Wait, what story is that?

Last night, I went to another group meeting for Camp NaNoWriMo. We meet above the local grocery store, and after we finished, I decided to get my sister and her roommates a dozen doughnuts. They just started a new semester this week, and I remember how that feels!

My sister and I started talking about my NaNoWriMo goals, and I told her about one of the stories that had evolved from my character bios.

As normal, I got very excited as I started talking about my story, and my writing, and my sister, having lived with me long enough, knew exactly what I was talking about. Her roommates on the other hand… they were thoroughly confused.

I guess it makes sense, once you start talking about characters in arranged marriages, sick queens and quests, it’s not exactly the normal, everyday conversation. Halfway through, one of her roommates asked, “Wait, what movie is this?”

That’s when I had to explain that it was just a story in my head. Probably my project for this November.

Once I finished explaining, all three of them got excited and told me that it was a story they would be happy to read.

That kind of enthusiasm and encouragement is often what a writer needs, especially when they’ve had a bit of a dry spell. I think changing projects also helped. I have enough character bios to form two or three stories. Now, it’s time to move onto another project. After deciding to switch last night, I was able to rewrite the first chapter of The Stone Mason.

So, as much fun as my first Camp NaNoWriMo project was, it’s time to work on bigger and better.

Wish me luck!

Resolutions for 2014

Last day of 2014!

Earlier this year, I wrote out a list of writing goals that I wanted to accomplish by the end of this year.  Right now’s the time of reckoning. 

1.        Finish writing synopsis for Red WIP, revise query.

Done, done and done.  I believe I’ve revised both multiple times throughout the year.  The query has gone through some extreme changes, but I believe that they’re for the good.

2.       Send out first batch of queries by the end of January

This one was harder.  It’s not easy sending something out and hoping that it’s ready.  But I did do it.  (With a lot of encouragement from hubby.)  I sent out a few queries this year.  Not as many as I should have, but I’ve at least started on that journey.

3.       Rewrite Blue WIP.

I used Camp NaNoWriMo in April to do this.  One month and the entire novel rewritten.  Then, I posted it on Scribophile and had some great critique partners tear it apart.  I’m about 1/3 of the way through a second revision for this year.

4.       Revise Yellow WIP.

Yup.  I can’t remember exactly when I did that, I believe it was the months of May and June.  Once I revised, I posted it on Scribophile, and I am ready to do another revision next year!

This year’s goals I actually completed, which is a shock to me.  Maybe I didn’t set my bar very high? 

Here’s a few things that I accomplished even though I didn’t put it in my resolutions:

1.       Write a new novel in the month of November.  I’m just finishing it up, but I did get to 50,000 in the month of November, which was just as fun as it was last year!

2.       Get published.  In July, I published an article in Home Health Aide Digest on maintaining wellness in the mental health population.  It was a pretty exciting accomplishment, for my writing and for my nursing career!

3.       Become an ML for my region for NaNoWriMo.  This was probably one of my highlights of my 2014 writing accomplishments.  Participating in a live writer’s group, and being able to lead it was a dream come true. 

I’m still working on my writing resolutions for next year.  Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with some harder ones to push me even more.

What are some of your resolutions?  I’d love some ideas!

Voice

This week, I started revising my yellow WIP.  My main character, Rowell, is very different from all of the other main characters that I’ve created, and I love getting into his mind.  He’s a teenage boy who's got a chip on his shoulder that clouds his perception of everything around him.  Yet there's something about him that affects the way that interacts with others, something he's not even aware of.

 

One of the main elements of this revision is focusing on voice.  I've already got a bit of it within the story, but as I've delved into what really makes him tick, I've realized that I've sold him short.  Rowell's personality is so clear that this draft has been one of the easiest to write. 

I've read many articles on the importance on finding a characters voice.  It can affect the tone of the story and the way that it reads.  Consider the differences here between the first and second drafts:

Rowell dropped his book, startled by his father's voice.  Lori shot him a guilty glance before scooting out and jumping up.

Rowell's head whipped up, and he flinched under Larzo's gaze.  After a moment, he glared down at Lori.  The little rat!

They're just small changes, but I can't help but smile with the second example.  Probably because I can completely see him glaring down at his little sister.  I have younger siblings, and I know what it's like when they tattle-tale.

Voice needs to feel natural.  It needs to come from the character, rather than from the writer.  Or maybe they should be working together to create it.

What do you think?  Any advice on creating effective voice?

Never Good Enough

For the first time since I think the first of November, I am finally above the stats mark on the NaNoWriMo website.  It’s been quite a struggle, but I’m finally to the point of the story where I really don’t want to leave it hanging.  Rowell’s getting to where he needs to go and he’s finally figuring out what he’s good at.

This Yellow WIP is much more of a coming of age story than most of my others, and it’s been quite an interesting experience.  Especially considering that this is from the point of view of a male character.  Not just any male character, a male with all sisters, one who’s felt picked on his entire life.  In fact, in some ways, Rowell has quite a bit in common with my younger brother, though I never realized it until recently.  (Not that I EVER picked on my younger brother).

With "The Kid" at a wedding

But one thing that Rowell’s been struggling with recently is a feeling of self-worth.  He’s always seen others excel while he feels like he’s stuck where he’s always been – just an ordinary, normal human.  Even when someone else tries to show him that he is so much more than he thinks, he refuses to believe.

This is something I think we can all relate with.  It’s hard to realize the good we’re doing or the influence we have on others because we always have to live with the greatest criticizer of all.  Ourselves.  It’s so easy to see the mistakes that we’ve made and the goals that we’ve never achieved instead of looking back and seeing how far we’ve come. 

I know that I can be incredibly self-critical to the point that I want to give up.  But that’s when we never should.  It’s important to ignore those feelings of failure and worthlessness and keep climbing.  A few stumbles here and there doesn’t define us.  It’s the continuation of moving forward, of progressing toward becoming better. 

How about all of you?  Any moments of self-doubt recently?  Remember, there’s always a chance to improve and become better.  And it always feels great to prove those doubts wrong!

Prewriting: Step 4 - Creating The Small Settings

Since I’ll be spending so much of November working on my NaNoWriMo project, I thought I’d show you a bit of my prewriting process.  This is what I did during October.  This post is about creating settings - the small ones.

There are a few places that I have to get the images of what’s there.  In my last post, I talked about using Google Sketch.  It’s good for the big settings, but almost impossible for the small ones that need a bit more creativity, less structure and more of a picture.

For example, I have a world that’s created only in dreams.  Now, I’ve never actually been to that world, and I wasn’t quite sure what it looked like.  So I began doodling.  As I did, I began to get a clearer picture.  Doors.  Lots of doors.  Each one leading into a different person’s dream.

So as I doodled, this is what I came up with.  It’s just an outline, but it makes the picture clearer for me.

And of course, there’s a Rowell’s dream world.  I knew what I wanted, but the where and the how?  That was a little bit more difficult.  So, again, I doodled until I could figure it out.

Now I know what’s going on and where my characters are.  

Prewriting: Step 4 - Large Settings

Since I’ll be spending so much of November working on my NaNoWriMo project, I thought I’d show you a bit of my prewriting process.  This is what I did during October.  This post is about creating the major settings.

The biggest setting in this novel is Tadrol’s Villa on the northern beach.  It’s partially a school, but it also houses children.  I use setting to figure out the story as well, and there was a major plot point discovered while creating this place.  I’m not the greatest artist, but I do like to have a picture of what’s going on. 

My sister introduced me to Google Sketch, and I like to use it when I create large settings.  Here’s a few pictures of Tadrol’s Villa. 

I’ve used Google Sketch for many other settings.  Once I needed to create a setting using specific elements.  I needed a lot of water, a lot of dirt, a city on a raised surface and an area where people can stray dry while it’s raining.  Here’s what I created.  Once I could see it, it was so much easier to write.

I wrote a story where the characters spent the majority of their lives in a castle.  I had to know where everything was, the kitchen, the stables, the main entrance.  With Google Sketch, I was able to lay it all out so that my characters didn't get lost.  And more importantly, I didn't get lost while they ran around the castle.

What do you use to create your settings?  Do you just have the image in your head?

Prewriting: Step 3 - Outlining

Since I’ll be spending so much of November working on my NaNoWriMo project, I thought I’d show you a bit of my prewriting process.  This is what I did during October.  This post is about outlining.

I need to know my story before I can write it.  I’ve tried writing without having an outline and it turned into a jumbled mess that I still need to fix.  Each story comes to me in varying degrees of completeness.  This story, I knew the beginning, but I wasn’t sure about the ending.  I didn’t quite know where it would end.  To work it out, I use note cards. 

Through experience, I learned to number them.  It’s a basic idea of what happens when.  I write one note card, then move to the next one.  If I’m stuck, I know I just have to write the next one.  This outline ended up being almost 70 note cards long, which is quite a lot for me.  Once I finish the skeletal structure of the story, it’s time to add the meat – the muscle.  On the back of the note card, I add a few notes about that plot point. 

Then I take it all and type it up into an outline, with a lot of spaces between each point.  Once I print it out, I add even more details below each plot point. 

Putting more meat to the outline

First draft outline

In the end, I have a complete outline and a clear idea of where I’m going.  For this NaNoWriMo novel, I created a 26 page outline, ready to guide me through the crazy month of November.  It’s my road map, keeping me on track.

Prewriting: Step 2 - Creating Characters

Since I’ll be spending so much of November working on my NaNoWriMo project, I thought I’d show you a bit of my prewriting process.  This is what I did during October.  This post is about creating characters.

Before I write, I have to have the idea of where the story is going.  And to do that, I have to know who my characters are.  My stories are always focused on the characters, especially their journeys, since I write YA. 

This story is about Rowell, the son of my two main characters from the Red WIP.  He called out to me in the previous story I wrote.  I’ve loved getting to know him, and it’s almost surreal writing Larzo and Aydra as parents.  They’ve all grown up and changed, though I guess that’s to be expected. 

While I do know most of the characters in the beginning of the story – Rowell’s family and friends – once he starts his own journey, he meets new people and makes new friends.  

There are some secondary characters who have a very large influence over Rowell, and to correctly portray them in the story, I need to know where they come from.  What’s their motivation?  And also, I need to know what they look like. I can’t keep track of that stuff in my head.  Mostly because I can’t visualize it at all. 

So I create character sheets. 

Here’s an example of one of my characters in the early stages. 

She’s much more fleshed out now, but that’s what I began with.  I’m no artist, and I can’t draw people at all, but at least now I can see a little bit of what Eni looks like.  I make sure I have hair color and eye color at least.  Since she’s one of the main characters, she has a full sheet.  Some of the secondary characters, like Rowell’s sisters, have to share a sheet. 

Here’s the antagonist.  His name is Tadrol and at first, I couldn’t figure out what motivated him.  What was it that made him do the terrible things he did?  I tend to write until I figure it out, exploring what kind of character he is.  If I hadn’t set the time constraint (finishing by November,) I probably would have written out character sketches.  But at least now I know how to write him realistically.

How do you create your characters?  What do you start with?  Appearance or background?

Do You Put Yourself In The Story?

I’ve heard advice that went along the lines of “Don’t write yourself into your story.”

I have to admit, I think that’s pretty sound advice.  When I was in Junior High, I began a novel where I had two characters that I based off of myself.  They were twins, each representing a part of myself.  Let’s just say things didn’t turn out so well.  Apparently my two halves didn’t get along.  One of them picked on the other to the extent that she fell into a deep depression and ran away from home.

I thought I’d learned the lesson, but I guess not.  When I began the White WIP, the character was loosely based off of myself.  It took me several drafts to realize that she had as much personality as a piece of paper.  Or maybe the paper had more personality.  She’s been revised quite a bit, and I’m still not quite happy with the character.  It’ll take some more work, that’s for sure.

So when I began my NaNoWriMo Novel, I knew that I had a character who would be going through some trials very similar to my own.  I’m not saying that she was based off of me, because that couldn’t be further than the truth.  I wish I had half of the backbone she does.  And since this is the third novel I’ve written with her, I know her pretty well.  Which is why when I began this novel, I had a strong feeling that this character had a new stumbling block that was all too familiar to me.  Though, of course, hers just needed to be amplified much more.

This time, I was incredibly hesitant to write the scene.  Just writing the outline made me nervous.  And incredibly emotional. 

So imagine my surprise when that wasn’t the part of the scene that just tore out my heart.  I had been bracing myself for so long that I hadn’t stopped to examine what else happens.  It’s a scene involving some of my most beloved characters, and Aydra probably holds the largest part of my heart.  But this story is about her son, not her.  And right now, he’s feeling a bit of resentment. 

“Have I taught you nothing?” Larzo demanded, shaking Rowell as he spoke. “You should respect and love your mother. If it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t exist.”

“Maybe I don’t want to exist if I have to be like her,” Rowell retorted. He heard her gasp, the sound even more painful than his father’s punch had been.

I’ll admit that I might have gasped with Aydra when I wrote that.  Good thing I was alone.  It’s in these moments that I realize how real these characters are.  Instead of a part of me, I become a part of them.  And even with the pain, I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.  These characters are real to me and that’s when I realized that even if we have similar trials, it doesn’t mean that I’m putting myself in them.  Hopefully at some point, they’ll be able to teach me how to deal with my own problems.

Prewriting: Step 1 - Finding a Color

Since I’ll be spending so much of November working on my NaNoWriMo project, I thought I’d show you a bit of my prewriting process.  This is what I did during October.  This post is about separating the story from all the others.

I’ve written several novels.  When I first started, it was easy for me to keep track.  There was just one.  But then I started the second one.  I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to throw anything away.  So when I had binders for two books, I had a hard time finding the right one.  And it was harder to switch from one to the other.  That’s where the Color Coordination comes in.

Each novel I write has a different color.  It helps me separate each one.  I’m able to jump into the story without having to figure out where I am.  And each color almost automatically helps me to work on multiple stories at the same time.  I also have a hard time coming up with titles, so they go by the name “The Red Story” or “The Blue Story” until I can come up with something suitable.

So when I know I’m going to start a new story, I have to find a new color.  And let me tell you, it’s getting harder to find the cheaper binders because I’ve used most of the colors already.  But fortunately, as I was preparing, it was the beginning of a new school year, which meant that there were a lot more school supplies. 

I decided on yellow for Rowell’s story.  There were yellow binders along with yellow notebooks.  And it felt right.  That’s something I always work towards as well.

So here’s what I start out with.  Like the NaNoWriMo sticker on the front?