All About the Writing

What Makes You Feel Like A Writer?

There are lots of moments, big and small, that can make you feel like a writer.  We'll be exploring them today at Romance Writer's Revenge, so come on over and let us know what stirs your writerly feelings.

Romance CSI

Humans have this need to categorize, especially when it comes to other humans, and they've learned to do it instantaneously.  Maybe it's a holdover from cave-dwelling days when you looked at a feline and had to process quickly whether it was a kitty cat or a saber-tooth tiger. 

We still do this, judging by someone's clothing, and demeanor, and speech, whether they are friend or foe.  If it's a foe, we hightail it out of there.  And if we determine it's a friend, we have to decide whether it is someone we want to know better, or if this encounter is more than plenty ("No, seriously.  I'll call you.").

 As writers, we do everything we can to make sure our characters are fleshed out, 3-D, flawed yet fabulous, enticing readers to invest in the story we're about to tell them. 

Unfortunately, the hero and heroine aren't so easily persuaded.  When they meet for the first time, they look at each other and see a "type", which is the first step of categorization.  Categorization leads to judgment.  And judgment is based on past experiences, often painful ones.

It gives the character a valid reason to dismiss this new person, because of a sincere belief that "they are not my type".  Sometimes there's a mental checklist of characteristics they want in a potential mate.  More often it's a process of elimination, ensuring the love interest doesn't share traits with a person from the past who is responsible for that barbed-wire fence around the delicate heart area.

However, we don't allow our characters to disprove our theories about their mutual suitability, not after just one encounter.  We insist they interact—constantly—repeatedly—incessantly.  They will have to provide concrete proof that they are not a good fit, and we have deeply-entrenched reasons to make them fail at that evidentiary task.

We put the hero/heroine in dozens of scenes, giving them multiple opportunities to examine each other's behavior and compare it to the ideal attributes of their "type".  They input the data, push a button on the Romance CSI computer, and wait the requisite ten seconds for the single page to appear in the printer tray.  They pick up the report and pronounce, "Nope, it's not a match", in a gleeful I-told-you-so tone of voice.  

Yet just because the preliminary testing rules them out as a "person of interest" doesn't mean they're free to go.  Further tests are necessary, and unavoidable.

It isn't long before the characters learn that maybe they've miscategorized, or misjudged, the other person.  They discover they're falling in love with someone who is not the "type" they initially saw.  Instead, they see the layers unveiled, and become enamored of things that were not apparent during that first dismissive look. 

Also, since the characters have grown and changed, those long-ago hurts cannot be applied to the current situation.  It is a mismatch, like trying to test oranges for caffeine content.

That seemingly "not-my-type" person was exactly who they've been seeking all their lives.

Perhaps the heroine is too kooky, and the hero likes peace and quiet.  Guess what?  He didn't realize how boring his life was until she came along with her special brand of crazy.  He's too stiff and controlling for this freeform gal.  Oops.  Guess a little bit of structure actually made her life simpler so she could focus on being zany.

It's not easy playing matchmaker, especially with characters who are convinced they know more about their relationship needs than the writer does.  Still, it would have taken all the fun out of the process if they'd believed us from the get-go.

Let's just hope the next couple doesn't know about our 100% success rate.

 

I Do. . .or Die Wins 2nd Place!

I am so excited to announce that I Do. . .or Die won 2nd place in the Romance Category of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) Literary Contest.  There were eight finalists, with cash prizes awarded to the top three places.  I think I'll celebrate with a massage this week.  And maybe a nice lunch.  And there's a few books I want need. . .Wait a minute -- how did I spend more than I got as a prize?

How Hard Can It Be to Write a Letter?

"[A] letter is like an email on paper, and paper is like a computer screen made of trees, for those who don’t know"

I've been giggling ever since I came across this line. I love how it acknowledges the transition we're facing with printed books and e-books, even if it is clearly leaning away from the printed books. But it's easy to imagine this conversation a few years ago, explaining to our parents and grandparents, about email: "It's like a letter, only on a computer screen."

The quote is from Craig Morgan Teicher, editor of PWxyz, a new blog from Publishers Weekly. It's a short piece about Saul Bellow's letters being published.  Not many people write letters anymore, and it's easy to understand why. Email is so much easier, and there's the whole instantaneous gratification aspect, which is probably what sold all of us on it initially. None of us like to wait. Nowadays even email takes too long when we have texting and tweeting as instant communication tools.

What I find really fascinating is how many people devoted themselves to writing letters WHEN IT WAS REALLY HARD TO PHYSICALLY DO IT. 

I mean, stone tablets? You'd spend half the day, at least, trying to find something small enough to carry around. And what do you use for whiteout when you make a typo, or I guess it's actually a carve-o? You had to plan ahead of time what you were gonna say, since it's not a medium that caters to pantsers. So where did you write down the stuff before you, well, carved it in stone?

Think what it must have been like to sharpen a quill every time you wanted to jot a note to a friend. You'd have to make sure you didn't slice off a fingertip or two. For one thing, there goes the penmanship, because clutching a quill in your fingerless fist isn't gonna make for the prettiest letters. And of course it's next to impossible to continue sharpening quills if you have no more digits. You would have plenty to write about to your friends though.      

Still, I wouldn't be very far into either one of these letter-writing processes before I would say, "Yea verily, and forsooth. I shalt just holla at my peeps when next we meet."

So it's even more amazing when you think about letters written by AUTHORS. I'm talking about authors who either wrote their books by hand, or on a typewriter that is slower than a manual can opener. I get all twitchy when one of the keys gets stuck on my laptop and I have to press, EXTRA HARD, to get it to actually cooperate. But what they did had to be excruciating. We're lucky to even have books from way back when, in the literary Pleistocene era. I wouldn't have blamed them if they had just given up and decided to write one-word neon signs instead. 

And on top of all that they wrote LETTERS.

Of course, maybe writing letters was the old-fashioned way of procrastinating, and "counting things as writing" that aren't really, even when we call them "research". Or maybe writing a letter was a warm-up, a way to get the words flowing when the author was stuck on a certain scene.  

However, I suspect letter writing was another form of art, and they knew these would be preserved, and appreciated, and analyzed, along with their books. So it was worth the time, and the effort, they devoted to it. 

Still, I'm glad I'm a writer now. I can document my words with technology that will probably make future generations giggle, but would cause past generations to gasp. Whatever challenges my laptop or the internet or other modern wizardry throw at me, it's still a wonderful way to write.

Plus I get to keep my fingertips.

Here, Let Me Show You

When I'm learning something, I do fairly well if you tell me how it is done.  But if you show me, the information is clearer, more understandable, and the details stay in my memory banks a lot longer.

It's the same with "Show, Don't Tell", the phrase used to identify writers in the wild.  The problem is people always TELL you this rule, and since there's only three words involved, it's easy to understand what it MEANS.  But in order to make sense of it, somebody needs to SHOW how it works.  

Any volunteers?  No?  Okay, here's my attempt at it.

Showing = Dialogue + Action

Showing is giving the details—the sights, sounds, emotions--AS the characters experience them.  The storyteller displays the scene as it is unfolding, without interpretation.  Think of it as a "live" event, happening in "real time".  The characters see what people do, and how they react, but they DESCRIBE it. 

Instead of saying, "John was angry", you describe what John does when he is angry.  Maybe he clenches his fists, or grinds his teeth, or punches a hole in concrete.  (Yeah, John is a badass.  So don't make him angry.)   Instead of "Mary was sad", maybe her eyes filled with tears, or she dropped her head into her hands, or she dove into a carton of Ben & Jerry's.  (It's all John's fault.  He promised he would be more respectful of concrete.)

Showing is all about the experience, for the characters AND the readers.

Telling = Dialogue + Explanation

Telling is like a tape-delayed event, with a running commentary on what happened, because the commentator doesn't believe you can figure it out just by watching what happens.  So they EXPLAIN it.

This is where those pesky adverbs come in, usually after a character delivers their dialogue.  It's easier to write, "Don't make me punch you," John said angrily.  Because most of us know what "angrily" entails.  It's a form of shorthand.  But, it also abbreviates the emotional experience.  You're informing the reader how to react, like holding up an Applause sign, or providing a laugh track.  They don't get to experience it like they do when you show that John has steam coming out his ears, and his fists are clenched, and concrete is trying to find a place to hide before John shows up.

Think of telling this way:  Someone tells you a joke, and right after they deliver the punchline, they explain the joke to you.  And then they repeat the punchline, just in case you didn't get it the first fourteen times they said it, and then they nudge you, saying, "Get it?"

Annoying, isn't it?  You want to yell, "I freakin' get it already!"

Telling lets the reader know what happened, but without experiencing it in depth.

So this is why "Show, Don't Tell" is such an important writing concept.  However, in order to make it more understandable, I prefer to phrase it as "Experience It, Don't Explain It". 

I know it's not as snappy, but it does a better job of expressing what I'm trying to accomplish.  When I'm tempted to throw in an adverb or say that a character laughed, so the reader will know for sure this is a funny line of dialogue, I go back to this "Experience It, Don't Explain It" mantra.  It requires you to have confidence in your dialogue.  It also requires you to have faith in your readers, believing they can figure things out without you nudging them and saying, "Get it?"

Movies are great at showing – after all, what are movies but Dialogue + Action.  The actors use their faces and bodies to express their emotions while they are speaking, and this is what we want our characters to do.  Movie characters do not have the luxury of expressing their inner thoughts the way that book characters can.  Everything movie characters express is through their dialogue, their facial expressions, and their gestures and body movements.

So recently I decided to watch a movie, with pen and paper in hand, to capture this information.  In this case, since I was working on a Regency historical, I selected something close to that time period, because I wanted the movements and gestures to reflect that era.

So I watched "The Scarlet Pimpernel", which stars my latest crush, Richard E. Grant.  (Swoon.)  I wrote down facial expressions as they happened, along with the accompanying gestures, and body movements.  I had to hit the Pause button frequently, because emotions and expressions were flying around fast and furious.  (It was also a great time to get a snack.)

Not only did this exercise open my eyes to a wider variety of options for my characters, it increased my skill at describing these actions.  I found myself using different words to describe the various nuances of emotion.  In one of my favorite scenes, Mr. Grant (LOVE him!) had an expression that I could not describe, so somebody needs to invent a word for it.  It was glee mixed with playfulness and sassiness and. . .well, I can assure you I will be watching it again, just to see if I can figure out how to describe it.  (It's WORK!  Honest!)

So I hope I've SHOWN you how to make this concept work for you.  The important thing to remember is "Experience It, Don't Explain It".  And if any of you watches "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and can figure out how to describe that emotion he's experiencing. . . shoot me an email.

 

Nap Attack

If I could measure my current energy level on one of those telethon thermometers, there wouldn't be much red showing above the bulbish part at the bottom. Revisions have been consuming the majority of my energy stores this week. I've learned that barrels of ice cream and bathtubs full of coffee can only do so much to restore my get-up-and-go to normal levels. 

So naturally I was intrigued by a blog post, "Nap Your Novel Into Existence", by Ryan Lind. I'm a big fan of naps, now that I'm an actual adult (on most days), although graham crackers and a rug on the floor aren't my style anymore. And I'm also a big fan of novels, and writing them, since that's what I expend 125% of my energy on.

Mr. Lind believes a brief nap is one of the best uses of your writing time, and argues that you will produce better work as a result. However, he advocates setting an alarm, so that you do not spend all of your allotted writing minutes asleep.

He also says you need to read a book to send you off to slumber. But it can't be just ANY book. 

He says, "I usually choose something literary and heavy, even overwritten, because my goal is to fall fast asleep. It might take me a month to knock out Cold Mountain. OK, a year. Don’t take something from your light summer reading list. No James Frey.The short sentences lead you to stay awake."

This is when I knew we were simpatico, because I used to cure any bouts of insomnia by dragging out my law school textbooks. There's something about trying to read the particulars of "So-and-So vs. Somebody Else" that will ninja-kick you right into sleepiness. Unfortunately, after several household moves, including a cross-country one, I had to find a more portable sleep aid. 

Right now I have a few (unnamed) candidates on my nightstand. Every one of them should have a sticker on it, something like "WARNING! Reading this in public may induce narcolepsy, drooling, and that head-bobbing thing where you snatch your head up and look around sheepishly to see if anyone noticed you just dozed for five minutes straight."

Of course, the most important part of Mr. Lind's napping process is writing down your thoughts. Otherwise, it's just a regular old nap, not one that will create a novel. He suggests you write down the thought that pops into your head as you go to sleep, as well as the one that appears as you wake up. Not only are you refreshed, but your brain is tossing out ideas left and right, and you have the energy to turn them into something exceptional.

I usually try to beta-test any of the processes I blog about, so I can work out any of the bugs before you try this at home. Since I didn't have the opportunity to test this BEFORE I posted about it, I guess I better give it a go now.

I just need to stay awake long enough to pick a boring book to read. I know it won't be mine, thanks to all those revisions I've done. 

I'd Rather Be Revising

Writing is like driving in a convertible, with the top down on a gorgeously sunny day, singing along to the tunes blasting from the radio. 

Revising is creeping along in a snowstorm without snow tires, with visibility close to zero, knowing there's a thick layer of black ice that will send you spinning off into the ditch if you're not extra careful.

Writing is slapping paint on the wall with a roller.

Revising is using a detail brush to paint around antique window fixtures when you ran out of masking tape for coverup.

Writing is grabbing whatever's in the fridge and throwing it into the soup pot.

Revising is making delicate frosting roses for a four-tier wedding cake.

Writing is emotional.

Revising is analytical.

Writing is pantsing.

Revising is plotting.

Writing is freedom.

Revising is discipline.

When I think about revising, I get nervous.  I worry I'm going to rub the magic glow off my story when I think I'm polishing it to a high shine.

I do my best to avoid jumping into the revisions right away.  I prefer circling around it, gathering my courage while I create a plan of attack.  I start by analyzing each chapter to see if I accomplished what I wanted – and to see if things can be further developed or expanded.  I almost always discover clues my pantser self left behind—something that blew out the window during the initial wild ride of drafting.  It's like a treasure hunt, finding great little nuggets that make the story so much more than I'd hoped.

But I have to admit, revising has its terrifying moments, when it seems like the more you fix, the less you accomplish.  There's always that moment, like when you're packing to move an entire apartment, when you declare with supreme confidence, "There's not that much to do!"  A couple hours later, you're on the floor, whimpering, wondering how you could have been so delusional.  There's actually fourteen times more to do than you initially estimated, because all the "clues" left behind during the writing phase have multiplied AND plot threads have tangled up into a big messy ball of confusion. 

Yes, at this point, it seems like your manuscript is sending you death threats, because the revising is trying to kill you.

So how do you get through those moments?  The easiest thing, of course, is to give up, followed by whining, crying, and calling sympathetic friends to tell them you're looking online to find a circus to join so you never have to hear the word "revision" again.

Since I know I'm not circus material, the best way to get through revisions is to make a workable plan.  I prefer to think of it as a funnel, starting with the big stuff and working down to the smaller stuff.  Kinda like going from "super-size" to "bite-size".

So if there's a scene that needs to be added, I do that first.  It feels more like the glorious, freeform writing stage, which tricks my brain into thinking everything is going to be fun and games.  It's like urging the family pet into the car to go to the vet, completely unaware it's coming back without its reproductive abilities.  What it doesn't know ahead of time won't hurt anyone.

Once the big chunks are written and polished and inserted into their place in the manuscript, then I can go through and take care of specific trouble areas.  These can be the "WTF?" questions asked by a beta reader or agent/editor, or they may be ones you notice yourself since you haven't read this masterpiece for a while.

It feels really good to check these off the To Do list, and it boosts your confidence to an incredible level.  This is usually the stage when you think, "This revision is going so well, I'll have it done BEFORE my deadline".  Remember this moment, because it's the last bit of happiness you will experience until you reach the very end of your journey. 

This is where the nitpicky detail work begins, and you'll feel like you are carving Mt. Rushmore with a dull butter knife.  You'll be tired, and exhausted, and your brain will throw itself on the ground and have the most epic of temper tantrums, and you try to convince yourself the merciful thing to do is just gloss over this part so you can stumble to the finish line.

But don't do that.  Grit your teeth and keep putting one foot in the front of the other.  Go through your manuscript and rip out all those words you love so much that you play favorites with them, excluding other, stronger words.  Try not to create NEW favorite repeater words in the process.  See if you can replace a multitude of adverbs with more descriptive, concrete words.  Polish those opening and closing sentences in each chapter so that the book is unputdownable.  Use spellcheck one more time, and let the "Find" feature dredge up spacing mishaps.

Revising is delicate, detailed work.  It requires patience, a steady hand, and tons of stamina.  Once I realize it hasn't killed me, I take an amazed look at what I've accomplished.  I'm thrilled at what a high-shine my manuscript has, holding my hand up to protect my corneas.  Even better, I've learned so many new skills, the next revision process is a little more streamlined, a little less menacing. 

Whew!  After all that dedicated work, it's time for a reward.  I'm thinking a ride in the writing convertible, chasing down a new story, is just what I need right now.

Unputdownable

There is probably no higher praise a reader can give about a book than "I just could not put it down". 

Unfortunately, once we morph from reader to writer, we use this phrase less and less often, thanks to our analytical brain cells taking center stage. 

Now it's our turn to write the stories that make readers stay up too late, stretch their lunch hour a few extra minutes, sneak the book behind a textbook in class. . .anything to prevent that moment when they have to close the book before they've reached The End.

What is the magical ingredient that will make a reader ignore everything around them because they are totally engrossed in a story?

It's called tension.

I have TWO blog posts today that discuss this topic in very instructive ways.  

The first is "Creating Tension", by Les Edgerton. The entire post is great, and even though it is lengthy, it's worth reading. In fact, I've read it twice, just so I could absorb all of it, and it was just as worthwhile the second time through. 

One of my favorite sections is when Mr. Edgerton says, "To create anxiety in the reader, you must create a sympathetic character, one who most readers will want to see good things happen to. And then, throughout the story, the reader should be worrying about bad things that will happen to the character."

The important words to remember are "anxiety" and "worry". According to Mr. Edgerton, as long as the reader is wondering and worrying, they will continue to turn the pages. 

Normally I am not a nail-biter, BUT there have been many times I've read a story and I was fretting about the characters, and all the turmoil they were enduring, and sweet Jesus, how were they ever going to make it safely to their happily-ever-after? 

When I finally did make it to the last page, I had to rush around the house to find an emery board and some bandages.

This was after starting the book KNOWING it had an HEA. But I was still worried. 

That's the type of tension we're striving for, the kind that will make you forget you're a writer, so you won't have time to analyze the book. Instead you'll be zipping through it like the ending is written with disappearing ink and the last few pages are already starting to fade.

The second post on this topic is titled, "Busted!—Stephenie Meyer caught doing something right", by Kathryn Craft, and it can be found on "The Blood-Red Pencil" blog. 

Everyone has an opinion on whether Ms. Meyer is a good writer or not, but it IS an incontrovertible fact that she has sold a ton of books. Ms. Craft says the success of the Twilight series can be attributed to Ms. Meyer's ability to ramp up tension. She details six specific ways this is done—including "conflict on every page"—and shows how writers can use the same techniques to create their own page-turning tension. 

So check out the articles and then let's get to work. We need to fill our manuscripts with tension and worry the crap out of our readers. 

It'll be worth it when we hear "I just couldn't put your book down". 

Down with Hackles

I don't get all riled up by a lot of things. I used to when I was younger, but I suspect that may be part of the job description for "Younger Person" – to expend tons of energy on emotional hot-buttons that really don't mean a lot in the long run. 

However, one thing that nearly always gets my hackles up--and I don't even know for sure WHERE my hackles are--but this phrase can get them to stand at attention every time: 

"We've always done it this way."

Generally this irritating pronouncement follows directly after the words, "No, we can't do THAT, because. . ."

(Okay, detour here. I had to go look up "hackles", just to satisfy my curiosity. According to The Free Dictionary online, hackles are "erectile hairs along the back of the neck of an animal", and they "rise when the animal is angry or afraid". I am a lot happier now that I have located my hackles. Even if I don't plan to use them frequently.)

My hackles get an intensive workout when people say, "We've always done it this way", because what it really means is, "We're never going to do it any differently either".   

So let's trace this "always" back to its origin, whether that is Adam and Eve, or the first dinosaur that roamed the earth, depending on your view of the world. Now let's move back into the present day. 

Can you see anything different at all?  

I suspect a lot of things that have "always been done this way" start out as "Oh, crap, we've run out of time, we've got to get this done, so let's just do THIS for right now." Next thing you know, this method or procedure has become part of the tradition, and it's achieved legendary status, handed down from generation to generation, all because it's easier to repeat the old method rather than find time to create something new and more practical.

I'm not one who embraces change, but I do see the necessity of it. And, in my typically contrary fashion, I like trying new things, since it is what makes life interesting and flavorful and joyous. 

Again, I am not saying change is always easy, or pleasant, or anything like that. It's not. However, if something isn't working now, the way you "always" do it, it kinda makes sense to try something different, just to see if there's a better way to accomplish your goal. Or at least it doesn't make sense to keep banging your head against the desk, trying to make the old way work just for the sake of keeping the tradition alive.

Even THINKING about doing something differently is a change, which can stimulate other new things into being.

The beauty of change, and trying something new, is you can change that too. Did you like it better the way you used to do it? Maybe with a slight modification? Or did trying this make you think of something entirely new that will serve your needs even better?

Being a writer has taught me the most about how to change things. My characters develop and grow from Chapter 1 all the way through the Epilogue. If they don't, then I amend that, with revisions. I lean on the delete key when the words I type didn't end up in the order I intended.  "Cut and paste" isn't an arts and crafts activity from my kindergarten days, but a method of reorganizing my thoughts into something more coherent. When my writing routine isn't producing the word count I anticipate, or if my creativity seems to be ebbing, I change what I'm doing since it isn't working the way it "always" has.

I don't believe we create with our words because we want things to stay the same. We do it because we want to change, and improve, what we see on a daily basis. There's a certain dissatisfaction with daily events which motivates us to rewrite them in our books, creating a story that reflects our vision of the world as it should be. 

So today, let's consider chipping away at the monolith of tradition by trying something a little bit different than usual. If that isn't possible just yet, try to slowly eradicate the philosophy of, "It's always been done that way". It might freak out those around you who cling desperately to the old ways. 

But at least it will help give my hackles a well-deserved rest.

Write Like the Wind

When your days don't have a set schedule, it's easy to rearrange time slots and shift priorities when it comes to writing activities. In fact, some days there seems to be more "activities" and less "writing" than you intended when you woke up and kickstarted the coffeemaker.

So I'm intrigued by something I saw on Twitter (my latest addiction "boundless resource of writerly information"). A writer by the name of Patrick Alan has a writing method called "1k1h", a challenge designed to get your word count accomplished.

He describes it on his blog this way: 

The object is simple. Sit down and write until you have one thousand words and one hour has passed. You have to accomplish both. The challenge isn’t to write 1,000 words in an hour. It’s to write for at least an hour and at least 1,000 words.

I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to very soon. The reason I find this so interesting is how much actually gets accomplished in a short timeframe. In fact, he says he does this three to five times each day. Other folks have commented how they get so caught up in the writing that they go longer than the one hour.

All of us have at least one hour a day that we waste. It just vaporizes without us really doing anything of substance. (Some folks *cough* me *cough* are overachievers and can burn up even more than one hour a day in suspect activities.)

But if we took that hour and set a goal of doing nothing but writing. . .AND challenged ourselves to getting in 1000 words at the same time? I think it would recharge our writing skills, and our confidence, in a big way.

So I'm going to give it a try. (And forget what Yoda says about "there is no try". Who's gonna listen to a creature who can't even get a handle on correct sentence structure?) I'll be glad to hear if anyone else likes this method, or if it didn't cut it, or even if you have some different strategies that work.

Let's get those words flying!