Tag Archives: writing tips

Writing Behind the Scenes

Posted in Advice, Characters, Craft, Fiction, Novel, Reader, Tips, Writing by

In a post on Erika Marks’ blog yesterday, she talked about how she keeps character details straight while writing her fiction. I commented that I, too, make character files. Mine consist of three sections: Physical, General, and Relationships.

Physical includes not only the basics like hair and eye color, but personality traits, habits, mannerisms, clothing style, etc. General is where I record details on schooling, occupation, home, political or religious views, hobbies/activities, talents, fears, goals, etc. Relationships not only records the character’s status with a significant other, but relationships with children, parents, siblings, friends, co-workers, and pets when applicable. I record not only the names of these people and animals, but details of how the character relates to each.

In each of these sections, I record significant dates, which is a practice I carry over to my scene list. As I write, I make scene lists that not only include descriptions of what happens in the scenes, but the calendar date they took place and the number of days into the storyline. I include the day number because that makes it easier to not only see how many days have passed since the opening scene, but to calculate the number of days between story events.

If my story takes place in a location other than where I live, or have lived, I also check the weather archives for the locations because I don’t want to write in a thunderstorm out of season, or have someone dressed in shorts and a tank top, when the normal high temp at that time would be 45°F. And since my character Jalal, in my last novel, frequently ran on a California beach, I checked the tide tables for the time period to make sure he wouldn’t have been jogging through three feet of surf.

This is a glimpse into the writing, and a little bit of the research, I do behind my scenes. Many of the details I record never make it into the manuscript, but they help my writing by making me see my characters and locations as real. I know that most readers would not give the weather or tides a thought, but the fear that a few would notice a gaff strikes fear in me. However, most readers would catch the error of changing a character’s eye color mid-book or losing track of the birth order of siblings. Besides, I like knowing I’ve done my best to make every aspect of my novel “real” to me and my readers.

Your turn: What do you write behind the scenes?

Photo credit: Marek Roslan – Altas Film Studio in Ouarzazate, Morocco

Shhh … 5 secrets to novel writing

Posted in Advice, Craft, Critique, Editing, Feedback, Fiction, Novel, Opinion, Reader, Revision, Tips, Writing by

Are you about to read The Five Secrets to Writing a Bestselling Novel by Linda Cassidy Lewis? I wish. We both know I don’t have the experience to write that. (Yet!) No, I’m going to tell you five things I discovered about how I write a novel. Five things, though mostly contrary to what I read in how-to-write manuals, that work for me. (Your mileage may vary.)

No, the novel of which I speak isn’t published yet, but it’s a good story, and feedback I’ve received from several other writers confirms that I succeeded in crafting a solid beginning, middle, and end. Nevertheless, as you read my five secrets, you’re welcome to have your grain of salt ready.

  1. Write what you know: Never take this to mean you can only write about a subject if you’re an expert on it. You can learn about almost anything through the internet, books, interviews, documentaries, etc. However, it’s hard to convey feelings convincingly in your writing that you haven’t experienced—at least in some way. I believe that if you make yourself feel the emotion you’re writing about, your reader will feel it too. If you have an idea that moves you, excites and interests you, write what your heart is telling you to write. You can research the details.
  2. Outline: You must outline; all the books say so. Ummm … no! I did not outline. The closest I came to outlining was creating a scene list. I wrote a one-sentence description of a few “big” scenes in advance, but mostly I listed each scene after I wrote it. I also wrote character sketches though, of course, these people revealed quite a bit more of themselves as I wrote and one character changed completely.
  3. First draft: I know the books say to get the story down fast, write straight through, don’t stop to edit. No can do … and didn’t. I see no reason I shouldn’t edit as I write. My story wasn’t quite complete when I thought it was, so it grew and changed through further editing, but my “first draft” was not “shitty.”
  4. Feedback: I read advice not to seek feedback until I completed and edited the novel. I didn’t listen to this either. Maybe someday I’ll have more confidence in my plotting skills, but for this one, I needed to know if the storyline that made perfect sense to me, also made sense to others. However, I started with a pretty good grasp of my story’s beginning, middle, and end … even if I hadn’t written it all yet. Only once did all my critique partners agree that a plot point needed serious revision, but often they let me know when I needed to add or clarify something. I preferred making those corrections while I was still writing the story rather than after I’d gone forward with more story that connected to what I had to cut or change thereby necessitating revisions to all those later scenes too. For me, receiving in-progress feedback was both confirming and motivating.
  5. Editing: I’ve read reams of how-to’s on editing. Most of them advised the method of going through your manuscript looking for one thing at a time: plot holes in one pass; grammar and punctuation in another pass; excessive use of adjectives/adverbs in yet another; etc. Though I tried, I found it impossible to focus on just one thing at a time, so I corrected whatever I saw as I read. Of course, I read my manuscript straight through at least three times (once, aloud) and through each of its three parts separately at different times. Eventually, I covered all the editing concerns I had listed.

So, that’s what works for me. Maybe you read these five “secrets” and shook your head, sure that I can’t possibly have written anything publishable. Maybe you read them and thought, Well duh!

I say, do what works for you—just write!

One useless writing tip!

Posted in Advice, Fiction, Motivation, Scene, Tips, Writing by

Last month at a critique meeting, I recounted my experience with a writing tip I’d read. Some famous author (I’m bad with names) said that he always ended his writing day in the middle of a sentence. For him, it was a jumpstart into the next day’s writing session. For me, it was sheer frustration.

I sat with my fingers poised on the keyboard for a half-hour trying to recapture the words I had intended to write. “As he ran back toward home, he strained to make out the stairway  … “ Hmmm. I read it again. And again. I knew, of course, this was Jalal running on the beach, and I knew why he was looking for the stairway. But how had I intended to end that particular sentence? And what was the next line meant to be? In the end, I deleted that sentence and “meditated” to re-visualize the scene. Eventually, I saw that Jalal doesn’t see Renee on the stairway because she’s descended to the beach. He doesn’t notice this and runs by her. She calls out, startles him, he turns around. Then, as the whole scene unfolded, I typed away, irritated I had wasted those thirty minutes on a half-finished sentence. Now, no matter what, I not only finish the sentence, I finish the scene before I end my writing day.

Obviously, that author’s writing tip is not useless for him, nor likely for many others, it just didn’t work for me. Have you tried any writing tips that didn’t work for you?

Are you prompted to write?

Posted in Advice, Creativity Workshop, Fiction, Goals, Inspiration, Novel, Prompt, Writing by

Along with meeting our weekly Creativity Workshop goal, Merrilee gave us tips on ways to come up with writing ideas and assigned us the task of looking at three photos to spark three ideas each. Sometimes a story idea sparked, sometimes a line, possibly an opening, for a story came to me.

Creative Commons via Cobalt123

It was hard not to see this photo other than in a “techo” sense, so I went with that … and a bit of fantasy (which I don’t write.)

  1. A radical new technology enables photographic evidence of the human soul.
  2. She stared at the beautiful blue visualization on the monitor as his favorite song played in Media Player and her heart slivered into shards.
  3. She held her breath and touched the pulsing blue orb, but this time—oh, this time—encountered no barrier; she reached further.

Creative Commons via bslmmrs

Since the main character in my recently completed novel is a brokenhearted man who flees to his cottage by the sea, that’s what immediately came to mind, but I pressed on … sort of.

  1. A suicidal woman retreats to a beach cottage and falls in love with life again.
  2. A recluse suspects that her neighbors on either side are planning to kill her.
  3. In a rental cottage overlooking the sea, a man finally confronts the fallout from his years of alcoholism.

Creative Commons via moriza

This photo just struck me funny, so I had a little fun with this one.

  1. A woman realizes that her husband had lost his mind along with his hair.
  2. If she had to listen to one more of his ridiculous ideas, she would murder him in his sleep.
  3. She knew in that instant on a sidewalk in Manhattan, their marriage was over.

I’ve rarely used photos as prompts, though something I actually see often sparks an idea. Dreams are a big source of inspiration for me. Music can be a good one. Occasionally, some bit of conversation sets my muse to scribbling down an idea. What serves you as a writing prompt?

Ten writing rules I obey … and you should too!

Posted in Advice, Craft, Editing, Fiction, Novel, Reader, Revision, Tips, Words, Writing by

Yes, I know, how dare I rant about  writing rules (a lot) on this blog and now tell you to obey these ten?! But today’s posts is about some of the writing rules I’ve scientifically tested and found useful. (Seriously.) Unfortunately, I rebelled against some of these far too long, and I kick myself for that. This list is certainly not exhaustive; these are just the first ten that came to mind. If, in the future, I decide I was wrong about some of the ones I’ve previously dissed, I’ll let you know.

Show, don’t tell. This is one rule I must have learned subconsciously from reading good writing. I obeyed the rule pretty much by instinct, albeit imperfectly. One place I tended to falter was in writing emotional scenes. My critique partner Kasie West brought it to my attention. She said, “Don’t tell me how to feel in this scene, just show me how your character feels, and I will feel it too.”

Never use three words when one will do. This is one of my delights in writing. I love to take a good sentence and pare it down to its essence, thereby creating a better sentence. Make every word pull its weight. Watch your use of adverbs and adjectives, as these are clues to places where you can probably find a stronger word to take the place of two or more weaker ones. (Notice I did not say never use adjectives and adverbs.)

Avoid passive voice. Yes, of course, there are times when passive voice works, but use it rarely. You can almost always strengthen a sentence by rewording to remove the passive. (Ha! I first wrote that last sentence in passive voice and had to edit! :-) )

Vary sentence length. I can’t remember where I first read this, but the rule was that usually you should start a paragraph with shorter sentences, use longer in the middle, and then shorter again at the end. I don’t always do that, but I always try to avoid repetition of too many sentences of equal length. Good writing has rhythm and flow.

Read your work aloud. I don’t like to hear my voice. Also, since I spend most of my writing time alone, I felt ridiculous talking to myself in an empty house. But once I got over that, I found that reading aloud helped me refine the rhythm and flow I spoke about above. Listen for the music. Reading aloud also helped me spot quite a few typos.

Print it out. Like the rule above, I resisted this one. I’m an ink and paper miser, but my eyes can take reading on a monitor for only so long. So, I started printing out chapters to edit. Lo and behold, clumsy sentences, typos, paragraph length, and a dozen other things I missed on the virtual page, jumped off the printed page. [Update: If you have an e-reader, upload your writing to it and read it that way, which also helps you spot errors.]

Use “creative” dialogue tags sparingly. I believe this is more acceptable in some genre writing, but in general, “said” or “asked” should be your most used dialogue tags. If you want your reader to know your character raged, then make that evident in the words and gestures he uses. If you want your character to say something sweetly, have her smile and bat her eyelashes. I do occasionally allow myself a “whispered.”

Make every plot element count. Be “ecologically” sound and use every bit of your wordage. If you give us a character or setting detail, make it meaningful to the whole story. In my novel The Brevity of Roses, when I first introduce Meredith, I tell the reader that she grows roses, but that’s not just a meaningless detail. Gardening is essential to understanding her character, and the imagery of roses, and what they represent, carries through to the last chapter. Every person, place, or thing must earn its right to be in your story and must be consistent with all other story elements, as well as with characterization.

Keep the story moving. This is a touchy subject for some of us because we love lingering in our character’s head, or waxing poetic about the sea, but if we do that too long we risk making the reader “skip to the good stuff.” Learning the proper balance between exposition, description, narrative, dialogue, and summary is an art. One I hope I’m learning well. (Tip: In chapter 6 of his The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes Jack M. Bickham has a good explanation of balancing what he calls “delivery systems.”)

Now, it’s your turn. Do you agree or disagree with the rules on my list? Did I neglect to mention your most important rule?

To murder or not?

Posted in Advice, Craft, Critique, Editing, Fiction, Revision, Writing by

By now, you all probably know my love/hate relationship with writing rules. Sometimes I resist a rule because I don’t think it applies to my style or genre. Sometimes I resist because it makes no sense to me. And sometimes I resist because it confuses me. “Murder your darlings.” is one of those.

Yes, I agree we should avoid overwriting, purple prose, affected literariness (go with it) or any other type of what I call unnatural writing. But the original quote defines “darlings” as the writing you consider your finest. Uh … what?

Here’s the full quote:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings.” – Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

Yes, I understand Quiller-Couch uttered the term “fine writing” tongue-in-cheek. But there’s an underlying implication that sets my as-yet-unpublished writer’s brain into a tizzy. The statement says that when we think we’ve written something very well, we’re wrong, we’re fooling ourselves, but assumes—when we come to our senses—we’ll recognize them as “darlings” and amputate accordingly.

But, but, but … what if we’re blinded?

Certainly, critique groups are a benefit. If four out of five readers tell you a certain passage should be cut, no matter how much you love it, you really must consider they’re right. But what if a line or phrase is deemed “a darling” by one reader and “beautiful writing” by another … and you, obviously, side with beautiful? If we have the mindset that the passages we love best, those we think we’ve written especially well, by definition are “darlings” that need to be murdered, what if we slice out the parts that really are well-written, the phrasing that defines our style, the bits that make our writing come alive? How do you know?

Are these scalpel skills innate or can they be learned? Do you just write the way you want and leave it to an agent/editor to point out the darlings? Is it devious of me to use the editorial “you” when no one but me is this dense?


Photo credit: Rainer Ebert