NaNoWriMo: What it Means and What it Stands For

Every November, millions of people write as many words as they can in an attempt to form their very own novel. They find the time between work, school, family, holidays and sometimes life in general, to attempt to reach 50,000 words. Many of them succeed in the first day, and many of them blast past the measly 50,000 and write so much more in the entire month. Since it started in July 1999, NaNoWriMo has been going strong. I’ve been participating since 2009 and I absolutely love it.

But what exactly is NaNoWriMo, and why do so many people participate?

NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month, is a non-profit, mostly website run event by the Office of Letters and Light, that takes place in the month of November. Every year, the goal is to reach 50,000 words in any way possible, whether writing stories, a full length novel, or anything else with words on a page. While there are some rules and regulations, it is mostly a self based challenge, and goes by the honor code when counting daily word counts, until it is actually validated. The event may only last for the month of November, but the website and all of the great resources on the website (the forums, the profiles, the shop and many other goodies) stay up all year.

There are several other programs run by the Office of Letters and Light, such as Camp NaNoWrimo and Script Frenzy (while the website is no longer up, it does continue in the forums). The events are hosted usually in the summer months and occasionally April as well. There is a website but the parent is the NaNoWriMo site.

Why is NaNo important?

I have been a writer for most of my life, but I haven’t always taken it totally serious until recent years. I wrote all through middle school and high school with no problems, but when I started college in 2009, I felt like I lost my writing mojo. I couldn’t find any serious ideas and I suffered from the worst kind of writer’s block. Every piece I started just felt like crap. I had just come off finishing the longest novel I had ever written at just under 500 pages, a great script I had written over the summer, and I felt like my writing talent had just fizzled out, like I had used it up and it would never come back. I was depressed and in the biggest writing funk of my life.

And then I found out about NaNoWriMo.

I first found out about NaNo in September or October of that year, and I signed up almost as soon as I found the website. I didn’t have a novel yet, but by the time November rolled around, I knew I would. I ended up writing a rewrite of the novel I had started in 2008 and that was a good honest first effort. I did not win, or even get close to 50,000, but the lessons it taught me and the fun I had writing only caring about the quantity instead of the quality, was well worth the effort.

NaNo is so important because unlike every other writing challenge, it doesn’t care about the beauty of the words, just that there are words. This transition was tricky at first, because I was so used to being a perfectionist before, and even in my first attempt. I edited a lot during that first NaNo and that was why I didn’t get as far. NaNo focuses more on the act of actual writing rather than the act of polishing your writing for something better. NaNo knows that the first draft doesn’t have to be perfect and that it’s ok for it to suck.

I have continued to compete in NaNoWriMo every year since 2009 and to be honest, I don’t think I will ever stop. There is just something about having an idea and writing those words and sentences and paragraphs down that make up that idea without caring if they make sense that is just so freeing. Sure, sometimes I look back and make a disgusted face, or actually cringe at some of my word phrasing and choices, but it’s all in good fun, and is by no means permanently stuck in one way or another. Edits can always come later, just after November.

There are some naysayers out there that think NaNoWriMo is stupid, or a waste of time and that people should be reading books instead of writing them, and that December is terrible because people send off their unedited NaNo novels to publishers. I have to say, I honestly don’t understand it. It’s not like it’s out to hurt people or that it’s going to sully the act of writing. Just because people are writing new books doesn’t mean yours will be magically unpublished or cease to exist. People will still read books, even if they are writing their own. As far as the argument that December is terrible because people send their unedited works and that NaNoWriMo is the cause is a really bad excuse. I don’t think I know anyone who would send their NaNo off the first of December because most of them aren’t even finished by then. Blaming NaNoWriMo for something that it isn’t responsible for is backhanded and rude.

I actually had someone say to me when I told them about NaNo “That’s stupid. I would rather focus on quality and write a great piece instead of quantity and have crap.” If that technique works for you and you want to focus on quality words, great! Why are you putting down any method of writing? The result is the same whether you write one word a day or a thousand, you have words on a page. NaNo is just a way to break past the block of “What if my words aren’t good enough?” and finally finish something for once.

There will always be people who don’t want to see people succeed, or who don’t want to see people have fun in writing. I say, why not do it? It’s not going to hurt if you try. If you hate it, I’m sorry, maybe writing under pressure isn’t your thing. If you like it, that’s awesome!

So I want you all to do two things for me:

1. Check out NaNoWriMo: Here and Camp NaNoWriMo: Here
2. If you like it, think it’s interesting, sign up!

I hope to see you this November!

Note: If you do sign up, be my writing buddy: Here

What are your thoughts on NaNoWriMo?

Writer Life Lessons #20: Save Your Research for the Second Draft

Imagine how much work we would all get done if we stopped to research every little thing in our writing to make sure it was factually accurate. I don’t know about you, but I would probably get no work done. I would be so into researching and making sure that every little detail was painstakingly accurate that I would never get any words on the page.

This is why you should Save Your Research for the Second Draft.

Let the first draft be what it wants to be. Finish a whole project and then do as much research as your heart desires. Get your ideas down and then find out if they are accurate. If you research after every scene, not only will you be burned out on research, but on writing as well. Writers need to write.

Sometimes in first drafts, we don’t always know exactly what we want to happen, so we just write something that resembles a plot and then hopefully edit the hell out of it later. If we as writers edit every little detail and research as we’re writing the first draft, we might not even use that research in later drafts and that was time we could have been using to write.

Don’t get me wrong, small bits of research, like how to spell or phrase things, is fine. As long as it is under 5-10 minutes (depending on your internet/data speed), then I think it’s fine. It’s when you get sucked into researching for an entire afternoon that it becomes a problem. So try and keep research to a minimum and writing to a maximum.

Happy Writing!

Wednesday Works: A Piece Based Off of the Worst Lyric in your Least Favorite Song

“I was a ghost on your birthday”- Transient Love by The Menzingers.

The letter was one of the smaller gifts waiting for him in the stacked pile of large oblong boxes. Brian would have almost missed it and it would have been thrown away in the refuse of blue and green wrapping paper, and thin ripped tissue paper warped into balls, if it hadn’t been for his astute eye. He was hoping that a smaller package was hiding amid the bigger boxes, something the size of an iphone, but instead he found the aged envelope.

He recognized the handwriting right away, and wasn’t sure that he should let his parents know, or if he should just slip it under his leg when he picked up the next gift. It was from his brother, but he had an idea who had put it there with the other gifts. He looked for her face in the crowd and he was sure she almost gave him a hint of a wink with her smile. She was mirroring the other faces all around him, though she was more his brother’s age. The not quite thirteen-year-olds, the smooth fourteen year olds, and his family, all smiling, even though they all knew someone was missing.

It was like a taboo to even think about it, about him, and Brian forced the thought out of his mind as he tore the wrapping paper away from a gift that any newly aged teenage boy would have wanted, it wasn’t the newest iphone, but he thanked his Aunt Judy for the socks anyway. He kept opening gifts, the pressure and the weight of the envelope pushing down on him, though it was safely trapped under his leg.

He was afraid to think about him too, afraid that it would crash the mood of his party and call back angry, tormented memories of his family’s past. Definitely not the right mood for a birthday party. So he kept opening the rest of the gifts, reacting as appropriately as he could to whatever the boxes and gift bags held. Then when they were exhausted, and the table cleared of all surprises, his mother called them all in for cake and ice cream. That was when Brian shoved the letter into his pocket and forgot about it until later.

The letter forced itself back into his memory as he got ready for bed that night. It fell onto his desk as he emptied his pants pockets of the things he had gathered during the day. The rocks that he and Tommy had collected to mold into slingshot ammo, the wadded up dollar bills that nearly every card had contained from the party earlier, and then there was the letter,  a new crease running along the thick envelope, the writing still clear as day.  His name in his brother’s scrawl.

Brian.

He wasn’t sure he even wanted to open it. What if it was the one thing they had all been looking for, the one thing that they were all missing as to why the things happened how they did. Instead of opening it right away he stared at it for quite some time.

But eventually, curiosity got the better of him and he broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out the contents carefully. It was a birthday card, and Brian wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse.

On the front was a dog driving a racecar, his ears blowing from the acceleration.  The front was a bit juvenile, with some pun about the happiest of “Barkdays”, but Brian was more interested on what was on the inside.

At first glance, the inside was normal, the completion of the pun from the front of the card that would have made any twelve-year-old laugh, and then Brian saw it, the binder paper folded perfectly to fit in the card. His brother had written him a small birthday message in the card in his nearly unreadable chicken scratch, but the binder paper was more important.

Slowly, Brian unfolded it and found a letter inside,  in his brother’s handwriting, and he struggled to make out the words, either through his brother’s handwriting,  or the moisture that had blurred some of the letters, making them large splotches of blue ink.

Brian,

Happy Thirteenth Birthday!  I’m sorry I couldn’t be there personally to tell you all these things but now that you’re a man, you deserve to know. There’s only so much pain and sorrow one guy can take alone. There are too many secrets that can’t always be kept,  or friendships that require more balance than a tightrope walk, there are too many things that should be happy, that caused me too much pain.

But this is your birthday message, so I guess I should keep it somewhat upbeat, teach you the lessons of being a man or whatever. All of my problems started around the time that I was your age, so if I can give you any lessons about how to avoid the same mistakes I made, these are them:

Make Friends: You were just a kid when we moved here from Ohio, so you might already have more friends than I did at your age, but I was thirteen and going through puberty and moving in the middle of the year when all of the cliques and friend groups are already formed is tough. Make real friends, not just the guys that hang around the first girl you ever kissed. Make true friends that like the same things you do, and whatever you do, don’t force yourself to like something or have something just to fit in. Friends are out there.

Find Love:  All kinds of love,  not just the kind that makes your underwear feel tight. Love for friends, love for family, love for music. Yes, there will be romantic love too, but don’t force it, you will only cause yourself more pain. When you feel love, for friends, family, or the girl that you hated in elementary school, don’t hide it. Embrace it and your life will be so much easier. Mom and Dad will understand if you truly love it. You might get your heart broken, or wake up one day and find that you hate whatever it was you loved yesterday, but it is worth the risk.

Grow: Don’t stay hidden behind what people expect you are. How often have you and I gone out and looked at people and made snap judgements? “She’s shy” or “He loves cats”. People will judge you by what you look like and how you act,  but that doesn’t mean you can’t shatter their expectations of you. “She’s shy BUT she likes to belt out showtunes when no one is looking.” “He loves cats BUT he can never love them as much as he loves Death Metal”. Explore your passions and don’t keep them hidden. Break out of your shell every once in a while and be brave.

I didn’t follow any of those lessons, and I ended up wherever I am now. Don’t get me wrong,  Brian, this is meant to be a happy message, despite the blotches. Just be yourself and never apologize for that. Don’t make the same mistakes I did, and live the best life you can.

Ok, enough sappy stuff. Well maybe one more thing. Something to end this letter off right.

I remember the day you were born. I was just coming home from kindergarten and mom usually had a snack out for me, but no one was home and the door was locked, so I waited outside. It wasn’t very long before Grandma picked me up and we went to the hospital. You were just born so you were in the incubator, and I remember asking Grandma why you weren’t in Mommy’s tummy anymore and then I told her that I wished you would have just stayed in there. I liked my room to myself.

The truth is: I am a better person, a better brother for knowing you, Brian.

I’m sorry that I can’t be there in person, and I’m sorry I was a coward. I shouldn’t be just a ghost on your birthday.

Love,
Patrick

Tuesday How To: Female Characters

Over the past three weeks of How To Tuesdays concerning characters we have talked about how to find characters, how to name them, and how to develop characters. This week, is not necessarily a new How To, it is an addition to the rest of the information we have talked about.

This week, we are going to talk about female characters and how to write great female characters. For  a lot of people, this lesson will come as news, just because it’s one of those things that some writers do not realize until it is pointed out for you, and for others some of it might be obvious, but some of it might not be so obvious.

So without further ado: Writing Female Characters

Write Them as People

For as long as people have been writing characters, they have been writing women. The difference is the idea that women are people. Some writers write their female characters as stepping stones for their male characters or plot devices to move other characters forward. This is not the way to write female characters. They deserve to be people in your work and not just a plot device for your male characters. An example of what not to do is called the Sexy Lamp Test.

The Sexy Lamp Test is easy. If you can replace your female character with a lamp and the plot stays exactly the same with no changes, then you really should rewrite your female characters.

Another common theme is to write female characters as a plot advancement for your main character. The most common way that I have seen is to kill the female character, usually a mother or a lover that motivates the main male character to go after the villain or learn a new skill, etc.  This needs to stop in popular media, but it needs to be noticed by writers, readers and viewers first.

If you write your female characters as people, your work will shine, and you will avoid the usual cliches of female characters as cardboard cutouts.

Give Them Their Own Goals and Motivation

Just like any other character, your female characters need goals and motivation too. This will help a lot with making them feel like real people. Everyone has goals and motivation, whether it is something huge like to be a scientist, or a master shopper, or a small goal like wanting to wake up on time the next morning to not be late for work.

When you don’t give characters goals, whatever their gender, you create them as cardboard cutouts just revolving around a plot. However, there is an extra element to female characters if you leave out their goals and motivations. They become cardboard cutouts with sex appeal, and this is not necessarily what you want for your female characters.

Another issue about goals and motivations. Please don’t make your female characters only goal to get laid or be laid by the main character. Yes, it is a goal, but they should have more goals than to just be a sex object for the main character.

Give your characters goals and motivations and let them exist in your story not just for your main characters, but next to them.

Make Them Show Emotion and Change Throughout the Story

There is nothing worse than a character that does not react or change during the plot and action of a story. Whether they are male or female or anything in between, if they don’t change and react, then they might as well be a cardboard cutout or a lamp. This is especially important for female characters, because so often they are just there as plot devices and motivation for other characters.

Let your female characters react as people, let them show ugly emotions like anger and hate and let them react as real people would. Don’t keep them shiny and pretty, let them get dirty and downright ugly. Let them react and show them as you would a male character. Make them cry, or scream, or yell and be more than just sex appeal.

Make them change throughout their story, but make them change for the right reasons. If the only reason your character changes is because they get into a romantic relationship, then you need to examine your plot and try something new. This plot device is so overused, and so not the message we want to send to our young people. This is a common theme in teen romances that it needs to be corrected somehow. It starts with us, the next generation of writers and authors and creators.

Let your characters, whether male, female, or anything in between, be human and your writing will be the best it has ever been.

Happy Writing!

Writer Life Lessons #19: Learn Everything You Can

Some of you may be looking at this title and thinking “Learning? But I’m a writer and I already know what I want to write about”. I understand where you are coming from, and I know how daunting it sounds to learn new things, but there is a reason for it.

Learn Everything You Can because you never know when it will come in handy for your next draft, or even in your own life. If nothing else, it’s interesting factoids at parties. Entertain yourself and your friends!

When you have a voracious appetite for learning, it makes writing easier. Not only do the ideas flow better, because you know more base information to come up with ideas, but you more easily can identify plot holes and glaringly obvious mistakes that might have made your reader put your book down and never pick it up again.

I’m not saying that you should go to college, or back to college, just because you want to write about astrophysics. I am saying learn what interests you. With the addition of the internet and smart phones, tons and tons of knowledge is at the tip of our fingers. If I wanted to learn Mandarin Chinese tomorrow, all I would have to do is type it into my nearest search bar and find the link that interests me most.

The learning doesn’t always have to be online either. There are books and podcasts and shows on television, groups in your area. If you can think of a way to learn, it is probably out there in your community. Anything and Everything is out there if you know where to look.

I take this lesson very personally, because as of now, I have been in school for most of my life and am just starting to break out into the workforce. I have learned a lot in all the schools that I have been in and all of the classes and units that I have taken. Even now, after I have graduated, I still am learning new things everyday. I want to know as much as possible, so my characters, my scenes, my writing can be as amazing as real life, and so I can help as many people as possible in my life.

Recently, I learned the basic information about computers and laptops, and brought my old laptop back to life with a few parts from my lovely boyfriend, and the assistance of my dad. It’s running great now, and it is what I am using to write this post right now. Sure, I could have just bought a new laptop, when I get a job, but I get the satisfaction of knowing that I fixed it and that I have a new experience and new knowledge to fall back on.

So go out and learn something new, and be proud of that knowledge!

And as always:

Happy Writing!

Wednesday Works: An Adult Book Book Report by a Fifth Grader

Fifty Shades of Grey in Our Culture: A View on Why Sarah Stevens Slapped Me

By

Joel Fisherman

Before the introduction of Fifty Shades of Grey, there was Twilight. My stupid sister had to read all the books when they came out, and she begged my mom for weeks and weeks and weeks to take her to the movies when they came out. I wanted to stay with dad and do manly stuff, like work on the classic cars and mow the lawn and talk about shaving, but mom made me go with them. She said that it would make me appreciate women better, whatever that means. I thought they were the stupidest movies ever, and then Fifty Shades of Grey came out.

Like Twilight, my sister begged and begged and begged my mom to get the books for her, but like everything else my mom gives my sister she has to read or watch it first. She doesn’t want it “poisoning our young minds” when there are all the things out there that are “safe” for kids, like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Teletubbies. What she doesn’t know, is that both my sister and I know about the internet and rule 34. Anyway, she had to read Fifty Shades of Grey first.

It took her weeks and weeks, and she was set in her ways that my sister, nor I, could even lay a hand on that darn book. Not that I cared, it was a stupid book based on another stupid book. My sister, a freshman in high school, was angry to say the least, and she wanted that book. What I didn’t know was that she would get it.

So what does this have to do with why Sarah Stevens slapped me? I’m getting to that. Anyway, my sister read the book behind mom’s back, in her bed under the blankets with a flashlight. How do I know this? She would tell me almost every detail on the way to school, and at first I was grossed out, but then I thought to myself: “Does that stuff actually work on women?” It had to, right? Why else would everyone want to read it and be so happy all the time? I had to know why, so I had to run an experiment, but more on that later.

So back to Sarah Stevens. We’ve known each other since kindergarten practically, and it wasn’t until this year in Ms. Buzman’s class that I started to feel all weird around her. She used to gross me out, but now I find myself wanting to hold her hand and play more than tag with her, and mushy stuff like that. Because of that, and all my sister had told me about Fifty Shades of Grey, I decided she would be the best test subject for my experiment.

I asked my sister more about Christian Grey and Edward Cullen and what made them so attractive to women and she told me all about it. At first, I was disgusted, and then somehow it all started to make sense. Some of the phrases were foreign to me, since I haven’t taken a lot of sex ed, but I do have the internet, and google, and a few sites I probably shouldn’t mention in this paper.

So after weeks and weeks of research, figuring out how to act and look like Christian Grey, or Edward Cullen, minus the sparkles. I finally had it all set. My experiment was all set to move forward.

I decided to do it on a Wednesday. Not sure why, I just woke up that morning and decided that that was the day. I would get my results by lunch, no chickening out, even though looking through all my research that morning on the bus, I did feel a little stupid.

At the first recess, I unbuttoned the shirt of my school uniform, just like Christian Grey wore his in one scene, and I approached Sarah on the playground. She was hanging around with her goofy friends, both more annoying than her and way less pretty, but she was the first experiment, and they were there if I needed a second and third test subject. So I went up to her, did my best impression of Christian Grey (smoulder included), looked her straight in the eye, and said:

“I don’t know whether to worship at your feet, or spank the living shit out of you”.

At first she was confused, and then her face turned varying shades of red, and I wondered if it was really that easy to make a girl have an organism. Then she started yelling a bunch of things that I probably shouldn’t repeat here, probably that she learned from her mom and dad. And then she slapped me the hardest I have ever been slapped in my life and ran away crying.

Experiment number one failed. Sarah now refuses to talk to me, her friends think I’m the biggest jerk alive, and I have no other test subjects at this time.

What I don’t understand is why women think Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight are so worth reading. Why do the the men in them get to do all of the things they do and the women eat it up, and then when I do it, I get slapped? I don’t understand it, but I intend to research further. I want to know why Fifty Shades of Grey is so popular!

Joel- This was not the approved assignment. See me after class.

Tuesday How to: Write Developed Characters

 Hello Readers! Special Message here: If I seem short during this Tuesday,  blame WordPress. I had been working on this post for more than a week, almost 2000 words put into it, and then WordPress decided to be a butt and delete it all. So here is attempt number two!

Some writers will tell you that naming characters is the hardest part. To develop them all you have to do is write out their story and their arc, then edit it in later drafts. I think that it really depends on the character. Whether or not their arc is a wide sweeping arc or a simple event that sets their actions. Being a writer, and having several characters, I can tell you that sometimes their arcs come easy, and then other times it will be several drafts in and I will be staring at a blank page thinking “Who the hell are you? What the F*@K do you want?”

To write developed characters, with complete arcs and growth, there are three things to keep in mind: Backstory, Mid-story and post story.

Backstory

Backstory is important, but not always relevant to the specific scene you’re writing. You should make it match your character, but not too obvious that the reader feels like they were fooled. Unless your character is the luckiest person in the world, everything is not going to just fall into their lap. They have to work to get where they are when your story starts. They have to have failures and successes. Not just one or the other.

Depending on your story and your character arc, your backstory determines how your character will react to certain situations in your plot. If your character is in a bank robbery, whether they are a trained soldier, or a guy who adamantly hates guns and violence will change how they react to the gunmen.

Mid-Story

In the middle of the action, your characters decisions determine their growth and their arc. There are generally two reactions to growth in story. Your character can either accept the changes, or fight them tooth and nail. There are a thousand choices, several types of growth, but it all basically boils down to “I accept this” or “Not in a million years”.

The most important thing in Mid-Story character development is consistency. If your character encounters a barking dog at the beginning of the story and is scared of it, then if they encounter the dog again in the middle and are not scared, there better have been some kind of growth in between.

Post Story

Post Story is probably the least important development, but it is still important. Unless your character dies at the end of your work, or they are braindead, they still have to grow after the events of the story. Post story is more important if you are working on a series, but for stand-alone is still relevant.

Post Story is what happens “after the credits”. The hero has saved the girl (or vice versa), the evil baddie has been taken care of and all is well. So what are the hero/ girl’s plans after? Some choose to let the reader decide, hence the “Rides off into the sunset” ending. Still, some others add in small hints throughout the piece. Like for instance, your character loves knitting and is working on a blanket, but they are pulled into this elaborate plot against the president. “ALL I WANT IS TO FINISH MY DAMN BLANKET!” is repeated several times in your piece.

Post story they better finish their damn blanket.

No matter what your plot or your character arcs, do your best to keep them consistent and your characters will be well developed and readers will thank you for it!

Happy Writing!

A Quick Note on Frustration

Happy Monday!

For some of us, Monday means going back to work, or school. For others, it means delving into personal work and projects. For me it means queuing up the blog for the week. What does this have to do with frustration?

Everything.

Last Friday, I decided to be proactive and write a little of a How To Tuesday to make it easier on myself over the weekend and today. I have around 2000 words all set up and ready to go, and just needed a few more paragraphs to finish.

Today, I go to my drafts, ready to pick up where I left off, everything looks good in the screen where all the drafts live, and then I open it. AND IT’S BLANK!

I was so frustrated that I had to write all of it again, pull the ideas back from what the original idea was and type angry and jaded. Instead of a long post, it only came out to be around 700 words (though you all might thank me for that).

I know frustration is a normal occurrence, and that it might just be a fluke on WordPress’ end, but still 2000 words and like 15 ideas just gone, off into space, never to be found in that exact order again. Frustration is putting it nicely.

So hopefully something can come from that frustration and the problem of words disappearing can be solved (By the way, not the first time this has happened).

Has this happened to anyone else? Have your drafts ever disappeared when you try and edit them?

Please let me know so we can fix this problem!

Writer Life Lessons #18: Finish Your First Drafts

Progress is measured in several different ways. If you are an athlete, progress is measured by how well you perform at your sport or sports. If you are an artist, progress is measured by your art portfolio. If you are a writer, progress is measured by words written on the page, and the amount of pieces you finish.

Can you call yourself a writer before you finish a piece? Of course. If you are putting words on the page, or the screen, or whatever you write on, you are indeed a writer. Can you call yourself an accomplished writer? Sure! But do you have anything to show for it?

When I first started writing, by hand, in pencil, in spiral-bound notebooks, I used to read unfinished pieces to my best friend. Yes, I was a writer,  and yes, I wanted to feel accomplished. Some of those drafts I finished, but a lot of them I just left him hanging, waiting on the next cliffhanger, for the next chapter or sometimes even word.

The lesson for this week is: Finish Your First Drafts.

There are tons of quotes out there about finishing what you start, how blank pages are ugly and how you can’t edit a blank page. All you have to do is google the words “writing advice” or “writing quotes” and you’ll get a ton of advice on how to write, how to finish your drafts, and even how to edit them.

Yes, this advice (Well most of it) is true. To move on, to mark your progress and to grow as a writer, you need to finish your first drafts, or at least move on to a new project if you get stuck. There is nothing worse than looking at an unfinished piece years later and thinking “Now where was I going with this?”.

Yes, you can leave your pieces and come back, but eventually you should try and finish them. This is an area where I need to take my own advice, I have about three times the amount of works in progress than I do works finished. The point is: I do intend to go back to them once I finish current projects, or if I don’t continue them I at least plan to rewrite.

Finish your first drafts, even if they suck, because there is always room for improvement. There are some pieces that I look at, from several years ago, and when I reach the point where I stopped writing for whatever reason, I wish there was more there. Often times I think “I wish I could remember where I was going with this”.

You can take a break from pieces, but at least write a little outline so you know where you left off, or even a little note in the margins that explains what happens next. You will thank yourself when you come back to it later.

Finish your first drafts so you can edit them and make them shine later.

Happy Writing!

Wednesday Works: The Object on your Left is a Metaphor

The object to my left is an internal hard drive for a laptop.

Life would be so much easier if people were hard drives. You would fill them up with all of your information, your pictures, your photos, your memories. And then, when you get sick of them, and all they contain, you can switch them out for a shiny new version, with tons of extra space.

Of course, people are not hard drives. Nor are they treasure chests. You cannot crack them open, plunder the riches within and then leave them forgotten. People are much more special than hard drives, or treasure chests.

They themselves are the treasure.

Tuesday How To: Naming Characters

There are several schools of thought on naming characters. Some say to name your characters names that are common every day names. Others say to name them special names that will stick in your readers’ heads. Still others tell you to always use name books and find the exact meaning of each of your characters names, while others say it doesn’t matter.

Being a writer for over a decade now, I know a thing or two about characters and naming them. I have had such name mistakes as Anna, Annaleigh, Anna Lee and Annabelle in the same story, as the same character (She was an orphan that preferred to change her name with every new person she lived with; I was thirteen and thought it added depth to her character, and a plot obstacle apparently), characters with such “out there” names as Blodwyn and Kendrick and Dr. Sweetcheeks McGee (ok, that last one was because I was crunched for time during NaNoWriMo), and last but not least, characters with full names every mention such as Timothy Jameson Weatherly and Nurse Kate Cooper. I am more than qualified to tell you how not to name characters.

So how do you know what to do and not to do when naming characters? How do you navigate all of the advice and tips floating around the Internet and Writing Self-Help?

Here’s the advice that works best for me.

Do:

Have Varying Letters and Lengths
If you are writing a story with Joe, Jim, Jon and Jen, your readers might have a problem distinguishing your characters from one another. If Joe and Jim are roommates and Joe is Jon’s brother, who is dating Jen, but Jen is sleeping with Joe on Tuesdays and Jim on Saturdays, your readers will be confused. Likewise, if you have Sarah, Steve, Stacy and Steph. This is due to the way we read and interpret words.
Remember when you were a kid and learning to read? How you would focus on every letter to sound out words? How often do you do that now? Rarely, right? This is because the more you read, the less you focus on deciphering the words and the more your eye focuses on the general shape. If you have character names with the same letters and lengths, the reader will not necessarily read the right names in the right spots.
The fix is easy though. Vary the letters used and the lengths of names. Instead of Barry, Barney, Benny and Bart, try Steph, Barry, Dan, and Patricia. This makes it much easier on the reader, and you as the writer.

Have Some Uniqueness
When you name characters Bob Smith, Joe Brown and Jim Jones, you are robbing your characters of the chance to have unique names. Close your eyes and imagine what image comes to mind when you think of characters with those names. I don’t know about you, but I think office clone, living in a cubicle, with no interesting qualities. If this is your aim as a writer, perfect. If not, well, there are easy changes to make.
You can name your characters basic names like Jim, Joe and Bob, or use last names like Smith, Jones and Brown, but don’t use them together. Or if you do use them together, use them as a placeholder until you find better names in edits. Instead of Bob Smith, use Bob Kowalski, or Bob Lycster. If you want to use a common last name like Smith, combine it with a less common first name, like Hazel or Bridgetta. Or you vould even change the spelling of common names for a little more zest. Vary it up and your readers will thank you.

Pick Your Initials Carefully
This one should be self explanatory, but you would be surprised how easy it is to not think about it. I have had characters with the initials A.S.S. more than once, usually by marriage, or E.W. for the initials of a first and last name. While these are not the worst of errors when naming characters, it is important to consider when naming characters, or even a set of characters.
If Anna Sarah Wiley is going to marry Samuel Sands, you should probably change one or both names, unless your purpose is to make an ass of your character. Likewise, if you have first and last name with the initials E.W. such as Eric West, add a middle name. It won’t always work,  unless you have a reason for using the character’s full name, but it will help. Eric West becomes Eric Richard West.
It’s best to avoid naming blunders with initials, but they can be augmented if you are set on certain names.

Don’t:

Name your Characters the Same Name, or Variations of the Same Name
In the example above with Anna, Annaleigh, Anna Lee and Annabelle, it definitely confuses the reader. Yes, it is the same character,  and yes, she does change her name a lot, but this does not excuse the fact that your readers will probably be annoyed with you.  If your character has to change names (which I would use with caution, unless you are writing a spy/espionage piece), use varying identities. Your writing should not be like the comics “Oh, you have glasses on, you’re Clark Kent today”; in writing that would be “Oh, you changed one letter that augments the pronunciation,  you are obviously not Anna Lee”.  Do your readers a favor and vary it more than just a few letters.

Have too Many Apostrophes or Unique Characters
This applies to you fantasy writers mostly, but has basis in all writing. Please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t name your character An’que’mon’lea or Reñńøldâ. The first example is semi ok, if you shorten it to a nickname and use the full name sparingly, but the second is just asking for trouble. Your readers will spend more time trying to pronounce it than reading your work, and you want people to read your book. Instead, use unique characters and apostrophes carefully.
My general rule is one special character or apostrophe per name, or even per piece. Too much of a good thing can get confusing.

Use Too Many Names
This is a your mileage may vary tip. If your story calls for it, if your character’s culture calls for multiple names, or they are royalty, go ahead and use a lot of names, just not everytime your character is mentioned. Once or twice, sure. But not every time. Shorten Maria Renee Kathetine Reynaud De Espinosa Coorezando to Maria or Marie.
This will add word count if you are focusing on count and not content, but multiple names are a pain in the ass to type out every single time.

So there you have it. Some tips on naming characters. As always, these are not rules, more guidelines. If your piece calls for or a long name, or similar names, or any of the above rules, by all means, go for it.

Happy Writing!

Wednesday Works: Make a Mixtape for Someone You Love. The Songs Cannot include “Love You” in the Title

These lists are fun, and I definitely enjoy love songs more than hate songs!

  1. Every Thug Needs A Lady- Alkaline Trio
  2. Shut Up and Dance- Walk the Moon
  3. Gates- The Menzingers
  4. I Don’t Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore- The Menzingers
  5. The Luckiest- Ben Folds
  6. China- Tori Amos
  7. Joy Comes in the Morning- Red City Radio
  8. Montreal- Elway
  9. Fatally Yours- Alkaline Trio
  10. Songbird- Fleetwood Mac
  11. Hands Down- Dashboard Confessional
  12. Let Me Call You Sweetheart- Bing Crosby
  13. Nose Over Tail- Alkaline Trio
  14. 1000 Oceans- Tori Amos
  15. Better Whenever-Elway

Tuesday How To: Finding Characters

Writing without characters is like riding a bike without wheels, you won’t get too far. Sure, there are pieces out there that have limited characters, but they at least have one aspect that has to do with the development of a personality or skills. Look at Disney/Pixar’s Wall-E. There is no dialogue for the first half of the movie, but Wall-E and Eve have personalities and show some growth before the rest of the characters are introduced.

Characters are easy for some people, and difficult for others. Depending on the piece, characters could come easily, or they could hide from you for the first ten or more pages. I have had several experiences with characters, from my first story with the protagonist that had more than ten names, to my most recent characters who grow and become more alive with every new draft of my novels.

So this first installment we are going to talk about finding  characters. So let’s jump to it, shall we?

Depending on what your current project is, you could already have your characters. If you write fanfiction, which is writing based on someone else’s characters and setting, you already have your characters. If you are writing from scratch, you might not have any characters, or maybe just a few.

How you find characters will depend on if you have an idea or not. Sometimes characters, or their names will come first, and then their plots or ideas come after. Sometimes you have the idea and you just want to shake your character and scream at them “Tell me your name!”. Either way, I would like to believe characters want to be discovered.

With an Idea

If you started with an idea, I think the task of finding characters is easier. With an idea, and whatever parts of a plot you already have, fitting a character where they are needed becomes a bit easier. For instance, say we have the idea for a plot surrounding a bank robbery. The character we need can either work with the idea surrounding a bank robbery or be against it. What I mean by that is: Our character can have several personalities depending on the plot. Is the character part of the robbery, or just in the bank when the robbery starts? Does our character try to stop it, or just cower in the corner, crying for their mother? Make the character fit what you need the character to be.

An example that I have used in the past is the Camp NaNoWriMo April session. I was writing a novel based on someone falling into the addiction of drugs. I could have gone the easy way and said the character was male, twenty-four years old, was traumatized as a child and addicted to alcohol, but that is what readers would have expected, that seems to be the stereotype of drug dealers and users. What I ended up doing instead was making her female, type A, in medical school, and selling drugs without using them. This made her interesting, and went against all stereotypes.

Without an Idea

Coming up with characters on their own is definitely hard. Without the backbone of a plot, characters could be anything. Sometimes, characters come to me with their full names and their stories, but most of the time it’s like an awkward first date trying to pull information from them. There have only been a few instances where I come up with the character before the idea.

One of them is Georgia Rose Howell. This is a name that came to me in a flash of inspiration without an idea attached to it. I have tried several times to add her to other working ideas, but she refuses. She seems to be holding out for her own work, but she won’t give me any more information than just her name. She’s like Groot in that way.

Me: What’s your story?

GRH: I am Georgia Rose Howell.

Yeah, eventually I’ll find a place for her, but for now, she’s just a fancy name.

Next week, we’ll talk about naming characters and bringing them to life.

Happy Writing!

Tuesday How To: Characters

Welcome to the next installment of Tuesday How To!

This month I will be telling you all about characters and how to find and develop them.

Let’s have some fun!

Writer Life Lesson #17: Don’t Be Afraid to Write the Hard Stuff

Writing, like every other form of art, strives to make people feel something. This is usually accomplished by making the work feel real, using real emotions and situations that force the reader or the viewer or the participant to feel something. Sometimes, this means including things that hurt us, or make us feel vulnerable, dirty, or embarrassed.

There are several events, and people and objects that make us feel that way, and as many things as there are, there are a thousand more ways to write them. A lot of writing advice will tell you to avoid things that will make the reader cringe or feel offended, especially if it has to do with real events, especially if you can find a better way to further the plot and your story, but I say

Don’t Be Afraid to Write the Hard Stuff

Why? Because if we avoid the hard stuff, the triggers and the pain of events, then we cannot get past them as human beings. If we sugarcoat everything in our writing, make it fluffy and pretty and wrapped up, it will not seem real, or plausible. If we want our readers to feel something, we have to dig deep and find the things that hurt us and bring them forth.

I’m not saying force yourself to write what hurts you, or force it out for the sake of readers and the ability to sell. What I am saying is when you feel that you are ready, just try writing what hurts, what scares, or what embarrasses you. You might be able to get through it, or you might not.

I know all about what it feels like to write the hard stuff and the difficult things. When my mom passed away in 2013, it was hard for me to write about her, about any mothers. So in 2014, I decided I was going to write a story similar to my experiences for a short story contest. I started to write it, but it was just too difficult, so I put it away for later. Will I continue it? Maybe. Will I throw it out for good? No way!

Hard things to write could be anything. It could be murder, rape, incest, or any other various tragedies or joys. I’m not saying add these things, or anything like them, in for shock value, but if it is necessary to your plot, to motivate your characters, or further their development, then add it in. Write it to the best of your ability, and then edit it like hell for it to have the best impact.

Don’t be afraid to write because the themes or events scare you.

Go forth and write!

Wednesday Works: Make a Mixtape for Someone You Hate. The Songs Cannot Include the Words “Hate You” in the Title

So This List is going to be fun!

  1. The Last Song I’m Wasting On You- Evanescence
  2. Fuck This, I’m Out- Off With Their Heads
  3. Untouchable Face- Ani DiFranco
  4. Radio- Alkaline Trio
  5. Fire and Ice- Pat Benatar
  6. I’m Looking Through You- The Beatles
  7. Mix Tape- Brand New
  8. Seventy Times 7- Brand New
  9. Passive- A Perfect Circle
  10. Good Fucking Bye- Alkaline Trio
  11. Caught a Lite Sneeze- Tori Amos
  12. Leather-Tori Amos
  13. Time Tables- The Menzingers
  14. Call Me When You’re Sober- Evanescence
  15. My Friend Peter- Alkaline Trio

Tuesday How To: Expanding and Combining Ideas

We all get ideas, sometimes they are planned through brainstorming, or sometimes they come to us out of the blue. Sometimes finding ideas is the easy part, and sometimes it’s not so easy. You can get ideas from anywhere and anything, but sometimes the ideas you get aren’t enough.

So this week, let’s talk about Expanding and Combining ideas.

Expand Your Ideas

Sometimes we get just a glimpse of an idea that when we write it will only get us so far. An example would be either a name or a setting. As an example, let’s use a character, aged 13, who comes to you in an idea saying “You are not my real father.” That’s the start of the idea, but at most it will get you one scene, maybe two. So now, you as the creator need to figure out enough about the thirteen year old to make a true story.

So the easiest way to do this is to write that scene between the thirteen year old and whoever else he/she is talking to. But if you are a perfectionist and like to write in order, that may not be the easiest way for you. So here’s what I usually do.

Most of the time characters come to me first, so I decide who this thirteen year old is talking to. Is it a step father, or an adopted father, or someone else entirely. How does that thirteen year old feel about their real father? What other issues are going on in that character’s life, what are their wants and needs, etc.
This process can literally go on for as long as you need it to, sometimes over days and weeks.

For the sake of this example let’s say that the thirteen year old has a single mother that sleeps around with strange men and that the thirteen year old is struggling with the urge to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She tries to seduce her mother’s latest sleeping partner, but he decides that he is a good guy and refuses her advances. Just like that you have a problem and a longer plot. Depending on where you put it in your order of scenes, toward the beginning or the end, changes your story.

You have a point to write from, and your idea is expanded.

Combine Ideas

If you’re anything like me, ideas are everywhere and you have several of them that are small, but don’t really have enough for a whole developed plot. If you have several small ones that can connect, why not connect them?

Here’s an example. I have several ideas about mermaids and vampires and fairytale creatures, but no real plot for any of them. So recently I have combined the ideas of a mermaid with fire magic, a witch raised from birth, and a dead girl looking for “bus fare”. What do these have in common? A plot (finally).

You might be surprised how easy it is to combine ideas. Even if they don’t seem like they connect, it might surprise you how many options you can come up with. Just be open to many options and have fun with it. If down the line it doesn’t end up working out, or you find an idea that you like, but some part of it doesn’t fit, move it around and add it to your “To be used” list.

Have fun with all of your ideas, and join me next week for the next installment of Tuesday How To! Next week we jump into characters.

Wednesday Works: Write a Rhyming Poem about the Last Book You Read

The last book I read was Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

On a cold clear moore, in Scotland gay

A pretty young lass loses her way.

She travels through time, back and back

and meets a sexy stranger who calls her “Sassenach”.

Through several days of watch and suspicion,

The chapters quickly turn to needing parents’ permission.

For Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser,

Is one quite sexy hell raiser.

From a second marriage, to hot nightly romps,

Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser saves her new husband from chumps.

Toward the end, Poor Jaime is more foe than friend

Oops, I guess I shouldn’t tell you how it ends.

Tuesday How To: Telling Good Ideas From Bad Ones

Last week, we talked about how to find ideas and how ideas are everywhere. This week we’re going to take it one step further and decide which ideas are good and which ones are bad. I don’t like the term “bad” since there are no bad ideas unless they are not your own. If you are stealing someone else’s idea, word for word, that is bad. Every idea that seems “bad” or overdone, can be made better by changing it, adding or subtracting elements to make it feel like new for both you and your readers.

So let’s talk about good ideas versus ideas that are not so good.

For the sake of explanation, we’re going to use Goldilocks and the Three Bears as our main idea.

Imagine that you are a writer looking for an idea and you read you kid a bedtime story that just happens to be Goldilocks and the Three Bears. So, like we talked about last week, you’re reading and an idea strikes.

You want to write a story about Goldilocks and the Three bears. If you copy it directly, that is plagiarism, and thst is a huge mistake. So now the question becomes how do you make the idea new and fresh from the original idea?

You can do three things. You can add to the idea, subtract from the idea, move it to a different setting, or change the perspective.

Adding to the Idea
When you add to the original idea, you pull information from elsewhere and add it to your idea. For instance, if we use Goldilocks and the Three Bears say we add another character, Goldilocks’ boyfriend who doesn’t believe in Bears, now we have a story. And a new conflict. It suddenly becomes interesting for the reader. They wonder what will happen when Goldilocks and her boyfriend meet the bears.

Subtract from the Idea
Subtracting from the idea does the same as adding to it, instead of adding from somewhere else, you take away from the story. For our pal Goldilocks and her bears, that would mean taking away an aspect of the story. Let’s take away the bears’ house. What this does to the story is makes it harder for Goldilocks to break in, harder to find things that fit her, and completely changes the story, making the story new and fresh.

Move the Story to a Different Setting
Moving the story to a different setting changes the entire story most of the time. Though, if the characters are not in their same setting, they can have different motives and goals. Say we move Goldilocks and the Bears to New York City. The need to find things that fit is no longer there. Goldilocks can just go to the store and find what fits her. So why break into the bears’ house at all? Perhaps Goldilocks is a thief and needs a place to hide from the police? See, the plot becomes interesting again, and fresh.

Change the Perspective
Changing point of views is one of the easiest and most used ways of changing the idea and making it fresh again. Since the original fairytale is in the third person, we could change it to any of the other perpectives, it doesn’t even gave to be a human (or bear) perspective. Let’s say we change the perspective to the house. How would that change the story? Or if we made it Baby Bear’s perspective? Each point of view has different information than the others, and more opportunity for change and excitement.

Whatever you do improve your ideas, make them more interesting and not as overused, Have fun with it!

Think about any one of your ideas, how can you expand it or make it better?

Writer Life Lesson #16: Outline Before You Write

Whether you write essays, or novels, or anything in between, you have an outline. As crazy as that sounds, even if you swear that you always write by the seat of your pants, you do have an outline, it just might not be written down.

This week’s lesson has to do with physically outlining. And Outlining Before You Write.

This lesson is one of my favorites, because I get to talk about my outlining skills and show you some examples. If you are planning on participating in NaNoWriMo in November, or just planning to start a novel in the near future, outlining will be your friend.

Simple Outlines

I didn’t used to outline, and then I came up with the idea for my 2011 NaNo Novel, Spark: The Girl. It started out as a simple stand alone novel, and it still can be a stand alone novel, I think. But the more I thought about it and the more I planned the more I realized I needed some kind of outline. In the course of a week, I wrote simple outlines for all seven books. Though I didn’t plan it too well back then, because there are still several holes where I can add things in as I go.

This is what I like to call a simple outline. You know the basic structure and the big events, but the small events and the other characters are not always planned. There are still room for surprises. I prefer these outlines because it isn’t as rigid as a complex outline, and I don’t feel as disappointed if I forget to add a detail. It can be as simple or complex as you want the detail to be. A lot of time I leave myself notes on my whiteboard, or a single sentence in my notes

Example: Jared and Emily meet Lea at the hospital instead of at the apartment. Why are they there?

I like to end my simple outlines with questions sometimes, something to think about when I get to that point, because I don’t know what exactly is going to happen in that book once I start writing it, or what small details I can connect to it once I start working on it.

Complex Outlines

I like complex outlines for things that I absolutely know are going to be in my novel or characters that I cannot forget to introduce at a specific time.  I prefer to use Complex outlines during second or third drafts when I know what needs to be in the novel I am working on. I use Complex outlines to go chapter by chapter, or sometimes scene by scene.

Example: Chapter 5- Jared and Emily finally start talking about the issues between them in Dr. B’s office. Emily brings up the fact that Jared tells her things she’s not sure about. Jared brings up the fact that Emily is not herself. They end up fighting and Emily storms out. Next scene is in the hospital cafeteria where Jared vents to Dr. Owen and asks for a raise to gain Emily’s trust back. Chapter ends with Jared groveling.

With Complex outlines, the content tends to be longer, more in depth, and more linear. Sometimes they take a little more thought and organization,  but they do end up making it easier to write, at least for me.

I tend to not structure my outlines too rigidly, since I do enjoy creative freedom, so occasionally as I write, I will change the outline to fit what I’m writing. Sometimes I’ll take a previous idea that may or may not have originally been part of the plot and add it in.

Whether you choose to outline or not, it does help to just have simple notes and ideas. Usually I have an ending in mind first, so occasionally it is easier to outline backwards. Other times, my ideas are all jumbled and I look at the outline ready to scream “WHAT THE F@&# DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”

Whether you outline or write by the seat of your pants, it doesn’t matter. Whatever works best for you, do it!

At least you’re still writing.

Happy Writing!