Exposition Done Right; or, I Saw What You Did There

Posted on February 6, 2011 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Just got back from seeing Tron: Legacy. Yes, I know. The movie’s only been out for what, two months now, and I’m finally getting around to seeing it. I don’t know why the studios think the holidays are such a great time to release their big-budget blockbusters, because I’m always too busy to go see them then.

So anyway, Tron: Legacy has one of the neatest examples of exposition in it that I’ve seen in a long time. In the beginning of the film, our young hero, Sam Flynn, has a run-in with the law. The next scene shows him walking out of the police station to the adjacent parking lot, which is labeled “Towing Impound Lot” (or something like that). He hands a slip of paper to the gate attendant, who greets him with, “Hiya, Sam.”

And with those two words, we know that this is not the first time Sam has needed to retrieve a vehicle from this particular impound lot; that in fact, his visits have been frequent enough for him to be on a first-name basis with the lot attendant, and that the attendant is not especially surprised to see him, but is in fact almost bored.

I was in awe. Not only was it a great example of exposition, but it was also “showing, not telling.” An author could easily spend a paragraph or two conveying the information contained in those two words.

I think it’s something all aspiring authors (and even some published ones) could stand to keep in mind.

Does anyone else have a good example of Exposition Done Right?

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Too Much Of A Good Thing; or, Writing vs Overwriting

Posted on January 28, 2011 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

As apprentice writers, we’re told that we need to make every sentence sing. We should choose our words carefully so that each can have maximum impact, making every verb and noun count. We should avoid passive verbs and colorless language at all costs.

But sometimes, I think it’s possible to try too hard, to veer to the opposite end of the spectrum, so that rather than neat, concise prose, you end up with paragraphs that are working a little too hard to achieve the desired effect.

This week I picked up “How To Wash A Cat,” by Rebecca Hale. The cover blurb sounded promising–first in a new mystery series, set in an antique shop in San Francisco, and of course, there are cats. Great recipe for a cozy mystery, in my book.

And so far, the story has entertained me, but every once in a while, a paragraph jumps out at me. Like this one:

I drug myself up the polished front steps of a high-rise office building and squeezed into a crowded elevator. My empty stomach lurched as the stifling cube zoomed skyward, finally pausing to hover at the 39th floor. My head woozing, I stepped gratefully out into the refrigerated air of an expansive lobby. A wall of windows spanned the left side of the room, framing an opulent view of the bay.

Now, as paragraphs go, it’s not the worst one I’ve ever read. The sentences are all active, and the language is colorful.

But in many ways, it also reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of Victorian front parlours. I’m sure you’ve seen them: rooms where every surface that can have a fussy little doily, does. Only in this case, the surfaces are nouns, and the doilies are adjectives. So we end up with “polished steps” and “stifling cubes” and “refrigerated air”.

Then, too, our POV character cannot seem to ever just walk anywhere. She drags, she squeezes, she hovers, and she lurches. I’m not sure I even want to think about the woozing.

Is it overwritten? I think it is, but then I’ve been trying to pare down paragraphs that started out far wordier than this one, so at the moment, my mind is more disposed to see words that can be removed rather than ones that could be added. Though too much of that isn’t necessarily a good thing, either; taking out too many words would rob the author, and her character, of their “voice.”

I guess the difference, in my mind, is between prose that sings versus prose that tap dances while wearing a costume covered in spangles and sequins, using all of the trickiest, most difficult steps, and ending in a grand flourish. Both can be entertaining. Which one is “better” depends very much on the tastes of the reader. Apparently, there were enough people who liked this book to put it on the New York Times bestseller list.

Will I finish reading the book? Probably. The story is an entertaining one so far, and lurching stomachs and stifling cubes aside, the author has a knack for a witty turn of phrase. Whether or not I pick up the sequel has yet to be resolved, however.

Have you ever encountered prose you felt was overwritten? What, in your opinion, are the symptoms of overwriting? Is it necessarily a bad thing?

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Doing The Splits; or Maybe You’re Not Writing One Book, But Two

Posted on January 22, 2011 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

I have a confession to make.

I’ve really been struggling with my current WIP, the second book of the “Daughters of August Winterbourne” series. It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying writing the story, because I was. But before I’d started, I’d put together a rough outline of things I thought ought to happen in the book. And after three months and almost 90,000 words, I was only about a third of the way through my outline. Which meant that the finished product was headed for…way too long.

Sigh.

On top of which, at about 75,000 words, one of my characters did something unexpected but perfectly logical. But it was also something that was sure to add a good 20,000 to the word count.

That was when work on the piece slowed to a crawl. Inner Editor was making loud growly noises and refused to shut up about it. “Why are you writing this scene? You’ll just have to cut it out later anyway,” she kept saying.

Then, one night earlier this week, as I was driving home from work, I was pondering the new developments in the plot, and trying to figure out what I could cut out and still have the story make sense. And I realized that the new plot twist I had added had changed the dynamic of the story, creating an arc that could be resolved nicely at a point about halfway through the outline I had originally laid out. And that what was left after that would make a nice story on its own.

In other words, the story had just neatly divided itself in half. And when I looked at the plot arc for each was much neater, cleaner, and more interesting, and allowed for some development of key characters and their relationships.

Well, then. My neat, tidy trilogy just grew into a four book series. I suppose worse things have happened.

(Note that I felt somewhat better about this revelation when, at a convention this weekend, a published author admitted to having had the same thing happen to her.)

So how do other people to tell what makes a book a good complete story?

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Shine A Little Love; or, Secondary Characters Need Attention, Too!

Posted on January 17, 2011 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Sorry for the late posting this week. I’ve been fighting off a cold. Still not sure whether I’m winning or losing, but that’s beside the point.

This week, I want to blather on for a bit about secondary characters. You know, those characters in your story who need to be there to make things work — the sidekicks, the younger sisters, the best friends, all those characters who help us reveal plot and give our main characters someone to talk to besides each other (and themselves) all the time.

Secondary characters don’t generally get as much attention as the main characters, for obvious reasons — if they did, they’d be main characters, right? But it’s still important to flesh them out enough to make them real, so that it makes sense for your main characters to interact with them.

So since they don’t get as much screen time, so to speak, it’s even more important that the time they do get really counts. Some things I’ve found that help are:

1) Keep descriptions concise. You don’t need to describe every last freckle on your MC’s best friend’s nose, but it might be nice to know that she has freckles. And a nose, for that matter.

2) Stereotypes = cardboard characters = boring. While it might be tempting to paint the county sheriff who just pulled your hero over in Dukes of Hazzard colors…hasn’t that been done to death? Why not try something a little unusual? Give him an Aussie accent, or make her look like she’s seventeen — with a steel core.

3) Give them a little backstory — even if it’s just in your notes. The orphan your heroine just pulled out of the rubble of a building after an earthquake might look like an ordinary twelve year old — but what if he has a slide rule collection, plays the theremin, and took first at last year’s county science fair? All of a sudden, he’s a different kid, right? Which is not to say that you should be quite that extreme, but give the reader a mental tag to attach to the character, so that when he shows up again later, they can think, “Oh, right, Theremin Kid, I remember him!”

4) Have a clear vision of who the character is and what they’re doing in your story. Dad’s new wife might come on like a wicked stepmother at first, but what if there’s more to her than that? What if she turns out to be the one person who can help the MC solve the mystery? Or what if she’s really a spy? Keep these things in mind whenever this character is “on screen,” so you can keep the character consistent.

But, you ask, how do you keep track of all of these things? Well, for every story I write, I start an Excel spreadsheet with columns for the character’s name, age, hair and eye colors, distinguishing features, and a brief history. In my current WIP, which takes place on a college campus, I added extra columns showing everyone’s major and what year they’re in (if they’re students). You still probably won’t catch everything on your first draft, but as you edit, go back and revisit these notes to remind yourself what you planned to do with this character, and check to see whether all of his/her actions still fit.

What are some other tricks and tips people have for working with secondary characters?

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Dear Mr. Bowdler; or Cleaning Up Huck Finn

Posted on January 8, 2011 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week, you’ve probably heard that there’s a new edition of “Huckleberry Finn” being published that has been “sanitized for your protection.” Most notably, the “N-word” has been replaced with the word, “slave” (though there are supposed to be some other changes as well.)

The more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. I couldn’t figure out why, until I looked at it from a writer’s perspective.

“Huckleberry Finn” is written from a first-person perspective of the title character. In other words, this is the world as Huck Finn sees it, and the only way we get to know Huck himself is through his “voice”. The words he chooses tell us volumes about his background, his social class, his level of education, and his age. By changing his vocabulary to words that are supposedly less demeaning and offensive, the publishers are changing the voice, and therefore his character.

As an author (even an unpublished one), I hate the thought that someone could do something similar to my stories once I’m no longer around to defend them. An author puts a great deal of effort into creating the most subtle of nuances for their characters. Changing a character’s voice would be like touching up the Mona Lisa with neon-paints, because those old-fashioned color schemes, while true to their day, are too dark for modern audiences.

It’s not a new problem, of course. In the early 1800’s, Thomas Bowdler decided that Shakespeare was too racy and improper for his wife and children to read aloud — heavens forfend that passages such as, “Out, damned spot!” be uttered by a lady of refinement. So he published an edition that met his moral standards. It met with the approval of many morally-inclined people in its day, but was Lady Macbeth ever the same afterwards?

My other concern is that, having decided to make these changes to Huckleberry Finn, what work of literature will the sanitizers decide to go after next? Certainly there are a lot of works from the past that do not measure up to today’s standards of political correctness, and not even always the ones you’d suspect. But where do we draw the line?

Case in point: One of my favorite authors is Gene Stratton-Porter, an early-twentieth-century author whose books usually combine a strong love of nature with elements of romance and coming of age. They’re sweet and uplifting and generally wholesome reading. Except for “Her Father’s Daughter“–which combines these same elements with a large helping of anti-Japanese paranoia! (The link takes you to a free Kindle download on Amazon.com) I’d like to think that we’re more enlightened about such things now. But does that mean that the anti-Japanese parts of the novel should be excised so as to avoid contaminating young minds? Or should they, like the racist terms used in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” be allowed to remain so that we can study them, learn from them, and try not to repeat our mistakes?

And what of contemporary novels and works of literature? Many books today contain language that some consider offensive. Should it be cleaned up so that those who don’t wish to read those sorts of words don’t have to, or would it change the stories so as to make them unrecognizeable? To use another metaphor, what if you cleaned all of the swear words and potentially offensive content out of a Kevin Smith film. Would there be anything left?

I guess when presented with questions such as these, I have to come down on the side of protecting the author’s original intention. Because it’s a very short trip from “sanitizing” to censorship, and I, for one, don’t want anyone to tell me what kinds of characters and situations I can have in my stories, or to have someone “fix” them for me later.

What’s your take?

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Happy Holidays; or, Celebrating With Your Characters

Posted on December 31, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

The holidays are such a crazy time of year. Not only do they wreak havoc with our schedules, our sleep patterns, and even (I think) our brain cells, but they often leave us with little time to focus on writing. I’ve scraped out a few words this past week–some of them are even good ones, I think–but my current WIP is still mired in the doldrums that are The Middle Of The Story.

One way to liven things up is to celebrate the holidays with your characters. When I was a kid, I loved reading stories that included Christmas customs. I adored reading about what presents Ma and Pa Ingalls gave Laura and Mary, and how they celebrated the holiday.

Last year at this time, I was chortling happily over the first book in my current series, The Daughters of August Winterbourne, and having my main character, Celia, meeting with her love interest, Nicholas, under the mistletoe for a stolen kiss … and the consequences thereof turned out to be far greater than planned! I reveled in their shy exchange of gifts, lavished pages of description on the balls they attended, and even chattered happily about their Christmas shopping trips.

I’m editing that section of the story now, and guess what? Some of the detail that I found so fascinating to write…is actually pretty boring to read. It might be important to know that Nicholas gives Celia a locket for Christmas; but we don’t need to know what everybody gives everyone. If a gift will become important later in the story, then you certainly need to mention it, but otherwise, merely saying “they exchanged gifts” will probably suffice for most situations.

Likewise, we probably don’t need to go on for pages and pages describing all of the house’s decorations in loving detail. We don’t need to know every carol they sing, every delicacy they eat. If the setting is important to the story, then include a few vivid details and let the reader’s mind fill in the rest. Otherwise, that sort of thing is probably best left to Dickens.

The exception to this, of course, would be if you were describing holiday customs that were unfamiliar to the majority of your readers. It’s amazing how easily one can evoke a holiday picture using just a few key phrases that are common to many people’s experience (mention a kids’ table, a silver tinsel Christmas tree, and the fact that the seats on the dining room chairs are all covered in clear plastic, and your readers will have a pretty good picture of a certain type of family and their celebrations). But if you’re describing a ritual from a less mainstream culture–or even one you’ve made up–a little more detail might be necessary.

What sorts of holiday celebrations have you included in stories? How much detail do you, as a reader, want/need?

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The Genre Game; or, To YA or Not To YA

Posted on December 24, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Last week, one of the members of my Worldcon critique group was trying to decide how to position and market the story he’s currently revising. The question he posed to the group was whether or not he should aim the piece at the young adult (YA) market, or whether he should target the piece toward adult genre (in this case, fantasy) readers.

It’s an interesting question. Certainly, thanks to the likes of Harry Potter and the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, the lines between what makes good reading for teens/tweens and what will sell to supposedly “grown up” readers is far less clear than it once was. And indeed, even some of the once-clear indicators no longer apply. Subjects that were once taboo for stories targeted to the under-18 crowd (like sex, drugs…okay, maybe not rock ‘n’ roll) are now commonplace.

Moreover, there seems to be a growing audience of adult readers who are turning more and more to the YA section when they’re in the mood for a fun read. I have to admit to occasionally doing that myself — when the To Be Read pile just looks too dry and intimidating, sometimes I bypass it altogether and reach for, say, the latest Artemis Fowl novel instead. I know I can count on Mr. Colfer for a couple of hours of solid entertainment. It may not rock my world in the way a more literary mainstream work would have, but sometimes it’s okay to read for enjoyment rather than enlightenment.

Which is not to say that teens won’t or can’t look for books outside of the YA section. I certainly did, when I was a teenager. And you can certainly make the argument that a good story is a good story, no matter where you find it. But in the long run, if you have a story that could be enjoyed by both groups, is it better to put it in the YA section and hope that adults find it there, or to put it in the appropriate genre’s section, and hope that teens will go there looking for a good read?

It’s a question that’s near and dear to my heart right now. My current WIP, the Daughters of August Winterbourne trilogy, could be marketed to YA readers. The protagonist is nineteen at the beginning of the story, but that’s not outside the range for YA. There is “definitely a coming of age” theme to the stories. And as of yet, there are no steamy sex scenes (nor, frankly, do I have any planned, though there may be some hanky-panky taking place off-screen). But I do have a character who is sexually active and not shy about it (at least in the second book so far), and another character whose past exploits might be considered a bit suggestive. (After all, the MC, Celia, has three half-sisters who are all close to her in age. You do the math.). The first book has torture scenes in it, and both books (so far) have scenes that involve threatened rape. While all of the above are handled (I hope) delicately, and certainly not graphically, would this be enough to make the series a no-go for the YA market?

Moreover, is this a series I’d even want to target for YA readers, or would I be better off trying to just sell it as a fantasy novel?

These are all questions I’ll be pondering in the next few months as I finish the second book in the series and complete edits to the first volume.

What do you think? Is there some characteristic you look for in a YA novel? When you are looking for a good read, how likely are you to cross over from one section to the other (whether as a teen selecting “grown-up” books or an adult reader browsing the YA section)?

(And last night’s lesson learned…if one has a blog posting to write, and one is planning to take some ibuprofen PM, one should write the blog posting first, then take the ibuprofen PM. Definitely not the other way around, which is what I did!)

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Before and After; or, Editing an Action Sequence

Posted on December 18, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

As promised a couple of weeks ago, this week I’d like to present a before-and-after comparison of a first draft vs. a second draft of an action scene from last year’s NaNoWriMo novel, The Daughters of August Winterbourne.

To set the scene, in an alternate Victorian universe, Celia Winterbourne is at the Royal Academy of Science, studying to become an airship designer like her father. One night, she’s working late in the Aeronautics laboratory, accompanied by a chaperone. But when her chaperone steps out of the room for a moment, a pair of black-clad figures enter the lab and try to abduct Celia. One sneaks up behind her and puts a chloroform-soaked cloth over her mouth and nose, while the other stands waiting. Celia, of course, struggles to break free, but to no avail…

First Draft:

The arms around Celia tightened still further. It was already hard for her to breathe, and growing difficult for her to think, but she continued to struggle anyway. Or at least, she did until the figure facing her reached into his coat, drew out a gun, and pointed it at her.

Defeated, Celia went limp in her captor’s arms. The sudden shift caused him to lose his grip on her momentarily, and the cloth slid away from her face for a few precious moments. She gulped a breath of air and screamed, “Help!”

“Shut up!” growled the man with the gun, advancing toward her.

Celia just screamed again.

The gun’s report was deafening in the enclosed room. Celia felt something punch her in the upper arm, and she looked to see a hole in the fabric of the sleeve of her shirtwaist … one whose edges were rapidly becoming stained with crimson. Her entire arm throbbed with sudden pain. She drew a breath to cry out, but the cloth was once again over her mouth and nose, and the room was beginning to spin around most alarmingly. She tried to struggle again anyway, but every move sent pain shooting through her arm, and she was suddenly more tired than she could ever remember being in her entire life.

Meanwhile, the man with the gun had continued to advance toward her, and now he was close enough to rest the still-warm barrel of the revolver against her forehead. “Hold still,” he rasped.

Celia gulped and complied. It wasn’t easy to do, given the way the room was whirling and the fact that her knees suddenly displayed little interest in holding her upright, but she did her best.

And then nothing mattered anymore, because she was falling into a nameless black void and there was nothing she could do to stop it…

Now, as written, it’s not terrible. The action is clearly described, and we have something of a sense as to how our heroine feels about the situation. But the sentences are long and a bit wordy in places, and I just think it can be better. So let’s take a red pencil to it and see what changes we might like to make:

Before: The arms around Celia tightened still further. It was already hard for her to breathe, and growing difficult for her to think, but she continued to struggle anyway. Or at least, she did until the figure facing her reached into his coat, drew out a gun, and pointed it at her.

After: The arms around Celia tightened still further. Her breath came in hard-won gasps. Her thoughts were mired in treacle. Why couldn’t she think what to do? She continued to struggle anyway…until the figure facing her drew a gun and pointed it at her.

The first thing I wanted to do was to break up that long, compound second sentence. She’s in a potentially life-or-death struggle here. Do we, the readers, really want a long, wordy sentence here? Probably not. So I broke it up into bits. Next, the bits were good enough, but not as immediate, as visceral as I wanted them to be. Which gets the point across better: “It was hard for her to breathe”, or “Her breath came in hard-won gasps”? The second one leaves you feeling a bit more of Celia’s breathlessness, doesn’t it? And saying it was difficult for her to think isn’t nearly as good as telling us her thoughts were mired in treacle. And the last sentence—also a bit long and sedate for the struggle at hand, isn’t it? Do we need to know where the gun came from? Isn’t it enough that he has it? Finally, slowing the last sentence down with an ellipsis changes the pacing of it, makes the action seem to pause for an instant – much as Celia would have done on seeing that gun.

Here’s another one:

Before: The gun’s report was deafening in the enclosed room. Celia felt something punch her in the upper arm, and she looked to see a hole in the fabric of the sleeve of her shirtwaist … one whose edges were rapidly becoming stained with crimson. Her entire arm throbbed with sudden pain. She drew a breath to cry out, but the cloth was once again over her mouth and nose, and the room was beginning to spin around most alarmingly. She tried to struggle again anyway, but every move sent pain shooting through her arm, and she was suddenly more tired than she could ever remember being in her entire life.

After: The gun’s report left Celia’s ears ringing. She felt something punch her in the upper arm. She looked to see a hole in the sleeve of her shirtwaist…and a spreading crimson stain. Her arm throbbed with intense pain. She drew a breath to cry out, but the cloth once again covered her mouth and nose. The room began to spin alarmingly. She tried to struggle, but every move sent pain shooting through her arm. Leaden weight stole into her limbs. She had to fight to keep her eyelids open, her body upright.

“Ringing ears” are definitely more descriptive than “a deafening report”. And again with the long complex sentences. Breaking them up helps. Next, let’s talk about that arm. We don’t need to know that it’s her entire arm; I can just say “arm,” and without further specification you’ll know that it’s the whole thing. And “sudden”? I think the “throb” tells us that it’s sudden, so I chose to say that it was “intense” instead. I may decide to go back later and take that out, though. I’m not convinced that it’s needed. The last sentence again rambles; breaking it up gives it more of a sense of immediacy. And doesn’t telling you that “leaden weight” is stealing into her limbs make you feel her utter weariness more than telling you she’s “more tired than she’s ever felt in her life”?

One more:

B: Celia gulped and complied. It wasn’t easy to do, given the way the room was whirling and the fact that her knees suddenly displayed little interest in holding her upright, but she did her best.

A: Celia gulped and complied. It wasn’t easy to do. The room was whirling and her knees seemed to have little interest in holding her up.

Again, breaking up the long sentence into smaller pieces brings more immediacy. Also, stripping out excess verbiage (who, me?) makes the beats sharper, more intense.

So here’s the passage after all of my re-writes:

The arms around Celia tightened still further. Her breath came in hard-won gasps. Her thoughts were mired in treacle. Why couldn’t she think what to do? She continued to struggle anyway…until the figure facing her drew a gun and pointed it at her.

Defeated, Celia went limp in her captor’s arms. The sudden shift caused him to lose his grip on her. The cloth slid away from her face for a few precious moments. She gulped a breath and screamed, “Help!”

“Shut up!” growled the man with the gun. He advanced toward her.

Celia couldn’t help it. She screamed again.

The gun’s report left Celia’s ears ringing. She felt something punch her in the upper arm. She looked to see a hole in the sleeve of her shirtwaist…and a spreading crimson stain. Her arm throbbed with intense pain. She drew a breath to cry out, but the cloth once again covered her mouth and nose.

The room began to spin alarmingly. She tried to struggle, but every move sent pain shooting through her arm. Leaden weight stole into her limbs. She had to fight to keep her eyelids open, her body upright.

The man with the gun continued to advance toward her. He rested the still-warm barrel of the revolver against her forehead. “Hold still,” he rasped.

Celia gulped and complied. It wasn’t easy to do. The room was whirling and her knees seemed to have little interest in holding her up.

And then nothing mattered anymore, because she was falling into a nameless black void and there was nothing she could do to stop it….

And the best part? The rewrite is 54 words shorter. Every little bit helps!

What are some rewriting challenges other people have faced? How do you approach rewrites?

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Trust The Process; or, Sneaky Inner Editor Is Sneaky

Posted on December 11, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Writing this week has been a bit of a struggle, and I think I’ve figured out why.

Now that the pressure of NaNoWriMo is off, I’ve slowed my pace a little, trying to avoid things like the 5,000 word info-dump airship description. I’m trying to be more analytical up front and figure out which scenes are really needed and which ones are not. I’m trying to be more careful in my word choices, in making sure to show not tell, in writing believable dialogue.

In other words, my Inner Editor has crept out of her box and taken over. And that spells disaster.

Why is this a problem, you ask? After all, if you’re writing better stuff up front, that means less editing on the back end, right?

And that would be true…except that, in my case, the presence of Inner Editor during the writing phase usually stifles the story to such an extent that there might not ever be a back end, because I’ll never get it finished. So that doesn’t really help any, either.

Still, my first instinct is to try not to produce another 275,000 word behemoth. Those are just difficult to deal with. Especially when cutting them into two more reasonably-sized pieces simply doesn’t work.

But then, on the same day, I found two articles that made me re-think that decision.

The first was an article in the Irish Times, where the author was privileged to sit in on a writing workshop with author Terry Pratchett. You really should go and read the whole thing, but I’ll post the bit that got my attention here.

At the end of the workshop, Mr. Pratchett listed his three secrets of writing the perfect book. The third one was the one that caught my attention:

“First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft. I don’t know how. It has to do with my subconscious – the subconscious of someone who’s been doing it for a long time.”

It sounds like good advice. Let it run, and turn all the knobs up to 11. Cutting into shape can happen later.

And then I found Delia Sherman’s blog entry on “How To Survive A First Draft“. It’s another good read, and you should go and do just that. But this was the bit that seemed to be calling out to me:

“3) Bull on through regardless, throwing words at the wall in the hope that some will stick. One member of my writing group, when writing her first draft, writes scenes that seem to happen in Real Time, in which the characters sit around cooking dinner or mending harness while talking about the weather or the crops or their love lives for PAGES AND PAGES, which is fun for us to read, but not ultimately useful to the plot or the structure of the novel…She doesn’t rewrite them until she’s finished the draft, at which point they either disappear or get so completely rewritten that maybe only the setting and one line of dialogue survive from the original. She finds writing them immensely useful, though, however seemingly inefficient, for getting to know characters, for creating an atmosphere or details of her world.”

Wow. Yes, that’s actually what I seem to do, too. I write about things in nauseating detail, things I know aren’t needed for the final draft. But writing scenes and details like these are what helps me to find the heart of the story. And therefore, practical or not, I need to just tell Inner Editor to sit down, shut up, and wait her turn.

(By the way, when you go read that blog entry, don’t forget to scroll down and read the comments, because there is wisdom to be found there as well. Like this little gem from Ellen Kushner: “…we sometimes criticize books that are *too* tightly-written as being “only the Good Parts version” . . . . My friends, do not fear Dialogue! and Description! and Mood and Scene-Setting and…..!”)

So what it all comes down to is that I need to keep reminding myself to Trust The Process. Write the draft now, edit it later. Give the characters room to breathe, and they will help me find the missing heart to the story. Editing can — and will — come later.

Do other people have trouble trusting the process? Is it possible to make changes to the process and still have it work?

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NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up: The Aftermath

Posted on December 3, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

So here it is, somehow, December already, and another NaNoWriMo has come and gone. For those of you who are curious, here are the final stats for NaNo2010:

Total words written: 63,107
Average words per day: 2,103.6
Lowest daily word count: 265 (Nov. 10)
Highest daily word count: 4,811 (Nov. 6)

2K words a day is not bad. Last year’s NaNo came in at something like 72K by the end of December, but that was mostly due to a 10K + word day that I managed to get in at the end of the month. That didn’t happen this year, but I’m okay with that.

Not surprisingly, at 63K words, I feel as though I’ve mostly just gotten my throat cleared, so to speak, and am ready to really start writing this story. That seems to be my pattern.

There are parts of this story that I really like so far, parts that I know are going to get cut, and parts that I’m just not sure about. One thing that I’ve decided is that the reason some of the long and rambling passages are happening is because I’ve yet to uncover the true heart of this story. Last year’s story seemed to have a couple of themes going on: betrayal and forgiveness, the end of childhood, using teamwork to overcome obstacles, and the importance of family. So far, this year, I’ve uncovered one, which has to do with finding your passion and engaging in it. Another that seems to be developing is Doing The Right Thing, even when it hurts. But it still feels like the story is missing something. I just can’t quite put my finger on what.

I guess, for the time being, I’ll just keep writing. After all, last year, one of the main themes didn’t reveal itself until page 465 out of 510. Obviously, it’s never too late.

In the meantime, the plan is to just keep writing, a little bit every day (at least; if more than a little bit happens, I certainly won’t send it back!) until the story is done. And then I get to gleefully go back and take a machete to that long and flowing description of an airship. (Looking forward to that, actually.)

Along with that, I still have to finish editing Book 1 of this mess, and finish the fairy story I started in August. (I knew I was going to regret not getting that one written before November!) But I guess as long as I’m writing every day, that’s what counts. Right?

Off to make my word count for the day now…see y’all next week!

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NaNoWriMo Week Four; or Winner, Winner, Turkey Dinner!

Posted on November 27, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Since I was in the land of no internets for Thanksgiving (my dad still thinks dial-up is the be-all and end-all of internet connectivity), I didn’t have an opportunity to post on Thursday. And since I spent at least part of Friday (the part between midnight and 4:00 am) suffering the consequences of forgetting that green-bean casserole is often made with cream of mushroom soup, and that mushrooms and I are No Longer Friends, I didn’t get around to posting sooner. My apologies for that.

In the meantime, despite the distractions of the holiday, I’ve gone and crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line. I have accumulated 50,207 words as of just a few minutes ago. And yes, I know already that some of them are not especially good words, and will end up getting edited out of the final novel (like at least 5,000 words of rapturous description of an airship that can probably be reduced to a few sentences, if not eliminated entirely), and that I really need to tone down the angst between my two star-crossed lovers.

I am, of course, nowhere near finishing the story. I have no idea how long this one will end up being, and I’m very much afraid that I’m going to have to cut one of the two narrative lines out of it just to keep it to a reasonable length. However, I’ve also reached a point where I can skim through several weeks in a few paragraphs, and I intend to do just that.

So now I go from the mode of trying to accumulate as many words as possible in a given time-frame to trying to tell the story as economically as possible. It’s going to make for an interesting first draft, as far as pacing goes!

Finding time to write on or around a holiday is always a challenge for me. On Thanksgiving, I found myself wide awake at 5:30 am, so I got out my netbook and managed to get in 800 words or so before breakfast. That seems to be an effective strategy for me; there’s also something about the peaceful calm of a holiday morning that I find conducive to writing. Maybe it’s just knowing that the day won’t be following the normal routine, and that there are surprises and treats to which to look forward that makes it easier to focus on the story for a few minutes instead.

There were a couple of times when we were waiting on things to cook when I really wanted to whip out the netbook and start writing, but I had to be sociable instead. And honestly, being sociable is a good thing, most of the time. After all, new material for writing has to come from somewhere, right? How better to come up with ideas for dialogue and plot twists than by carrying on conversations with other human beings (instead of just the voices in one’s head!)?

I could easily have gotten another 500 or so on the hour’s trip home from my parents’ house, but by then it was dark, and my Beloved Husband doesn’t like to drive after dark. Which is unfortunate, since I seem to write well in the car. Sadly, we had no writing road trips this year. Maybe I’ll plan one for next year.

At any rate, I’ve met my deadline for the month, though I’ll continue to write every day for the next four days, at least. And probably after that, until the story is finished. Hopefully, that will be sooner than the March that it was last year, or the May the year before that!

Has anyone else met a writing goal this month?

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NaNoWriMo Week 3; or Now That We’re Properly Warmed Up…

Posted on November 19, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Lots of ups and downs this week. A good day of writing on Sunday, followed by a bout of stomach flu/food poisoning on Monday (which also yielded a higher-than-average word count, thanks to having to have something to do between acts of worshiping the porcelain god), followed by a couple of days mired in court intrigue*, and ending up today with a somewhat unplanned trip to the movies.

But in spite of all of that, I am well over 30,000 words into this story, and things are beginning to roll. There is no hope on earth of finishing the story in the next 20,000 words, but at least it will be well begun!

Sadly, this week saw several of my WriMo buddies drop out of the race, for various reasons. I understand that; life happens, and there’s no shame in that (says the woman who didn’t even try in 2007, because we were refinishing two floors’ worth of wood flooring that month).

But in watching the various lists and communities that are part of the NaNoWriMo experience, this week also saw a lot of–to be blunt about it–whining.

I’m not going to post any specific examples here, but some of the common themes I saw this week were:

– I did okay the first day, but I haven’t been able to write anything since.
– I get distracted too easily by my job/boyfriend/girlfriend/television shows/lifestyle.
– I just can’t find the time to write.
– When I do write, I get bored with my characters/story after five minutes.
– I don’t know where my plot is going.

Now, I could address each of these excuses/reasons for not writing, but after I thought about it, I decided that there actually is a common theme among them.

These people aren’t writers.

Now, I will be the first to agree that the writer’s journey is different for everyone. 1,667 words per day for 30 days is not the be-all and end-all. It’s definitely not “The One Right Way To Do It.”

But if you want to be a writer, you’ve got to write. And what struck me about all of these people was that they didn’t really want to write. They wanted to sit down at a computer and have a perfect, well-written story magically fall out of the sky and into their keyboards, with little or no effort on their parts.

After all, maybe they don’t have the muscle and footwork to be a star linebacker, or the skill and fine motor control of a brain surgeon, or the talent and good looks to be a movie star. But they passed high school English, so that should have taught them everything they needed to know about how to write. Right?

What they don’t seem to grasp is that none of these people can do what they do without an investment in certain skills and plenty of practice. You don’t just show up at a hospital one morning, put on a surgical gown and some gloves, and start carving away at people’s heads. You go to school for many years, and you study and learn and practice.

And if you want to succeed at being a writer, just like those other professions, you have to practice. That means you sit and you write. Maybe you don’t have a plot. Maybe your characters are boring. Maybe what you’re writing right now will (and should) never see the light of day. Lord knows, buried in the depths of my storage unit are spiral-bound notebooks and floppy diskettes full of writing that no one but me will ever get to read. There’s one particularly soap-opera-ish series of stories that I started in college and continued to add to for the next eight years or more that is truly dreadful. Plot? What plot? Characters? Seriously? Can you say, “Cardb0ard”?

BUT…after you do that long enough, then you start to see how bits of plot can come together, how characters can come alive and be made to interact, how pacing works. You might discover that the act of writing can be satisfying in and of itself. Once that happens, you will find the time to write. You will set the distractions aside at least once in a while. You’ll learn that you can write even when you don’t feel like it.

Maybe you won’t write every day. Maybe not even every week, or every November. But you will write.

And that’s what separates the writers from the wanna-bes. Butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, making the words happen.

Okay. I’ll get off of the soapbox now.

Just get out there and write something this week. Okay?

* In the story. Not in Real Life(tm).

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NaNoWriMo Week 2; or, I’ve Got The Week Two Blues

Posted on November 12, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Hello from Week Two of NaNoWriMo.

This week, things are going along less swimmingly than last. I was nearly two days ahead on my word count; now, if I don’t get 1,500 words written before I go to bed tonight, I’ll be behind on my word count.

Why? Well, as I see it, there are three — no, make it four factors:

1) I’ve been thinking about where I wanted to start this story for the last couple of months. So I had already pre-visualized the opening sequences pretty thoroughly. That meant that when I sat down to write them, they fell out of my head in one big blort. Which was cool, and actually quite encouraging, since the scenes turned out even better than I had imagined them. But then … well, the first few scenes ended up setting a sort of structure of scenes alternating between two main POVs, and I’m finding that harder to maintain than I’d expected. I will probably end up bagging that structure for this draft and just get on with the story as I know it now.

2) The chapter I’m currently writing is one that I’m pretty sure won’t exist in the final novel. However, my lizard brain insists that I write it anyway. But Internal Editor is screeching at me to just forget it and move on. I know I should just write the scene and mark it for later editing — after all , it will provide useful background information for me later in the story — but it’s hard to do when Internal Editor won’t shut up about it.

3) I accidentally fell into Edit-head. My posting to my critique group got moved up two weeks, and I thought I had my next piece ready to go. Only when I looked at it, I kept finding another bit that I wanted to take out … and another one … and another one … plus there was that whole action sequence that needed to be re-done (the mechanics of which will, I think, end up being a posting of their own in December). In the end, I shortened a 14,000 word section of the story by a full 25%, or 3,500 words. I’m pleased with the result, but the problem is that switching to edit-head let Internal Editor out of her box, and now she doesn’t want to go back in. In fact, she’s identified at least a dozen more changes she’d really like to make to that section of the story before we call it a second draft. Dealing with that has been a challenge.

4) Related to that has been the fact that I’m just a victim of my own poor time management skills. When I can roll out of bed at 6:00 a.m. and spend an hour or so writing before work, and then spend my lunch hour writing, that gets me a good jump on the day’s word count. If I have a solid 1,200 words in the can by the time I get home from work at night, picking up the remaining 500 or to meet the day’s quota is a piece of cake. But when, as today, I ended up hitting the snooze button instead of writing, and then since my Beloved Husband was off work for Veteran’s Day, he came and took me to lunch, my word count for the day so far is, well, zero. (Too bad I can’t count this blog entry!) Plus we’ve spent some time this week hanging out with friends — which really is more important than word count in the long run, and which I certainly don’t begrudge them, but it does mean that there is simply less time available for writing.

But not to worry. I’ve got a good, solid two hours left to write tonight, and maybe more if I’m on a roll. I’ll make those NaNos happen, see if I don’t!

Anybody else struggling with the morass of Week Two? What works for you when you need to up the word count but the words don’t want to flow?

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NaNoWriMo, Week 1; or, The Battle Begins

Posted on November 5, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

This week finds me already deep in the throes of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, or as some prefer to think of it, the time of year when tens of thousands of normally sane people abandon their grasp on reality and decide to do something irrational, like write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.

I am, once again, among their numbers. I think I’ve reached the point where it would seem strange not to be pounding away at the keyboard while munching on the leftover Halloween candy, and trying to plan Thanksgiving so as to maximize the writing time I have available.

I love the first week of NaNoWriMo. I love crawling out of bed a little early each morning to try to get a scene written before work (though some days that goes better than others), and gulping down my lunch as quickly as I can so I can crack open the netbook and pound out a few more words, then stopping to grab supper on the way home so I can eat quickly and get back to the keyboard. All of those movies and TV shows in the To Be Watched pile will just have to wait until December. (Thank goodness we finished up The Man From U.N.C.L.E. last month!)

As I’ve mentioned previously, this year I’m working on the sequel to last year’s story, “The Daughters of August Winterbourne.” Until just a few hours ago, the title wasn’t any more imaginative than “The Daughters of August Winterbourne, Book Two,” but now I’ve added a subtitle: “The Skies of War.” I think it’s still more of a working title, and it may be that that is a more suitable title for the third book in the planned trilogy. And of course, it means I need to go back and come up with a subtitle for the first book at some point.

Book One was written mostly as a tight third-person POV around Celia Winterbourne, the main character of the story. There were a few digressions into other points of view here and there, but Celia carried the main body of the narrative.

This year, I’m trying something a little different. I’m planning to alternate between Celia’s POV and that of her love interest, Nicholas Fletcher. I’ve rarely done a male POV character in the past, so I hope I can pull it off. Thus far, Nicholas appears to be an easy character to write, though he is a bit prone to info-dumping. I’m letting him have at it for the time being, but I’ve already earmarked a few passages for later trimming.

For example, does the audience really care that the Tarmanian language is a combination of Hungarian, various Slavic languages, all with a little Mongolian thrown in, and that it has two distinct dialects, High and Low Tarmanian? Nicholas seems to think so, but I’m not so certain. It does, at least, explain why anyone would have difficulty learning it, but perhaps that level of detail isn’t necessary. Still, as they say, write now, edit later.

Which is always my biggest challenge with NaNoWriMo: Keeping my inner editor leashed and out of the way. It’s especially difficult for me this year because I was working on edits to Book One right up until the beginning of November. Switching from “edit-head” to “writer-head” is always a challenge for me. After some discussion, we seem to have come to an uneasy truce: She’s allowed to contribute to the process, but only if she adds to the word count, or at least does not cause it to decrease. If she really insists, we can highlight a section in yellow to indicate that it will be deleted later; and of course, if she thinks of something that really ought to be added, that’s quite all right. We’ll see how that works out.

Meanwhile, while I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping on pace so far, I’ve only written about 600 words today, so I have another thousand to go before I sleep. I’d better get with it.

Happy NaNoing!

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Bonus Blog: Ten Lies You’ll Hear Before Pursuing Your Dream

Posted on November 2, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Okay, I know it’s not my usual day to blog, but I thought this was important enough to pass it along RIGHT NOW.

One of my co-workers posted this to Facebook. It’s the Ten Lies You’ll Hear Before Pursuing Your Dream. And each and every one of them — and the reasons why you shouldn’t listen to them — applies as much to writing as it does to anything else in life. Some of them are things other people will tell you when you tell them you want to be a writer … and some of them are things you’ll tell yourself.

It’s definitely worth a read. And even a bookmark.

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You Say Po-tay-to, I Say Po-tah-to; or More Notes From The Editing Desk

Posted on October 30, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

 

(Yikes! I got this all written up, then realized I’d forgotten to actually post it! Sorry it’s late….)

I’ve continued to work on edits to The Daughters of August Winterbourne. So far, I’ve taken out almost 12,000 words, and there are several upcoming chapters that are due to be deleted altogether, or at least greatly reduced. I’m pleased with many of the changes I’ve made, though I by no means feel that the edited sections have reached what I would consider a final draft.

One of the things I’ve been working on this week is how to say the same thing, but in different ways. There are certain notes I want to repeat throughout the story, but I need to do it in ways that don’t sound tiresome and boring.

Here’s an example: Celia, having just had her father confirm the existence of her half-sisters, reacts by running away. It seemed a natural thing for her to do, since she’d had the same reaction on first learning the news from one of her half-sisters.

But this time, following a suggestion from a member of my critique group, I decided to change things up a bit to show that Celia had learned that running away didn’t solve her problems. I had her stop running after about half a block. She is on the verge of returning of her own accord when her love interest, Mr. Fletcher, catches up to her (having been sent by the Academy’s Chancellor to chase her down).

I liked this change to the scene, since it did show her growing and learning from her past experiences. And I was still able to include a little interaction between Celia and Mr. Fletcher. I was even so daring as to have him give her a little hug. On a public thoroughfare and everything! Here’s what that looked like:

He stopped about five feet away from her. “Miss Winterbourne. I don’t mean to intrude. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

The sympathy in his face caught her off guard, and her eyes filled with tears. She turned to study the wall, not wanting him to see her cry. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, and looked down to see his hand in front of her, holding a handkerchief.

“No, you’re not,” he said softly. “But if it would help to tell someone, I’m here.”

Against her will, she turned to face him, eyes still swimming with tears. “Thank you.”

The next thing she knew, his arms went around her, holding her gently against him. Once again, she marveled at how safe and warm she felt there.

Now, this wasn’t a bad scene, but as it was pointed out to me, the part about how she felt safe and warm in Mr. Fletcher’s arms was well enough, but it’s a little cliche. Besides, I’d had her making that same observation a few scenes back, the first time they hugged.

So I made a few changes, and I think it’s better:

The next thing she knew, his arms went around her, holding her gently against him. She buried her face in the grey tweed of his coat. He smelled of river water and coal smoke and peppermint; the scents wrapped themselves around her as securely as his arms.

I’m not convinced that it’s perfect yet, but I think the revised version conveys the sense of feeling safe and warm without using those exact words.

[Update: After being outdoors all day today, I’ve decided that it should be: “He smelled of river water and autumn leaves and peppermint; the scents wrapped themselves around her as securely as his arms.”]

How do other people handle the challenge of echoing a scene or emotion without resorting to repeating the same words over and over?

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Overcoming The Scary, Parts 1 & 2

Posted on October 23, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

 

Bonus weekend posts from MileHiCon:

As I posted previously, one of my goals this convention was to challenge myself to overcome my innate shyness and y’know, like, talk to people.

My progress so far:

Last night, sat at the bar at a table with a couple of authors and actually carried on conversations. Yay!

This morning, attended a panel titled “Scoring in the Elevator: Writing a Good Two-Sentence Pitch”. Except that it turned out not to be a panel, but a workshop. Once I learned that, I nearly turned tail and fled, but instead I stayed and presented my pitch for “The Daughters of August Winterbourne”. And as a result, I had five author panelists and a room full of other aspiring authors work with me to craft this pitch:

When the techno-plundering Tarmanian Empire kidnaps their inventor father, four sisters must pilot his airship across Victorian Europe to rescue him.

I like it!

More updates as they occur. (My next challenge is to BE a panelist, but talking about start-up conventions rather than my writing. Still, it’s a start!)

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But They’re Scary People! or, Authors and Editors and Publishers, Oh My!

Posted on October 22, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

 

(Posted live from MileHiCon)

Confession time.

I’m petrified of meeting authors, editors, and publishers in person.

I’m always terrified that I’ll do or say something that will mark me forever as one of the biggest idiots to ever inhabit the planet. And that, once having done that, I will then have to locate the nearest rock and take up residence beneath it.

I don’t know why I’m so convinced of that. Because my usual reaction to meeting a celebrity of any sort is to clam up and say nothing at all. I become completely tongue-tied and can’t ever seem to manage anything more profound than “Hi” and “It was nice meeting you.”

Last year at MileHiCon, they held an Author Meet & Greet in the bar. Aspiring authors were invited to come and rub shoulders with the pros, discuss their current projects,, and just hang out and chat.

I think I said about four words the whole time. And was terrified that someone would talk to me.

I know it doesn’t make sense. I know that most authors and publishers are nice people. That doesn’t seem to make them any less scary.

So it might surprise you to learn that I’m currently sitting at a table next to a small press publisher, and chatting casually, just like we were friends. And we sort of are. We’ve chatted at conventions a couple of times. Also, my husband went to high school with him.

And on Fridays, he runs #scifichat on Twitter, which I often pop in on over my lunch hour. So as I walked past, I mentioned it, and he invited me to pull up a chair and take part in the last few minutes of it.

Naturally, my first reaction was to run screaming. Obviously I didn’t do that. Instead, I took a deep breath and said, “Sure!”

I seem to have lived through it. I wonder if that means I’ll have enough guts to do more than say “Hi” and “nice meeting you” at the author meet & greet tonight? Perhaps I should make that a goal for this convention — to actually talk to people more. Okay, maybe I’ve already achieved that goal — I’ve already spoken with several people in the past hour who aren’t people I know well. (This is unusual for a shy person like me.)

One thing that I’ve found does help are social networks. After I’ve chatted with people on Facebook and Twitter, they’re not nearly so scary. Some of them are quite friendly, in fact. I had a bit of a chat with an author on LiveJournal this week — about the preserving of apple pie filling, and how to can it successfully.

Okay, time to run along and see if my help is needed at the registration table yet. If not, I’m going to go grab my suitcase and lug it up to my room. And then see what kind of trouble I can get in.

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It’s October 14, Do You Know Where Your Plot Is; or, NaNoWriMo, Coming Soon

Posted on October 15, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

I looked at my calendar today and felt a rush of panic mingled with a dose of anticipation.

It’s October 14.

Which means that NaNoWriMo is just over two weeks away.

And I don’t know where my plot is.

Now, this is not as bad as it could be. For instance, on October 14, 2006, I hadn’t even heard of National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo). And yet, November 1 found me pounding away at the keyboard of my laptop. November 30 had me well over the 50,000 word “finish line,” and before Christmas, I’d brought my first NaNoNovel in at right around 100,000 words.

The problem is that back then, I didn’t really have a goal, other than writing a novel. But this year, my plan is to try to write the second book of the Celia Winterbourne trilogy. And I don’t know what happens in this book.

All right. I know a few things. I know that it starts with Celia sitting high in a tree, looking down over a gypsy encampment, on what should have been her wedding day. And I’m pretty sure that it ends in an airship over the Atlantic Ocean. I even know a few of the things that need to happen in between. (For a look at those, check out my story synopsis on the NaNoWriMo website.)

What has me in a panic is that I’m not sure what the story arc needs to be for this middle book in the series. I have a much better idea of the story arc for the third book, but it’s not time to write that yet — especially since things that happen in the second book will affect the plot of the third. At the moment, I’m worried that this second book will end up feeling like nothing more than a placeholder, a place to kill time while waiting for the third book to happen. There needs to be a satisfying amount of action and character growth to make the story worth telling.

I suppose I just need to knuckle down, shove Inner Editor back into her dungeon for the month, and keep reminding myself to write first and edit later. But that’s not always the easiest thing in the world to do.

I also don’t want a repeat of NaNoWriMo 2008, where I decided to write the sequel to my 2006 NaNoNovel. That year, I didn’t finish until March, and when I did, I was left with a 280,000 word behemoth that I still haven’t figured out what to do with (except, perhaps, to print it up and use it as a really effective doorstop).

On the other hand, maybe if I have fewer story details going in, I’ll have an easier time bringing the story in at a reasonable length. (I’m still trying to trim the first book down from its original 186,000 word length — so far, I’ve cropped 11,000 words out of it!)

So is anyone else attempting NaNoWriMo this year? Or have you set some other writing goals for yourself?

(p.s. For anyone who is doing NaNoWriMo and hasn’t already done so, my NaNo handle is arwensouth, if you’d like to add me to your buddies list.)

(p.p.s. Did anyone fall off their chair because I actually posted this on Thursday for a change?)

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Visualizing Your Characters; or, How Nice To Finally Meet You!

Posted on October 8, 2010 by sheilamcclune

(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

I read a news story recently about an author whose book had been adapted for the stage. When he visited the theater during a rehearsal, he was introduced to the actor playing his main character. He paused for a moment, then said, “How nice to finally meet you!”

The actor was understandably confused, until the author explained, “You’re exactly how I imagined the character when I wrote the book, fifteen years ago.”

Wow. That has to be an amazing feeling.

I haven’t had quite that experience (and it’s unlikely that anyone will be adapting any of my stories for the stage anytime soon), but I have had the disconcerting experience of encountering a random photograph on the Internet that bore a striking resemblance to a character in one of my stories. Most recently, I found this picture of Carey Mulligan, and was struck by her similarity to my mental picture of my character Celia Winterbourne:


It wasn’t so much a physical resemblance (Celia’s hair should be darker and a little curlier, and her eyes should be green) as her eager and interested expression and the shape of her face. I can see this girl in Victorian costume, all excited to be going off to her first day at the Royal Academy of Science. She’s pretty, in a clean, wholesome way, just as Celia would be, but not so glamorous that people would stop in the street to watch her pass.

On the other hand, I know authors who like to have reference photographs for their main characters before they even start writing. I’ve never needed to do that, nor do I usually(1) base my characters on actual actors or other people, but I do like to at least form a mental image of the characters before I write them. It’s usually a clear enough picture that I’d recognize them if I met them on the street (or in the case of Celia’s alter ego, saw them on the Internet)

For The Daughters of August Winterbourne, I went so far as to make up a spreadsheet containing basic information about all of the named characters, such as name, age, hair and eye color, and general appearance notes. That’s the most organized I’ve ever gotten, and I think it did help. (Though now I’m wondering if I should go back and add in pictures as I find them as well.)

How do other people go about visualizing their characters? Do you haunt the Internet for pictures, or do you just build pictures in your head?

(1) There have been exceptions, of course, but only a few. And no, I’m not going to tell you which ones.

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