Category Archives: Writing Tools

A discussion of the various software that authors employ to write, plot, backup, and ultimately use to write a novel.

How Writing Groups and Goals Keep Us on Task

Clancy Metzger The Writing Life Writing Tools 5 Comments

How good are you at staying on task?  At self-monitoring your writing schedule?  If you’re like me, then the answer to these questions is not as good as you’d like to be.

How about accountability?  I know I’m better at that.

When I have a meeting with either my writing group or with my critique partner, I know I have to get writing done so they have something to read … and I do it.  A chapter or two is a bite size chunk and very do-able.    Even more so when you know others are counting on you to have it done for their critiquing pleasure.  Not some faceless editor on the other side of the country, but a real live person who will be looking at you with their hand out waiting for you to give them what you promised.

When left to my own devices, I can find a million ways to frivol away my writing time on non-writing activities or even writing activities that are not writing.  But, when I have a weekly or bi-monthly meeting arranged with a certain expectation of productivity to accomplish, I get-r-done!

Sure, the meetings take time and that is always a precious commodity, but when weighed against my productivity when I’m not accountable, they are worth it.  Period.

What about goal setting?  I’m not always great, but definitely better if I have a daily goal written down and ‘staring’ at me.  I’m a list maker, to the point of neurosis, so if I have a daily to-do list that says ‘write X number of words’ or ‘write X scene’ today, I will make it happen more times than not.

Sometimes deadlines may feel overwhelming, so smaller writing goals are easier to accomplish.  It’s often more productive to say, ‘I will write this chapter today or this week’, than it is to say and accomplish, ‘I will write this book in the next six months’.  That seems so far out there and so much to do, even insurmountable, especially to those who are new or new-ish.

It’s November and that means NaNoWriMo, and many are out there writing their way towards that 50k goal.  Some by having a daily word count goal, others by just writing their asses off every chance they get in bursts of productivity.  I do better on this one when I have a daily goal, but I have yet to ‘win’ and reach that 50k goal.  I think it’s lack of preparation, but that’s another post.

Do you find that goals and groups keep you on task?  What other ways do you maintain your accountability?

Feeling Tense: Part 1

Craft & Skills Mary Pletsch Writing Tools 1 Comment

Feeling Tense

Part 1:  First Person

Lately I’ve been experimenting with telling short stories from different points of view and in different tenses than my usual preferred method, and wanted to share some of my perspectives.

First person past tense

“I felt the damp air of the cave close around me like a shroud.  Beside me, Tina gasped in surprise.”

First person feels…well, personal.  The reader is very quickly drawn into the main character’s world.  The intimacy of a viewpoint taking place from behind the main character’s eyes lets me easily imagine how it would feel to be that person.  On the down side, first person-past or present-means we have only one window onto this world.

It’s often awkward to switch between first person narrators, which is why most stories written in first person are told entirely from one character’s point of view.  This can prove a trap for the writer if s/he needs to convey something to the audience that the narrating character can’t possibly know.  If major events are happening out of the narrator’s knowledge, it can seem contrived or confusing when their effects are suddenly revealed.  There are also no opposing viewpoints to counter your narrator’s ideas and perceptions.  Make sure your first person narrator is interesting enough to deserve a whole story about “me, me, me!”

I admit, I love unreliable narrators.  That moment when as a reader, I pick up on little hints in the narrative suggesting that the narrator is mistaken/missing something/mentally unsound just give me the shivers.  Unreliable narrators are difficult to do well, though-making the distinctions between the narrator’s perception and the actual reality can feel heavy-handed if done too obviously, while if it’s done too subtly, many readers might miss it entirely.

First person present tense

My high school English teachers made a point of “curing” their students of the urge to write in first person present tense, for example:

“I run into the mouth of the cave.  My heart pounds and my lungs constrict.”

During my university years, first person present tense became the language I used while roleplaying, acting out my character’s words and actions literally as they happened.  I never would have thought to write a story in this tense.

Imagine my surprise when I opened The Hunger Games.

Today, trilogies from the Hunger Games to Fifty Shades of Grey are written with this sense of the immediate present.  In a novel like the Hunger Games, the present tense adds to the sense of urgency, creating the illusion that the narrator might die at any time-after all, this story is being related as it occurs, as opposed to a past-tense framing which would make the story sound like a tale told by the narrator after the fact.  If your story needs that urgency, first person present might work for you, even if it’s less common than past tense.

Jess Owen: Kickstarter – The Indie Author’s New Secret Weapon

Guest Posts Marketing Publishing The Writing Life Writing Tools 2 Comments

Guest Post by Jess Owen

If you haven’t heard of Kickstarter yet, as soon as you finish this article you’re going to be inundated with emails from old friends, family members and distant colleagues asking you to support their Kickstarter campaign. Just wait.

So what is it? A streamlined, user-friendly website to facilitate an idea called crowd funding. The folks at Kickstarter believe that, “…a good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide,”* . . . and gain support. Monetary support. What began as a grass roots fund raising method for indie music bands has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon that gives individuals the financial power to see any creative project through to completion, and gain a tribe of new friends and fans in the process.

Artists, musicians, authors, inventors, restaurateurs, film makers, you name it, Kickstarter supports it.

All you need is one tangible project, a timeline, a bag of goodies to hand out at the end, and you are ready to dive in. Don’t forget a “can-do attitude.”

I used Kickstarter to fund the hardback printing of my debut novel, Song of the Summer King. Rather than turn to POD, I decided to research printers in order to gain a wide view of all available options to the modern self-publisher. While I waffled on how best to go about paying for and distributing my book, a friend mentioned Kickstarter.

This is how it works: an individual creates a project. This must be a tangible goal with an end date and a product (like an album, a book, an art show; no “fund my life” projects). For me, it was printing the hardback book. A traditionally published author might want to create a whole bunch of snazzy schwag for her launch event, but not have enough funds. Kickstarter can do that too. Once you create your project, you figure how much money you need, set the financial goal, give yourself a time limit within the maximum of 6o days, and launch! (For more detailed information on the mechanics, read through the Kickstarter School on their web page.)

I raised $9,000 in thirty days, with an initial goal of $6,000. Here’s how I did it.

I found my audience. It is critical that you know where to find the people who will actually want to read your book. If this is starting to sound like every other writing article on marketing, it should. If you don’t understand marketing yet, it will be difficult for you to succeed with Kickstarter or any other fund raising program. Kickstarter is basically a way for readers to pre-order your book, plus fun and prizes. So know where your peeps are, and how to get their attention. I write fantasy, and for years have also been a minor member of the fantasy art community. Still, this was a place to start. I began to draw a lot more gryfons and wolves when I knew I was going to self-publish, and with that work, I started to attract fans, fellow artists and readers with those interests.

In other words, I built a platform. Start doing that now, no matter what stage you’re in.

Next, involve your family and friends. My family and friends were my biggest supporters. I hope yours are too. If they aren’t, go to your chosen family, your good friends, your writing buddies, your neighbors, church-whoever supports you. Don’t be ashamed that you’re asking for money, either. Be proud! Be excited! You have created something, or you’re certainly about to, and the people who love you will be excited for you.

Have a plan. I had a plan to give interest a boost at the beginning of each week of my campaign. The first week was family and friends. The second week, I had artists post pieces of special promotional works centered around my book. Yes, I had to pay for them, but I was supporting other artists. Also, their work was better than a simple advertisement, because their 10,000 interested fans were suddenly looking at beautiful pieces of art about my book, with links back to Kickstarter. The next week I was in my hometown newspapers, and after that, I appealed to bloggers. It doesn’t matter what your plan involves, as long as it targets your audience base.

As far as figuring out rewards and timeline, I researched other projects. Art featured heavily in my rewards, because I’m close to the fantasy art community. I picked a cover artist who appeals to my target audience, and offered prints of her work at several reward tiers. I was also surprised that my own artwork was a relatively popular reward option.

Choose rewards that are pertinent to your story. Got a cool sci-fi novel? Get nifty badges or buttons or figure out a way to do super slick holographic bookmarks. Think of what you’d want in a grab bag from your favorite author, and offer that stuff as rewards. Study what other publishing projects are offering. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just figure out what’s already working.

Remember to factor the cost of rewards into your funding goal. This is a mistake I made, and I’ll admit it without shame. (The point is I’m wiser now . . .) Factor in rewards, shipping, and the percentage that Kickstarter takes out for processing credit cards. I asked for $6,000, raised $9,000, and walked away with $8,110 because of the processing fees and people whose pledges didn’t go through. I had just enough to cover my project.

Aside from all the technical information, what I will say is what I think Kickstarter, and websites like it, mean for authors-particularly, self-published authors. Many aspiring authors have sometimes said or thought, “If I could just get my work out to the people, they would love it.” Well now’s the time to saddle up. You can use Kickstarter to raise money for that professional editor, cover artist, layout and lettering designer, and any other initial costs associated with self-publishing.

We are in the Information Age. Anyone who understands how to move information and get it to the masses will succeed. Writers who can track down and target their fan base will sell books. Now, that fan base can invest even more love and support by actually helping you publish your work. The psychological power of active community support is going to be huge in the near future. Your fans are not just fans anymore. They’re investors. They’re partners. They’re going to be excited for more than just your next book, they’re going to be excited for you. And that is priceless.

Kickstarter and other websites that facilitate crowd funding are about more than just money. They’re about community. They help you find your fans, your friends, your colleagues. They help you build your tribe. The people who pledge to your project don’t just want to buy your book. They want to help worthy dreams come true and watch people succeed. And they want to be a part of it. Even if you’re an independent author, there’s no reason you have to do it alone.

To me, that’s pretty darn exciting.

Guest Writer Bio: Jess has been creating works of fantasy art and fiction for over a decade, and founded her own publishing company, Five Elements Press, to publish her own works and someday, that of others. She’s a proud member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Authors of the Flathead. She lives with her husband in the mountains of northwest Montana, which offer daily inspiration for creating worlds of wise, wild creatures, magic, and adventure. Jess can be contacted directly through her website, www.jessowen.com, or the SOTSK facebook fan page, www.facebook.com/songofthesummerking

Metaphors

Brandon M. Lindsay Craft & Skills Writing Tools 2 Comments

I remember from a non-fiction writing class I took in college that the three most important things to consider when writing any non-fiction piece are: clarity, clarity, and clarity. While the purposes of non-fiction and fiction are different-non-fiction is primarily informative, and fiction is primarily artistic-I think we as fiction writers can take a note from our non-fiction comrades.

I recently read a fantasy novel from a few decades ago-a classic by many standards-and although I enjoyed it, I found that the author’s use of metaphor and simile to be ridiculous. His books are almost universally lauded, and whenever anyone finds fault with his books, they don’t mention this aspect of them.

He isn’t the only author like this that I’ve read. There have been a few. Not a lot, but what disturbs me is how writing like this is oftentimes (most often by the literary fiction crowd; sorry, literary fiction crowd) considered to be profound. Worse is when a new author sees it and wants to emulate it with no idea what it is or what effect it will have. Perhaps in capable hands this profundity is achieved sometimes, but I think that more often it achieves the opposite of what a metaphor is designed to do, which is to clarify a concept.

A demonstration is in order. Instead of using an example from the book I read and risking the alienation of this author’s legion of fans, I’m going to create a somewhat hyperbolic example of what I mean: Tears scrambled down his face like alligators. There is very little in common with the concept of tears and those of scrambling and alligators. The image that comes to my mind when I read this is not that of someone crying, but someone whose face is being ravaged by tiny reptiles. Perhaps there is some very distant parallel that can be drawn between these two images, but more likely is that in the mind of the reader they are going to exist in conflict.

Hopefully your experience was different, but all the formal writing education I had encouraged this sort of free-association tomfoolery. I think the reason for this is that the denotative (cognitive) aspects of metaphor and simile are often actively ignored while the connotative (aesthetic) aspects are given full sovereignty. Which is fine if you only plan on writing the literary equivalent of inkblots, but for those of us writing about characters taking actions in places, such a limited approach will not suffice.

Consider another example, that of a bloody sunset. Although maybe a bit trite, it can be effective from both a denotative and a connotative perspective, depending, of course, on the context in which it’s used. Sunsets can be red like blood, and the colors seem to ooze as if bleeding from a wound, so it paints a mental picture that actually describes this particular sunset as against other sunsets. By calling it bloody, the concept of this sunset is concretized and thus clarified, as opposed to a vague abstraction, or, as in the case above, a mishmash of conflicting concretes that no rational mind can grasp.

Also, it did so without sacrificing the connotative aspect of the metaphor; indeed, the metaphor imbued the image of the sunset with a sense of violent finality, and would serve well as a setting element for, say, the aftermath of a battle. I think the reason this particular metaphor is so commonly used is because it is effective at capturing both the connotative and denotative elements of an image that resonates with so many of us.

Yes, we fiction writers are artists. But we are also communicators. Even if all we are communicating is the products of our imagination, I think it is important that we never lose sight of that.