needed for the two different activities, and they are often not compatible.  If you suddenly start doing heavy editing and critiquing, the odds are good you will again blow yourself out of the creative trance.

Now for a few tips and tricks about actually getting the flow started every time you sit down.

#5 – When you stop working for the day/night, don’t halt at the end of a major section, especially if you know it may be a couple of days (or longer) before you come back to it.  I don’t recall which writer I learned this from, but I can attest to the fact that it really does work.  I have hamstrung myself a couple of times by ending a night’s work at the end of a chapter or even an arc within a novel, only to have a totally blank mind when I finally was able to get back to work on it.  After the second time, I make it a point not to leave a work at such a point.  If I’m at the end of a chapter or an arc, I’ll go ahead and write the first couple of paragraphs of the next chapter, just to set the tone and point where I’m going to go next.  Sometimes I’ll even leave the last sentence I’m writing that night unfinished.  That kind of primes the mental pump for the next session.

#6 – I think this one came from Robert Silverberg originally:  if you sit down to continue and nothing wants to start flowing immediately, go back and retype the last two or three paragraphs (or maybe the last page) of what you had written last session.  Again, it seems to prime the pump, and when you get to the end of that section your mind and fingers should be ready to put out and take down new words.

#7 – This one comes from David Morrell (First Blood, among others) in his book on the craft entitled Lessons From a Lifetime of Writing.  (If you haven’t read it, do.  It’s worth the price of admission.)  One of his techniques for getting past stumbling blocks (or even the dreaded writer’s block) is to sit down and interview the character, or sometimes interview himself, asking questions as to what the problems are that are being faced, and what the character (or the author) might do to overcome them.  For those of us who are pantsers (as opposed to plotters), this may be something we’re already doing almost unconsciously.  Sometimes doing it as a conscious exercise, even talking out loud as we type, can really help.

There you go-seven suggestions/tips/tricks that can help keep productivity up and words flowing.

Good luck!

Why Revising is a good thing.

Craft & Skills Guest Posts Writing Tools 4 Comments

Guest Post by Dan Wells

Congratulations! You finished NaNoWriMo this year–a 50,000-word novel in just one month. Maybe it’s a full story, or maybe it’s just a beginning; maybe you printed out the little diploma and hung it on your wall, or maybe you didn’t even finish. Maybe you didn’t even do NaNoWriMo this year, but you have a book left over from last year, or a book that you wrote without any connection to NaNoWriMo at all. The point is, you wrote a book. Hooray! That’s a step most people never even make it to, and you’ve done it. Good for you.

Now it’s time to go back and make it better.

“Revision” is, for a lot of writers, a scary word. You may think I’m trying to give you a bunch of extra work. You may think I’m telling you that the book you wrote doesn’t count, and that you have to write the whole thing again. You may even think that the book you wrote is brilliant and doesn’t need to be revised at all. Rest assured that your book IS brilliant, and it DOES count, but that you need to revise it anyway. Revision is something that a lot of aspiring writers balk at, but experienced, professional writers never question. It is our very best friend, and, quite frankly, one of the primary reasons we are professional writers. Revision is a magical process that will turn your finished book into an excellent book; it will take your brilliant story and refine it in a way that will help everyone recognize its brilliance. Think of the recipe for your favorite food: even if you have all the right ingredients, the dish won’t turn out like you want it unless you combine them in exactly the right way–and even if the flavor is perfect, the best chefs will spend just as much time on presentation and serving, making sure that every aspect of the meal is perfect.

Or, to make things easier, I can sum up that entire paragraph in one sentence: your first draft is for what you want to say, and your final draft is for how you want to say it.

The revision process starts with distance. Remove yourself from your writing for a while–a few days, a few weeks, a few months, whatever it takes to give yourself a fresh perspective when you come back to it later. Work on other projects, read other books, and cleanse your mental palate. If you have someone willing to read your work, give them the manuscript so you can get some outside feedback. The purpose of this step is to help yourself see the book for what it is, not for what you think it is. Inside your mind you have an idealized view of the story you wanted to tell–you know what emotions you wanted to create, what reactions you wanted to elicit in the reader, and which parts of the story would be exciting or romantic or scary or sad. While you were writing it, you saw it the way you wanted it to be. Other people–and yourself, with enough distance–don’t have that idealized view, and they’ll see your story for what it really is. When you give yourself distance and come back with fresh eyes, you can compare the story on the page to the story in your head and figure out which parts worked and which parts missed the mark. WARNING: most of it missed the mark. I can tell you that without even reading it, because that happens every time, and it happens with every author. The more you write, and the more you develop your skills, the better your first drafts will be, but even your very favorite writers write bad first drafts. They do it all the time. I do it myself. The trick is to not let it get you down–don’t get depressed, don’t give up, just use this as an opportunity to fix what’s wrong. Again, think of a chef: when she tastes her latest creation and realizes there’s not enough salt, she doesn’t close her restaurant and move away and never cook again, she adds more salt. You’re not here to agonize over your problems, you’re here to solve them.

Step two, of course, is to look really closely at the problems you found in step one, and figuring out exactly what’s causing them. To continue the metaphor, step one is where you taste the food and realize something’s wrong; step two is where you figure out that it’s wrong because it doesn’t have enough salt. Like all things, this comes with practice, but you can start that practice by asking the right questions. It’s not enough to say “this book is bad,” you have to ask yourself why it’s bad. Is it boring? Are the characters unlikable? Is it hard to understand? Maybe your helpful friend who read the book told you he couldn’t figure out why the characters were doing what they were doing. Your job, as the author, is to look at those characters and their actions with a discerning eye: do they have good reasons for what they’re doing? Do those reasons connect as logically to their actions as you thought they did when you wrote it? Are those reasons clear in your mind but never really presented well on the page? Say the book is boring: does the reader have good reasons to care about what’s happening? Does the reader like the characters enough to be invested in their problems? Does the reader have all the information they need to be ready for the climaxes and the cliffhangers and the big emotional payoffs? No matter what the larger problems might be, you can dig underneath and find the specific issues that are causing them.

Once you’ve identified specific issues, step three is to figure out how to solve them. Let’s look at character motivations again: your readers (and perhaps even yourself, if you’ve created enough distance from the manuscript) are confused about why the main character is doing what he’s doing, and you’ve determined that this is because his motivations are never properly explained. There are many, many, many ways to solve this, and you need to figure out which is the right one. Do you just add a few lines of inner monologue where he explains himself? Maybe several lines, scattered throughout the book, where he reaffirms his personal beliefs? Maybe you need a new scene–the bad guys do something that affects the main character personally, so he has a clear and visible reason for opposing them. Maybe you need to add a new character: a dependent who the bad guys can hurt, or a buddy that the main character can talk to, or a romantic interest that will give the main character something to fight for. Maybe your character’s motivations rely on some key piece of knowledge she didn’t have access to in the first draft: oops! Figure out how to give her that knowledge, maybe with a mentor/traveler/newscaster/whatever who can explain it to her, or a scene of investigation or accidental discovery where she can learn it for herself.

It all boils down to this: when you look at your book critically and identify its weaknesses, you can drill deep down into what’s causing those weaknesses and figure out exactly how to make your book better. Once you’ve cleaned up the storytelling, you can do the same thing with the writing: polishing it and refining it until it’s not just good, but great. Learn how to revise, and your writing will become better than you ever imagined.

Dan Wells has a new book coming out in March called FRAGMENTS, the sequel to PARTIALS; it’s a post-apocalypse SF story about a group of plague survivors trying to rebuild civilization.  Also check out his e-novella called ISOLATION that’s kind of sort of a prequel to the series and takes place several years before the apocalypse.

Bio: Dan Wells lives in Germany with his wife and five kids. Why Germany? Why not? He writes a lot of stories, reads a lot of books, plays a lot of boardgames, and eats a lot of food, which is pretty much the ideal life he imagined for himself as a child.

What if? – Two words to unlock inspiration

Craft & Skills Frank Morin Writing Tools 8 Comments

Have you ever had a great idea for a story that thrilled you with the possibilities, only to struggle to develop it into a fully realized manuscript?  You have that scene that burns so bright in your mind, but just can’t seem to expand it into a full novel, or that character you know as intimately as yourself, but lacks the right scenes to shine? Or, maybe you just finished a work and you’re searching for the next big idea, but aren’t sure where to start?

Whatever stage of your project you happen to find yourself struggling in, there’s a simple yet powerful tool you can always turns to for inspiration.

The “What if?” game.

This game casts you beyond all bounds, out into the realm of pure imagination. There are no limitations, no hesitation. No idea is too crazy, no disaster too terrifying that you cannot consider it. Don’t hold back when playing the “What if?” game. Ask yourself, “what’s the worst possible thing that could happen in this scene, or to this character?” and then explore the possible answers.

The results can be a little scary. We need to torture our heroes, but sometimes we cringe back from the awful reality of just how bad we can make things for them. Or we hesitate because if we follow the newly illuminated road our ideas have revealed, it’ll mean a lot of mental struggle to figure out how to guide the heroes through the new difficulties to their eventual triumph.

Don’t hold back.

These are exactly the moments to take a second look and ask “what if?” again. That new, twisted, crazy idea might just be what our story needs to drive it from mediocrity to excellence. It might require more work on our part, it might torture our characters until we cry out with them, it may challenge assumptions we’ve made.

It may be awesome.

Of course, it may kill our story too by taking it off a cliff. In that case, discard that idea, ask “what if?” again, and explore a different road.

Sometimes we play the “what if?” game in the middle of free-writing a scene, when we’re struck by a sudden burst of inspiration and type a few lines that veer the story off the expected course. Again, we need to explore it, consider it, and decide if it was a false start or an exciting new twist.

In one manuscript, I wrote a scene where one character’s powerful magical weapon, which was critical to the plot, unexpectedly fell into the sea and was lost. I hadn’t planned it, but while writing the scene, I realized this was the worst thing that could happen, and I wrote it. The resulting scene became more powerful by entire magnitudes, although it left me quite literally shaking from the shock. At first I wanted to delete it, to shy away from the disaster I’d revealed, but that would have weakened the story and been the easy way out. Eventually, I figured out how to deal with it, and the story proved the stronger for it.

Recently I played the “What if?” game with a friend to explore the deep back story of a current work in progress, and after traveling far afield, we came up with some wonderful ideas I never would have considered without casting myself out into the world of limitless possibilities opened through “What if?”. Those answers now tie in aspects of the plot that were hanging a bit loose, and the resulting whole is consistent and far more powerful.

What experiences have you had with the “What if?” game? If you’ve never tried it, what are you waiting for?

What if it revitalizes your story?

What if . . . ?

 

Making a Bad Thing Look Like a Good Thing: The Truth About Writer’s Block

The Writing Life 3 Comments

“Sorry I’m late, everyone. I had a really late night yesterday. I’ve had houseguests and then I had to drive them to the airport really late and didn’t get to bed until well past midnight. Then my alarm didn’t go off. I had it set to p.m. instead of a.m. Oh, and the traffic was just unbearable. From the moment I hit the turnpike, it was bumper to bumper. I had a minor fender bender just down the street; you can hardly see the damage, fortunately, but I had to stop for a few minutes and get the other driver’s insurance information. Did I mention I was starving by this point? I decided to stop for breakfast. The service was so slow; can you believe the waitress expected a tip for that? Anyway, when I got here, I couldn’t find a parking spot, for the life of me. So sorry, everyone, so sorry, but here I am.”

Does anyone else hate dealing with people like that? I’m not just talking about late people, though there are plenty of those. I mean people who don’t deliver on their promises, who say they’re going to do one thing but then do another… and then make excuses for it. Those people really get under my skin.

But I have a confession to make. I am one of those people. Let’s admit it. It’s just so much easier sometimes to make excuses than to pull up our sleeves and get the job done. This is an especially tricky lesson to learn if you happen to be self-employed, with no boss looking over your shoulder to make sure you finish what you’re supposed to. Self-employed people have to find their own motivation, which is usually a combination of money and passion for what they do.

Which finally, after a long prelude, takes me to the whole point of this little post. Writers are essentially self-employed people, with no one keeping an eye on us to make sure we’re keeping our fingers on the keyboard. Yes, we have support groups, and we’ve written a lot about that over the last few weeks, but the responsibility of getting words down on the page ultimately falls on only one person: you. And unlike self-employed types, as writers we can’t find our motivation in the eventual money we’re going to make, because the financial reward for our efforts is usually both small and too far into the future to realistically plan for. No, our motivation must come from passion.

Passion must trump excuses. Most importantly-hey, didn’t I promise to get to my point soon?-passion must trump writer’s block. Because writer’s block isn’t a real thing. Writers are the only people I know who use inactivity as a crutch in quite this way. I waited tables for many, many years… and I hated it with a bright, nuclear-like passion. But I showed up on time and worked every day until my shift was over.

So why is it that I don’t show up on time and work until my shift is over at the job that I actually claim to love more than anything else in the world? Now, that’s a puzzle. The answer is simple: because I don’t want to. Oh, I can invoke writer’s block, but that’s not very honest of me. Sure, I don’t quite know what’s going to happen next in my story. I don’t know how my main character is going to react to the latest world-shaking plot twist. Perhaps I’ve come to the end of my outline. Perhaps I’ve just discovered a perplexing plot hole and haven’t worked out how to fill it in without lampshading the problem…

Well, I could take two approaches. I could knuckle down and write anyway, even though it’s almost certainly going to be crap only to be expunged later. Or I could take a much-needed break, get some fresh air, grab some dinner, go for a walk, hit the gym, have a short nap, do some yardwork… see what I did there? I made a bad thing look like a good thing, and that’s what writer’s block is all about. By saying we suffer from writer’s block, we manage to make ourselves sound professional whilst really just being lazy and unproductive.

We really should cut that out, right?