Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors

Why I Hate Grammar Nazis - And Why I Am One

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

You know those mornings when you wake up, drag your bleary-eyed self over to the coffeemaker, pour that steaming cup of Joe (mostly) into your mug, then stagger to the laptop to see what new and fascinating developments Facebook and Twitter have dumped into your inbox overnight? Somebody’s posted a link to the latest free Kindle books, somebody else is passing around a hilarious new Lolcats, and somebody else has a question about their latest plot problem. So between swigs of coffee, you start typing responses. You’ve only just woken up. The caffeine hasn’t kicked in. But, hey, at least your fingers are moving over that keyboard. You hit send, then head off for a shower.

Not until you return to the computer forty-five minutes later, do you realize you’ve really stepped in it. The latest notification in your inbox is from your friendly neighborhood Grammar Nazi, who has taken it upon himself to inform you that your last comment was an opprobrium to the hallowed study of grammar, spelling, diction, and other such inviolables. Your great sin? You wrote “your” instead of “you’re.” Forget about even trying to claim you were under the influence of that cup of morning coffee. Forget about pointing out that it was a simple typo, a slip of your fingers when your brain really did know better. Forget about claiming it could have happened to anyone. You think the Grammar Nazis care about piddling little excuses like that? Nosirree!

Image by BuzzLOL.com

Why I Hate Grammar Nazis

I’m going to admit up front that I really don’t get why people think they have a duty (much less a right) to point out every little mistake, particularly in the relatively informal setting of social media. Good manners says overlooking the occasional and inevitable little boo-boo is the better part of courtesy.

The truth is we all make honest little mistakes. We all rip off a tweet and slap the enter button before we’ve really had proper time to proofread it. We’ve all cringed when we’ve caught the typo after it’s gone live for all the world to see. Most of the time, we don’t need Mr. Grammar Nazi to tell us where we erred. Most of the time, when he does tell us, we just want to bonk his annoying little know-it-all head with something heavy and blunt.

Why I Am One

And yet, as much as Grammar Nazis sometimes drive me up the wall, I also have to admit my affinity with them. I try my absolute bestest not to point out every misplaced comma, every misused term, and every misspelled word I see. But, I tell you what, it’s hard! When you’re watching the English language tumble down around your head, it’s tough not to run around like Chicken Little, screaming, “The grammar’s failing! The grammar’s failing!”

I love my language. I love its precision. I love its rules. I’m also more than a little OCD, so, naturally, I want to fix everyone’s mistakes. But I don’t. Not always, at any rate. Because I believe there’s a time and a place to pick your battles.

How to Correct Grammar Effectively

To be effective in sharing our knowledge with the leetspeakers, we have to realize why most people hate the guts out of Grammar Nazis and then approach with caution. Here’s a good plan of attack:

Don’t jump on every typo you see.
Double-check your proposed correction is indeed correct.
Consider whether the typo was the honest mistake of someone who knew better or something committed out of ignorance.
If the former, consider letting it go. If the latter, consider the following.
Determine whether the person at fault wants to improve.
If yes, contact them in private. Few people appreciate being told their faults in a public forum.
Be kind. No one likes a know-it-all. Even when he’s right. Okay, especially when he’s right.
If no, take a deep breath. Realize it doesn’t matter. Let it go. Move on.

If we can learn to follow these steps, we’ll not only have a better chance of encouraging correct word usage among our fellows, we might even be able to shake the annoying connotations people associate with us. Maybe we’ll even get a better name one of these days. Something like Grammar Jedi?

Tell me your opinion: Do other people ’s typos drive you nuts?

Related Posts: Keeping Your Writing a Secret

The Importance of Pleasing Ourselves in Our Writing

Should You Write for a Specific Audience?
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Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Wordplay podcast in iTunes).

How to Choose Between a Big Word and a Small Word

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s video offers some thoughts about the benefits of 25 cent words over $100 ones—and vice versa.

Video Transcript: The debate between the worthiness of 25 cent words versus 100 dollar words is ongoing among authors. Some of us argue that simplicity is always best, if only because we can’t risk confusing our readership with unfamiliar language. Others among us want to embrace the full scope of the English vocabulary and utilize the impressive and specific big words. This is an argument that rages all the way from the ranks of the newbies to the halls of the masters. Contemporary Pulitzer winners William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway had an infamous exchange, in which Faulkner said Hemingway could never be accused of using “a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” To which Hemingway shot back, “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”

In general, I am huge vocabulary nut. I love the big words, the unusual words, the arcane words. I love the discovery of a word that perfectly describes something which might otherwise have required half a dozen smaller words. I love it when I see that word used correctly by other authors, and I love it when I get the chance to use it myself. But restraint is always the order of the day. An author’s choice of words should always be guided by the requirements of the story. George Orwell’s commandment to “never use a long word where a short one will do” is good advice. Even better, however, is the common sense stricture to never use a word that your narrators wouldn’t use.

You don’t want your hillbilly characters talking like college graduates. I recently read a book that featured poor backwoods characters who remarkably managed to cram words such as irrefutable, cosmolined, effaced, obliterated, carborundum, progenitorless, and apotheosis—all into one paragraph. So, by all means, don’t let the big words die, but also don’t kill them through misuse.

Tell me your opinion: Do you believe unusual words should be embraced or avoided?

Related Posts: Don't Let the Big Words Die

Why You Should Steal From Other Authors

Is the Thesaurus Your Friend?

Write Yourself a Bad Review

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

Image by ellomello135

Today, I’m honored to be hosted on The Artist's Road. Be sure to stop by the blog to read my guest post “Write Yourself a Bad Review ” Below is a sneak peek:

We all hate the critic in our heads. You know the one—talks with a nasal British accent, uses words like “deluded numbskull” and “insufferable incompetent,” and never fails to announce that your latest story is tripe. This critic of ours never seems to have a good word to say and is always running us down. So, naturally, we try to block him out as much as possible. But what if we were to actually give him permission to speak every now and then? What if his grumblings and mumblings had something of benefit to offer us?

Don’t Let Multiple-Character Scenes Run Away With You

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Three’s a crowd—especially when authors have to juggle three or more characters in a single scene. One character? No problem. We can safely call him “he” throughout the entire scene without once worrying about confusing our readers. Two characters? Eh, that’s in the bag. The dialogue alternates between characters every other line, and, if they happen to be of opposite genders, we can still safely use the pronouns.

But three or—heaven forbid—more characters? How do we juggle scenes in which multiple characters are all supposed to be acting and talking? How do we keep a dozen characters involved in the scene without making it feel like a rote rotation of speakers? Most importantly, how do we keep this stampeding cast of characters from trampling our readers and leaving them bruised and confused?

Image by Martin Cepan.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What’s the point?

Figure out the point of your scene early on and keep it firmly in mind as you navigate your sea of characters. Think about that last boardroom meeting you wrote. It no doubt had a ton of characters—some of them important and some of them not—and if you had taken the time to touch base with every character, the scene would have lost focus.

What’s the conflict?

Conflict’s another important (nay, vital) ingredient that can often get lost amidst the clutter of multiple characters. We can get so involved in arranging, describing, and chatting with our horde that we forget to make sparks fly among them. A friendly chat among half a dozen characters isn’t interesting. A raging argument on the other hand...

Who will be your primary characters?

Your scene may require the presence of twenty characters, but that doesn’t mean the bulk of the scene has to involve all of them. You’ll be better able to focus your scene and ramp up the conflict if you keep the primary exchange anchored between two or three primary characters. Most of us can’t carry on a conversation with a dozen people at once anyway. We instinctively fragment into smaller groups, and so should your characters.

Are you introducing too many characters?

Bad enough when readers have to keep up with a dozen already-familiar characters. But when they’ve just been introduced to these people, their chances of figuring out who’s who go down the drain. If you know you’ve got a big (and by big I mean crowded) scene coming up, lay the groundwork by introducing all the prominent players in earlier scenes.

How are your characters unique?

You can help readers navigate the crowd by making sure none of your characters blend together. Make them memorable by giving them unique personal traits. And help readers differentiate them by making certain none of their names begin with the same letter or look too similar on the page.

Is your dialogue clearly tagged?

Perhaps the biggest potential pitfall of multiple-character scenes is the dialogue. Unlike two-speaker dialogue exchanges, in which readers understand the dialogue is ping-ponging back and forth between the two characters, conversations among multiple characters can grow confusing. Whenever there’s even the slightest chance readers may not know who’s speaking, do them a favor and clearly indicate the speaker with a dialogue tag (Mike said) or an action beat (Mike thumped his glass down on the table).

Multiple-character scenes can amp up the stakes, the tension, and the fun. So long as you plan them out, realize the pitfalls, and prepare for potential problems, you’ll be ready to host the biggest character party on the block.

Tell me your opinion: What's the maximum number of characters you've ever featured in a scene?

Related Posts: Help Readers Keep Your Characters Straight

Don't Confuse Readers With Similar Character Names

The Dangers of Character Overload
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Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Wordplay podcast in iTunes).

What Would Agatha Say?

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week I’m pleased to present a post by Becke Martin Davis, part of the “faculty” of Romance University, which along with Wordplay was one of 2012’s Top 10 Blogs for Writers. Today, she shares wisdom from bestselling mystery grande dame Agatha Christie.

***

I was honored when Katie invited me to write a guest blog, but also a little unnerved. I’m not actually published—at least not in fiction. Since I can only imagine the life of a bestselling author, what do I have to offer? “Write what you know” is the old adage, and if there’s one thing I know it’s Agatha Christie.

Image by Olivia Wharton

I’ve been a mystery buff since age eight, and an Agatha Christie fan since my teens. I’ve read every book she’s written, including her poems, plays, and the romances she wrote as Mary Westmacott. My first thought was to write a post called “What Would Agatha Do?” That proved to be a little tricky. Since Dame Agatha died in 1976, I can only guess what she would do in certain situations. But I can share her comments about writing, since she wrote frankly about this subject in Agatha Christie: An Autobiography.

Everyone Has to Start Someplace, Even the Queen of Crime

In Agatha’s case it was a novel she called Agnes. As she recalled, “It had four sisters in it: Queenie, the eldest, golden-haired and beautiful, and then some twins, dark and handsome, finally Agnes, who was plain, shy and (of course) in poor health, lying patiently on a sofa. There must have been more story than this, but it has all gone now. All I remember is that Agnes’s true worth was recognized at last by some splendid man with a black moustache whom she had loved secretly for many years.”

On a Writer’s Self-Confidence (or Lack of It)

“I don’t think I went as far as being pleased with my stories—but then there always has to be a lapse of time after the accomplishment of a piece of creative work before you can in any way evaluate it. You start into it, inflamed by an idea, full of hope, full indeed of confidence...buoyed up with exultation. You then get into difficulties, don’t see your way out, and finally manage to accomplish more or less what you first meant to accomplish, though losing confidence all the time. Having finished it, you know that it is absolutely rotten. A couple of months later you wonder whether it may not be all right after all.”

On Becoming a Professional

“I had worked out the plot—a conventional plot, partly adapted from one of my other stories, and I knew, as one might say, where I was going, but I could not see the scene in my mind’s-eye, and the people would not come alive. I was driven desperately on by the desire, indeed the necessity, to write another book and make some money. That was the moment I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don’t want to...”

On Rewrites

“I finished the last half of the book, or as near as not, during my fortnight’s holiday. Of course that was not the end. I then had to rewrite a great part of it—mostly the overcomplicated middle. But in the end it was finished and I was reasonably satisfied with it. That is to say it was roughly as I had intended for it to be. It could be much better, I saw that, but I didn’t see just how I could make it better, so I had to leave it as it was...Then I got it properly typed by somebody, and having decided I could do no more to it, I sent it off to a publisher...who returned it. It was a plain refusal, with no frills on it.”

On Contracts

“Then he went on to the business aspect, pointing out what a risk a publisher took if he published a novel by a new and unknown author... Having given up hope for some years now of having anything published...the idea of having a book come out in print went straight to my head. I would have signed anything. This particular contract entailed my not receiving any royalties until after the first 2000 copies had been sold—after that a small royalty would be paid... I didn’t even notice that there was a clause binding me to offer him my next five novels, at an only slightly increased rate of royalty.”

What Would Agatha Say About Social Media and Self-Promotion?

“There are many careers where personalities and public relations matter—for instance if you are an actor, or a public figure. An author’s business is simply to write.”

The Guinness Book of World Records lists Dame Agatha Christie as the bestselling author of all time, although some sources show her tied with William Shakespeare. She has sold between 2-4 billion books in over 100 countries.

Note: All quotes were taken from Agatha Christie: An Autobiography by Agatha Christie, William Collins Sons & Co., London, 1977.

About the Author: Becke Martin Davis is multi-published in non-fiction, but not as yet in fiction. She is part of the Romance University team and moderates Barnes & Noble’s Mystery Forum. She is vice president of the Ohio Valley Chapter of RWA and is a member of Sisters in Crime. Several of her stories have finaled in RWA contests, and her mystery short-short “Deus Ex Machina” was featured at NPR, where Jonathan Railey called it “the literary equivalent of a basket of late night fried mozzarella cheese sticks.”

Tell me your opinion: If you could choose any classic author to me your mentor, who would it be?

Related Posts: Why No Writer Knows What He's Doing

Maintaining Your Enthusiasm Until the Book Is Completed

The Good News? Writing Never Gets Any Easier

Han Solo, Scarlett O’Hara, and Your Characters: What Makes Them Compelling?

2012-01-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Today, I’m honored to be hosted on The Write Practice. Be sure to stop by the blog to read my guest post “Han Solo, Scarlett O’Hara, and Your Characters: What Makes Them Compelling?” Below is a sneak peek:

We all know what a compelling character looks like.

Han Solo. Scarlett O’Hara. Tom Sawyer. Anne Shirley. Frodo Baggins.

Those are the characters we’ve cheered for, and those are the kinds of characters we want to put into our stories. But watching Han Solo swashbuckling on the big screen is scads easier than trying to write someone who can pull in readers with the same force of sheer charisma.

A Must-Know Tip for Writing Slam-Bang Finales

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s video talks about a simple technique you can use to encourage readers to keep turning your final pages deep into the wee hours of the morning.

Video Transcript: The ends of our novels are make or break territory for our readers. If we’ve convinced them to keep reading this far, we had better have something extra special in store for them come the end. If we disappoint a reader in our story’s climax, we’ve not only failed in our most important job as authors, we’ve also likely lost that reader for life. So how do we dazzle them in that last quarter of our stories?

Not surprisingly, there isn’t a hard-and-fast answer to this. Every story is different, so, of course, every climax is different. The foundation of your slam-bang finale has to be built into the story—the plot and the characters—that preceded it. But there is one trick that can make a world of difference in your presentation of that final quarter, and it’s one we find used to great effect in Brent Weeks’s fantasy The Way of Shadows. This technique had me racing through his pages so fast that I quite literally lost track of time.

The technique I’m talking about is nothing more or less than shortening the scenes and chapters in the final quarter of the story. Doing so creates a sense of speed and urgency, as the story darts back and forth between the important actions of multiple POV characters, intertwining them, and funneling them all down to their inevitable meeting at the conclusion. Shorter scenes—which in turn are made up of shorter paragraphs and shorter sentences—suck readers into the mad dash of your finale. However, as with everything in writing, you have to use this technique with finesse. Don’t force it. Just watch out for the natural scene breaks, which should come faster and faster the closer you get to the end.

Tell me your opinion: Do your scenes get shorter toward the end of the book?

Related Posts: Are All the Pieces in Place for Your Climax?

How to Use Scene Breaks to Cut the Fat

Keep Slow Scenes Moving With Tension and Foreboding

How I Learned to Write - And How You Can Too

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

You know that moment when, in the middle of a brilliant novel, you drop the book into your lap, stare at the ceiling, and wonder why God chose to gift this novelist with effortless talent, while you’re left slogging in the trenches of writer’s block and clunky sentences? I doubt many of us haven’t encountered the feeling that the truly gifted writers pop into the world with fully formed writing genius. Fortunately, it’s just that—a feeling. There isn’t a writer on the planet who hasn’t had to learn his craft and pay his dues. The writing craft is a learning curve for all of us. Even the Margaret Atwoods and Stephen Kings had to log their time as frustrated, fearful authors who had no idea what they were doing. So how did they learn to write? How did they go from clunky to confident?

Not long ago, a reader emailed me, suggesting a post in which I describe how I learned to write. While I certainly haven’t reached a writing level anywhere close to masters such as Atwood and King, today I’d like to share with that reader—and the rest of you—some of the major catalytic moments in my writing journey.

I read widely. Writers have to be voracious bookworms. Read everything you can get your hands on, good and bad, until you gain a panoramic view of the literary scenery.

I read the classics. I’ve made it a goal to read all the classics before I die (at the rate I’m going, I figure it’ll take me forty-two more years). Some of the classics are great (Dickens is a favorite); some are torture (Faulkner’s A Fable was pretty much a “kill me now” moment). But in dedicating myself to reading the avowed greats from a tremendous range of authors, cultures, and time periods, I broadened my horizons as both an author and a person.

I read my genre. I probably don’t have to tell you this, even though someone had to tell me. If you write mysteries, read every whodunit you can get your hands on. Fantasy? Paw through all the Lord of the Rings knockoffs at your library. Learn what makes them work, what’s been done to death, and how to mimic their brilliance.

I read how-to books. This one was a major turning point for me. I’d happily written three and a half novels before even realizing there was such a thing as writing how-to books. Prior to this, I’d written entirely on the instinct gained from the osmosis of my bookworm habits. After this, I realized there was actually a process to writing stories. Suddenly, I went from winging it to working my way toward an understanding of the craft.

I listened to critters. From the start when I wrote one-page stories as a twelve-year-old, I always had someone edit my writing, and I always listened. Feedback from unbiased readers is crucial to understanding the effect our writing has upon other people. Feedback from experienced writers is crucial in learning how to improve so we can achieve that desired effect.

I took a writing course. I signed up for Writer’s Digest’s correspondence course “Fundamentals of Fiction.” By this point in my journey, I pretty much understood the fundamentals, so the course didn’t teach me oodles, so much as it granted me the confidence to go forth with what I’d already learned.

I subscribed to magazines. Roundabout the time I discovered writing how-to books, I also discovered writing magazines. I’ve been an avid subscriber to Writer’s Digest and The Writer for more than a decade. Having them drop into my mailbox every month means I’m always reading something about the craft, even when I don’t have a bookmark between the pages of a how-to book.

I joined a writing forum. Next to discovering the writing how-to book, probably the greatest epoch in my writing journey was gingerly crawling through the Internet to find suitable writing groups. I’ve been a member of several over the years (Christian Writers remains my favorite), and the daily contact with writers of every skill level has been a huge factor, not only in improving my writing, but also in gaining confidence and learning about the business end of the craft.

I figured out my process. Thanks to the combination of everything listed above, I was able to figure out and streamline the writing process that worked best for me. I listened to my gut, paid attention to what worked and what didn’t, and ruthlessly streamlined activities that were so much deadweight. Nowadays, I have a comfortable process that involves extensive outlining, researching, writing, and revising, and a daily schedule that lets me warm up and keeps me from procrastinating.

I made writing a priority. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I made writing a priority early on and I stuck with it. Save for the too-sick-to-get-out-of-bed days and catastrophes such as flooded basements and orphaned kittens, I discipline myself to write two hours a day, five days a week, year round. And that makes all the difference.

So there you have it. This list isn’t exclusive and certainly won’t be every writer’s path to success. But this is what has worked for me. This is the path I’ve taken so far on my writing journey. Where the road turns next, of course, I have no idea. But that’s the fun of it!

Tell me your opinion: How did you learn to write?

Related Posts: What Inspired You to Become an Author - And Other Questions Answered

Why You Should Read the Type of Stories You Write

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Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Wordplay podcast in iTunes).

The Pros and Cons of Comparing Yourself to Other Writers

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today, I’m honored to be hosted on Write to Done. Be sure to stop by the blog to read my guest post “The Pros and Cons of Comparing Yourself to Other Writers.” Below is a sneak peek:

With the advent of writing communities on such networking sites as Twitter and Facebook and half a thousand forums and Nings, writers are perhaps more social and less solitary than at any time in our history. This brings its fair share of both benefits and drawbacks, since our easy access to other writers—both those who are striving to be published and those who have a dozen bestsellers under their belts—causes inevitable comparisons. Are we as good as they are? Are they as good as we are? Let’s explore what we can gain from answering these questions, as well as what pitfalls we have to avoid falling into face first.

Two Surefire Symptoms of a Static Character

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s video points out the pitfalls of characters who fall short of dynamism and reveals two ways to diagnose how you’re doing with your character.

Video Transcript: When you think of a good character what words come to mind? How about dynamic? Dynamic characters are the stuff of literary legend. But, at the other end of the spectrum, we have the static characters, and—except in instances in which the author purposefully leaves the character unyielding and unchanged over the course of the book to prove a point—these are usually the most forgettable and boring characters of the lot. Fortunately for us authors who want to avoid this pitfall, there are two surefire symptoms we can look for to diagnose whether or not our characters are falling prey to the static syndrome.

The first symptom of a static character is his lack of personal connection to the plot. If he can walk away from the conflict, at any point, without suffering significant ramifications, you can bet he doesn’t have enough at stake. The whole story revolves around your protagonist. Without him, there shouldn’t be a story. So if you find your main character isn’t embroiled deeply enough within the central conflict, you either need to up the stakes for him personally—or find a different protagonist who already has plenty at stake. In short, the protagonist’s involvement in the plot must matter to him as a person, preferably on both a physical and spiritual level.

The second symptom is the lack of change within your character over the course of a story. To be compelling, protagonists need to show a defined character arc. At the end of the story, they shouldn’t be the same person they were at the beginning. How is this story changing him? What is he learning? How is he growing? If these questions don’t have solid answers that define your plot, your character is probably static—and, as a result, far less interesting or relatable than readers would like. So keep your eyes open for these two symptoms, and stop static cling before it begins.

Tell me your opinion: Does your main character have any static tendencies?

Related Posts: Up the Stakes to Grab Readers

Change Is Key to Powerful Character Arcs

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Most Common Mistakes Series: Don’t Drown Your Reader in Explanations

2012-01-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Readers have needs. Authors are supposed to fulfill those needs. One of those needs is knowing what’s going on in a story. So, naturally, the author’s response is to explain what’s going on. So far, so good, right?

Well, that depends.

Explanations, in whatever form (narrative, dialogue, or action), are essential to any story. But, when overdone, they can leave your reader feeling as if he’s drowning in a flood of wordy information. Let’s consider an example:

Too Much Explanation

Angie walked into the grocery store. At the door stood the old guy who was responsible for handing out carts, stamping stickers on return items, and guarding the exit from potential shoplifters. All the kids knew better than to mess with him. A few years ago, he’d tackled the star fullback on the high school team, just because he thought he looked guilty (he wasn’t; he’d only come in to buy a pack of gum). Angie passed the first checkout stand—abode of Mountain Dew-swilling Mrs. Walker—and offered a little wave in return to Mrs. Walker’s energetic one. “Hi, there,” Angie said and kept walking. She wasn’t in the mood to listen to Mrs. Walker’s latest bit of scandalous gossip. The last time she’d stopped, she’d had to listen for nearly an hour to whispers about balding banker Horace Wallace supposedly sneaking money out of his own vault. She didn’t have an hour to spare today. She was on a mission to save the stock boy, her best friend Rupert, from flunking math after missing another class.

So what do we have in this paragraph? At first glance a lot of explanation. None of our explaining here is essentially bad, but since the mean door guard, Mrs. Walker’s gossip, and the possibly compromised bank never show up in the story again, our explanations of the grocery store don’t move the story forward. In fact, all this extraneous info becomes a murky slough that the reader has to slog through to find the truly pertinent info. Let’s strip this down to bare necessities.

Just Enough Explanation

Angie walked into the grocery store. She was on a mission to save the stock boy, her best friend Rupert, from flunking math after missing another class.

Not only did we just reduce our word count to an eighth of its original bulk, we also streamlined the story down to the essentials of the plot and kept it moving forward, right toward the crux of the scene.

Over-explanation is highly subjective to its context in each story. In some stories, the explanation of the grocery store setting and/or the various personalities in Angie’s town might be crucial to the plot or even just worthwhile for the general color they provide. Authors have to make their own decisions about which explanations are necessary and which will force readers to tread unnecessary water. Always be aware of why you’re including a particular explanation, then reevaluate it to determine its value and don’t be afraid to chop it if it’s interrupting the information that’s of true importance to your story.

Tell me your opinion: What was the last explanation you wrote that didn't move the plot forward?

Related Posts: The Cure-All for Long and Boring Narrative

How Much Should You Explain in a Story's Beginning

Skip the Boring Parts

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Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Wordplay podcast in iTunes).

Hook the Reader With a Sneak Peek

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s video discusses the use of a “flashforward” at the beginning of your novel, similar to the one Edna Ferber used in Show Boat.

Video Transcript: As many followers of my website probably already know, I am not a big of prologues or other gimmicky framing techniques for the beginning of a book. Primarily, this is because I don’t like the idea of making the reader begin the story twice. However, there are exceptions. One of the exceptions that occasionally works is the flashforward. In a nutshell, what this involves is opening with a tense scene that takes place late in the book, ending it with a cliffhanger, then backing up to explain how the character got to that point. Done right, this technique can create that wonderful insatiable curiosity in the reader, encouraging him to read on and discover not only what happens next, but what happened to begin with.

This technique is on my mind right now because I just finished reading Edna Ferber’s beloved historical novel Show Boat, which is a leisurely, nostalgic, sometimes rambling account of a young girl growing up on a Mississippi riverboat in the late 1800s. The beginning of the story contains pages upon pages of backstory—including how the protagonist’s parents met and married, her birth, and, finally, her family’s purchase of the show boat. By itself, none of these events are gripping enough to convince most readers to keep reading. But Ferber was clever enough to give readers a hook before feeding them the backstory.

In this instance, the hook involves an opening scene in which the protagonist is a grown woman, struggling through the difficult birth of her first child in the midst of a terrifying flood on the river. Ferber grabs her readers with her setting and her courageous character and not only makes them question whether or not the character will survive, but also makes them wonder how the character got into this situation in the first place. And the result is a first chapter that hauls her readers in like a fish on a line.

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever used a flashforward in a story?

Related Posts: Skip the Prologue!

One Way to Tell if Your Prologue (and Epilogue) Is Unnecessary

Strengthen Your Story With Proper Framing

12 Writing Resolutions for the 12 Months of 2012

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

How many times have you made a list of resolutions in January, only to have misplaced them, forgotten about them, or just plain given up on them before the month was out? This year, instead of making a complete list of writing resolutions for the whole year, try implementing one new resolution every month. Following are twelve—one for each month!

In January, I resolve to…schedule a regular writing time.
The more regularly we write, the easier it gets to churn out words and the better those words become. Make a point of scheduling a regular writing time—whether it’s four hours seven days a week or fifteen minutes five days a week.

In February, I resolve to… create a roadmap to publication.
Reaching publication, whether it’s traditionally or independently, takes time. Start planning your course of action this month. Figure out what obstacles lay between you and your goal, and plan how you can overcome them one by one.

In March, I resolve to… stop procrastinating.
Procrastination is one of the writer’s most formidable enemies. This month, make a point of not allowing yourself to waste any of your scheduled writing time doing anything off point—including visiting the fridge, clipping your hangnails, or checking your email.

In April, I resolve to… edit an old story.
Pull your last story out of the closet and go over it with the ol’ red pen. Stories are never finished, just abandoned. So take advantage of the distance of time between you and an old story to gain an objective vantage point.

In May, I resolve to… send my story out for critique.
Try to always have something in the hands of a reader who can give you constructive feedback. Cultivate partnerships with other writers, with whom you can trade edits. Or bite the bullet and hire a professional editor to help you put that professional polish on your story.

In June, I resolve to… enforce my writing time.
This is the month to stop letting others run all over you and your writing time. Kindly, but firmly, let others know that your writing time is not to be interfered with. Even more important, refuse to let yourself feel guilty for making your writing a priority.

In July, I resolve to… streamline my writing process.
Take a hard look at your daily writing routine and your writing process as a whole. What could you do to streamline it? What new methods could you try? What current habits are deadweight that can be safely jettisoned?

In August, I resolve to… fact check my story.
Go through your story and make note of every single fact, no matter how small, that there’s even the slightest chance you could have gotten wrong. Then double-check them.

In September, I resolve to… do one thing to build my author’s platform.
Even if publication isn’t in your near future, start thinking about how you can start interacting with and building your reading community. Create a website, join a forum, print business cards.

In October, I resolve to… interview my characters.
Solidify and expand your knowledge of your characters by interviewing them. Find out their favorite colors, worst childhood memories, and fondest dreams. You can find a list of interview questions in my free e-book Crafting Unforgettable Characters (or an expanded list in my book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success).

In November, I resolve to... get organized.
Clean out your desk and organize your notes, both hardcopy and digital. Trash anything you don’t need and file everything in appropriate folders, so you’ll be able to find what you need when you need it.

In December, I resolve to... exterminate clichés.
Go through your manuscript and specifically look for clichéd phrases and overused words. You’ll be surprised how many you find. Underline them in red and brainstorm original replacements.

Bonus: Year-Long Resolution:
This year, I resolve to read at least one book on the craft every month.

Tell me your opinion: What are your writing goals for 2012?

Related Posts: 10 Writing Resolutions You Can Fulfill

What Kind of Writer Are You?

Improve Yourself, Improve Your Writing
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Are You Choosing the Right Words for Your Story’s Tone?

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s shows how fantasy authors Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman created unique characters through their word choices in Dragon Wing.

Video Transcript: Words are the link between the ethereal realm of our imaginations and the concrete reality of our books. So it’s no surprise that our choice of words is the single most important factor in our presentation of our stories. It’s also one of the toughest, since there are millions of words for us to choose from. Our ability to pick the right one is predicated upon, first, our knowing the word to start with; second, our being able to remember it; and, third, our understanding of what kind of word the particular tone of our novel calls for.

Our choice of words not only builds our individual authorial voices, it also influences the tone of each story and each character within that story. The more flexible we are in our choices and the more aware we are of how those choices will subtly, perhaps even unconsciously, guide our readers to the desired emotional and intellectual reaction, the more skilled we will be in weaving stories of depth and breadth. We can find a good example of this in the fantasy Dragon Wing by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. This book features two primary types of narrating characters, humans and dwarves, and the authors did a great job of giving both races unique voices through their choice of words. The dwarves, as a repressed and somewhat humorous society, were given according vocabularies. For example, their names for items were often simplistic and obvious terms, such as “whistle-toot” and “squawky-talk,” which, of course, provided a dramatic contrast to the more sophisticated humans and elves.

Humorous stories almost always encourage unique and unusual word choices. But, with a little more restraint, this rule of thumb holds just as fast for every other genre. When working on your story, look past the first word choice to appear on your screen and try to find ones that are not only original, but which will also reveal interesting and important facets of your story in general and each character in particular.

Tell me your opinion: How have you made your characters' voices unique?

Related Posts: Is Authorial Voice Different From Character Voice?

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The Writing Gifts I’m Most Thankful for This Christmas

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Since most of us are busy today, spying for reindeer, eating cranberry jelly, and listening to Bing, I thought we’d take this week off from the nitty-gritty of writing how-tos. For me, Christmas is a time of thankfulness, even more than Turkey Day. One of the reasons I love this season so much is that it gives me time and opportunity to reflect on the many blessings in my life, both personally and professionally. Today, I’d like to share a little bit of my own holiday cheer with a list of the (mostly) writing-specific gifts I’m thankful for this Christmas. Be sure to chime in with your own list!

1. A personal relationship with Christ, who chose me, saved me, and gave me the passion and skill to live out this crazy writing life.

2. Family and friends who not only put up with my writerly weirdness, but who support me and cheer me on every single day.

2 ½. (Also that said family and friends forgive me for occasionally threatening them with machete and flamethrower when my writing time is interrupted.)

3. The sharp smell of new books and the peppery smell of old.

4. An overflowing bookshelf.

5. Laptop computers and wireless keyboards

5 ½. (And, by extension, the fact that I don’t have to write my tomes via quill pen and ink.)

6. The ease and convenience of a Kindle.

7. Music, music, music.

8. That all-the-air-sucked-out-of-my-chest feeling whenever I get an especially good idea.

9. Dreams that take me far from familiar shores.

10. The magic of a good movie.

11. The voices in my head.

12. Dictionaries, thesauri, and encyclopedias.

13. Microsoft Word and yWriter.

14. The story I just wrote, the one I’m writing, and the one I’ll write next. And next. And next.

15. Wordplayers!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope your day is beautiful and blessed.

Tell me your opinion: What are you most thankful for this Christmas?

Related Posts: 25 "Under $25" Christmas Gifts for Writers

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Who Won the Christmas Giveaway?

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

After a fun month of collecting entries for my biggest ever (both in terms of prizes and entrants) Christmas giveaway, we've reached the Christmas Eve deadline. So who are our lucky winners?

Winner #3: The winner of the writer's block from Sintwister is Alesha L. Escobar.

Winner #2: The winner of the hand-stamped bookends from Joshua by Oak is Abigail Joy Covington.

Winner #1: The winner of her choice of journals from Yellow Bird Paper Goods is Jeannie Campbell.

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to everyone who participated. Merry Christmas, Wordplayers!

Wordplay Named Among Top 10 Blogs for Writers!

2011-12-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Talk about a Christmas present! For the second year in a row, Wordplay has been named among Write to Done's Top 10 Blogs for Writers. Thank you so much to all of my readers who took time to nominate the site. You guys are da bomb!

How to Write Convincing Strong and Silent Types

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s uses the real-life hero Major Dick Winters, featured in Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, to explain how we can use his example to make sure the “silent” half of our strong and silent types is a benefit and not a drawback.

Video Transcript: One of fiction’s great character archetypes is that of the strong and silent hero. You know the type: broad shoulders, tortured past, Clint Eastwood squint. He doesn’t say much, but, hey, since he oozes charisma out of every pore, he really doesn’t have to. But just how do you convince readers of your character’s supposed strength, when his silent half is always holding you back? In short, how do you write a broad-shouldered, tortured, squinting, charisma-oozing hero, if you have to limit his dialogue to the occasional manly grunt?

Characters who don’t want to talk can be difficult to write. Sometimes their silence can be an obstacle even in allowing the writer to get to know him. So let’s consider an example. The first strong-and-silent hero to pop to my mind right now actually isn’t a fictional character at all, but the hero of Easy Company, Major Dick Winters, from Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. In some ways this example is better than anything we might find in fiction, since it focuses on the inherent charisma of a real personality, rather than that of technique. So let’s talk about a few of the reasons Winters is an enduringly compelling historical figure—and how we can apply those reasons to our fictional heroes.

To begin with, Winters puts the emphasis in “strong and silent” on strong. Strong and silent types exhibit the power of their personalities through their actions more than their words. Unlike say, Bill Guarnere, a fellow Easy Company member, Winters wasn’t the sort always ready with a smart remark. He made his opinions and beliefs clear through his actions. Second, when a strong and silent character does choose to break that silence, it’s always because he has something of importance to say. Strong and silent types say what they mean and they mean what they say—and they’re not likely to speak twice before acting upon their words. If we can take advantage of just these two lessons, our strong and silent types are likely to jump off our pages.

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever struggled writing a character who didn't want to talk?

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How Do You Decide Which Story You Should Write?

2011-12-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

I’m always a little gobsmacked when someone tells me he wants to be a writer but doesn’t know what to write. Speaking personally, I don’t have ideas because I’m a writer. I write because I have ideas. Mountains of ideas. Hordes of ideas. Overwhelming oceans upon oceans of ideas. In fact, just looking at my overflowing idea file can sometimes give me a rather counterintuitive bout of depression. How in tarnation am I ever going to live long enough to write all these ideas? For me, the question is never what shall I write, but which shall I write?

If you’re like me, every time you finish a story, you find yourself faced, not with an empty idea bucket, but with the prodigious task of figuring out which story should be written next. Following are five suggestions for culling the real story idea contenders from the wannabes and also-rans.

Write the story that…

You want to write.
Listen to your gut. The first and foremost factor in deciding which story to write should be your desire to write it. I’m a linear person. When I get a new story idea I write it down in a list of other ideas, with the plan of writing each idea in the order it came to me. But that’s never how it works. Inevitably, one story looks up at me from the list and screams to be written, whether it’s “next” in order or not. If a story wants to be written and I want to write it, that’s the one I’m going to go with every time.

Fits the market.
We’re always being told not to write for the market. By the time we’ve finished our own sparkly vampire tomes, the trends will inevitably have moved on to glittery werewolves (or angels or zombies or purple boogie men). But if one of the ideas you’re particularly excited about seems ripe for the market, go for it. You may hit it just in time to fit into the latest boom.

Is ready to be written.
Sometimes I’ve been all set to write a particular story, only to realize that it just isn’t quite ready. Usually, this sense of unreadiness is just that—a sense. Excited as I may be about the idea, whenever I imagine actually writing it, I just can’t quite see it working. Again, this is a matter of trusting the gut. It’s even more important to be able sense when a story isn’t ready than to sense when it is.

Appeals to others.
Although outsider opinions can only carry an author so far, you may benefit from explaining your competing ideas to trusted beta readers and asking them which appeals most to them. Even if you don’t take their advice, hearing what they have to say may help you sort out your true feelings about which story is the right one to begin upon next.

Challenges you.
If you’re trying to choose between an idea that’s similar to your last story and one you know will require more authorial skill, consider pushing yourself to new growth. Don’t let yourself fall into a comfortable rut. Always reach for the next rung on the ladder of your writing craft.

Although sorting through our fat idea folders can sometimes seem like an overwhelming challenge, don’t forget that an abundance of ideas is an author’s greatest blessing. The time to truly give in to frustration is the day you open your folder and find it empty.

Tell me your opinion: How do you decide which story to write next?

Related Posts: Why You Should Stick With a Story

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Increase Your Story’s Suspense With Breadcrumbs

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s video talks about the foundational reason readers will want to read all the way through your book, from beginning to end.

Video Transcript: Every author’s first and foremost goal is convincing readers to keep reading all the way to the final chapter. So how do we do this? There are, of course, many answers to this. The reasons readers decide to keep reading include everything from lovable characters to funny dialogue. But, at the most foundational level, the reason they stick with a book all the way to page 528 is that there’s something they want to know. The author has raised a question in the first chapter, and the reader is curious enough to read through 528 pages to find the answer. Sometimes that question is something basic, such as will the heroine’s marriage survive? Sometimes it’s something more complicated, such as will the detective hero figure out his split personality is the mass murderer he’s been tracking all this time?

But no matter how emotionally resonant or high concept your question is, the question by itself isn’t going to be enough to get the reader all the way to end of the book. Five hundred twenty-eight pages is a long way to go, and readers today have notoriously short attention spans. So what does the clever author do? He keeps reminding the reader of the initial question and tantalizing him with small and incomplete clues to the answer. These clues are the breadcrumbs that will lead the curious reader on a trail right to the Big Finale’s front door.

In a mystery, these breadcrumbs might take the form of literal clues. Perhaps the heroine, searching for her mother’s killer, keeps discovering hints of the truth, which lead her closer and closer to the answer. But the breadcrumbs can also come in other forms. For example, if readers are wondering whether your romance is going to end happily ever after, your breadcrumbs might include moments of progression in the two leads’ relationship. Whatever the case, just make sure your every plot point is a breadcrumb reinforcing your readers’ overpowering need to read on and find the answers.

Tell me your opinion: What's the latest breadcrumb you've fed your readers?

Related Posts: Is Your Story Mysterious Enough?

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25 “Under $25” Christmas Gifts for Writers

2011-12-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

With Christmas right around the corner, we’re all making our lists and checking them twice. Writers are generally pretty easy folks to buy for. Give us a book by our favorite author or an Amazon gift card and we’re pretty much ready to dub the giver our favorite Christmas elf. But, just in case you’re out of ideas for the fellow writer on your list—or in case you’ve got a few extra request blanks left on your own letter to Santa—following are 25 ideas, all priced at $25 or less. Some are items I use and love; others are things I wouldn’t be disappointed to find in my own stocking (are you listening, Santa?).

Just for Fun

1. Writing-Themed Art ($25.00): Gorgeous writing-themed photos and art prints can dress up any writing space.

2. Quill Pen Set ($14.00): Get in touch with your inner Austen with an old-fashioned quill pen. Use it scratch away writer’s block or just to practice your best calligraphy.

3. Writer’s Mug ($15.00): What’s a writer without his coffee? Give your favorite writer a mug worth pouring into.

Writing Aid Books

4. Descriptionary: A Thematic Dictionary by Marc McCutcheon ($4.98): Know what you want to describe, but don’t know where to start? Use this themed dictionary to find appropriate descriptors and terms for everything from childbirth to castles.

5. Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson ($18.45): When you’re writing historical fiction, you need to be able to avoid anachronisms by discovering when words were coined and what their backgrounds are. This book is just the ticket.

6. Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon ($12.40): Aside from being a great flip-through manual for randomly picking character names, this book also allows authors to choose names by ethnic background, allowing you to pick the perfect name for your character.

Computer and Desk Management Tools

7. Cable Management Box ($1 8.00): Keep that mess of cords under your desk in order by plugging them into this 4-socket surge protector and neatly enclosing them out of sight.

8. Cooling Rack ($18.99): A cookie cooling rack works perfectly for lifting laptops to eye level and, more importantly, giving them the circulation they need to keep from overheating.

9. Desk Drawer Organizer ($13.79): Keep pencils, paper clips, and rubber bands in order with a simple and sturdy desk drawer organizer. Or spice things up with a little color, with this version.

10. Book Box ($14.95): Aside from looking like a writer’s favorite thing—a beautiful leatherbound book—these clever boxes make for great storage (mine holds my secret stash of chocolate—ssh!).

Reading Aids

11. Magazine Rack ($17.54): File your Writer’s Digest and The Writer subscriptions in style.

12. Bookends ($16.91): Every writer needs a whimsical and useful set of bookends for his desk or bookcase. This model serves double duty by offering extra storage and organizational features. (Or enter my ongoing Christmas Giveaway drawing to win this funky set of bookends.)

13. Hands-Off Reading Light ($11.03): A little extra light can be just what the doctor ordered to keep from ruining your eyes reading at night. This hands-off version gives you the light without forcing you to clip it to your book.

14. Bookmark ($18.35): Bookmarks make great stocking stuffers for writers and readers, since we can never have enough. This steampunk-themed bookmark is great for the spec-fic reader on your list.

15. Kindle Cover ($22.99): If the reader on your list has gone digital, help him protect his investment with a Kindle cover. My personal favorite is this one from Dura Gadget, since it offers protection, accessibility, and a built-in stand.

16. Floating Bookshelf ($14.93): Shelf space runs out quickly for avid readers. This nifty floating shelf isn’t just super cool, but also a space saver.

Write-in-Comfort Aids

17. Lap Desk ($19.99): For the writer on the go, a lap desk allows him to write comfortably from any chair anywhere.

18. Typing Gloves ($11.25): If you’re like me, your fingers turn to ice when typing for extended periods of time. Fingerless gloves allow you the tactile flexibility to interact with touch screens and pages, while staving off Jack Frost.

19. Novelist-at-Work Sign ($8.99): Warn friends and family members that you’re hard at work imagining your next scene so they don’t run afoul of your flamethrower and machete!

20. Notecards ($18.00): Declare your writing infatuation every time you write a letter with these beautiful handmade notecard sets.

21. Leather Journal ($23.79): A classy leather journal is the go-to gift for writers when you don’t know what else to get. This one, especially if accompanied by a beautiful pen, is sure to please. (Or enter the Christmas Giveaway for a chance at this gorgeous wood-bound journal.)

22. Seat Cushion ($22.54): When writers apply the fundamental “butt-in-chair” rule, their posterior exteriors can end up taking the brunt of the daily damage. If you don’t have a padded chair, take matters into your own hands and pad it yourself.

Fashion

23. Team Writer T-Shirt ($24.99): Let your favorite writer proclaim his team affiliation with these nifty “author jerseys.

24. Necklace ($16.50): Lady writers are sure to love these funky writing-themed charm necklaces. Lots to choose from!

25. Pen Nib Earrings ($12.00): Vintage-style pen nibs, personally inscribed, are perfect for any writer, but particularly those with a historical or steampunk bent.

Happy shopping and merry Christmas, everyone!

Tell me your opinion: What's at the top of your writing Christmas list this year?

Related Posts: My Writing Toolbox, Pt. 1: Software, Pens, and Paper

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Creating a Functional Writing Station

One Dish of Critique—But Hold the Criticism!

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week I’m pleased to present a post by award-winning author C.S. Lakin, a freelance copyeditor and writing mentor who specializes in helping authors prepare their books for publication. Today, she talks about the importance of quality critique before you take your novel to the next level.

***

Critique. Just the word alone makes authors cringe. Why? Because it reminds us of another word that has a negative connotation: criticism. Yet, as authors we understand the need to have another pair of eyes look closely at our manuscript and give us constructive advice and direction so we can make our book the absolute best it can be.

Some copyeditors claim you should never get a critique because it is entirely subjective. They say all you need is to get your book edited by a copyeditor and fix all the grammatical mistakes. And it’s true that getting a thorough copyedit is essential. However, in my twenty-five years of experience writing novels, becoming a multipublished author, and working professionally as a copyeditor and writing coach in the publishing industry, I have concluded that most authors—new and seasoned alike—need a critique, preferably during the early stages of their manuscript.

What Kind of Critiquer Do You Want?
When you look for someone to critique your “baby,” look for someone who is to not only interested in helping you make your book shine but who also wants to help you make it all you envision. A supportive critiquer will encourage you, instruct you, and help you along this rocky road. A good critique should not come across as a nice pat on the back with a few muttered words like “Good job. Keep it up.”

However, we as writers grow attached to our words, and an insensitive editor can cause a lot of pain. More than one author friend or client has cried to me in anger, frustration, and a readiness to give it all up after being subjected to an insensitive critique. It takes courage to hand over your project—this book you’ve spent months or perhaps years writing, sweating over, all the while second-guessing yourself and the merits of your book—only to have someone heartlessly rip it to shreds.

The Magic of a Critique
I have seen some of the worst manuscripts—poorly constructed, wordy, almost unreadable—turned into beautiful, well-crafted books of which their authors can be proud. I have gone on to see many of my clients get agents, land contracts, and get published because they were willing to work hard to perfect their rough work to the best of their ability. These authors show they are dedicated and willing to learn and listen. But I wonder how many (or few) of them would have dug into their necessary revisions had they been treated insensitively in a critique. Of course, there is no guarantee that if you follow all the suggestions in your critique you will get an agent or land a book contract. So many variables affect those outcomes. But applying yourself to make the changes suggested in a good critique will stretch you and teach you how to be a better writer. As you apply the things you learn, your chances of reaching your dreams will improve immensely.

A critique will give you the help you need to get your manuscript or proposal in shape. Your book is competing with hundreds of thousands of others to grab the attention of an agent or publishing house, so you want to do everything you can to make sure it stands out from the rest. A critique is the first important step you can take to ensure your novel will have a chance of being picked up.

How to Find a Good Critiquer
Once you decide maybe you do need to take this first step, do some research and ask possible editors for testimonials from clients. Start a dialogue with the editor to see if he or she comes across as friendly, accommodating, understanding, and compassionate. Take a look at their concrete experience and influence in the publishing industry. Then, when you’ve made your choice and your critique is done, take all the suggestions to heart and make the changes you feel will best suit your writing style and story. Not every comment a critiquer gives you will work for you. You’re the author and it’s your book, so weigh each suggestion and trust your intuition. As long as you keep your mind and heart open to improvement, your critique will feel less like criticism and more like a gift.

About the Author: Award-winning mystery and fantasy author C.S. Lakin recently released her fantasy The Land of Darkness. Lakin currently works as a freelance copyeditor and writing mentor, specializing in helping authors prepare their books for publication. She edits for individuals, small publishing companies, and literary agents, and teaches workshops and does critiques at writers’ conferences, and occasionally guest blogs on writing sites.

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever considered hiring a professional editor to critique your manuscript?

Related Post: Putting Your Ego in Your Back Pocket

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How Much Should You Explain in a Story’s Beginning?

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s reviews some of the pitfalls of info dumping in the first chapter—and how to avoid them.

Video Transcript: One of the trickiest parts of any story is the beginning, and one of the trickiest parts of the beginning is figuring out how to balance the need to keep the story moving forward with the need to explain lots of important background details to the reader. This is a balance that will be a little different in every story. A leisurely literary tale can get away with pages of exposition in the first chapter, but most fast-moving genre books aren’t so forgiving. And yet sometimes it’s vital that readers be filled in on important details, so they’ll understand who’s who and what’s going on.

Generally, I recommend erring on the side of too much description in the first draft. At this early stage, when you’re still discovering the story yourself, it’s often best just to get all the explanations out of your system—if only to explain it to yourself. So write yourself a killer opening line, then give yourself permission to write lengthy physical descriptions of all the characters, to explain the protagonist’s backstory from his entry into the world to date, to describe the settings at leisure, or to explain how your character has gotten himself into his current fix.

Once you’ve got all your information laid out in front of you, it’s often much easier to see what’s really necessary and what’s not. And since you can now see the information, you’ll have an easier time moving it around on the page, interspersing it with action and dialogue, and generally playing with it until it fits. Keep your delete folder handy, so you can save whatever you cut in the first pass. Much of what you cut from the first chapter will find a better place later on in the book, after you’ve hooked the reader with the conflict and foreshadowing in your first chapter. Never be afraid to include information you know is vital, but you’re also likely to be surprised with how much info you can safely cut without miring readers in instant confusion.

Tell me your opinion: Could you cut any info in your first draft without confusing the reader?

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Most Common Mistakes Series: Are Your Flashbacks Flashy or Flabby?

2011-12-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

To flashback or not to flashback? Sooner or later, that’s a question every writer is confronted with. A good flashback is sometimes just the ticket for bringing to life an important event in your character’s past. But, constructed poorly or plopped in the wrong place, a flashback can end up irking a reader more than impressing him. Let’s search for the signs that your flashback is a glimmering thing of beauty—as well as the symptoms that your flashback is falling flat.

Your Flashback Might Be Flashy If…

It occurs at the right time. To pack premium power, flashbacks must be timed at precisely the right moment. Don’t give readers the info in your flashback until you’ve teased them into a semi-invalid state of curiosity, such as Brandon Sanderson does in his slow distribution of information about his protagonist’s past as a slave in Mistborn.
It’s necessary. The bulk of Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride is comprised of three giant flashbacks from the respective POVs of the three protagonists. In this book, the flashbacks are so necessary that without them there would quite literally have been no story.
It’s length is appropriate. The length of a good flashback will depend greatly on the demands of the story. Some will be hundreds of pages, à la The Robber Bride; some will be only a few sentences, as when the protagonist of The Practice Effect by David Brin remembers being dragged to a lecture by a friend.
It’s clearly a flashback. Use past participle verbs and other signals such as “and then she remembered…” or “back two years ago when…” to make sure readers understand the flashback is a past event in your character’s life. Milena McGraw did a good job of this with her frequent flashbacks in After Dunkirk.

Your Flashback Might Be Flabby If…

It would be more powerful told in “real time.” In an attempt to begin their stories in medias res, inexperienced authors will sometimes open their stories with a flashback that either, at one end of the spectrum, dumps backstory or, at the other end, sums up the story’s most interesting information. If your flashback begins just before your story and is effectively the first domino in your row of falling dominos, you’d probably be wiser to make it your first official scene, just as Marion Zimmer Bradley did in Stormqueen!
It’s too long. Although some books such as The Robber Bride can get away with ginormous flashbacks, the vast majority of flashbacks have no excuse to be longer than a paragraph or two. Don’t jar readers out of your present narrative by suddenly dropping them into an entirely new and disconnected scene. Roger Zelazny’s breezy Nine Princes in Amber did a good job giving the reader just the right amount of history to keep the story buzzing along.
It’s unnecessary. Authors tend to find their characters’ humdrum backstories much more interesting than do their readers. If your character’s tooth extraction when he was five doesn’t influence the plot in a crucial way, you don’t need to flash back to it. Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games does a wonderful job flashing back to her character’s “normal life” without including any extraneous or tedious information.
It’s unclear. If your flashbacks are so subtle readers don’t know you’re flashing back, they’re not going to do your story much good. Clearly signal to the reader when your story is entering a flashback. Use past participle verbs (“she had washed the dishes that fateful day”) and don’t feel bad about point-blank telling readers that your character is remembering, as Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows do in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Flashbacks are not only fun, they can also bring a new depth to your story’s palette. If you make sure you’re using them correctly, your readers will grow to love these delightful little peeks into your characters’ pasts.

***

This is the twelfth post in the Most Common Mistakes Series, inspired by the prevalent slip-ups I run across in editing other people’s work. Don’t worry: I don’t use any names or specific examples from my clients’ stories. I hope the series will prove helpful to you in nabbing these mistakes in your own work—before an agent or editor nabs them for you.

Tell me your opinion: Are there any flashbacks in your work-in-progress?

Related Posts: How to Tell if Your Backstory Is Boring?

Use Foreshadowing to Keep Readers Reading

Is Your Story Mysterious Enough?
_________________

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Wordplay podcast in iTunes).

Tips for Creating Thematic Resonance

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s shows how you can follow Charles Dickens’s example in Little Dorrit to strengthen your theme by layering it throughout your subplots.

Video Transcript: Since theme is often something that arises organically from a story, without much initial conscious thought on the author’s part, it can sometimes be a tricky aspect for writers to get their heads around. One of the keys to creating a story with deep thematic resonance is creating subplots that can thematically mirror and reinforce the main plot’s theme. As an example, consider the ever-complicated Charles Dickens and his classic Little Dorrit. This book is brimming with unique characters and interesting moral conundrums, but one of the primary themes is that of hypocrisy, particularly as it applies to parents and their children.

In Little Dorrit, no fewer than five characters have to deal with parental hypocrisy. The main thrust of the story revolves around, in the first place, Amy Dorrit and the attempts of her father to pretend his days in a debtor’s prison never existed and, in the second place, the other protagonist Arthur Clenham’s struggles with his pious but cruel mother. In these characters and these relationships, Dickens gives us the primary plot. He could easily have left his story at that, and readers still would have gotten the point and come away from the story with plenty to chew on. But Dickens took his theme much further by illustrating various other aspects of hypocrisy in the relationships of other minor characters. None of these relationships were extraneous or repetitious in comparison to the primary characters. Rather they serve to reinforce, contrast, and expand upon the main theme.

So think about your work-in-progress. What’s your main theme and how is it illustrated in the lives of your main characters? Then think about how you can illustrate other aspects of this theme via your minor characters and subplots. In the end, you should come away with an intricately woven theme that will stick with readers long after they’ve closed your book.

Tell me your opinion: How are you reinforcing your theme through your minor characters and subplots?

Related Posts: The All-Important Link Between Character and Theme

Strengthen Your Story With Symbolism

5 Steps to Dazzling Minor Characters

Christmas Gift Giveaway and Sale

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

From now until Christmas, all of my products are available at special prices and as part of special package deals. I’m also offering some early Christmas gifts of my own to all my favorite Wordplayers! Scroll down for details.

Christmas Gift Giveaway

Rustic Word Journal donated by Yellow Bird Paper Goods

Hand-Stamped Bookends donated by Joshua by Oak

Writer's Block donated by Sintwister

To enter the drawing for the above gifts, all you have to do is share the following messages on either Facebook or Twitter (or both!).

On Twitter:
RT @KMWeiland Christmas Sale and Giveaway! Win prizes and find discounts of 20%-50% off books http://tinyurl.com/cn4gvrv

On Facebook:
Check out K.M. Weiland's Christmas Sale and Giveaway! Win prizes and find discounts of 20%-50% off her books http://tinyurl.com/cn4gvrv

Be sure to tag me (@K.M. Weiland), so I can find and count your posts. You’ll need to “like” my page in order to tag me.

Winners will be announced Christmas Eve.

Special Prices & Package Deals

In the meantime, be sure to check out the special prices and package deals I'm offering on my books, e-books, CD, and bookmarks. These special deals are available only through my website and only until Christmas. All my books, along with my audio presentation Conquering Writer's Block and Summoning Inspiration and my "10 Habits of Successful Writers" bookmarks are discounted anywhere from 20% to 50%. I'm also pleased to introduce three new short story e-books, available for $.99 apiece from Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

Action/Reaction - The Pistons Powering Your Story

2011-11-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

Let’s say your story is a precision machine. If we were to take the shiny cover off the back of this machine, what we would find inside would be an intricate mess of nuts, bolts, gears, and an engineer only knows what else. At the heart of it all, we’d find two huge pistons running the show. One of those pistons is Action. The other is Reaction.

There are only two things your character can do at any given point in a story. He can either act. Or he can react. Those are the only choices. Within those two choices, the variables are endless, of course. But it’s vital that the author understand the differences between the two, so he can identify which course is preferable at key moments in the story. So let’s take a closer look at how these two pistons chug along in sync, taking turns powering the story forward.

What’s the difference between action and reaction?

At first glance, action and reaction don’t seem to need much in the way of explanation. We all know what they are. Action is when your character does something. Reaction is when he does something in response to something that has happened to him.

Consider an example from the classic musical Meet Me in St. Louis:

Action: Esther and Rose take action by filling a dance card with the names of all the most undesirable young men in town and give it to Lucille Ballard, who refused to go to the dance with their brother Lon and went instead with Rose’s boyfriend Warren.

Reaction: When Lucille makes up with Lon, Esther reacts by trading dance cards with her, so that Esther herself ends up with the undesirable dancing partners.

In a sense, of course, Esther’s action in filling the dance card is a reaction to Lucille’s supposed jilting of her brother. And her reaction to Lucille’s turning out to be super nice has her taking action in deliberately trading dance cards.

Action = control

If you over think the differences between action and reaction, it can get confusing fast. The important thing to remember in telling the two apart is identifying who is in charge of the scene. The character in charge is the one doing the acting. When Esther is plotting revenge against Lucille, she’s in charge and Lucille is at her mercy. When Lucille arrives at the dance and insists on making up with Lon and helping Rose and Warren do the same, she effectively takes control of the scene, leaving Esther with no choice but to react.

Action and reaction are linked dominos

Actions and reactions never happen in a vacuum. Authors can’t arbitrarily choose one or the other for any random scene. We have to deliberately pair these two powerhouse pistons. They must work in tandem, or they won’t work at all. A continual onslaught of actions, with no alternating reactions, will result in a scattered plot that not only barrages the reader with an unvarying and exhausting pace, but also one that features scenes with no visible connections to one another.

Back to the old domino illustration: Action dominos can’t knock into action dominoes, and reaction dominoes can’t knock into reaction dominos. Actions knock into reactions, which knock into actions and so forth—until you have a perfectly balanced, perfectly paced, perfectly connected story.

Tell me your opinion: Is your character acting or reacting in your latest scene?

Related Posts: Use Motion to Spice up Your Scenes

Bring Character Emotion to Life Through Action

The Perils of the Passive Protagonist
_________________

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How to Describe Your Characters—and How Not to

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Before we jump into today’s post, I have a favor to ask: Last year, Wordplay was chosen as one of Write to Done’s Top 10 Writing Blogs of the Year. How much fun would it be to go two in a row? If you feel Wordplay is worthy, would you consider leaving a comment with a short blurb? On the eve of Thanksgiving, I also want to take a sec to say how thankful I am for all of you fabulous Wordplayers! You guys bless my life every single day with your enthusiasm, kindness, and faithfulness. I hope your holiday season is as wonderful as you deserve!

***

This week’s video discusses some of the do’s and don’ts of character descriptions, including how much description you should include and where to include it.

Video Transcript: Perhaps the largest limitation of the written word is that it offers no visual picture. Unlike the viewer of a movie, a reader is entirely dependent upon the author’s descriptive skills for his ability to visualize the characters. Luckily, most authors have a vivid picture of their characters in their minds. All they have to do to help the reader share their vision is to slap a few descriptive details down on the page. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy, right? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that writing a list of physical descriptors is relatively simple. No, in that there are actually quite a few pitfalls to be avoided.

The first question is: How much description should we include? How much is too much, how much is not enough? We’re not going to find a concrete answer to this, since it will vary from story to story and character to character. As a caveat, I’ll caution that we definitely don’t want to bore readers with a description that details our character’s every facial feature, every freckle, every scar. Readers only need enough to get the gist, from which they then fill in the blanks on their own. However, it’s also important that we don’t err on the side of not enough description. Saying our character is tall and has brown hair and brown eyes doesn’t really give our readers much to work with. So you’ll want to hunt for the features that make your character unique and that build a complete overall picture.

The second important question is: Where do you include the description? The short answer is better sooner than later. You want to guide the reader to a visualization of your character before he comes up with his own and is then jarred by your incongruous description later on. However, you also have to be clever enough to describe the character without violating POV—since few people will describe themselves in detail to themselves. Descriptions can be a lot of fun to write, but we also have to make sure they’re a lot of fun to read!

Tell me your opinion: How soon after you introduce your protagonist do you describe him?

Related Posts: Describing Characters

Why One Descriptor Is More Than Two

How to Bring Adjectives to Life

4 Reasons to Mimic the Masters—and 3 Reasons Not to

2011-11-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

If I tell you should copy another writer, would you call the plagiarism police and poke me in a padded cell? If so, get your cuffs and straitjacket ready, because that’s exactly what I’m about to tell you.

Of course, copying doesn’t have to mean stealing. Copying another writer boils down to nothing more or less than mimicry, and mimicry, as we all know, is one awesome compliment. It’s also a gift that just keeps on giving, since in mimicking the masters of the craft, we’re not only paying them homage, we’re also gaining untold benefits for our own writing. Let’s take a look at what successful mimicry is and is not.

What Mimicry Is

Setting High Goals. By desiring to write as well as our favorite authors, we’re forcing ourselves to set the highest of goals for our own writing, instead of settling for any ol’ drivel that dribbles from our pens.
Achieving Good Taste. In choosing to mimic a particular author, we’re establishing a definitive statement about our taste as readers. We’re deciding what makes a good writer and, therefore, what kind of writer we want to be.
Studying the Techniques. We can’t mimic unless we first study another writer. To be able to achieve the same desirable effects in our writing, we first have to be able to identify and understand those effects.
Achieving Growth. The very act of mimicry means our writing will be moving ever upwards and onwards. Even a failed attempt of mimicry is one that will help us understand ourselves and our craft better.

What Mimicry Is Not

Plagiarism. Mimicry may be a compliment, but stealing someone else’s words or ideas is most certainly not. Aside from the fact that it’s unethical and illegal, plagiarism will never be able to give you much in the way of satisfaction or artistic growth.
Laziness. The desire to be able to write like another author does not give us the excuse to use their stories as half-baked starting points for our own. Fan fiction aside, writing a story that is a feebly disguised copy of Star Wars or The Hunger Games means you’re missing the point—and the benefits—of using another artist’s genius to launch your own unique story, style, and voice.
Giving Up. Sometimes the attempt to achieve the same effect as a masterful author can leave us feeling like we’ll never measure up. Don’t forget that even the masters had to start somewhere, had to be inspired by other artists, had to grow into their own place of excellence.

How to Mimic

So how do you successfully mimic other authors in a way that will help you learn their secrets while aiding you in discovering your own unique and personal artistic nuances?

Read Widely and Deeply. Start by reading everything you can get your hands on. When you find an author who makes you go I want to write like that!, read everything he’s written, both the good and the bad.
Read With Attention. We’ve all heard the phrase “read like a writer,” but what does that really mean? It means reading with eyes that see beyond the story, behind the scenes to the techniques that make it work. Once you’ve cracked an author’s code, you can apply his secrets to your own work.
Copy out Passages. Sometimes it’s helpful to take the above step a little further by actually copying out excellent passages from your favorite books. The act of writing each word down can make us understand the choice of language and the structure of the sentences and paragraphs.
Experiment With Similar Styles. Mimicry only works if you put what you’ve learned into practice. Did you enjoy the first-person present tense style in that last Margaret Atwood novel? Why not give it a try in your next book. Did you love the rapid-fire action scene in that latest Brandon Sanderson book? Try throwing your characters into the midst of a mano-a-mano duel in the next chapter.

In a nutshell, mimicry is nothing more than reading, appreciating, and learning from the masters. As artists, there is no better way to improve our own craft than to fall in love with the excellence of someone else’s.

Tell me your opinion: Who's the last author who made you think I want to write like that?

Related Posts: Why You Should Read the Type of Stories You Write

Why There's No Such Thing as a Writing Expert - and Why That's a Good Thing

Why You Should Steal From Other Authors
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The #1 Factor to Consider When Choosing POV Characters

2011-11-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s video uses William Faulkner’s The Town to show how the choice of POVs will influence and ultimately control your story.

Video Transcript: How do you decide which characters should be your point-of-view narrators? This is one of the most important decisions an author can make in planning his book. The characters who narrate will largely control the flow, tone, and focus of your story. Change the POV characters, and you’ll likely change the entire story. And yet this is a decision we often devote very little thought to. We just do whatever feels right. Usually, we’ll give the POVs to the main character, the antagonist, and maybe a few minors who are present in important scenes in which our story’s big shots are not.

As far as it goes, this isn’t a bad way to choose POVs. A lot of books follow this formula, and it works well in carrying the reader to the places the author wants him to go. But, aside from the fact that it can sometimes lead to a haphazard “loose” feel, it overlooks one of the most powerful facets of the POV. And that is the POV’s ability to control the story. POVs shouldn’t be just about giving the reader eyes through which to see any old action. They should also be about structuring the story itself. William Faulkner’s The Town gives us an excellent example. His book offers three widely varied points of view: a young boy, an idiosyncratic entrepreneur, and an educated lawyer.

As much as his story is about these characters—and as much as their POVs tell us about them—a careful reading shows us that Faulkner chose these POVs not because of the characters themselves, but because of the juxtaposed views they presented of the story. So when you’re choosing your POVs, consider how each POV will add to the tone of the story as a whole. Don’t choose a POV just because it can show the reader things the other POVs can’t. Choose it because this character’s voice and viewpoint can bring a unique and important thematic layer to the story.

Tell me your opinion: How do you choose your POV characters?

Related Posts: How Many POVs Are Too Many?

Bring Your POV Characters' Voices to Life

Introduce Important POVs as Soon as Possible

How Do You Know Which Rules to Break?

2011-11-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

Writers are no exception to the “artists are rebels” stereotype. We’re rogues and rule breakers—and proud of it, thank you, ma’am. The only teensy little problem we have is that we’re not always certain which rules to break. Tongue in cheek, I often say writing has only one rule, and that’s “break all the rules.” That’s great fun, as far as it goes. But taken at face value, it won’t get us published or read.

The rules of writing are really more conventions than rules: long-held traditions that have become popular and effective ways of communicating our stories to our readers. There are no Writing Police (gatekeepers aside) who will slap you into cuffs for bucking those traditions, anymore than there’s a guarantee you’ll be published if you obediently follow all the rules. Writing isn’t a dot-to-dot puzzle that must be constructed formulaically. The best of art is all about experimentation and growth. That’s why we get to be wild and break a few rules.

Which rules should you break?

Popular advice says writers should “learn the rules, follow most of them, and break a few.” But which few? Are there certain rules that are concrete and others that aren’t? Are there certain rules that should be broken? It’s all so doggone confusing. We want to be breakout writers. We want to follow enough rules to get past the gatekeepers. But we also want to break the right rules to make our art unique and, yes, we admit it, think-outside-the-box brilliant.

So when the writing gurus tell you to be brave and break some rules, for crying out loud, which rules are they talking about? Because heaven forbid we choose the wrong rule to break and end up in the writer’s equivalent of solitary confinement.

This is where I tell you the million dollar secret. I am about to reveal the answer to this much pondered question. I’m going to unveil the veiled, unmask the masked, and just generally give it to you straight.

The right rules to break

The “right” rules to break depend entirely upon you as a reader.

Think about your own reading experiences. As a highly trained author, you no doubt read with one eye on the plot and the other on the craft. When an author strays from the beaten path and starts taking a baseball bat to the rules/conventions/traditions of the elders, which cracks of that bat make you cringe and which surprise and delight you?

Listen to your gut

Trust yourself as a reader—especially if you’ve educated yourself enough to read like a writer. When your gut tells you something works, even if your internal editor starts carping, pay attention.

Likely, the reason whatever author you’re reading is able to break this particular rule is because he’s doing it purposefully and skillfully—and brilliantly. Just because he’s pulling it off doesn’t mean you’ll be able to run over to your keyboard and be equally rebellious and brilliant. But if you understand and like what he’s doing, don’t be afraid to give it a little experimental whirl.

On the other hand, if your broken rule! broken rule! klaxon starts screaming in the middle of a good book and, instead of invoking an awed How’d he do that?, your gag reflex starts hopping, don’t you dare try to break that same rule in your own writing. Listen to the gut. It’s a better writer than the head. It knows which rules need to be broken to further a story—and which rules, if broken, will only nauseate your readers.

Tell me your opinion: What "rules" have you deliberately broken - and which are you adamant about keeping?

Related Posts: Rules? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules!

The Best Writing Advice

The Worst Writing Advice
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Are Your Dialogue Beats Repetitious?

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s video analyzes the pitfalls of repetitious action beats and offers suggestions for keeping your actions fresh and interesting between lines of dialogue.

Video Transcript: Even the most scintillating dialogue scenes require more than just dialogue to stay afloat. We have to pad the characters’ speech with dialogue tags (he said, she whispered, etc.), internal narrative, and body language and action—otherwise known as action beats. Often action beats will flow naturally from the characters. Maybe they’re beating each up while they talk, or maybe one of them is packing for a big trip, or maybe another is trying to figure out how to skin a whole chicken. In these instances, the actions usually pop right out between dialogue lines and are naturally varied and interesting.

But sometimes our characters are just sitting around talking. In these kinds of scenes, authors can be hard pressed to come up with enough actions to keep their scenes from suffering from “talking-head” or “white-wall” syndrome. As a result, we can sometimes end up recycling the same action beat over and over. For example, in a historical novel I read recently, the only action beats to break up a lengthy dialogue scene were the characters fiddling with their cigarettes. They lit them, puffed on them, stubbed them out in the ash tray, relit them, puffed some more, stubbed them out again—and again and again. What started out as an effective action beat illustrating the characters’ nervousness ended up feeling like rehashed hash browns.

If your dialogue beats start to repeat themselves, take a step back from the scene, delete every third beat, and start thinking of new, fresh replacements. Internal narrative can often take the place of an action beat, and, if your character doesn’t have something to do with his hands, be sure to utilize his facial expressions and body language. That said, the easiest way to avoid this problem is to simply set up your scene to begin with so your characters do have something to do while they’re talking.

Tell me your opinion: Do you ever run dry on action beats?

Related Posts: Who Said What? - Identifying Dialogue Speakers

How Not to Use Speaker Tags and Action Beats

The Cure-All for Long and Boring Narrative

Most Common Mistakes Series: Do Readers See Your Characters the Way You Want Them To?

2011-11-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

The wrong choice of just a single word can be enough to give readers a completely different (and, from the writer’s viewpoint, wrong) perspective of a character. Despite the fact that we often see our characters in crisp, glorious, mega-wattage detail, we sometimes have a difficult time sharing those details with our readers. We want readers to see our characters as vulnerable but strong, imperfect but brave, haunted but smart. We want readers to see our characters from every angle, so they can also see in our characters a wonderfully human mix of good and bad, strong and weak, perfect and imperfect.

Achieving Balance

So far, so good. But few writers are able to achieve this balance the first time they release their bucking bronc of a story out of the chute. Too often, we accidentally pile too much weight on one side or the other of the scale—and end up giving readers a skewed perception of our characters.

Let’s say your character is an average Joe, a cop who’s devoted to the badge, but who struggles to balance the tough realities of his job—particularly one failed assignment that got him shot and his partner killed—with the demands of his wife and kids. Now, you, as the author, know Joe is a very realistic, likable guy. He’s occasionally heroic, but also occasionally scared. For every day he’s sad about his partner’s death, he’s also hopeful about his son’s future. He’s sometimes angry with his wife’s inability to understand his job’s stress, but he’s also aware it’s his responsibility to be there for his family.

Too Good to Be True

There are many ways you might write Joe. At one extreme, in your attempt to show his heroic, devoted public servant side, you might leave out some of the weaker, less likable details of his personality and end up with a less than relatable, possibly even laughable version:

Joe put the good of the city ahead of everything else—always. He was just that kind of guy. He never complained, because he knew he had nothing to complain about. He’d capture the bad guys, save the world, and be home in time to tuck in the kids.

Too Bad to Be Bearable

On the other hand, you might be worried about Joe coming across as too good to be true, so you decide to focus on his problems, in order to make him more relatable to readers. This is an excellent plan. But you have to be careful not to turn him from relatable to pitiable. We want to present our character’s faults, but if we dwell on them too much, we end up with a character who screams “oh please, oh please, everyone throw a pity party for poor little ol’ me!” For example, if we were going to don our party hats and throw confetti in Joe’s honor, we might end up with a celebration that looks something like this:

Joe nursed the day’s fifth round of coffee and donuts. It was tough being a cop in NYC—and didn’t he know it? Or maybe it was just that he didn’t measure up. Why didn’t the commissioner just fire him and get it over with? He was a pathetic excuse for a cop. Pa-thet-tic. Hadn’t he already admitted to everyone that he was responsible for his partner’s death? While he was at it, he should probably admit he was also a pathetic excuse for a father. Of course, he didn’t have to tell his wife that. She already knew.

Now if you’re using this paragraph to introduce a severely depressed character, this internal whingeing might not be such a bad thing. But what this paragraph does not do is give us a balanced character. This isn’t an average Joe struggling onward to be the best man he can be in spite of his circumstances. This is a man who’s blubbering hot, salty tears into his coffee.

When you write your story, but particularly as you revise, be on the watch for the balance that emerges about your character from the details you present—particularly his internal narrative. Balance means you present just as much good about the character as bad. Readers like characters with problems (yes, even the occasional blubbering cop), but they also like characters who climb to their feet after being knocked down instead of lying on the mat with their eyes rolled back in their sockets.

***

This is the eleventh post in the Most Common Mistakes Series, inspired by the prevalent slip-ups I run across in editing other people’s work. Don’t worry: I don’t use any names or specific examples from my clients’ stories. I hope the series will prove helpful to you in nabbing these mistakes in your own work—before an agent or editor nabs them for you.

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever gotten feedback that indicated a reader thought your character was more pathetic than you wanted him to be?

Related Posts: Keep Unlikable Characters From Alienating Readers

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Character?

Love Your Characters - Or Else!
_________________

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Wordplay podcast in iTunes).

Should You Ever Use Unusual Narrative Forms?

2011-11-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

This week’s video explains why you should consider utilizing an out-of-the-ordinary narrative form in your book—and why you shouldn’t.

Video Transcript: For the most part, when a reader opens a book, he knows what he’s going to be getting. First- or third-person narrative voices, told in the past tense, in a linear timeline, are the most common narrative forms. Readers are familiar with these forms and comfortable with them, and, because these forms allow a nice blend of flexibility and stability, they unquestionably top the popularity scale for good reason. Likely, most of us will never stray from this model no matter how many books we write. But does that mean we can’t or shouldn’t use unusual narrative forms?

We find unusual forms in many popular and respected works—everything from Audrey Niffenegger’s non-chronological double 1st-person present tense narrators in The Time Traveler’s Wife to William Faulkner’s script-like presentation of dialogue in Requiem for a Nunto Jay McInerney second-person narration in Bright Lights, Big City. All of these books, and many more, break the wall of reader expectations by taking risks with style and format—and, for the most part, readers will agree they do it successfully. But how can you tell if breaking the rules and straying from the beaten path is something you should attempt in your story?

Experimentation in art is important to our growth as artists. But we have to realize that only the best of experiments deserve to be shared with our readers. Only when we’re absolutely confident that a) an unusual form is the best way to tell a particular story and b) we’re capable of mastering that form in a way that will enhance rather than take away from the reading experience should we attempt it. In other words, when in doubt, don’t. But if you’re convinced an unusual format is right for your story, don’t be afraid to give it a whirl. Just remember you have to be brilliant!

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever used an unusual format in any of your stories?

Related Posts: 10 Stylistic Mistakes Sabotaging Your Story

Bring Your POV Characters' Voices to Life

Is Authorial Voice Different From Character Voice?

10 Fear Busters for Writers

2011-10-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

Photo by dirlkie65

Which is scarier—writing or lion taming? At first glance, that seems to be a no-brainer, doesn’t it? After all, how can sitting at your computer in your slippers compare to putting your head into a 500-pound carnivore’s mouth? But, actually, the writing life is fraught with fears. We writers are afraid of agents stamping “REJECTED” on our manuscripts. We’re afraid of revealing too much of our true selves to the public via our writing. We’re afraid our writing will be no good (or at least not as good as our critique partner’s). We’re afraid of never being published. We’re afraid that if we are published the only people who will buy our books are our mothers and their bridge clubs. We’re afraid of the time commitment demanded by being a dedicated writer. We’re even afraid of the desk-inflicted welts on our foreheads every time we get writer’s block.

In short, we’re afraid. And being afraid isn’t much fun. So what do to about it? Let’s take a look at ten methods for cracking our whips at our fears and forcing them to respond to our shouts of “back, back, vicious beast!”

1. Identify your fear.
As kids cowering under the bed sheets, we found the monsters lurking in the shadows all the more terrifying because we couldn’t actually see them. If we’d had the courage to get out of bed and poke around in our closets, those innocent little gray dust bunnies would have proven far less hideous than our vague imaginings. Try to figure out exactly what it is that’s got you spooked.

2. Eliminate pseudo-fears.
It’s easy to blow things out of proportion. For example, we could easily chew our nails ragged worrying about what the world thinks of us as authors and people. But, so long as it doesn’t hurt book sales, the opinions of someone we’ll never meet aren’t likely to hurt us. Don’t spend your time worrying about things that might go wrong, especially when those things can only hurt you when you let them.

3. Vent.
Once you’ve figured out the things that really and truly have you scared right down to the holes in your socks, sit yourself in front of a mirror and start venting. Talk about how scared you are—and how much you hate being scared. Sometimes just blowing off steam can do wonders for making you feel better.

4. Find a sympathetic ear.
Grab a friend or family member—or, better yet, another writer who’s been in your shoes and overcome his own fears—and go over your concerns. Let them help you work through your problems and let yourself take heart from their encouragement, even if it’s just the good ol’ standby “everything’ll be okay.”

5. List the pros and cons of your fear.
Let’s say your biggest fear is being rejected by an agent. Sit down and write a list of the things that will result from this happening—good and bad. On the bad side of the list, you might write down your inevitable discouragement; but, on the good side, you can make note of the fact that you’ll grow stronger from the experience. Balancing out the pros and cons of your fear can help you see things in perspective—and perhaps even realize the pros outweigh the cons.

6. Remember why you’re writing.
Review all the things you love about writing. If those things aren’t worth the fear, there’s no reason you can’t stop and walk away right now. But, if you decide you can’t walk away from writing no matter how much it sometimes hurts, you’ll realize your fears are a small price to pay.

7. Allow yourself to make mistakes.
You can lift a lot of pressure off your shoulders by giving yourself permission to make messes. No one’s perfect. Why should you be? Make mistakes, recognize your mistakes, forgive yourself for them, maybe even laugh over them. Then move on and try again. Samuel Beckett said, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

8. Streamline your process.
No one’s ever said writing is easy. But don’t make matters more difficult for yourself than you need to. Find the system that works best for you—for writing, revising, and querying—and stick with it. Eliminate unnecessary work and distractions whenever possible.

9. Reward yourself.
When you do something tough—when you send out that query in spite of the last 50 rejections—give yourself a prize. The bigger the fear you’ve overcome, the bigger the prize (or should we say bribe?) should be. If you finish your book by the end of the year, buy yourself a vacation, an iPad, a new pair of Snoopy slippers—whatever floats your rubber ducky.

10. Embrace your fear.
Sometimes you can’t finesse your way through fear. Sometimes you have to hitch up your jodhpurs, grab your chair and whip, and march into that lion’s cage to confront the thing that scares you the most. But don’t stop at just confronting it. Use it. Get in the habit of moving toward your fears instead of away from them. You may find your fear is the perfect fuel to create your best bit of writing yet!

Tell me your opinion: What's the writing fear you're most proud of overcoming?

Related Posts: Why You Should Be Writing Scared

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Be Smarter Than Your Readers

2011-10-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

This week’s video cautions against neglecting to double-check your facts—even the ones you’re sure of.

Video Transcript: Writers are generally known as pretty savvy people. We know how to string sentences together, we know how to use punctuation properly, and we can spout off lots of big words. But we can’t let this presumed savviness go to our heads, because readers are also very smart people. They know when we’re hoodwinking them with pseudo-facts—and they’re not going to think very highly of us for it. Most of us realize this and work hard to research our stories and present the facts correctly and realistically. When we don’t know something, we look it up. But there’s a pitfall here.

Sometimes we think we know a fact, so, of course, why bother to look it up? But I’m here to tell you that’s dangerous. Case in point: Most people have a certain pile of “facts” stocked up about horses from watching movies and reading books, so they don’t always think about double-checking their equestrian scenes. I recently read a fantasy novel that featured a society that used horses as their main transportation, but—as someone who grew up around horses and working cattle ranches—I can tell you that the author didn’t check her facts. She had horses eating leaves instead of grass, riders able to mount only on the left side, and, at one point, she explained that “lope” and “canter”—two words describing essentially the same gait—were in fact different things.

I’m certain this author had no idea she was committing these gaffes, and I’m certain of this because I’ve made similar oversights in my own first drafts. But this is why it’s so important for writers to check and double-check their facts—even the ones we’re already sure of. In the end, pleasing even the most expert among our readers ensures we’ll never be scorned for our lack of knowledge or have our books hurled across the room in frustration.

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever embarrassed yourself by neglecting to double-check a fact?

Related Post: Write What You Know - and What You Don't

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5 Elements of a Resonant Closing Line

2011-10-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

As important as the opening line may be to convincing someone to read your book, the closing line is the one that determines how well your story works—and whether or not your reader will find your story a satisfying experience. Last month, we talked about the 5 Elements of a Riveting First Line, and today we’re going to bring the discussion full circle by exploring the five elements that will help you craft the kind of closing line that caps your entire story and leaves readers with a feeling of unforgettable resonance.

Like first lines, last lines, in themselves, aren’t all that memorable. In fact, I’ll bet you this week’s serving of carrots that you can’t remember the closing lines of the last five books you enjoyed. The memorability of the lines themselves isn’t nearly as important as the memorability of the feeling with which they leave your readers. Let’s take a look at the closing lines of five of my favorite books:

“Hooker yet upon the Rappahannock,” he said. “We must have him across the Potomac, and we must ourselves invade Pennsylvania.”—The Long Roll by Mary Johnston

Vin closed her eyes, simply feeling the warmth of being held. And realized that was all she had ever really wanted.—Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

“Why, sir,” said the hall-porter, smiling at him, “never fret yourself about haste post-haste: here is Sir Joseph himself, coming up the steps, a-leaning on Colonel Warren’s arm.”—The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O’Brian

And after that it sometimes almost seemed as if there were fewer enemy planes in the skies.—After Dunkirk by Milena McGraw

He looked a long time.—Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

What is it about these lines that made these stories resonate with me? How did they embed these stories in my mind and help me carry them with me long after I closed the back covers? Let’s take a look at a couple of factors.

1. Summation: The end of the book marks the end (didn’t see that coming, did you?), even if it’s part of a series—as are all the books I’ve listed except After Dunkirk. The closing line should give readers a sense of finality, a sense that the main issues of the plot have been taken care of and that he can safely leave the characters without worrying that anything more momentous is going to strike. In the examples above, we find Mistborn’s main character discovering safety and love in a relationship, the thwarting of an enemy plot by the arrival of a spymaster in Reverse of the Medal, and the beginning of the end of the Battle of Britain in After Dunkirk.

2. Theme: At its heart, story is theme. We dress it up with plot and characters, but the theme is what the story is about. So it’s only appropriate we strike a final emotional note in our last sentence. Although not necessarily evident out of context, the books above use their final lines to reinforce their themes of war, love, trust, hope, and redemption.

3. Pacing: The final line—and the lines building up to it—should provide the appropriate pacing to guide readers to an instinctual understanding of the coming end. Just as a song builds to a climax and then tapers into the subsequent notes to ease listeners back into silence, the end of a story must slow its pacing to ease readers out of the story back into their comfy La-Z-Boys. The lines listed above vary in length, but most of them are punchy sentences—which were preceded by longer, lyrical, sometimes almost dreamy paragraphs, which the authors used to ease back from the action of the story, so they could hammer home one final thought before releasing the reader.

4. Farewell: Not all closing lines will feature the main character. Sometimes authors will utilize a “pulling back” of the camera to show the reader a broad view of the story, rather than a close up of the protagonist. However, most often, the closing line is the last chance to say goodbye to the characters for both the author and the reader. The Long Roll, Mistborn, and Ender’s Game all feature the protagonist in the final sentence. After Dunkirk, which is narrated in the first person by the protagonist, offers the main character’s final thoughts to the reader. And Reverse of the Medal’s comparatively abrupt ending features a line of dialogue that the reader already knows the main character is desperately awaiting.

5. Continuation: Finally—and a bit contradictorily—the closing line should also indicate that the story isn’t over, that, in fact, the lives of the surviving main characters will continue long after the reader closes the back cover. In Worlds of Wonder, David Gerrold points out, “A great last line should leave your reader satisfied that you have said everything that needs to be said—and at the same time, it should stand as a launch pad for the reader’s imagination to leap off into its own flight of fantasy about what happens next.” The Long Roll leaves us looking into the future, toward the inevitable Battle of Gettysburg. Mistborn assures us the main character will be moving forward in a healthy relationship. Reverse of the Medal ties up its plot’s loose threads and sends us hurtling into the sequel. After Dunkirk’s weary hope promises the eventual end of war. And Ender’s Game’s nebulous (and brilliant) final line indicates both a present incompletion (and thus a sense of continuation) and an eventual finality at the end of the long search.

Your ending line will depend greatly on the story that precedes it: its tone, pacing, and the mood you want to strike with its ending. But if you can incorporate all or most of these elements into your final words, you just might be on your way to the kind of ending that grabs hold of readers and refuses to let them go.

Tell me your opinion: What's your favorite closing line and why?

Related Posts: How to Write an Epilogue That Works

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Are All the Pieces in Place for Your Climax?

2011-10-19T06:00:00.000-06:00

This week’s video shows how Suzanne Collins did a masterful job of providing her readers a resonant, cohesive climax in The Hunger Games.

Video Transcription: Stories are like puzzles—you know, the giant, 5,000-piece ones you spread all over your table and spend a year putting together? That’s your story. By the time you only have a handful of pieces left—by the time your climax is coming into view—the vast majority of your puzzle should be assembled in such a way that your reader has all the necessary pieces to present the big picture. The trick to providing the reader with a satisfying climax is making certain all the pieces are already there. Nothing is worse than reaching the end of a story, chewing your nails, wondering how the author is going to make all these pieces fit together—only to have him trick you by pulling out a brand spanking new piece you’ve never even heard of before.

The best books use foreshadowing to ensure the reader has all the pieces he needs going into the climax. One of those books is Suzanne Collins’s popular The Hunger Games. (If you happen to be the last person on the planet who hasn’t read this book, be warned, spoilers ahead!) Collins’s climax involves pulling her main characters out of a certain-death situation, in which they’re being forced to kill each other in a futuristic gladiatorial game. She does a beautiful job of backing the characters up to a wall and seeming to leave them no way out.

She could have utilized any number of tricks to save her characters and give readers the happy ending they wanted. But most of these tricks would have been a cheat. Fortunately, she was savvy enough to know that she could only utilize the tools the story provided her: in this instance, poisonous berries with which the characters could threaten suicide and manipulate their captors. Readers may not have seen this use of the berries coming, but because Collins had already utilized the berries in a previous scene and foreshadowed their lethal potential, the twist in the climax was a natural outflow of the plot.

Tell me your opinion: Have you appropriately foreshadowed the solution to your climax?

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5 Fun and Easy Ways to Lengthen Word Count

2011-10-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

We see a lot of hype these days about books that are too lengthy for agents or editors to consider. But what about books that fall short of the expected word count? In comparison to giving your overweight manuscript liposuction, fattening up an anorexic story often feels like trying to create something out of nothing. There your story is—complete. What’s left to add that won’t feel extraneous, rambling, and even pointless?

This was the dilemma I faced this spring after realizing my historical manuscript The Deepest Breath, which was supposedly “complete” at 80,000 words, contained a hefty subplot that absolutely did not work. I cut the subplot—and ended up with a puny 60,000-word featherweight of a book. What do to?

First thing I did was scream—a lot. “Finished” manuscripts with big holes in them are about as cheerful as alarm clocks at five o’clock on Sunday morning. Next thing I did was comfort myself with the usual panacea of Starbucks’ bold dark espresso roast and Belgian truffles. And then I got to work. I looked over the story and started making lists of anything I could expand.

1. Brainstorm addition plot beats.

After listing all my current plot threads, I started coming up with ways to expand upon them. One of the plot threads in my story included a character’s attempts to cover up her past. I started brainstorming ways I could expand upon this thread and came up with several scenes in which the character’s attempts are threatened or discovered, which led to further complications, more scenes, and—you got it—more words.

2. Deepen connections between characters.

Make a list of all the characters in your story and how they’re connected to the point-of-view characters. Could you add scenes to further explain or deepen these connections? In the original version of my story, I hinted at the strained relationships between one of my characters and his siblings, which left me the perfect opportunity to add an entire subplot exploring his interactions with them.

3. Add characters.

The more characters you have, the longer your word count. Never add a character just for the sake of adding him, but take a look at the needs of your story and sniff out any likely gaps where a new character could add dimension. My story’s dark realism didn’t offer much in the way of humor, so I added a character who could occasionally lighten the mood. I made sure to tie him back into the plot by making him an accomplice to another character’s secret business.

4. Emphasize important character traits.

What are some of your protagonists’ most important, salient, or appealing characteristics? Do you explicitly illustrate these traits in scenes? If not, look for places where you can insert these important bits of characterization. The friendship between two war buddies is crucial to my story, so I added an early scene that shows them watching each other’s backs while on a dangerous hunt.

5. Dramatize summaries.

Finally, once you’ve added all the feasible characters and subplots, zoom in on the nitty-gritty of your story. Are there any scenes where you’ve summarized (told) instead of dramatized (shown)? Can you expand upon your characters’ interior monologue? Can you flesh out the descriptions of your settings? Don’t go overboard with any of these insertions; remember balance is always key. But every word counts, and these little expansions add up quickly.

By the time I finished applying all these techniques, my story had transformed from a skinny novella to the optimum fighting weight of 100,000 words. Not only did I achieve my word count goal, I also ended up with a story whose characters, themes, and plot progression were deeper, chewier, and more memorable. I credit the success to the Starbucks and truffles—mostly.

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever written a story you felt was too short?

Related Posts: Why Word Count Goals Can Be Destructive

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Can You Edit Too Much?

2011-10-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

Image by Austin Tott

Since I was out of town this past weekend, I wasn’t able to record the usual video post. In its place, I’m pleased to present a post by up and coming historical author Elisabeth Grace Foley, who has just released her anthology The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories. Enjoy!

***

I’ve heard a lot of people say short stories should be written quickly, on the spur of the moment, and shouldn’t be edited or fussed over. I’m an exception to that. Occasionally, a short story will come out almost the way I want it on the first try, but usually I spend plenty of time carefully editing, re-editing and polishing each one, just as I would for a full-length novel. Which means I also become susceptible to one of the pitfalls of careful editing—overdoing it.

I’m not just talking about perfectionism—that’s another story. There’s another kind of overdoing it—if you spend a lot of time carefully editing one particular story, you can reach a point where you’re just plain tired of it, if for no other reason than that you’ve been staring at it for so long. Sometimes this can have a bad effect on your perception of the story. The writing starts to seem either flat or overblown, the dialogue ridiculous and the plot paper thin. You wonder whatever made you write the thing in the first place, and why in the world you ever imagined you could be a writer. That usually means it’s time to take a step back.

When I submitted my short story “Disturbing the Peace” to a competition last fall, I’d spent so much time working on it and getting it just right that, frankly, I couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore. I was satisfied with it, but I’d had my fill of it for the time being. Even after it placed in the contest and was published online, I couldn’t bring myself to read it all the way through again.

When it came time to get “Disturbing the Peace” out and proofread it in preparation for including it in The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories, I was reluctant. I hadn’t looked at the story in months, but remembering how I’d felt back then, I was afraid I’d only be disappointed. But I gritted my teeth and started reading…and I was amazed. Did I write that? I couldn’t believe how much better it seemed than when I finished with it months before. The story hadn’t changed, of course—I was just seeing it with a fresh perspective. The extent of my revisions for putting it in the collection was adding one single word.

I’d had good results with taking a break from projects before, but this experience brought home to me what a difference a fresh perspective can make. Pushing too hard on a project to the point of discouragement could cause you to spoil or scrap something that has promise. On the other hand, if there are problems with a story, you’re not going to be able to spot them if the whole thing looks bad to you. Take a break, work on something else for a little while or even take a short vacation from writing, and when you pick up that troublesome project again later on, you may be surprised at how things have fallen into their proper place—how you’ll be able to see more clearly which things actually need fixing and which things bothered you before simply because you were tired of them. It’s an experiment worth trying.

About the Author: Elisabeth Grace Foley is a 21-year-old author of historical fiction who is really too young to have done anything interesting enough to put into an author bio. She is busy trying to do something about that. She blogs at The Second Sentence and lives with her family and a large stack of writer’s notebooks in the northeastern U.S.

Reading With Attention

2011-10-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

This week, I’m pleased to present a post by editor, author, and Top 10 blogger Victoria Mixon, who’s celebrating the launch of her new writing craft book The Art and Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual, the sequel to her fabulously funny and informative The Art and Craft of Fiction. Today, she’s sharing with us an excerpt from the new book. Enjoy!

***

Reading for Plot Structure

Whatever book you’re reading right this very minute, take a quick second to look in the back and see how many pages it has. Rounded, I mean.

Find a scrap of paper or a used envelope and jot this down at the bottom: total number of pages.

Now divide that into: 1/8, 1/6, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8. You can knock it right down into all the eighths and sixths if you like, but these are the main divisions. Scribble those numbers vertically above the total.

Now—as you work your way through your current read, every time you come to one of those pages, make a note of what big, important plot point is going on right there. At least within a few pages.

Depending upon the type of novel you’re reading, the climax may be shoved all the way to within spitting distance of the last page. And that’s fine! That’s an excellent way to end a novel. So when you get to the climax, go ahead and scribble that down, too.

Label it at the top with the title of the book. Then throw it on a box on your desk and start a new scrap for the next book.

Eventually, you're going to have a whole raft of these little lists.

And. They. Are. Priceless.

Take them out every now and then to study. What do you see?

Act 1
Hook (the beginning to 1/8-1/6)
Conflict #1 (1/8-1/6 to 1/4-1/3)

Act 2
Conflict #2 (1/4-1/3 to 1/2-2/3)
Conflict #3 (1/2-2/3 to 2/3-3/4)

Act 3
Faux Resolution (2/3-3/4 to 5/6-7/8)
Climax (5/6-7/8 to the end)

Some writers use a pattern based on quarters, while others prefer a pattern based on thirds. Occasionally, I stumble across someone who skews the 1/2 point to 3/5 (rare) or even 2/3 (even more rare).

That's why this isn’t formula, it’s structure. A house with many rooms is just as livable as a house with only one room, but a house with no supporting walls at all falls down.

So lick a pencil and scrabble for whatever’s handy. All those novels you’ve been reading all these years?

All structured properly.

You’re going to be amazed.

Reading for Character Development

Now I’m also going to assign you a second exercise for your current reading material. Because I don’t believe in doing things halfway.

Flip over that scrap of paper or used envelope on which you’re jotting down your plot design research and scribble the name of the protagonist of whatever you’re reading on the back. If there’s more than one protagonist, scribble the name of the main one.

Chew your pencil for a few minutes (don’t eat the paint—just destroy the little metal bit that holds the eraser) and ask yourself, “What does this character need more than anything else in the entire world?” When you’ve got it, write it down under their name. “And what do they need that conflicts with this need?” Write that down too. Put a big blocky square all over the whole thing.

Got it?

Good.

Now, every time you reach one of those milestones you outlined on the other side of this paper, I want you to jot down on this side what happens to the protagonist and their conflicting needs. I can guarantee something does.

Is one need satisfied in some partial but slightly fulfilling way? Just enough to keep them addicted to the search for total fulfillment?

Is their search for fulfillment of one need thwarted in some way? Enough to freak them out, but not enough to make them think, “This is for the birds. I’m giving up”?

Are their needs ever totally fulfilled?

Are their needs ever totally thwarted?

Scribble, scribble, scribble. Do your scribbling. You’re a scribbler.

Then—you knew I was going to say this—chuck it in that box on your desk. And start the whole thing over again with another book.

When you’re ready, take these scraps out of the box and study them. What patterns do you see? How do all these different authors lead their characters by the nose through the hoops that have been set for them, feeding their needs, denying their needs, feeding their needs again, denying their needs again? How does this rhythm build to a crescendo by the end, driving both character and reader nuts with frustration and anticipation?

How have these authors kept their reader addicted?

Do you ever watch fireworks—for Chinese New Year, Mexican Independence, a hobbit’s eleventy-first birthday?

The next time you do, be thinking how it would feel to have them go off inside your heart. Then think about how your favorite authors make the climaxes of their novels feel…

Exactly. That. Way.

About the Author: Victoria Mixon has been a professional writer and editor for over thirty years. She co-authored the nonfiction Children and the Internet, published by Prentice Hall in 1996, for which she is listed in the Who’s Who of America. Victoria’s blog, A. Victoria Mixon, Editor, was voted one of the Top Ten Blogs for Writers in 2011. Her first book on writing, The Art and Craft of Fiction, is one of the elite handful recommended by Preditors & Editors, and her second book on writing, The Art and Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual, was released on September 30, 2011.

Don’t Confuse Readers With Inconsistent Character Names

2011-10-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

This week’s video discusses two common pitfalls authors can fall into in naming their characters.

Video Transcription: Sometimes it’s the simplest things in a story that can create distance between the reader and writer. The last thing any author can afford to do is push his reader away from the story by confusing him. We want readers to think about what we’ve written, but not because they’re trying to figure out what in tarnation we’re talking about. One area in which authors often create unnecessary reader confusion is in their inconsistent usage of character names. I recently read a historical novel that left me wondering who was who, who was on stage, who was talking, and just generally who these characters were.

The problem in this particular story was double-sided. To begin with, the author often failed to name the characters at all—instead referring to them as simply “he” or “she” for pages on end. Pronouns are a wonderful tool in fiction, not only because they prevent clunky, unnecessary repetitions of names, when only one or two characters are present in a scene, but also because they allow an unprecedented amount of intimacy between the reader and the characters. Despite all their benefits, however, they should never be used at the risk of confusing readers. When in doubt, make sure readers know precisely which character is doing what.

The second problem in this book was that, even when the author bothered to refer to his characters by name, he didn’t choose just one name, but instead multiple variations. Occasionally you’ll see books—military thrillers are frequently culpable—that call their characters by their first names, last names, nicknames, code names, ranks, and the author only knows what else. Simplicity is the mark of an author who is both confident and experienced. Your character can have all the nicknames and code names in the world, but do your readers a favor and consistently refer to him by one name throughout the narrative.

Tell me your opinion: Do you refer to your character consistently by the same name?

Related Posts: Naming Characters

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Most Common Mistakes Series: The Dangers of Character Overload

2011-10-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

How many characters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Only as many as the reader can keep track of at once.

When authors are dealing with large casts of characters—or even just scenes that require the rapid-fire introduction of more than two or three characters—readers sometimes find themselves in grave danger of “character overload.” Usually, I would tell you there’s no such thing as too many good characters. But, in this instance, too many characters can become way yonder too much of a good thing. Let’s take a look at an example:

Gabrielle surveyed the feast spread on her table. If this wasn’t enough for food for everyone who was coming, she was in big trouble. The doorbell rang, and she hurried to answer it. In walked her cousin Bill and his wife Tootsie, their three adorable children Annamarie, Hank, and Bill, Jr. Gabrielle barely had time to greet them before the doorbell rang again and she opened the door to welcome Ella—her cousin twice removed (or was it three times?). Then came Uncle Mutt and Aunt Kitty, her best friends Jeri and Mae and their husbands Andrew and Mike. And that was only the first half of the guests!

This paragraph has introduced us to the unlucky number of thirteen characters. How many of them of are readers likely to remember? A few paragraphs later, no one’s going to remember if Jeri is a twice-removed cousin or a best friend. And yet all these characters seem vital to the story. They must be introduced. So what’s a writer to do?

You have a couple options.

Reevaluate your characters’ necessity. Do you really need all thirteen characters? Before you write one more jot, tittle, or tilde, stop and evaluate your characters. Is there any chance you could combine two or more of these characters to tighten up your cast and streamline your story? Maybe Jeri and Mae, the two best friends, could be combined into one person, and, to further simplify matters, maybe this best friend is single, eliminating the need for a husband. Maybe cousin Bill and his wife have only one adorable child instead of three.

Spread the introductions over multiple scenes. Once you’ve got your cast stripped down to optimum fighting weight, evaluate the scene itself. Do all these characters really need to be introduced in this one scene? Could you spread them out over several different scenes to give readers a chance to process each character? Perhaps only cousins Bill and Ella attend Gabrielle’s dinner. Best friend Jeri-Mae can come over after the party to help Gabrielle clean up.

Space the introductions throughout one scene. If you’ve determined all your characters absolutely must be introduced in this one scene, at least space out their introductions over the course of the scene. Instead of an onslaught at Gabrielle’s door, let the guests trickle in throughout the evening so Gabrielle has a chance to exchange a little dialogue with each guest—thus helping to anchor the characters in the reader’s mind—before moving on to the next one.

Make each character memorable. Finally, the single most important thing you can do to make characters stick in your reader’s mind—no matter how quickly you introduce them—is to make them memorable. Instead of just rattling off the guest list as they barge into Gabrielle’s house, give each character a memorable trait, action, or line of dialogue to help him stick in the reader’s memory. Maybe Tootsie has dyed her hair crimson, maybe Ella is in tears, maybe Bill, Jr., barges in with the cat dangling by its tail, maybe Uncle Mutt is drunk. Whatever the case, keep in mind that the only characters who belong in your story are the ones worth remembering—so make their entrances unforgettable.

***

This is the tenth post in the Most Common Mistakes Series, inspired by the prevalent slip-ups I run across in editing other people’s work. Don’t worry: I don’t use any names or specific examples from my clients’ stories. I hope the series will prove helpful to you in nabbing these mistakes in your own work—before an agent or editor nabs them for you.

Tell me your opinion: How many characters do you introduce in your first scene?

Related Posts: Help Readers Keep Your Characters Straight

Introduce Important POVs as Soon as Possible

The Benefits of a Clueless Character
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Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Wordplay podcast in iTunes).

Winners Announced!

2011-09-30T13:19:00.000-06:00

First, I want to take a moment to thank you all for your support and enthusiasm for Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success. Thank you for making the launch a success! The book would never have reached #1 in the Writing Skills category in the Kindle store without you. I’ve already been thrilled to hear people are digging into the book and discovering the transformative power of outlines. It’s my hope that the information in the book will encourage you to refine your writing process and inspire you in the crafting of many stories to come! Here’s to Wordplayers everywhere!

And now the news you’ve all been waiting for!

Winner #3: The winner of her choice of a poster from PosterText is Lillian Kendall.

Winner #2: The winner of the writing craft book bundle is Finn Jackson.

Winner #3: The winner of the Kindle is Shelli Proffitt Howells.

Congratulations to all the winners and a huge thank you to everyone who participated!

Dream a Little Dream—But Not in Your Fiction

2011-09-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

This week’s video digs into the reasons why dream sequences are almost always a bad choice for your stories. Don't forget that the Grand Prize Giveaway, celebrating the launch of Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, is still underway. Enter for a chance to win a Kindle, over $100 in writing craft books, and a book-themed poster from PosterText!

Video Transcription: By now it’s common knowledge that agents and editors hate seeing stories that begin with dream sequences. A story opening that features a dream is a story opening that almost always fails to present a strong hook, character, setting, conflict, or frame. There are certainly exceptions to this rule, but you’re wisest move is generally to cut the dream and find a stronger opening. So what about including dreams later on in the story? Does the same aversion apply there as well? In a word—or two—that depends.

Occasionally, dreams can be used to set the tone, introduce symbolism, or offer a laugh. But successful dreams are rarely longer than a paragraph. In fact, a short sentence—such as, for example, “Andre woke from another dream of bats and rainbows”—is probably your safest bet. Otherwise, you risk confusing, boring, and distancing readers. I recently read a literary novel that included a dream sequence that spanned thirty pages. The author did a good job crafting the dream to feel like a dream, and for that he should be commended. But the downside of this is that real dreams are rambling, incoherent, and pointless—a combination few readers will appreciate.

Every now and then, my favorite television shows will include an episode that is entirely a dream sequence. These episodes are invariably some of my least favorites, not only because their bizarre tone doesn’t fit the rest of the show, but because their storylines add nothing that builds upon either the show’s general plot or the characters’ growth. If you feel you need to include a dream in your story, stop and ask yourself if this scene is absolutely necessary to the story, if it’s clear, if it contains conflict or tension, and if it advances character growth. If the answer to any of these is no, you’d probably be wise to trim the dream to a sentence or two—or delete it entirely.

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever decided to include a dream sequence in one of your stories? Why or why not?

Related Posts: Is Nothin' Happening in Your Scene?

Top 7 Reasons Readers Stop Reading

Skip the Boring Parts

Win a Kindle and over $100 in writing craft books!

2011-09-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

The big day is here! Welcome to the official launch of Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success.

You can purchase the book in paperback, Kindle , or Nook formats (or all three!).

I need your help to ensure the book has a successful launch week, so please join the party! I’m celebrating all this week with daily giveaways, culminating in our three-tiered Grand Prize giveaway, worth over $400!

Grand Prizes

Prize A: A Kindle. Value: $114

Prize B: A whopping bundle of writing craft books donated and signed by some of the industry’s best authors. Value: $100

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks (visit his site).
The Indie Author Guide by April Hamilton (visit her site).
The Frugal Editor by Carolyn Howard-Johnson (visit her site).
The Writer’s Guide to Psychology by Carolyn Kaufman (visit her site).
The Writing and Critique Group Survival Guide by Becky Levine (visit her site).
The Art and Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner's Manual (Kindle edition) by Victoria Mixon (visit her site).
Nail Your Novel by Roz Morris (visit her site).
Fear of Writing by Milli Thornton (visit her site).
The Rewritten Word by Aggie Villanueva + the winner’s choice of any of Aggie’s e-books (visit her site).
Your Path to Publication by Kim Wright (visit her site).

Prize C: Poster of winner’s choice donated by the fabulous PosterText. These unique posters feature a scene from your favorite book constructed from the text of the book. Be sure to drop by their site to browse their wonderful selection. Value: $35.

Bonus—Hourly Prize Today Only: Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration Mp3. Value: $8.99.

From 6 AM to 11 PM, I’ll be drawing a winner every hour for my 60-minute audio presentation Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration. Winning this prize does not exclude you from the Grand Prize drawing on Friday, but the sooner you enter this one, the better your chances of winning! Check back throughout the day to discover hourly winners, listed below:

6 AM: Dean Brockhausen
7 AM: Susan Holloway
8 AM: M Lynch
9 AM: Emily Casey
10 AM: Chris Olinger
11 AM: Christie Rich
12 PM: Stacy Curtis
1 PM: Lillian Kendall
2 PM: Shannon O'Donnell
3 PM: Jan Cline
4 PM: Patricia Maxwell
5 PM: Laura Packer
6 PM: Laura Andrews
7 PM: Deborah Eaton
8 PM: Harold W. Wesley
9 PM: Nicole Amsler
10 PM: Beverly Rearick
11 PM: Crystal Shih

Rules
The contest will run all week, and you can do several things to earn contest points and increase your chances of winning. For every contest point earned, your name will be entered once more into the pool (e.g., if you’ve earned 18 points, you have 18 chances of winning).

You can win points by:

1. Buying a book early in the week. I’m trying to create a surge of sales to boost the book in Amazon’s ratings, so I’d like to encourage people to purchase as soon as possible.
Buy a book on Monday = 5 points
  Buy a book on Tuesday = 4 points
  Buy a book on Wednesday = 3 points
  Buy a book on Thursday = 2 points
  Buy a book on Friday = 1 point

2. Buy more than one book! You get one extra point for each additional book you buy.
  Buy additional books = 1 extra point per book

3. Tweet the following message each day of the week. Duplicate posts per day will be counted as one post.

  Tweet about the book = 1 point per day, possible 5 points over the course of the week

4. Share this post on Facebook. Be sure to tag me (@K.M. Weiland), so I can find and count your posts. You'll need to "like" my page in order to tag me. Duplicate posts per day will be counted as one post.
  Share on Facebook = 1 point per day, possible 5 points over the course of the week

5. Mention the contest and the book on your blog. Be sure to email me the link, so I can give you credit.
  Blog post = 3 points

Note: Because of shipping costs, I’m sorry to say the contest will be limited only to U.S. citizens. My apologies to all my international readers!

Winners will be announced Friday, September 30th.

Good luck to everyone in the drawing, have fun, and thank you for helping me celebrate the launch of Outlining Your Novel!