Posts Tagged ‘plotting’

How We Write: Deconstructing BEFORE Rewriting. No more excuses…

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Anyone–ANYONE–can deconstruct and rewrite a manuscript. Anyone can learn to rework a story one scene at a time. And we’re talking rewriting–NOT copy editing a manuscript to catch punctuation or grammar mistakes, or line editing to make sure prose flows beautifully. These skills are important, too, but only after an author has dissected the first draft and rewoven it’s parts into the best story possible. These are the ideas I discuss with writers at conferences year around.

This week in HoWW, I’ll do my best to cover the high points of a deconstruction technique that, combined with rewriting, it takes me a two-day weekend workshop to teach properly. This is interactive stuff that I love to work with in person, while students apply what I’m showing them to a work in progress. In fact I’m already lining up several hands-on rewriting workshops for 2013. And the mindset of one of these weekend retreats that I hope you’ll also achieve, at least a little, after reading this post, is–

  • No more excuses for not rewriting.
  • No more hiding behind “not seeing” what needs to be changed in your story.
  • No more big, scary book that’s too complicated to rework.
  • No more feeling out of control of your creativity as you rewrite!

Next Wednesday, we’ll get more into what to do with your story once you can see its various pieces more clearly. Today, let’s zero in on the seeing part!

Once your draft is completed, the story can seem too complex to tackle, right?

You feel too close to your work to be able to analyze and re-craft it. There’s just too much there, and it’s impossible to see where each change will take the story. It’s easy to find yourself rewriting in circles, never really getting anywhere. And who has that kind of time?

Under-Construction

So, let’s talk deconstruction technique. Not HOW to do the revisions themselves–that will be for next week.  And, frankly, fully learning how to revise a scene or a chapter or an act or an entire novel is more about trial and error and learning from experience). This is a post about how to deconstruct what you have, so you can get to work on what needs to be done–THAT I can show you today ;o)

How can you challenge each story component in your draft? (more…)

The Soul of the Matter: Love the One You’re With…

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Writers aren’t all that different for saner mortals. Even though most of us wear our freak flags like parade banners. As part of our every-day, we offer ourselves up for rejection–the very reality we tend to fear most. Because we’re bent that way. We write about our neuroses and dreams and innermost secrets. Then we go one step further in our quest to understand, by slapping our names onto what we’ve created before sending it out into the world to be judged. Which is tantamount to dropping your pants, then plastering a pic of the gory details all over social media. And in the end, most of us writer-types, the honest ones anyway, will admit that we’re TERR-I-FIED by the entire process, even though we cant’ stop ourselves from indulging in it. Why? For the same reason a “normal” person follows his or her passion. LOVE.

Crazy-Love-Graphics2

You don’t get to pick and chose how your mind works or what makes your creativity thrive. Life, in my honest opinion, is about learning to love who and what you are–and the love that you’re born to pursue.

Challenge that core reality, and you’re denying the inner freakishness that you’re here to explore and share. Take a look at my Things My Teenager Says series, if you want an idea of how proud I am of kids (and adults) who figure out exactly who and what they are, then fly that uniqueness proudly. I’m still on a path to owning my own stuff, probably a step or two behind my gifted teen. But I’m a writer. What can I say? I pay more attention most days to internal landscapes, than I do the world around me. I’ll catch up eventually. I’ll understand, one of these years, everything that love is supposed to mean to me and everything it’s not. Until then, I’ll be crazy, loud and proud, and fake it ’til I make it.

crazy love graphic

Being crazy in love with your uniqueness, even when it means standing out in ways that shriek at your insecurities and desperation to belong–that’s the life goal I wish for myself. And yourself. (more…)

How We Write: When we’re waiting, and waiting, and waiting…

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

Writing like we’re on fire is every author’s dream. Creating free and feeling the juice and dying to find out what happens next. But how is that zone possible, when your control of the “business” world of your publishing slips beyond your grasp? I’m asked this question all the time. Possibly because I’m riding that slippery slope most of the time these days ;o) Not sure that’s a compliment to the state of my business. But it’s nice, too, living the unpredictability of my world in an outward way that makes others want to know how I’m dealing with all of it.

There are those, in my opinion, who want to tell you how to do what they themselves aren’t, because they’ve been blessed with the answers you can’t find anywhere else–self-help folks, especially in writing circles, who haven’t actually done what they’re promising they can help you be a success at, chap my hide.

sucker

If your fiction writing guru has never actually published a work of fiction, you should probably take that as a sign.

Just saying.

There are those who are going through what you’re needing help with, and just want to rant. I’m not a big fan of that approach either. Everyone needs to vent when the going gets tough, but making a career out of shocking the world with your bitterness or need to blame everyone but your own choices for your circumstances is a little too weak for my tastes.

Then there are those who live their trials and their successes in the open, with the same kind of honesty, and invite you into their up-and-down journey, as they try to make sense out of the mix. I’d like to think this latter approach is what I’ve been rambling about doing in How We Write. (more…)

How We Write: The Soul of the Matter

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

My Soul of the Matter posts are usually about my life and the life I see going on around me, and how I try to change daily the things I let prevent me from actually living. Because surviving isn’t enough. Thriving should be the goal. How We Write is usually a motivational rant about finding the soul of your writing, and not just worshiping craft rules. Today, I hope to accomplish both.

keep_it_simple

How we write isn’t always about process and technique. Because we’re creating story. And story is a powerful mechanism for changing minds, and through them our world. Always has been. We write because something drives us to touch readers’ imaginations and hearts and emotions. Their souls. That’s a powerful motivation that should never be completely obscured by our how.

My point?

Every story has a beginning. No matter how beautifully you’re capable of stringing words together, your story begins and ends with your character and your reader’s experience of that character’s journey. Your story must resonate with the heart. It helps if you connect with a theme (even in comedy) that reaches deep inside for a universal truth that can’t be denied. Then, if your gift is writing and you can master the toolbox of techniques that we must learn to bring that vision to life, your reader’s world will most definitely be touched by whatever inspired you to reach them.

How do we write ?

We focus first on the story, for as long as it takes to discover what we most want to say. And only then do we sit down to write.

thunk

For me, I’m an angsty writer who wishes my gift was making folks laugh until they cry. My work is cathartic at more of the other end of the spectrum. Darker-themed, challenging emotional journeys come to me. Always have. Like this morning, when it only took the first five minutes of my news program for my entire day (my life) to shift as I listened to this. (more…)

How We Write: Crunchy

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Heads down in a three-quarters completed draft, I’m also coaching an author preparing for the same creative battle: making story and characters come alive by force of will and your imagination alone. My first comment to her–it’s going to get crunchy. Don’t expect a cake walk. In fact if it’s not an all-out battle, you’re not challenging yourself enough.

Angry woman

That’s right. We write uneven and clunky and, yes, crunchy stuff when we’re slogging through the draft. And for most of us, even those of us who’ve published novels into the double digits, it gets harder the more stories we challenge, not easier. That’s the way it works. The more you learn about story, the more you decide to do with it, the less intuitive it can sometimes be to create what appears to be an effortless journey to the reader.

Several things cause the anxiety and mind-numbing tangents we encounter when we draft: (more…)

How We Write: Free Writing (Drafting) with a Plan…

Friday, February 17th, 2012

In addition to editing/reading other author’s manuscripts this month, I’m in the throws of drafting a new book of my own. Eeek! Writing into the ether isn’t my happy place. So I free-write with a plan. Huh? you say. Yep, I plan my characters and as many plot turning points as possible before I start. How? I’m so glad you asked…

 planning

My half-day workshops focus on my theory that if you know what you intend to accomplish with a character and/or story arc BEFORE you write a scene, you’ve got a much better chance of actually producing a successful experience for the reader once you’re done. And if you know what you want the reader to feel and take away from an entire chapter or a whole section of your novel, before you begin stringing scenes together, you’ll be aware of that plan as you write and your subconscious and instincts will help you not write yourself or your characters into corners you can’t plot out of once you’re there.

Having a goal in mind doesn’t mean you’re forcing yourself to follow only one path to your story goal, (more…)

How We Write: Character Rules!

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Most every writer’s heard of scene and sequel. Jack Bickham’s Elements of Fiction Writing is some of the best instruction on novel structure out there. But he, and I today, aren’t merely talking about plot. The key is to apply structure principles to your characters every step of the way. Because, as Robert McKee tells us, plot IS character.

family guy

I’ve studied with both these masters. Bickham, in addition to devouring his books, I bought a workshop series from and wish I’d had the chance to hear him in person before his death. McKee, who isn’t dead but some who attended the three-day scriptwriting seminar attended most likely wished him so, was worth the money and travel expense ten times over, given what I walked away from his course better understanding about the real source of good writing.

It’s character.All the plot rules, setting rules, structure rules, symbol rules, and any other thing that someone’s tried to make you think is most important to story, is actually about CHARACTER. Because your story is about character. Each scene and its sequel, each element and act and conflict and motivation… It’s all about character.

mad scientist

Readers want the journey. (more…)

How We Write Wednesdays: Love Your Backstory, Make it Shine

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

How We Write’s focus turns to backstory this Wednesday. Jenn and I have talked planning and plotting and revising and characters and story structure. But what about working what happens BEFORE, into your story’s now? That can sometimes be as much work as all the rest–combined.

backstory

You may have noticed my blog’s slowed down the last few weeks. Why? I’m heads down into the most complicated proposal I’ve written yet (and that’s saying something considering I just finished Sara and Maddie Temple’s story), and I’m trying to sort through everything I’ve been researching and planning for the next three books in the Legacy series and start the story, set the story, yet propel the characters through the first three chapters of the story without dampening the kick-ass pacing of the psychic thriller/magical realism my readers have come to crave.

I teach “free writing” to my students. To write to the end before you go back and revise. But I always qualify that I first get through the proposal stage. The initial 50 – 75 pages. The three chapters my agent needs (along with the BEST synopsis of the full story or series I can write) to sell my books to my publishers. Those first three chapters are an art form, a story, all to themselves. They need to establish your story not just for a reader, but for the editor you want to buy your manuscript.

You’ve heard me say it before–how you handle the inciting incident has plot and character ripples that flow through the middle and most importantly the dark moment and climax of your story. But it’s not just that. Weaving in the backstory of your story, intriguing the reader without revealing too much, all while you’re being sure to tell them enough at the exact moments they need to know… The finesse and delicacy in which you do this is part of your voice. And it has to change in subtle ways with each story. You can never be too careful or creative about how you handle it. You can’t just dump in the “goodies,” then get back to the creative work of telling your story. Some of the most creative writing you do comes when you craft the past into your on-the-page world.

Theres’ no quick and easy way to describe how to handle the “no dumpage” mandate for backstory, or how to work around the “show don’t tell” rule we’ve all had beaten into us. What a surprise!

type keys

There are no simple rules for backstory, any more than there are for anything else. If you don’t give enough in the right places, you frustrate and lose your reader. If you throw to much at the story when it’s not needed in ways that don’t fit your characters and world, your pacing crawls to a painful halt. (more…)

How We Write Wednesdays: Plot Points You Toward Better Drafting

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

I asked the #weWRITE faithful on Twitter what terms and trending craft topics did they want us to explain in more detail. The top choice? Plot points, and how come they’re so important to the escalating tension in a story. It sounds basic, but Jenni and I have learned, just like every other working fiction writer, that you can never take for granted just how important the basics are.

First, let’s start with quick glimpse back at where How We Write Wednesdays (HoWW) has already been:

snoopy

In March, Jenni covered basic story structure terms. It’s a great blog on the “secret” to discovering your own writing process (because as much as we like to teach together, we’ve learned that we plot very differently). Go back and read it for that insight alone. But within the post is an excellent summary of the basic turning points within a novel: Inciting Incident, 1st Turning Point, 2nd Turning Point (also known as Midpoint), 3rd Turning Point, Dark Moment/Black Moment, and Climactic Scene. This  is a purely external way to look at the bones of your story. What happens and how each major thing that happens is connected to the next (and the last) one.

In February, I shared my “Character Chart” that I use to plan/plot my characters’ emotional arc through the beginning (Inciting Incident), Middle (2nd Turning Point) and end (Dark Moment/Black Moment) of a story. Take another look, to get a refresher on how I chart my characters’ internal growth through the three most important turning points in a novel, long before I figure out exactly how I’m going to motivate the character(s) externally.

So, that’s the basics, at least the way we seen them. But what does it all mean, when you’re looking at planning/plotting, drafting, and revising your own story? (more…)

How We Write Wednesdays: Draft Free, Revise Strong…

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

Drafting with creative freedom is key. Writing without constraint. Drafting without clinging too tightly to planning or expectation. BUT we’ve said over and over on How We Write Wednesdays (HoWW)–you have to revise every rough word you draft. How do you lay the groundwork for the “rework” you know needs to be done, while you’re giving your stay committed to your creative freedom?

Jenni’s taking the lead over on her blog, revealing wondrous and amazing secrets for how she spreadsheets and charts her way into keeping track of story while she writes it. Me? Remember I’m a geeky, techno-loving girl who while drafting must continually slap my hand and let go of the overly organized stuff that enables the more analytical side of my brain. So nix on the forms and charts for me. But keeping track of changes I see coming and new things I draft into the story on the fly is still key. But I had to find a way to do it that wouldn’t break the delicate flow of my drafting…

draft free

So, what do I do?

I’ll talk more about it on Twitter, using our growing #weWRITE hashtag where writers from all levels of experience are sharing their writing process and learning from ours. But, to keep things simple here, let me say that I keep up with everything I’m learning as I draft a story in Microsoft Word.

Using the “Notes” toolbar/feature, which enables you to leave searchable notes you can easily track and keep up with, here’s the basics:

  •  Whenever I recognize a change that needs to be made in something I’ve already written, I leave a note where the change first needs to be implemented. I DON’T make the change, just the note.
  • When I introduce something completely new into the story (a new character, unexpected scene, different detail or symbol or mannerism, etc.), I note where it first begins and from where it needs to be worked into the stroy, then move on.
  • (more…)