Category Archives: The Writing Process

Hey diddle diddle

the cat and the fiddle

the cow jumped over the moon

the little dog laughed to see such a sport and

the dish ran away with the spoon

Okay, it’s all fun and games when the dish runs away with the spoon, but not so much when it’s your character who’s running off with your story. Or at least what you thought was your story.

As a discovery writer, I tend to have my stories overtaken by events. I’ve had a character yell at me that while he could be a cold blooded killer, there was no way he was going to kill that girl for that reason. When he refused, it changed everything. I have to say he was right when I looked at it, but still, what do you do?

Moments like that when my characters talk to me, heck, when they rebel are part of the reason I’m a discovery writer. For the most part, I let them take me for the ride and then see what I ended up with in editing. But sometimes the tangent the characters want to travel down isn’t one they should. Or, as often happens to me, my short story becomes a novella, becomes a novel, becomes a trilogy. Sigh. I’m in the middle of that now with New Bohemia: Just One Night. When I started that story, it was a short that kept interrupting my ability to work on a novel. So, I figured what the heck, I’ll write the short and get it out of my system. That was months ago. At 60,000 words, the story isn’t so short anymore because I decided I needed to kill off my main character’s parents in a way she’s going to feel responsible for the deaths. The story didn’t derail so much as I added a twist to make my characters’ break-up make sense.

As I see it, the trick is knowing when the diversion adds to or deepens the story and when it doesn’t. If in Chapter 12, Rafe is suppose to have a have a fight with the love of his life and the relationship is supposed to look like it’s over, but, instead, if Rafe decides to go hunting with the guys and finds a magic sword that happens to be Excalibur, you might have a problem or, at least, be writing a different story than you thought you were.

If you’re an outliner, you probably know almost immediately when your characters stray and can assess whether in the overall plot arc if the diversion is a complication that should stay or navel gazing that needs to be cut. It’s a bit harder for us discovery writers. After all, we often don’t know where the story is going. (Yes, I acknowledge that this is the way to madness for some.) It could be that the first 100 pages is wrong and not the “diversion”. Been there, done that and it stinks.

So, you have a couple of choices when the characters try to run the show.

1. Go with it. Since the characters are only the writer’s unconscious mind, they might be on to something.

2. Assess the detour and see if it’s a path the story should travel. If not, stop or see #5 below.

3. If it’s a main character mutiny, write it and worry about whether it works in rewrite. This is often what I do.

4. If it’s a minor character, cut, paste and save the “new” story for a sequel or related story.

5. Cut, paste and save in another document, and keep on your plan or outline.

Sometimes when your characters decide to turn left instead of right, you discover wonders. Sometimes it results in the never ending story. The latter isn’t good. You must finish the story. Any story. Every story.

Remember, you need to choose what’s important for your story. If the track your character wanders onto doesn’t advance the story you want to tell, stop, hold a character intervention and get back to the plot line you want. If the path through the forest isn’t well defined, don’t be afraid to leave it and smell the flowers along the way. Just watch out for the big bad wolf, and Hades.

Stop Talking and Tell Me Something: Using the Dialogue Scene

December 21, 2012

Leigh Galbreath

Character Craft & Skills First Drafts Leigh Galbreath Rewriting The Writing Life 2 Comments

Let’s face it. Dialogue is the bane of many a writer learning the craft. We overuse it. We unnecessarily pretty it up. Frankly, we overthink it.

The talking part isn’t really all that difficult. We all know how to talk. The only thing you really need to do if you’re having trouble writing realistic conversation is to listen to real life. A nice trick is to record a conversation between real people and play it back, writing it down word for word. Scenes from movies work well for this, too.

You’ll learn pretty quick that with spoken dialogue, less is more.

The truth is that most of the dialogue shouldn’t be spoken. The majority of communication between human beings happens through body language, part of that elusive phenomenon we like to call subtext. Even when we’re not talking, we’re still having a dialogue. In fact, people tend to believe a speaker’s body language over what they’re saying. This, I think, is why it’s so difficult to write a story only using dialogue. Real people need context to fully understand the meaning of what’s being said.

Think about it. You’re main character’s girlfriend is telling her about a conflict at work. While your main character is responding to the girlfriend as if she’s listening to every word in a tone that says she cares, she’s also watching a little boy play with a toy two tables down. Does your main character really care about what her girlfriend is saying? Not really, or she would give her complete attention to the conversation.

What about the protagonist who can’t keep his eyes off the gorgeous woman in red across the room, even though he tells his date he’s not interested in her? Which do you believe-the glances or the words?

Once you understand how this works, it’s a great tool to help you stay engaged in the writing and keep the words flowing. Let’s face it, it’s so much more interesting to write a scene where people are being active, and character’s talking to each other is the most engaging activity in most novels. It’s a fantastic source of conflict, especially when someone’s words don’t match their body language.

Take the first example above. Our main character isn’t really paying attention to her girlfriend, and the girlfriend knows it. She gets irritated and calls our main character on it. Maybe there’s someone at the table next to theirs who is paying a little too much attention even though he’s not saying a word. In the second example, the protagonist’s date isn’t stupid. She knows her man has his eye on the woman in red. And maybe that gorgeous stranger has noticed it, too.

You can do all kinds of things to kick-start a flagging plot by introducing a dialogue scene. It’s where the characters figure things out and mess things up. It’s where they proclaim love and outright lie. It’s where characters show themselves even when their words say otherwise.

Your story, after all, isn’t about car chases or sword fights. It isn’t about the nefarious scheme your villain has hatched. Your story is about the people dealing with all that, and people don’t live in a vacuum or always agree with each other. They don’t always act rationally or know what they’re doing, and while it’s possible to show this in narrative, that can get boring for you and the reader. Get one or more other characters in the room to show it through dialogue and bring the situation out of the character’s head and into the real world. You’ll be amazed what can happen.

Keeping the Ball Rolling

December 19, 2012

David Carrico

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!

Getting Stuck in the Big Swampy Middle

December 7, 2012

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Character Craft & Skills Ideas & Plotting Rewriting Storyline The Writing Process Writing Tools 2 Comments

It was breathtaking and I couldn’t stop reading it!

That’s the experience every reader wants and those are the words every writer wishes to hear. The adage that if your character is sleeping, so is your reader is all too true. So if your novel is stuck in the big swampy middle, so will your reader be and he may not have the fortitude to move on. So, how does one gracefully dance across the swamp without getting stuck? There are many books written on the topic but here are three things I’ve learned:

1) you have permission to make things difficult for your protagonist.

When a fellow writer made me aware that it was my duty to make things difficult for my protagonist – that I was supposed to be mean – writing got a whole lot easier and the middle became so much more fun! Disasters, unexpected problems, the fatal character flaw, the goal he so desperately wants is within reach yet is maddeningly elusive, twists and turns, the mentor dies, red herrings … the list of trouble goes on.

Through the middle, there will be many mini-problems which escalate into bigger ones and culminate into the BIG middle disaster. The BIG middle disaster is the lynch pin of a problem that propels the protagonist into the third act where he rises to the challenge in the smashing climax. This disaster can happen anywhere from the mid-point to the end of the middle.

Most importantly, the protagonist complicates the situation, makes it more complex, worsens it and raises the stakes. How can your protagonist worsen the situation? By having a fatal flaw that he must overcome in order to achieve his goal such as shyness, insecurity, impulsiveness, greed, play-by-the-rules, or risk taker. Sometimes the character may experience success but that can have unintended consequences such as: the antagonist’s reaction; there’s a worse problem he wasn’t aware of; or a secondary character has a bad reaction to the achievement.

2) plan your BIG middle disaster and work toward it

The plan doesn’t have to be overly detailed. Even if you’re a pantster, it helps to know where the BIG middle disaster will occur and what it will be. This will keep you from being derailed, from writing scenes that don’t support the story goals and the final conflict. There’s still lots of room for pantster creativity in getting to the BIG middle disaster and moving beyond to the climax.

As you’re working toward the BIG middle disaster, as you’re ramping up the tension by increasing emotional, physical and psychological conflict, as your characters reactions and actions are met with resounding consequences and reactions, keep in mind the story telling technique you’re using. For example, is this primarily an action oriented, plot driven story? Are you using a mini-arc, a smaller story within a larger one which although connected, serves to reveal information about the characters? Are you following a sub-plot? Is there a new character to add an unexpected dimension to the tale? It’s too easy to get derailed and fall into the swamp if you’re not clear about which technique you’re using.

And it can never be overstated: increase conflict to increase tension to keep readers wanting to know what’ll happen next. For every event, there is a reaction with resounding consequences and more reactions and actions. This will make writing the story exciting for you and a white-knuckle read.

3) focus on the prize

You’ve got your beginning with the story problem clear in your mind. Your protagonist has faced an opening disaster that commits him to solving the problem. You know the prize, the novel’s ending. Now, you must focus on that prize with your protagonist to get him to the ending. At this point, it doesn’t matter if he succeeds and this is a happy ending, or if he fails and this is an unhappy ending or if this is a bittersweet ending with mixed results. What matters is keeping an eye on the goal, working toward the climax by making sure all events -setbacks, triumphs, actions and reactions – somehow contribute to the end result.

Subplots, side trips that reveal character only count if that incident or revelation shows us something significant about the character in relation to the story goal. Saving a cat may be important if it shows a compassionate, compulsive need to act which gets him into trouble later on. For example, it’s a laudable trait to get the cat out of the tree because grandma’s upset and her blood pressure is rising. But, when escaping from the bad guys, he stops running across rooftops because he sees a half starved cat that’s too scared to jump and the six year old kid is on the ground crying. You can imagine how his compassion may get him into more trouble. The rule is that everything you reveal or use must contribute to your character working toward the prize.

The middle is really the fun part of writing the novel. It’s where you can explore your character, exploit his weaknesses and strengths, and keep ramping up the excitement. There are times when I stop writing and ask my character: What do you see? or Oh, oh, what are you going to do now? Your character will answer those questions for you and stay true to the story goal if you’ve done your homework in your character profile, and if you keep your focus on the prize.

For me, the middle is an incredible adventure where the protagonist and I journey through murder, mayhem and have the time of our lives!

What works for you?