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Good luck with your revision! And thanks for sharing the link. The site seems really interesting! :)
Writers are Masochists
Filed Under Tales from the Author's Desk | 1 Comment
We writers are a complete mess of contradictions. We write stories we want to publish, but won’t let anyone read them. We hate to delete our words, but we (usually) don’t mind killing off a character or two. And we pour our hearts onto the page, and then send them off to be read by the world.
In short, we’re masochists.
It’s no secret that writers have low self-esteem. Some of us may hide it better than others, or misdirect you with arrogance, but we all have it. If we didn’t have low self-esteem, we wouldn’t be writers.
We fear rejection – for good reason. Writers can’t help but internalize rejection. If work we’ve poured our heart into isn’t good, then how can we be?
Sometimes this internalization goes too far. The frustrated writer comes to hate writing. They want to give up, trash everything they’ve written, do anything else but write.
But what would we be if we weren’t masochists in this as well?
No matter how much we hate writing, we have to write. No contest.
Self-Publishing: Vanity or New Credibility?
Filed Under Publishing | 4 Comments
It used to be that those who self-published, using so-called vanity presses, were seen as the low of the low, worse even then those who couldn’t publish. If you couldn’t get a legitimate publisher interested in your work, you had no business trying to publish it yourself.
But now, as technology improves and the internet becomes more central to our lives, self-publishers are able to make a name for themselves. They can use the internet to publish, market, and sell their books. They can even make money.
So what does that mean for self-publishing? Is it still a vanity exercise, or has it become a new form of credibility?
I don’t know. I don’t have any answers.
As a writer, I’m still uneasy about self-publishing. I don’t want people thinking poorly of me or refusing to read my book if they learn I self-published. I want the stamp of approval that comes from an established publishing house.
If I started my own publishing company, and “acquired” one of my books, would it make a difference? Probably not. It still seems like a vanity exercise to me.
I know times are changing, and maybe in ten years it won’t matter who published you. But right now it says something to me that some of the more successful self-published works get picked up by major publishing houses.
What do you think? Do you agree with the self-publishing stigma? Or do you think the business has turned a new corner?
Giving Characters Voice
Filed Under Characters | Leave a Comment
Many authors find dialogue to be one of the most challenging things to write. Maybe they have trouble making it realistic, or making each character distinctive. How does one person, in effect, give voice to a hundred others?
While this may sound like common sense, a character’s voice will naturally flow from their personality. If she’s an egotistical narcissist, insults and disgust will drop from her lips like honey. If he’s an innocent little boy who thinks the best of everyone, his very language is going to be optimistic and cheerful.
Don’t force it. Possibly one of the easiest – and most annoying – ways of defining voice is to give a character an accent. The dialogue becomes hard to read, if not nigh incomprehensible, and the reader gets fed up. (Remember, readers are a species with short attention spans.)
Instead, think of smaller cues you can use. They can be obvious, like the stereotypical Valley Girl “like” and Canadian “eh,” or subtle, like always ending with a question or boasting whenever they get nervous. The trick is to only have one character with that dialogue trait; that’s how they make their impression on the reader.
If you find your dialogue to be unrealistic, don’t panic. Snag a seat at the coffee shop and open your ears. Listen to how the people around you talk. Maybe they don’t say “arr matey” like the pirates in your book, but they’ll give you a good baseline to work with.
How do your characters use dialogue to distinguish themselves?
If you look at your favorite author’s collected works, you’ll notice that they come back to the same themes again and again. These themes resonate with them. They can span from the classic (man vs. nature) to the philosophical (why are we here?) to the general (originality).
Which themes resonate with you? You’re the only one who can say. If you don’t know them off the top of your head, there are a few ways to discover them.
First, take a look at the books and movies you like. What themes do they have in common? Chances are those are the ones you are drawn to.
Next, look at what you’ve written, even if it’s a false start for a story or just a short scene. You’ll find that you like to work with the same themes, just as your favorite authors do.
Now, what themes do you see? Mine, for example, include hidden identities, political intrigue, and gods interacting with mortals. You might recognize these elements in my Fragment of the Moon and Gatekeeper pieces.
Endings With a Twist
Filed Under Creativity | Leave a Comment
Shannon Hale’s Austenland was a quick, fluffy read, but the ending was unsurprising, and therefore disappointing. (Remember, endings should be inevitable, but surprising.)
The plot is that Darcy-obsessed Jane Hayes goes on a three week vacation to immerse herself in Regency times. She and a few other lady clients are surrounded by top-notch actors who entertain and woo them. The problem is, she can’t tell if she’s falling in love with a character or an actor.
The ending is inevitable. Of course she falls in love with one of them, and he with her.
But it wasn’t surprising. A good twist, I thought, would have been that the person she fell in love with wasn’t an actor, but a client like herself. (Especially since she’s constantly worried about the line between fantasy and reality.) He could come back year after year like all the regulars, looking for love and an escape.
Instead, you get the usual blather that in all his time at the Regency gig he’s never met anyone like her.
Don’t be afraid of surprises. There are tons of stories like yours, since plots can’t help but be recycled. The way to distinguish yourself is with a good twist.
Mini Update 7
Filed Under Updates | Leave a Comment
A brief respite from Narrator to work on something new, my latest WIP The Gatekeepers, helped me get excited about revising again.
We’re coming down to the wire: all the main characters are in the same place at the same time! What will happen next? Only Pennington knows…
Howl’s Moving Castle Music
Filed Under Music | Leave a Comment
Here’s the main theme for Howl’s Moving Castle. As I said earlier, I love this movie.
Rechargeable Creativity
Filed Under Revising | Leave a Comment
Crazy as it may seem, sometimes the best way to recharge your creative batteries is to work on something else.
But wait, you say. Doesn’t that just use up more of my creative juice? Won’t I be even more burned out?
Answer: not at all. Different characters, different plot, different problems.
What you really need is a break from your novel. Nobody ever defined what that break entails. Maybe it’s listening to music, maybe it’s getting out of the house, maybe it’s reading a good book.
But don’t be afraid to write. Trust me. You’ll feel better working on a different novel than you would sitting around feeling stymied.
The Tangled Web You Weave
Filed Under Characters | 4 Comments
Plot can only get you so far in a novel. The real heart of it, most people would agree, is the relationships between the characters.
Obviously, you don’t have to make those as complicated as the relationships on Glee. But you should have clear relationships in mind, one between each of the main characters.
One way to do this is sit down and think like your characters. For instance, I could think like Prince Calder. What does he think of traveling companions Tayryn and Saydie? What does he think of the princess he’s trying to rescue?
These answers will give you a better idea of how your characters will interact with each other. And you can use that to make sure you remain consistent (so they’re not best friends one scene and mortal enemies the next).
How do you create relationships between your characters?
The False Choice
Filed Under Plotholes | 2 Comments
A while ago, I explained the benefits of writing the query letter before the novel. If the query’s broken, no way will the novel hold up. On Wednesday, I realized that you can use this method not only to fix a bad premise, but to improve it.
Query Shark tells us exactly what we need in a query:
“Answer three simple questions: who’s the protagonist; what choice does she face; what are the consequences of the choice.”
Usually this choice is obvious. It’s the call to adventure. If the protagonist refuses, there wouldn’t be a book.
But sometimes this choice is a false one. There is no earthly reason why someone would agree to go adventuring. They only do so because you, the author, need them to in order to write the book.
Once you recognize this, it’s easy to fix. You can raise the stakes or make sure there’s no reason for your protagonist to stay behind.
Or, you can take the opportunity to improve your plot.
As I was writing a query to see if a novel idea I had would work, I noticed that I had one of those false choices. The protagonist was meek, there was no way she’d suddenly overcome that for plot reasons. So I used that to my advantage.
I thought, what would happen if her choice was no? If she tried to get out of it? The result is a deliciously better plot than I would have had originally.
So before you get too far along in your novel, ask yourself if you’ve given your protagonist a false choice. You might find a good way to improve your story along the way.
Welcome
Official Progress
4/21 segments
A narrator hijacks a cliche fantasy story, much to the chagrin of its characters.Status: Second revision
A young noblewoman with strange powers must choose: her king or her soul.1,639/70,000 wordsStatus: First draft
When a girl's heart is stolen, she's plunged into a world of magic and shadows - but can she get her heart back before she loses it completely?1,087/70,000 wordsStatus: First draft
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