WHAT NO-ONE TELLS YOU

Anyone can write. I don’t care if you have a low grade ability for English (or whatever language you speak), or if you’re dyslexic, or have a master’s degree in writing, all it takes to be a writer is imagination. The rest comes with time, patience and practice.

Not everyone can write successfully.

It’s a lonely profession. As much as there are writers forums and groups and we join and share our progress (or lack of) and discuss all manner of writery things, when it comes down to it, when we’re sat staring at a blank page or screen, the author is alone. Doubt creeps in through the little cracks in the corners. You can get to the end of a three hundred page epic and think, “boy, what a crock of shit and waste of time.”

You spend half your time with a crippling fear of failure and the other half worrying about success.  On occasion, when you’re not stressing over these things, you manage to drop a few words in. Writing is hard work. There are days when all the plotting you’ve done falls to pieces. When you realise you’ve got a gaping great hole in the middle - DESPAIR! There are times when you want your character to do something or go somewhere but you can’t seem to make it happen naturally – DISASTER! There are times when you realise the whole section you’ve spent ages writing needs to be cut completely taking your word count back to where you were three weeks ago – WHY DON’T I JUST QUIT NOW?

Writing is torture. It’s a horrid experience from start to finish with the occasional nice bit in the middle where everything goes right. It does very little for your self-esteem and while we spend hours daydreaming about being the next JK Rowling or Stephen King, the reality of our situation is dreadful. There are too many of us flooding the world, writing our hearts out. No matter how good you are, there will be many more who are better and even they struggle to make a success of it.

Why then, do we subject ourselves to it over and over? Are all authors would-be masochists? Possibly. Do we enjoy the suffering of the process? Not really. But you know what’s worse? Not writing.

I can’t not write. It’s like a drug. There are words inside my brain scratching to get out and if I don’t write them down then I feel sick. That doesn’t mean I write all the time, no matter how much I want to, there are times where I can’t write a thing. Those are the really bad times, when you want to write but for whatever reason, you just can’t. Writing impotence. Not fun. Writing hurts, but not writing is worse.

Blood sweat and tears are our bread and water. No-one tells you that. After all, who would dare admit to such pain and anguish?

MISTER CID MENDLE

Everybody knows that one guy. The guy who views the world in the negative, that anything and everything existing outside of his self-imposed bubble is bad. The guy who swears at least once in every sentence. He knows what he’s good at, and he doesn’t care about all the other shit that doesn’t interest him. He’s grumpy, moody, opinionated, and a little bit lonely. Take him outside of his comfort zone and you’ll know about it, because he will verbalise all that negativity (probably in the form of a string of expletives).

I know that guy. I know him very well, because I am that guy (all right, I’m a girl, let’s not get fussy over genderisms here, okay?). I swear far too much, have strong opinions, and don’t mind expressing them. I often view the unknown in the negative. I am a thirty-three-year-old, female, grumpy old man.

In ‘The Machine’ and the series of books that will follow, that guy is Cid Mendle. He has spent his adult life cooped up in a laboratory, working. He’s a highly logical engineer with no time or need for adventures or romance or anything of that sort. Why then, would you want to have such a negative force along on an adventure? Because he is so much more than that. Where, on the one hand, he is “stuck in his ways”, he is also dependable. He is secretive and selective in whom he trusts, but loyal to a fault; once he’s on your side, you have a friend for life. He is the perfect counter-balance to Larissa, who is a dreamer and seeks out the positives in every situation. Cid wastes no time in giving her a verbal smack back to reality.

Cid is one of my favourite characters to write, probably because I know him so well. His dialogue comes so naturally. I can’t say I look anything like him, because I’m short and chubby, whereas he’s tall and spindly. I’m also not a super intelligent engineer (unless you sit me in front of an excel spreadsheet and then I can make magic). Cid is funny and charming in his own way, and without him, the book would be missing something special.

Plus he hates cats…

You can meet Cid, Larissa, and their other companions when The Machine is released on November 1st.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

Hollywood has sold us a dream. Ever noticed how almost all the movies that come out have a rather formulaic plot? There’s the conflict, the characters, the love sub-plot, the bad guy who adds to the conflict, the build-up of tension, the near-fatal moment where we think all is lost AND THEN it all resolves nicely just before the credits roll. Even if a few beloved characters are killed along the way, even if half the world is destroyed, even if the original goal was not achieved, somehow it gets turned around and the audience is left feeling all warm and fuzzy as if all is right in the world.

Now, I know there are examples where the formula is switched up and turned on its head. I know there are prime examples of unhappy endings, but the vast majority still follow this formula to this day. Consider, then, do books do the same?

I believe (generally speaking) that they do, and there is a very good reason for it. We engage in hobbies like reading and watching movies to immerse ourselves in a fantasy world. We want horror movies to frighten us, while in reality we sit comfortably with popcorn in our laps. We want a romance to make us feel all smooshy inside even if we’re lonely in real life. What we don’t want is to invest time and money in something that leaves us feeling confused and/or depressed at the end of the story. We want to leave the characters behind with a smile on our faces as we slowly return to reality and waddle off to our real lives in a daze.

Consider this when you’re writing your story. You don’t have to have a happy ending, but what happens in the end will be the last moment your readers experience in the world you’ve created, so make sure it’s meaningful and worthwhile, give your readers something to remember and send them away feeling fulfilled and gratified. You can do this, even with a sad ending if you put enough care into it.

Write on!

ONE AT A TIME

How many books are you writing? I mean right now, this minute, is it one? Two maybe?  I’ll bet (presuming you’re a writer of course) the number of stories that you currently have on the go is larger than you really think.

When people ask me, “What are you working on right now?”, I’ll say I’m writing book three of my series. It’s true that book is my main focus right now, but I also have a partially written erotica that I intend to work on when book three is done, a very early conceptual YA fantasy story (I have to be careful not to get mixed up when writing the YA and erotica stories at the same time, may get me into trouble). There is also a collaborative work that I’m 50% responsible for, I’m a few thousand words into a sci-fi space opera story, and several other short stories that get popped in between. When you consider that I’ve only just finished with the edit stage of book one and I’m also working with the publisher on the beginning edit stages of book two, I’m actually working on a whole bunch of stories all at once. If I count them all up that’s seven full length novels on the go.

Impressive? Unlikely. If you ask a writer to sit down and think about what they are working on I’ll bet the number of stories is higher than they first think. Ok, so I’m not actively writing bits on every story on a daily basis, but I do shift between them so it counts.

To any non-writers this might seem like a crazy prospect. How can you keep track? How can you be certain you won’t mix up worlds or characters? How do you stay sane? The answer? We just do. Writers have an uncanny ability to inhabit more than one space at the same time. Here we are sitting in reality whilst our minds are far away somewhere else with exciting things going on. That doesn’t make us detached from reality (apart from the odd occasion when we’re so engrossed that we probably wouldn’t notice if a nuclear explosion went off out the window.) We can flick from our fantasy world inside, to the fact that the cat just threw up on the carpet – go deal with the throw up and then flick straight back to another space and time without giving it a second thought.

It’s no surprise then, that we can complete this odd feat across numerous worlds, between a variety of characters and events without getting our knickers in a twist. It’s part and parcel of the skill of writing, and when you really think about it, it’s an amazing thing.

Write on.!

FROM FIRST DRAFT TO PUBLICATION

So, my first book is one month away from publication. One month. I started writing the book in January 2015. To go from scratch to publication (with an actual proper publisher I might add) in less than twelve months for a previously unpublished author is not bad going in my book (pun intended). Add to that the fact that book two is complete and I’m a third through book three with contracts in hand for the whole bloody trilogy you could say I’m quite chuffed about the whole thing.

Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand the level of authority I’m about to apply. I’m no expert. I’m a newbie, a beginner, green as can be, but I’d like to share with you my thoughts on just how much stuff goes on after the first draft is completed before a book is actually presented to the world for sale.

EDITING

Everyone has heard of it. Most writers have had some experience of it in some way or another. I wasn’t totally uninitiated in the world of editing, but I really had no idea just HOW MUCH editing went on. I’ve been told that as first drafts go, mine was fairly clean. Overall the structure didn’t change much so the majority of edits were grammatical, but it took AGES. Round after round, every word every comma, every sentence, paragraph, everything was read over and over and fiddled with until it was as perfect as could be. It took MONTHS – and it’s probably still not 100% perfect.

COVER

The cover design concept was mulled over, the artist chosen, the first sketch, the second sketch, tweaks here and there, on and on. I was lucky enough that the publisher had a physical painted version of my cover made up, it gives it a unique feel in comparison to the digitally designed covers that are the fashion these days. Again, it took MONTHS.

FORMATTING

I use Microsoft word. I thought I was fairly good on formatting. Turns out that wasn’t the case. The words have been jumbled up and rearranged on the page so many times. Add the fact that ebook and print formats are both very different kettles of fish and you get the idea, it’s a lot of work, and every major change means another full read-through of the entire book.

OUTLETS

There are so many places that sell books these days. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, istore – the list goes on and on, and you need to add the book to each of them and set up an author profile and link it to the book every time. Whilst I certainly had help in doing the profiles, it was something that I hadn’t even considered doing all those months ago when I was happily plugging away at my first draft thinking that once it was done, all the hard work would be over. How wrong was I?

Of course, I’m lucky, most of this work has been done for me by the publisher and my involvement after the editing stage has been limited. It’s still been exhausting and stressful and very educational. I will never again underestimate the work that goes into a book after the writer has finished the first draft.

Best of luck to any other writers out there who are trying to jump onto the wagon, it’s a hell of a ride.

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP

Hey writers, ever wonder if what you’re writing is just too out there? Ever read over your work and think, hang on, this epic fantasy involving an alien invasion on a middle earth style planet that includes a romance between a female ‘blob’ alien and a bald elf/orc half breed with webbed feet is just too much? Ok, perhaps that example was a little too much, but if written well, you would draw the reader in to such a complex world gently and introduce the crazy ass concepts so they wouldn’t even seem that crazy by the time they occurred. 

What is interesting is that reality is often far weirder than fiction.

Today’s news stories include over 700 Muslims who perished in a stampede at Mecca whilst they were on a part of their pilgrimage to throw stones at pillars that represent the devil... I’m sincerely sad for the loss of life in this distressingly tragic case, if ever there was an example of meaningless deaths on a large scale, there you have it.  The very next news story that flashed up on my screen was the fact that notoriously anti-gay Russian leader Vladimir Putin has offered to meet the notoriously homosexual Elton John to discuss gay rights. This occurred after pranksters tricked Sir Elton into thinking that Putin wanted to talk to him, and now, somehow Putin does actually want to talk to him. Finally, the Pope has praised capitalism...

The world is a crazy place filled with amazing, unusual, tragic, unexpected and astonishing occurrences on a daily basis.  If I’d have written the news stories above into a book as having occurred all on the same day, it would have appeared unbelievable. In fiction, we often like our big story events delivered to us at a reasonable pace, not all lumped together in one massive section where the characters have no time to react and reflect and the reader can’t process it all at once. But in reality, drama is sporadic, we can go for months with nothing happening and then get a massive glut of shock and awe on the global stage.

It’s something to think about, next time you worry that you’re stepping beyond the realms of believability, sometimes a whole bunch of crazy shit really does happen all at once, don’t be afraid to write it that way.

Write on!

WORD SPIN

Have you ever noticed how supposedly impartial news articles are utterly biased? I don’t read newspapers, haven’t done for years. They are generally filled with hateful opinion pieces that contain very little actual news. I occasionally catch up on what’s going on in the outside world by glancing at the BBC, but even they have their fair share of agenda pushing claptrap.

You know the one that really gets to me? When they say ‘Government U-turn on issue X’. It’s sensationalism at its best. If you look at it from a sensible point of view, what they are saying is, the Government originally had idea X, they looked into it and decided that it was not feasible nor cost effective in reality and therefore no longer wish to pursue it. That is how I would expect the Government to act. To blindly push on with your ideas without regard to their usefulness nor effect on others is how dictatorships are born. However a headline of ‘Government acts in a reasonable manner on issue X’ won’t make sales.

This use of language to twist how an idea is presented is utterly relevant to writers. The way we tell the story directly reflects our opinion of it and is how we try to guide our readers opinion. If we were to write in an entirely impartial and unbiased manner the work would read as though it were written by a robot. I think it’s important to consider the meaning between the lines of your work and how it presents to others. This way you know who you are likely to attract as a reader (i.e. someone of like mind to you) and who you are likely to repel.

Let’s say you have a character of ‘loose virtue’ in your book, if you consistently refer to him/her with negative language or even if you use your other characters to place that negativity onto that character for you, then that is the opinion you are trying to push onto the reader. Consider:

“Aaron is a complete slut, the first thing he does in the morning is trim his man bush to look tidy for whichever female he’s going to boink in the evening”

vs

“Aaron is a free spirit, he loves all kinds of women... frequently”

The difference is subtle but the resulting spin is markedly altered.

So be careful what language you use in your work, it speaks volumes about you the writer, and your characters position on certain subjects and will ultimately project onto the reader in one way or another.

Write on!

HOW A-MUSE-ING

Let me tell you about a ... uhh ... friend of mine. She was sitting on the toilet, minding her own business, doing her... business, when someone stuck their head around the door and started screaming really important information at her. I...she... had never got off the toilet, flushed, washed her hands and run back to her computer so fast in all her life.

That, dear reader, was an attack of the muse. To non-writers, the concept of a muse must seem like a bizarre imaginary friend that creative types carry around with them. I suppose that’s true in a way. Let me tell you though, that friend, is temperamental at best, often shows up at inconvenient times (see above) and if you throw them a party - put everything in place just the way they like it and dress yourself up all pretty, you’ll be disappointed to find they don’t turn up.

There is a reason my muse popped up whilst I was ‘otherwise indisposed’. I believe that inspiration sits on a very fine edge between the conscious and subconscious. During those moments when you are awake but not really paying attention to anything, you’re just functioning at a base level of awareness, running on auto-pilot, and your mind regresses into some hidden cave full of treasures. The vast majority of my plot and character revelations occur whilst I’m in the shower. Something about the white noise of the water, the soothing feel of getting clean and the utter bliss of warm water sends my mind into writer mode. My poor husband is learning not to speak to me until after I get out the shower and sit down at the laptop to frantically type up the shit I’ve just thought of. I get irrationally mad at him if he distracts me; it’s as if being brought back into the real world will cause me to forget something important in my imaginary world. Actually it’s not irrational to get mad, because that does happen. I’ll wager most writers have had that moment when they wake up in the middle of the night with some amazing revelation of story that they simply needed to act on and write down.

The trick is to try and replicate that state of mind during the times when you are sat with the document open – or pen in hand – ready to write. No easy task, granted. How to achieve that will vary from person to person. I like to listen to some calming instrumental music and zone out. It also helps to take a long walk or just sit quietly for a time with a blank mind.

The muse is a fickle creature, but when he/she wants to play it feels like you’re opening the best present ever on your birthday. Best of all, it’s free.

Write on.

WHAT'S MISSING

I’ve read a good number of books. Some are fine, some are awful, a rare few are brilliant. I’ve taken a lot of time to think about what things make a book “good”. Of course it’s an entirely subjective issue as no two people appreciate the same things in the same ways. I adore Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, I know other people who just can’t see the appeal of them. So it’s difficult to pin down the exact elements that make a good story when readers have such a diverse range of likes and dislikes.

However, there are a few things that need to be right to take almost any book from blah to wow, I’ve already discussed the first and I believe, most important thing in previous blog posts – character. Another, equally important issue that is inextricably linked to character is emotion. I’ve written a good number of stories over the years that had interesting plots and good dialogue, but … they were shit. It has taken me far too long to figure out why. Only through reading a number of stories and analysing what it was that made them a thrill to read, did I start to notice what I was missing. Emotion.

Before you roll your eyes at me and say ‘oh here comes some rubbish about how every book needs a romantic subplot’ that is not what I’m talking about. We humans are emotional creatures. Emotions even exist in other species in ways that are observable and probably more complex than we can comprehend. Human beings live on an emotional level from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep – and even during sleep through our dreams. The most level-headed and detached people in this world are often the hardest to understand or make for the most terrifying people that exist.

As a reader we are actively (though not often consciously) seeking to empathise with the characters in a story and you can only do that if the author shows you how the characters feel through their experiences. Note I said ‘show’ not ‘tell’ this is a classic case of the old adage. I could write ‘Bob felt a bit peeved as Jill spoke’ which falls flat, or I could write ‘The sound of Jill’s voice was drowned out by the sound of Bob’s teeth grinding together’ – this is a rather unsubtle example, it could still be improved, but you get the point.

I often get hung up in the plot and the flow of the story and I have to go back and edit in the character emotions afterwards and only then does the story start to become something much more than just a bunch of people going through the motions.

So the moral is, your characters think and feel everything that is happening to them, don’t deprive your readers of those inner thoughts and experiences. Show the emotion.

Happy writing.

GENRE

Today I want to talk about genre. Traditionally there was a strict line for which 'box' a fiction novel sat in. Romance, Crime, Sci-Fi, Childrens, YA and so on. These days there is a myriad of sub-genre's, such as Steampunk or Gothic. If you look it up the list is almost endless.

When I started writing The Machine, it was based on a writing prompt within a Steampunk writers forum. Ergo, the setting was supposed to be 'Steampunk'. I'd heard of the genre but wasn't overly familiar with it. In my research as the book and series grew I found all sorts of references to guide the uninitiated. What surprised me most is how Draconian some of the "rules" seem to be as to what is and what is not steampunk. It started to make me worry, if I've written a book that will fit into a certain genre, what will happen if it doesn't tick all of the boxes? Will people reject it, or write shitty reviews because of it? It takes a certain level of balls to stand up to these worries and say 'fuck it', but really that is the only thing you can do.

Whilst these concerns still skulk into my subconscious at times, I have to tell myself over and over that it doesn't matter. If someone has a preconceived notion of what a certain genre book should contain and is unable to accept anything that differentiates from their expectation, that is not the writers problem. The story is what it is. If the writer spends too much time trying to add elements to a story that make it fit into an ideal box, then they are at risk of diluting the story for the sake of an aesthetic. 

So what if your horror story doesn't include vampires and werewolves. So what if your romance story involves LGBT characters instead of the 'traditional' type. So what if you don't fit perfectly into that little box someone else has built. Fuck them. Build a new box. Be brave, dare to be different and screw the naysayers.

My soon-to-be-published book, The Machine, is a fantasy/adventure/action/mystery/romance story set in a steampunk world. It ticks a lot of boxes but none of them with a perfectly centered tick, more-like a childish squiggle that doesn't stay inside the lines of the box. And I'm perfectly fine with it that way.

Write on!

SIZE MATTERS

It’s interesting the differences you find in each writers voice. Naturally it comes down to language and how it is applied, but something that is glaringly different between authors is the level of detail used in writing.

I’ve discovered that I am not a detail writer. I cannot spend pages waxing lyrical about the scenery or describing a characters thought process down to the miniscule moment-by-moment experience. I also don’t enjoy reading those sort of stories. It may be that I’m a product of my generation, craving fast action and swift plot progress. Whatever the reason I’ve accepted this point as just a matter of style and just as I enjoy reading/writing plots that race along at lightning speed, I know there are others out there that enjoy it too. That is my target market. Not that there’s anything wrong with detailed stories at all, though I have repeatedly read that if something doesn’t add to the story then it should be cut. If the intricate pattern on the drapery is not significant to the plot, then why spend an age describing it in detail? Unless of course your character has a penchant for patterns and simply must stop and admire the drapes before moving on to other things.

The level of detail used in a story directly affects the overall length of the book. My book could have had double the word count without any change to the plot or the characters. The feel of the story would be very different if I were a detail writer. Instead I like to leave just enough for the reader to form an impression and then let them fill in the blanks themselves. That is precisely what I love to do when I read, let my imagination add in the parts the author has not described. Perhaps it’s the nature of my personality that I constantly imagine and create and build upon the picture that's presented. For every reader who likes to do this there will be a reader who prefers to have the entire thing laid out for them, so there is nothing wrong with either method.

There is just one thing writers must bear in mind, you can find all sorts of articles on the internet about how long a book should be, what sort of word count you should be aiming for depending on what genre you are writing. If you are looking to capture the interest of a traditional publisher then it is probably sound advice to follow, as I’ve heard some publishers (stupidly) reject work just on the basis of word count – Ouch. You may have written the masterpiece of the century but it doesn’t make it past the starting gate because you’re a few thousand words over or under the industry standard. It’s utter madness, in my opinion. Then again, when you consider how many submissions they receive on a daily basis, I suppose it’s no surprise they’ve come up with some arbitrary rules to cut through the bulk. So, if you’re a detail writer and you’ve knocked out a novel of 200k words or more, perhaps you need to give it a good edit before sending it off to publishers or perhaps consider cutting it into two books. If you are lighter on description and find your book is around the 50k or under mark you either need to add a lot of detail or consider marketing it as a novella.  If you are unwilling or unable to do either of those things then the answer is simple. Screw the traditional publishers, consider an indie house or self-publish. After all, a story is as long or short as it is.

Happy writing.

PROGRESS

As a writer I love to mark my progress. It seems a silly and almost juvenile thing to throw a parade for every thousand words written, but that is how I know I’m getting somewhere. When you hit that first thousand words it’s a magical thing, and every thousand word increase after that represents a step closer to a completed first draft.

Some writers might like to look at smaller goals, and feel a sense of achievement for one hundred words completed. Others might go for really big goals and throw up a cheer for every ten thousand words. Maybe some don’t look at their word count at all and just feel happy whenever they finish a certain chunk of writing. Whatever works for each person we all do it in some way.

As an accountant I’m obsessed with numbers… oooh look I just hit the one hundred word mark on this blog, nice. Anyway, as I was saying I crave the completion of small steps and sometimes I even chart progress on a spreadsheet (I have a spreadsheet fetish – odd I know). It helps to ground the work as well as showing you how and when your peak writing times occur.

If I were able to write full-time, I would be aiming to hit the big numbers on a daily basis, 10k is a good goal so I’ve read. I think the most I’ve ever managed in one day was around 8k, which is phenomenal. It helped that I had a really clear vision of that section of the book on that day. Other days it comes in fits and starts, but every day that the word count goes up represents progress in some measure.

I’m currently on track to complete 3… maybe even 4 novels in one year. Considering I’ve never manage to complete anything of significant length in the past 32 years, I’d say this represents some kind of turn-around.  I can only hope my determination holds out indefinitely, and if you’re a writer too then I hope you can achieve the same (if not more!)

Happy writing.

FREE-FLOW WRITING

It’s a great thing, to sit down and just let the story flow out of the ether. Some days you can use this approach and let the page (screen) fill up with oodles of good stuff. Other days you manage just one or two sentences then sit there staring at the page wondering why the muse gods are mocking you today. If you find the mocking days are usually more frequent than the good days, then you need to change your approach.

It might sound like a stupid thing to say, but before you sit down to write you have to know what you’re going to write. “I don’t plot!” I hear you cry. Ok, that’s fine, I’m not saying you have to know where your story is headed in fine detail, but if you want to get your daily word count up then you need to start the writing day with some basic goals in mind.

For example, you could simply want to move your character from A to B in the next few pages. Or have a pair of characters engage in a conversation that reveals something to one or both of them. Alternatively, you might want to introduce a new character or setting somehow. Whatever it is, when you start to write, start out with a goal in mind. Then - and only then - will you be able to actually knock out some words on the days when your muse is in hiding.

Relying on your muse to be at your side every day without fail to fill your mind with wonderful scenes and witty banter for your characters is a doomed tactic. Trick your mind into thinking that you’re free-flow writing with small goals.

Happy writing, get that word count up!

The Hump

A camel has one. I’m told I get it at least once a month. Some roads have them to slow people down. None of these are the subject matter for today’s post.

If you have ever sat down to write anything of length, then I’ll wager you’ve experienced ‘The Hump’. I am not talking about writers block, which I consider to be a different kettle of fish. Writers block happens when you don’t know what to write. ‘The Hump’ happens when you know damn well what you’re going to write, you just-can’t-do-it.

Call it apathy, call it laziness, call it Irene, call it whatever the hell you like. It exists. Sadly.

Can I give you an easy way to get around it? No.

Can I give you a painfully horrible way to get around it? Yes. Why is it painfully horrible? Because it involves sitting your backside down – UNPLUGGING from the internet – TURNING OFF the TV and mobile phone and any other distractions and just fucking writing.

If you scream “I don’t wanna” at this point, then ok. I’ll give you a small respite. If it’s that bad, there is nothing wrong with taking a break. A short break. Two days tops. Why? Any longer and the apathy will make a nest in your brain and start breeding baby apathy creatures with wings but they can’t fly. The Apathy Dodo. You don’t want those, no matter how cute they sound. So, go take a couple of days off and come back to me. I’ll be waiting…

You done? Good. Go back and do as you’re told and sit down, shut off from the world and start typing. New sentence.

“Character X woke up, the first order of the day - trying not to sneeze. He’d been sleeping so long and drunk so much Dodo juice the night before that his bladder was at bursting point. The little fleck of dust on his nose had just reached the top of his list of enemies.”

Do it.

Go wake up your characters. They’ve been sleeping too long and they won’t thank you for it. Once you climb over that awful hump, you’ll find the nice slidey part the other side (shush ‘slidey’ is totally a word).

Happy writing.

HUMAN SACRIFICE REQUIRED TO APPEASE THE APATHETIC MUSE →

https://rrpi.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/writing-series-character-focusing/

Dear writer

So you’ve been doing this writing thing for a while, maybe years. Yet you frequently find yourself stuck in the same place. You get halfway through your novel/novelette and you lose steam. Perhaps you can manage to finish a short story, but you struggle with anything longer. You tend to get lost in the plot or worse still you’re bored of your own work. Don’t fret if this sounds like you. It happens to us all.

You have a stack of unfinished projects. You’ve tried different methods, obsessive outlining v.s. go-with-the-flow. Your ideas are good, some of them are brilliant. So why then, are you so prone to apathy?

I can’t claim to have a cure for all your ills. I can’t offer a lifetime guarantee that the following suggestions will turn you into a prolific and successful writer. At least I’m not asking you for any money for my advice right? So here are my thoughts to help you through things:

#1 – Forget your plot – shift your attention

Characters should be the focus of your story

I could wrap this blog post up right here, but I guess that would be a little lazy.

Think about your favourite book(s) and then try to pinpoint what made that story stand out to you. I’d be willing to wager that the answer will be a certain character.That is what makes good stories memorable, above all else.

You can have a vibrant setting, intricate world building, and/or an elaborate plot, but none of those things will carry a story if you don’t put equal or greater effort into building your characters. The people in your story are what your readers relate to; we’ve all built interesting mental attachments to imaginary people. If you want to write a book that people love, or even just a story that you love yourself, then you need to focus on the people within your story.

#2 – Do the groundwork

Know your characters

Each character needs to be as unique as each person in real life.

Build a character biography for each person in your story. Start with the basics, hair colour, eye colour, name, age and so on. With minor characters you can stick to these points. For your bigger players try to include things such as; their biggest fear, their happiest memory, what they do when they’re nervous, their secret passion e.t.c.

Some of these things may never make it into your book, but what is important is that you know these people inside and out. Only then can you have a hope of writing them in a convincing manner.

I’m not saying you can forget about all the other elements. After all, Sherlock Holmes would be a very dull man if he didn’t have any interesting cases to highlight his brilliance as a character. You have to write interesting people with interesting skills and fascinating flaws, even ‘ordinary’ characters with no skills can react to an exciting adventure in an interesting way.

The minute you shift your focus, you’ll find yourself wanting to find out what happens to them, how they get out of tricky situations, who they fall in love with or anything else that you chose to throw at them through the journey. If you are interested, then your readers will be interested too.

#3 – Remain consistent

Character for sale – I forgot his name because he’s not important (may not actually be a ‘he’)

You’d be surprised at how easily you note one person having blue eyes in chapter three and by the time you get to chapter twenty they’ve ended up with brown eyes (unless of course you’re writing fantasy and a change in eye colour is part of the plot somehow – this would be allowed!) Or a similar mistake such as having a character mention that he can’t swim at the start of the story, then at the end you have him skilfully doing strokes up a raging river. You may miss it in the edits, but I promise your readers won’t and if you lose them on the details, then you’ll lose their interest.

This goes back to the idea of having a character bio for each person, but if you really can’t do that then you must be prepared to edit rigorously.

A fellow author told me he made the mistake of writing identical twins into his story with the names Terry and Kerry. It’s a wonderful idea, but awfully tricky in practice. He described his woes of reading through the first draft and finding that he got completely muddled up with the names and the traits of each brother and spent a lot of time and effort trying to unmuddle it in the editing.

So be straight on who each character is and what they can or can’t do and if something changes be sure to explain how or why that is.

#4 – Nobody’s perfect

Hero for hire – Can do anything and everything and never puts a foot wrong

There is no such thing as a perfect person.

If you’re going to tell me that your story involves a race of aliens who have evolved into a perfect set of people then good luck to you. I am going to tell you that they are boring.

Readers relate to character flaws more strongly than they do character skills. One of my favourite heroines has an amusing need to clean everything, bordering on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Did I just say a disorder was amusing? I meant no offense to anyone who suffers in real life. In literary form it is funny as the character leads a band of miscreants working outside of the law who invariably wind up living in dirty and unsanitary digs, meaning our leading lady spends an inordinate amount of time trying to clean up.

Your characters cannot be perfect. There must be a balance to make them interesting. Think of your own flaws. Perhaps you’re great in bed but terrible with romance (or vice versa). Maybe you can shoot the centre of a target whilst blindfolded, but you’re deathly afraid of spiders. What if you’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve accidentally clipped the corner of your car on that awkwardly placed wall at the end of your drive (who put that stupid wall there anyway?) Readers crave these little moments where characters show them their vulnerabilities. So don’t deprive them of that.

TL;DR

Synopsis: Put more effort into your characters than you currently do.

I hope some of these points will help you in your quest to finish writing a novel.

THE CHARACTER CREATION PROCESS

https://rrpi.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/writing-series/

Characters are the heart and soul of any story. I’ve said it before that greater effort should be put into characters than the consideration given to plot, setting and theme. What makes a story memorable and turns a writer from a daydreaming amateur into a skilled author is the ability to create people that readers relate to and care about. When a writer sits down to begin the process, the character(s) should come first.

Biography

I usually start with a character biography. I give the basics such as name, age, physical description and a list of skills. I keep a list of them for every character, even the minor ones so I can refer back to it whenever I need to. It helps for consistency and also it helps to ensure that each character is unique in some way.

Personality

Looks are not nearly as important as personality traits. There are only so many times you can mention that your character has blond hair and blue eyes and a distinguishing scar through her left nostril before the reader loses interest. I put effort into figuring out what my characters are good at and conversely, what they suck at. Also I like to think up quirks for each of them – the guy who talks to himself – the girl who blushes at everything – the one who can’t keep a secret, etc.

Voice

A character’s voice is important too, especially if you have lots of different characters. You need to be able to distinguish each of them during dialog. I suppose it takes a degree of imagination to ‘see’ and ‘hear’ the people inside your head, so I’m either lucky or completely crazy to have that level of connection to people in my story.

Relatability

I often read other books and try to analyse what captures my interest or not and take that knowledge into my own writing. We all hope to create characters who are as memorable and loved (or loathed) as the great writers among us have managed to do. By studying and analysing those stories, I’ve learned just how much thought and effort goes into the best characters and I try to match that level of determination in my own work.

The Arc

I find that the story and character development are a shared process. The character’s choices lead the story, and the story direction forces the character to make choices. Much like in real life, the two are mutually inclusive. Remember the old ‘chose your adventure’ books where you decide which path the character takes? That’s the approach I tend to take when I write, the outcome may or may not be set in my mind, but the characters chose the path that leads them there.