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Series Starting Soon

Hey. So, I’ve done a lot of general “fiction writers’ advice” so far. I thought I’d start a series soon on clichés. It’s always fun for me to find ways around typical fiction clichés, and I’ll try to make it fun for you too.
  I also am going to start occasionally including feature posts on particular novels, comparing their pros and cons and doing a little by way of review. I’ll also be focusing on fictional characters in some well-known (and less well-known) books that might interest you. These posts will also serve and studies in methods of characterization.
  Should be fun. Stay tuned.

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Fiction Writers' Advice Plotting

What Are Readers Looking For?

Something occurred to me recently. I was thinking about novels—successful novels, unsuccessful novels, classic novels nobody reads, cheap paperbacks everybody reads—and I was wondering…why do people like certain novels more than others? When a reader picks up a book with the intention of reading it, what are their expectations? What do they want?

Well, I’m sure it’s a little different for each reader and each novel—but not a lot different. When it all boils down, the reader wants a story. In the end, they don’t care a lot about your grammar, or your descriptive power, or your atmospheric development. They just care about you story—and maybe your characters.

  What they really want is an emotional attachment, and ability to sympathize with the characters. Once you have those bonds established, you proceed to take those characters–your reader’s new–friends and comrades—through a labyrinth of fear, pain, sorrow, confusion, joy, thrill, love, and victory. If you do that—and don’t overuse dashes (or parentheses, like some people)—you will write a novel people will hunt down in bookstores, and search for on Amazon.

  People want to be moved, above all, when it comes to art. The same is true for all art, really. With music, it’s the same. A pianist of great skill, with fluid artistry, and technical perfection, could play some monstrously complex Bach composition on a top-of-the-line instrument and everyone would know it was great. But a very mediocre singer singing some ridiculously easy folk song a little bit flat will get everyone to listen—if only they can bring out the audience’s emotions with their own raw intensity. This is what really matters to people.

  Is this a bad thing? Not really. It’s a very natural thing, and for many people, it should be very encouraging. Readers couldn’t really care less if you’re perfect. They just want a story that they can grasp and feel. But as for me, I’m a perfectionist. I feel like I really do have to be perfect when it comes to creating art. And that’s okay too, just as long as you don’t forget the essence of it. You need to move your reader. That’s what they were looking for when they opened your book. 

      
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Fiction Writers' Advice Plotting

Can You Keep a Secret?

Nothing keeps me reading like secrets. In fact, I might even venture to say that nothing is more important to a good plot than the ability to keep a secret. The delicate art of hiding, hinting at, and revealing secrets is not only the essence of a good mystery or suspense story. It’s also the driving force behind novels of all kinds, all genera—the thing that keeps your reader’s eyes open.

Secrets come in many forms. Commonly, characters harbor secrets: secrets of identity, origin, motives, past conflicts, etc. It’s the author who has the secret of their future, their purpose, their final decision. Settings have secrets: what is this place? What happened here?

  You have to decide how much you want to hint at a secret. Sometimes it’s fun to startle a reader by bringing out a secret suddenly that was never suggested, or even appears to contradict evidence that you’ve arranged to cover it. It makes a brilliant plot twist if you can skew information so that it seems to suggest something else, and then later reveal what was really going on.

  Hinting, however, is the language of suspense. Some twists and blind curves can be used to surprise your readers out of the blue, but those hints that almost can be pieced together—but not quite—are what gives them a reason to keep perusing the story. Be conscious of how much evidence you put forward, and how often. How frequently you hint at some hidden element depends on how soon you intend to reveal it. If you’ve got a secret you don’t want to reveal until the climax of a novel, don’t bring it up in every chapter. Let your readers forget about it for a chapter or two now and then, and take that time to develop some other subplot. If you keep obsessing over a bit of information you’re not going to reveal until much later, your reader will very likely become impatient with the whole thing. You want your reader motivated and intrigued—not impatient.

  Also, don’t give hints that are too obvious. It drives people crazy if an author pretends to know less about something than the reader already found out about. Don’t keep hinting about a secret that’s already pretty much out of the bag.

 Sometimes, when you finally do let a secret out, you still don’t have to be obvious. Never over-explain anything. At least, as far as I’m concerned, I like to be able to read a book a second time and marvel at the author’s subtlety. If there’s something I didn’t fully catch onto, I’ll probably go back and figure it out. It’s more fun for a reader to feel like they’ve gotten in on a secret, than it is to feel like they’ve had it all explained to them.
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Fiction Writers' Advice

Talking about the Weather

I keep hearing people say that yet another detail you should never include in your fiction-writing is reference to the weather. Nobody wants to hear about it, they say. Just get straight to the action, don’t bother setting the scene, nobody has the patience for that, just go, go, go.

  And most importantly, never ever open a scene, or (flinching) a book with weather.

  Again, I could be completely weird, but I personally am not all that offended when an author takes note of the atmospheric conditions. People, especially the kind who write cash-fiction, seem to have lost all regard for the idea of mood in writing anymore. Also, unless your story is set in a ridiculously temperate climate, it’s very likely that weather will actually affect the plot. Even if you are the kind of writer that only writes down what happened in the story, and nothing else, remember that blizzards, droughts, ice-storms, and hurricanes also happen.

  I like meteorology, I’ll admit that. I also love richly atmospheric writing. Mood in writing isn’t just a disembodied emotional or mental feeling, it can be intensified and symbolized by the physical world. Weather is a very natural and artistic way to do that. Wind blows restlessly down the empty streets as the sky darkens, the heat intensifies in the afternoon and purple haze stifles the distant trees, the hero wakes up from a bizarre nightmare to the sound of thunder, and lightning blazes over the snow-covered world. Please!!! We can’t stand reading about this. Edit that out, you’re losing your readers!!!!!

  Really?

  The Stardrift Trilogy opens quite unabashedly with weather, as does the Rhapsody Threnody series. I honestly don’t see why that would be such a drawback for anyone. Don’t omit details if they can be used to make your writing strong. Ever. Details don’t have to be boring or irrelevant. Try manipulating them to see if they can work for you before throwing them out.
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Creating Characters Fiction Writers' Advice

On Children and Families

Here’s something to know: if you can’t write about children, don’t. Children are extremely complex creatures. Though everyone has been one, some have them, some work with them, and others are barely not them, they’re still some of the most difficult people to portray realistically.

  I see it all the time, even in ‘real’ novels by ‘real’ authors. Children, especially when in groups tend to be sort of…wrong. Sometimes it can be hard to put your finger on, other times you know exactly what the author did wrong.

  Let’s talk about some common issues that I can often spot. Here’s a big one to start off with: Children don’t always say the right things at the right time. That should be pretty obvious. In fact, who does? But what I’m actually referring to is a different kind of “right thing” than you might be thinking of.

  Authors do this all the time. I can’t stand it. You’ve got you’re couple standing there talking along until Mr. White Smile-Nice Hair says something unrealistic to Miss Love Interest. About this point Adorable Child with Bouncing Curls says “Why is your face all red, Miss Lovey?”

  Mwaaaa!!! (Do you like that expression of disgust?) Have you ever known a kid to notice when somebody was blushing? They don’t do it. No, I’m not saying kids don’t notice details or recognize shifts of emotions, they certainly do. But why would a kid ask such a silly question, even if, for some reason, they were carefully watching the color-saturation of Miss Lovey’s face?

  Oh, and that’s another thing, unless they’re under three years old, and really can’t pronounce somebody’s name, children don’t make up nicknames for people. The only reason a kid would call somebody a nickname is if they heard other people calling them that. Got it?

  Children don’t try to be cute. They just are. This is a place where age comes in to play a lot, though. This rule isn’t very strict, but if you have a moment where a kid is trying to be cute, keep it fairly isolated. In spite of what we my think, the motives behind children’s actions are not often to be cute.

  Children will do all kinds of things to get attention. Being cute is just one of them, small ones go up and hang on adults and say things over and over. Often start making mischief or showing off when there’s company in the house.

  Keep in mind that an awful lot can change from year to year in a child’s life in reference to their behavior. Be familiar with the age group you’re writing about. Also, aside from being a child, children are also individuals. Don’t forget to map out their character just as much as you would any other. Think about where they’ve been and where they’re going in their development into a grown person. Don’t make them into little adults, but think about their hopes and fears at the present time in reference to how those will manifest themselves in the future.

  One final note, if you must write a story about a large family, don’t be lazy. Every sibling is going to be unique. Don’t let them blur together. Don’t make their relationships fake or stereotypical. Invent based on experience. Build off of your own experiences growing up, or watching other children close to you grow up. Every family is different. Some have problems with sibling rivalry, some don’t. Some are very demonstratively affectionate, some aren’t. Some definitely split into “the boys” and “the girls” others mix and match in their choices of playmates. Make your fictional family different and entertaining, but keep them relatable. It’s great when someone accomplishes this in a book. Shoot for it.  

 
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Fiction Writers' Advice

A Word on Editing

First of all, happy Halloween.

So. I’m in the process of publishing my first trilogy, as you know. Since I was going to be putting a lot of time (it won’t be available until March of ’15) and money (I’m subsidy publishing, so I’m out $2,000) into the project, I thought it would be in my best interest to produce the best possible product in the end. I decided I would look into purchasing line-editing from my publishers.

  Then, I found out that to line-edit my whole trilogy would cost me $8,000. In a words “no”. The company admits that is pretty over-priced. A standard line-editing job costs about $2.50 a page, which, for my rather large manuscript comes to around $1,500. That’s a lot, but it isn’t $8,000. If the manuscript wasn’t a whole trilogy even my publishing company’s price might not kill anybody, but when it comes to line editing, here’s a hint.

  You know somebody who can do it.

  I’ve handed the job over to my parents and siblings. All you have to do to catch typos, misspellings, and obvious grammatical errors is read the manuscript. If you’re not incredibly knit-picky about the subtleties of English grammar, you won’t even need to hire a retired English teacher, (though that’s much easier to do than you think.) The company gave me some valuable information about my books: there’s nothing wrong with the plot structure. Score. All I really needed was line-editing.

  So, I’m saving myself anywhere from $1,500 to $8,000 and having my family help out. I think they can get it pretty clean. Check out the Stardrift Trilogy in March to see how this worked out!  

   

 

 

 
Categories
Fiction Writers' Advice

“Realistic” Dialogue

For me, one of the hardest things to master has been the art of writing dialogue. This comes up all the time in discussions of writing. Despite the fact that we hear and engage in dialogue every day, when it comes to putting it down on paper, we tend to give up on writing and set to drawing something called a blank instead.

  Readers often complain that dialogue that is poorly written in a novel sounds unrealistic. That is often the case. Try reading a bad section of dialogue aloud. If you can even get the inflection right, it’s not too far gone. Some dialogue is so unnatural that you can’t even tell what’s supposed to be coming across. Dialogue is a terrible thing to botch.

  So, what makes dialogue sound right? There isn’t a definite set of dos and don’ts here, a lot of it depends. Check out my previous post on character voices for further discussion on this. There are a few things, however that should be avoided in conversational dialogue.

  Be careful with sentence-structure variation.  Varying sentence-structure is a good thing in the narrative text, but how often do you hear somebody start a sentence with an adjective in conversation? Do people usually say “Happily, I took the goldfish home,” or “I happily took the goldfish home,?” There are exceptions, of course. People start sentences more comfortably with the adjective “finally”. Also double-check when you start a sentence with a prepositional phrase. You might say “Under my bed, there is an egg-beater” if you wanted to emphasize the location of the egg-beater.  But would you say “Beside ourselves with excitement, we forgot what we were doing”? Well, you might, but not every day.

  While we’re talking grammar, don’t worry so much about grammatical correctness in dialogue. Real dialogue is full of fragments. People leave out words and don’t finish sentences. That’s a good thing in dialogue, it’s often much more efficient.

  At the same time as I’m telling you all this, let me mention something that you may or may not have ever thought about: Good dialogue, while natural-sounding, is not actually that realistic. And readers and critics are just fine with that. 

  So, what does this mean? Think about it. If you sit and listen to people having a casual conversation, what do you notice? Generally, people are very ineloquent and, without context, almost impossible to understand. On top of unfinished sentences (which are not the same and fragments), randomly mispronounced, misused, or skipped words, people interrupt themselves, use sound effects, expressions, gestures, and forget what they were saying for no reason. There are probably avant-garde authors who write their dialogue like that, but it might be a pain in the neck to read, and would probably hinder the flow of the plot, at least in the readers’ minds.

  The trick is to sound natural. Dialogue has to be effective above all, not true-to-life.

  I’m excited to bring up the subject of profanity. You know why? Because there’s a lot of discussion among authors about the use of it, and I tend to disagree. Let me tell you something right now, You do not have to use profanity to write good dialogue!  There. I said it. I said what commercial authors are all afraid to say. If you don’t believe in saturating your writing or even your speech in four-letter words, rock on, tiger. Like I said, just because that’s how people talk in real life, doesn’t mean you must reproduce it in your dialogue. If you go out among people who swear in every other sentence, something should strike you eventually. Profanity is more often than not used because they couldn’t think of a stronger word. As funny as that sounds, if you think about it, the way people use profanity today is extremely empty. The words mean nothing. What are authors instructed to do with empty words? Don’t do anything with them.

  One word of caution only here: If you don’t use profanity, don’t use euphemisms in place of it. That is the only time it would be considered awkward dialogue not to swear. If somebody’s really murderously angry, don’t let them say “darn it.” People will laugh.

  Some authors have argued that not using profanity will hurt your ability to sell your work. That’s stupid. Can you imagine getting a rejection slip from a publisher saying “Hated it. There was no profanity.” That would be their problem, not yours. No one will even care if there aren’t any four-letter words, and some might not even notice if you heed the previous paragraph. People who insist upon profanity in literature are either (1) snobs who think they’re so sophisticated with their overuse of empty words and phrases, or (2) they have a slight issue with being addicted to reading dirty words. Either way, it’s not your problem, you don’t need their money that much anyway, and you can jolly well find another publisher. Their loss.

  So, remember, realistic isn’t actually the goal. Effectiveness, the ability to relay action and portray character. It’s not about just sounding like what we hear every day. We all know talk is boring.
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My Books

Publishing Update

I’ll break from my fiction advice series for a moment to tell you that I’m still hard at work on subsidy publishing my first three novels, The Stardrift Trilogy. I’m not absolutely certain that I would advise subsidy publishing after what I’ve been through, but on the other hand, I’ve run up against a great deal of unfortunate flukes in the process that people with normal luck might never encounter.
  I’ve actually had to switch publishing companies in the middle of everything. I’m pretty sure we’re getting back on track, but I imagine it won’t be until at least December before the trilogy is finally released. This process is supposed to take about four months and it’s taken me over a year. Typical.
  My enthusiasm to see my work made available to the public is undiminished, through it all. This blog is going to get a bit more meaningful, (and hopefully, a bit more traffic) once I can start using it to discuss themes and nuances of my novels.
  It will be really fun when I start publishing other books as well. I may or may not get bold and try to traditionally publish A Hand with Five Fingers. You know something I realized about that title? It’s a lot like The Beast with Five Fingers. But in my defense, I didn’t know about the creepy old movie until a while after I had named my book. And it isn’t nearly as bad as the two classic books, The Invisible Man and Invisible Man. I mean, really, that’s terrible.
  Just musing along. Do you know what I think could be a problem for me if I tried to publish traditionally? My books are totally not commercial enough. They always have you define your target audience. Who is my target audience? Like with Stardrift, for example, it’s classified as sci-fi, but it really isn’t sci-fi. The sci-fi audience expects laser blasters, light-speed, robots, technology gone rouge, and women in metal bikinis. Most of the fighting is done with steel-bladed weapons, light-speed is technically impossible, technology is strictly coincidental, robots are cliché, and I don’t believe in bikinis, metal or no. I don’t even know if my audience is male (it is sci-fi, after all) or female (the protagonist is a girl.) I imagine it would be considered young-adult reading, but it isn’t necessarily as fluffy as you might expect for that age-range.
  I consider myself a speculative fiction writer. That’s kind of vague, but that’s probably good, since it makes it so basically all my books fit into the genre. Even Rhapsody Threnody could be considered spec-fic for the supernatural undertones, (though it’s technically more on the Christian fiction side.) A Hand with Five Fingers, what with the time-travel involved, could also be included, as could, of course, the new sci-fi/fantasy trilogy I recently started called The Art of Lightplay.
  Anyway. This is a rather disorganized post. I may be posting again as soon as tomorrow or as late as two-weeks from now. I think you’re getting used to my inconsistency. Thank you.
   

Categories
Creating Characters Fiction Writers' Advice

Creating a character to drive the plot

 

One of my favorite parts of writing novels is making up the people who will populate it. I don’t understand those authors who seem to use the same basic types for every novel they write. I will admit that there are people that just end up turning up in different roles with slightly different faces. (I think I mentioned the prevalence of Franz Liszt in a previous post.) But you have to take into account that each story is unique. And the characters make the story.

  A story is the interaction of the characters with a series of situations. How the story goes is determined largely by how the characters react. Of course, things will happen that the characters had nothing to do with, but how they play the cards dealt to them is the essence of the plot.

  So constructing these characters should be a well-thought-out process. It’s possible to create a character while writing your book, but it will help you a great deal to prepare one ahead of time, so they can be fully developed from the start. I’ve done it both ways, and since I tend to write quite slowly, going so far as to edit as I go along (a lot of authors strongly discourage this behavior) it’s not too disastrous to introduce aspects of my characters as I think of them. Still, I would recommend some planning beforehand. It will make it easier to focus on the plot.

  What do you need to know about your character to make them affective? When I’m creating a character, there are four things that I make sure I make for them. They are: a body, a personality, a background, and a moral character.

  Let’s look at these one at a time. First off, every character needs a body. Writers differ on how important this is, which I think is funny, since you might as well do it. It’s really the easiest part of your character-making, and, like in real life it is often your first impression of who a character is. Write up a detailed ID for your main characters. How old are they? How tall? What coloring do they have? What’s the length and style of their hair? How do their facial features look? And, what is their overall body type? That last one carries more weight than you might think. (No pun intended.) It really helps to have the general physique in your mind’s eye. In fact, it almost runs over into the next element.

  Personality.  This is what is going to get your readers attached to your character. This is their humanity. This is probably going to be where the outside world comes into your book most. You want your readers to feel like they’ve met this person somewhere before. More than any other element in your entire book, the personalities have to be real.

  And by the way, God doesn’t copyright. Those people you know and love—they’re all in the public domain. Rarely, if ever does a personality spring purely from your imagination. In fact, almost all the characters in my Stardrift Trilogy are based loosely on a facet of myself. If you wonder if such a person could actually exist, check it against the standard you know best: your own personality. If this person is acting the way you might act, chances are, you’ve got a realistic character.

  In spite of  the fact that we observe personalities all the time, this seems to be one of the hardest parts of character-developing for some people. How many times have you complained that the people in a book just didn’t seem like anyone that would ever actually exist? One of the problems is sometimes people try to base their characters’ personalities on their morals or their stereotypes in reference to their respective roles in the plot. Here’s a bad guy. Here’s a love interest. Here’s the hero’s meddling mother.

  No. Think about these things instead: How do they smile? How do they laugh? What do they smile and laugh at? What scares them? Are they introverted or extraverted? Optimist or pessimist? Focused or distractible? Do they have any obsessions? Talents? Disabilities? What’s their default emotion? How would you describe them in three words?

  Sometimes, a character’s personality has been developed in some way by their background. Depending on your story, the background of your character may need to be developed more or less extensively. Sometimes a character’s past is vital to the plot. Other times (and quite often with my stories) not much has happened to the protagonist up until the novel starts. (In any case, you might want to make a note of that.)

  Think about your story. Might you need to include your character’s parents, or mention the town where they were born at some point? Is there some important event from their past that left a permanent mark of their views or understanding of life? Is there something that started way back when that might come back to haunt in a significant way during the course of the plot? Use discretion in thinking out just how much you need to know about your characters’ pasts.

  Finally, moral character. This is going to be quite important for those big moments in your story where the characters have to decide what to do. Your character is going to be driven by the principals her or she believes in, the things down at the heart of their existence.

  So, what kind of a person are they? Here’s where roles become something to consider more than in your other elements. Are they a hero? An indifferent side character? The villain?

  Choose virtues and vices for all your main characters. Remember that your hero can’t be perfect, and your villain can’t be totally evil. They’ll both be flat and unrealistic if you forget that. Think about your story again. Chances are you’ve got a good idea of what your hero and your villain are going to do. Why are they doing that? What drives them? What do they value? What character traits do they possess or not possess?

  Is your hero heroic because they’re selfless? Courageous? Compassionate? Loyal to their friends? Can they feel the pain of the afflicted? Find the truth in the confusion? Stick it out when everyone else gives up? Stand up to people who are used to doing whatever they want at the expense of others? Where’s their weak spot? Can they be distracted from their purpose? Do they sometimes just want to stop fighting? Maybe there’s something that they’re hiding that they’re afraid will be found out. Maybe they’ve got guilt over something in the past. Maybe they’re tempted to take revenge.

  What about the villain? Why would they do a thing like that? What’s their messed-up philosophy? What’s the main thing that makes them despicable? Are they deceivers? Do they take advantage of people? Are they self-seeking? Power-hungry? They can’t have all the problems though. There’s probably a good side somewhere, even if it’s just that they’ve never hung up on someone while they were still talking, or are nice enough not to throw things at the neighborhood cat. Maybe some of their terribleness grew out of some good quality that got blown out of proportion some time back. Maybe they wanted to protect someone they cared about. Maybe they were outraged at some injustice and overreacted. Another likely scenario is that they’ve been hurt somehow and were too weak to handle it correctly. Could they be redeemable after all? 

  Basically, the thing to remember when you’re creating a character is that they can’t just be a role with a name. You have to create w whole person that your readers will connect with, and want to hear more about. Great characters can cover a multitude of literary sins, and an extraordinary character is something your audience will never forget.  
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Fiction Writers' Advice

You Are What You Read

Some of the information in this post relates back to former posts, such as “How Not to Write Like A Girl…or a Guy.” You’ll notice when a person is asked to write a creative work, they’ll often fall back on what they know for inspiration. In other words, what they read.

  I’ll use myself as a case study because my case is rather interesting. First off, as an author of almost eight novels, it might be imagined that I like to read. Well, that isn’t necessarily the case. At least, I really haven’t been a big fan of novels. I read all the time, but I’ve always preferred science books. I spent this last summer reading Brian Greene’s Fabric of the Cosmos and The Elegant Universe. I like theoretical cosmology. (Actually, all cosmology is theoretical, but it sounds more impressive to give it an adjective.)

  I also recently enjoyed a rather hefty biography. I don’t read a lot of biographies, there aren’t a whole lot of historical figures that intrigue me that much, which is probably my problem, but I had a great time with Alan Walker’s Franz Liszt trilogy.

  When it comes to fiction, I read almost nothing but classics. Of course, all Christian fantasy authors read Tolkien and Lewis, it seems, and they probably will always rank as my favorite authors, but I try to vary what I read. I enjoyed in no particular order:

Bronte’s Wuthering Heights

H.G. Well’s The Invisible Man

Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins

All of which I would recommend, along with many others. But only you know what turns you on. It’s important to find writing this inspires you. Not all classics are the same. Know what fascinates you in the way of subject matter. I have preferences for out-of-the-ordinary elements in stories, adventure, survival, plots twists, fantasy, etc. These are the things that are likely to show up in your own stories.

  One thing I don’t recommend is imitating another author’s tone. For one thing, it never comes across the same with from a different writer’s pen, neither does it allow you, as your own person, to express yourself in your own voice. You have your own voice as an author, and if you spend your career trying to sound like somebody else, no one will ever get to experience the magic of your natural style. Don’t sell yourself short.

  Something else that is a danger particularly to new Christian authors is starting to sound like the last devotional they read. It’s awful when two characters are just talking along, and all of a sudden all their dialogue is practically copy-and-pasted from the latest Randy Alcorn release. It’s even worse when the narrator does this. Remember, these deep truths are so much more real when the action of the story tells them, not the characters or the disembodied author.

  So there are pros and cons to the fact that what you read has influence on what you write. One of the most effortless ways to improve your writing is to read good literature and observe what you like about it. As long as you don’t fall into the trap of losing your originality to it, what you read will inevitably build your writing skills.

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