Insecure Writers and Self-editing

"I use Grammarly's plagiarism checker because what I thought was an original idea for a novel about racism and poverty in the South, during the Depression, and told through the eyes of a 10yr old girl whose father is the local lawyer... might already exist."

Join IWSG and share your insecurities!

One of the main things I was insecure about when I first ventured into creative writing was editing. Turns out, I had good reason to worry.

I stupidly thought good novels were created from inspiration, sweat and fairy-dust; that certain authors just had the magic and breathed engaging narratives onto the pages. Of course I was delighted to learn the existence of 'drafts' and that my first one was allowed to 'suck' because I could edit it later. Easy, right?

Ha!

My first manuscript to earn a finished draft was a girl's mystery novel filled with passive language, poor grammar and only one suspect character (not much of a mystery in this who-done-it). I was keen to polish the story, but had no idea how.

I sent it off to an editor. That was a mistake.

What? Wait a minute Charmaine (I hear you ask ... in a kind of a creepy little girl voice), you always recommend getting a professional editor. What gives?

You should get your work edited professionally before publishing, but not before you edit your own work.

My manuscript was in such a mess that after a few chapters of painful interactions back and forth, my editor gave up on it. Truth was, it wasn't ready for the editor yet.

1. You should polish your story as much as you possibly can before you send it out to editors or beta readers. So how can you best edit your own work?

Put your manuscript away for a while, come back to it with fresh eyes.

2. Utilise an editing program for the really obvious problems. Word Spellcheck is very flawed, but will at least get rid of some issues. A better version of this is Grammarly, which I use for my online writing (there's also a check box for you to paste your work on their website).
3. Read books on revising before you take another look at your manuscript. I found these ones very helpful: 
Take up a course to find the best strategies for tackling your manuscript. There are plenty offered through writing centres or online.

4. Study. You can find lots of courses on editing through your writers centre or online. I've said this many times before, Holly Lisle's How To Revise Your Novel is one of the best revisions courses I've ever undertaken (and there's been a few). Check it out, it will teach you so much about strengthening that first draft and tightening your story.
5. Find a mentor. Someone who has more experience and can guide you through your manuscript's plot flaws and show you how to improve it.

Still want more on editing? Check out Denise Covey's guest post on writing, revising and editing at revisionseditions.

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Writing Blurbs

Kitty's little dog Spade, sometimes known as 'No-Spade-No!'

Dognapped? A Dog Show Detective Mystery is almost ready for release. As the cover is getting put together by the team at Book Cover Cafe, I'm writing the blurb. Hey, it's just a short description for the back of the book, how hard can it be? 

Um, yeah. How to summarise the story without making it sound dull or too complicated? 

There are no rules, but, I try to include: Character (this is the most important part for me), premise or plot, setting, conflict and a hint at the theme or message of the story (although I don't think it needs to be stated). Then I try to find a creative way to portray this, so it doesn't read like a list.

So how do you start? I cheat. Yep, I do. I grabbed about twenty novels in the same genre (girls' mystery novel) then rewrote their blurb out with my story's information. 

Here's an example changing Trixie Beldon's story to suit mine:

Kitty can't believe she's stuck in this sleepy little town with nothing to do and no friends. Then she enters her miniature schnauzer Spade into the local dog show, and things start to liven up. A lost dog is found, and another stolen, a secret inheritance is revealed and Kitty teams up with an unlikely sleuthing partner. Could all this lead to murder? Maybe living in the country won't be so boring after all!

I didn't stop there. I rewrote at least ten more. By the time I finished this exercise I knew which things were important for me to include, and what could be left out. If the blurb is too long, the reader will lose interest. Then I took the parts I loved, tweaked and merged them and came up with this:

One dog found

One dog stolen

A mysterious will

All this equals murder!

Introducing Kitty Walker and her mischievous dog Spade in the first Dog Show Detective Mystery: 

Twelve-year-old Kitty, friendless bookworm and amateur sleuth. All she wants is to gain her mother's attention, spend time with Spade and avoid Miss Perfect, Jessica Jones. But now she needs Jessica's help to find the owner of a lost dog, hunt down a dognapper and solve a murder!

Can you solve the mystery before Kitty?

And look, I managed to get a list in! What do you think, does it work? Do you like writing blurbs? Any tips on blurb-writing?

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Writers have a lot of balls

Wait, what did you think I meant?

With the popularity of authors breaking out on their own and publishing their own works, the role of author is expanding. I know many authors who are also their own publishers, editors, marketers, promotors, sales coordinator and graphic artist. Phew! It's a lot of work, for sometimes very little return. 

Through my small press publishing house, Hot Doggy Digital Press, I produce my own books and ebooks, but I definitely am not a one-woman show. I rely on lots of beta-readers (including avid readers, writers and my target market which is usually kids), employ professional editors, work with graphic artists and book designers and enlist various marketing programs. This costs money, but produces much more professional results than I could ever achieve alone.

Right now I'm sending out the final draft of Dognapped? A Dog Show Detective Novel to beta-readers. I'm also playing with cover designs. I like to do mock-ups, so when I talk to my book designer I have a clear idea of what I'm after. While this is going on I'm beginning edits on Undead Kev, writing short stories for submission, designing writing workshops for kids, attending my writer's group and undertaking masterclasses for editing. Soon I'll be designing and ordering promotional material for Dognapped (bookmarks, postcards, magnets, etc) and planning a book launch.

It's not easy juggling all those writer's balls (you thought I was going in a different direction with that post title, didn't you?). To be honest I find it easier to label all my balls, but only toss one in the air at a time. How are you going with time-managment and multi-tasking? Got a lot of balls?

Here's some of the very rough drafts of cover ideas for Dognapped? Feel free to be opinionated!

 

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2013 - Year of the Writer

I'm declaring it for all of us

For my Insecure Writer's Support Group post, I'm taking my insecurities and creating myself a resolution list from them. So for 2013 I intend to:

• Edit - I've signed up for Year of the Edit, a course offered by the Queensland Writer's Centre. Editing can seem seem like an overwhelming task, fixing a story, the structure, character motivations... it always scares me a little when I begin. But to be honest, once I get started, rewrites are my favourite part of writing a novel because that's when I find my themes, motifs and hidden plot lines. I have at least four novels to edit this year.
• Improve my writing - This is always on my list, but this year I'm focusing on grammar to strengthen my writing. I'm working through workbooks and have a great friend who's very clever when it comes to grammar.
• Create Classroom resources - I do this anyway when I go to schools and run creative writing workshops or discuss my book. I'd like to make free classroom resources relating to my novels available by creating professional PDFs and putting a link to them up on my website. 
• Increase income/reduce expenditure - I've got a few big goals I'll need to save for. One of my goals is to have a weekender shack somewhere (beachside or national park area) that can double as my writer's retreat. 
• Read more indie novels and more Australian authors - I have so many friends that are indie authors, I'm ashamed I'm not reading more of these releases. I'm aiming to make every second book I read either Australian or indie. That should help me get through lots more without missing out on any mainstream traditionally published foreign books I may just be dying to read (like the next Spellman's book). I'm also going to submit a lot more Amazon reviews of the books I like.

In our family we also make a wish for the new year. It can be as big or wild as you want, and usually is something we couldn't possibly achieve in the one year, but it's nice to have high goals. Mine is for us to buy a property, but I do think it'll take more than a year of saving. Still, it'll help me stay focused on my saving resolution. What would your wild wish for 2013 be?

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Curing the NaNoWriMo Hangover

K.M. Weiland's new book launched today: Dreamlander

It's a great read for fantasy lovers, I've reviewed the book on Goodreads and Amazon. 

Just 99c, check it out!:

December's here and NaNoWriMo is over. Long live NaNoWriMo.

In my pre-NaNo post I listed 8 things to give up to get those 50k words. I didn't go completely without. I did stay away from television for the first few weeks and haven't watched very much since then. My fav' shows at the moment are Castle, Bones, Justified and The Walking Dead (okay the last one is a love/hate relationship). I did give up a lot of social media time. I was almost non-existent on Twitter and Google+ and I only wrote one blog post. 

My days revolved around the word counts. All I could focus on was the 50k prize. And I did it. I finished the first draft of Undead Kev and have almost finished Warracknabeal Kids. Now it's over, I've taken a couple of days to shake the daze from my tired mind and it's time to get on with things. Here's a list of my plans for December. Did you take part in NaNoWriMo? How do you plan on recovering from the crazy?

• 3 pages - before NaNo my routine included writing three pages longhand first thing in the morning. These pages can be garble or clear story ideas. It doesn't matter. You can use the words to plot or just to dump all thoughts crowding your mind and blocking your creativity. I gave up my 3 pages during November, but I find it a refreshing way to start my writerly day.
• Meditation - visualisation techniques and guided audio recordings help me to clear my mind and plan my words. It's just 5-10 minutes out of my day but really sparks the creativity.
• Short Stories - novel writing has exhausted me over November. I'm taking a little break and concentrating on short stories for a while. 
• Blog - I can't wait to get around and visit blogs again. I'm gonna be a blog-reading machine!
• Reading - I decided to try some books off the high school reading list. Finally got around to reading Catcher in the Rye and now I'm working my way through some Steinbeck classics.
• Educating - Learning grammar rules via Grammar Girl, workbooks and my good friend Denise Covey (a grammar guru).

I know many NaNoers are jumping right in with their editing. I'm going to take a little break and look at  editing in the new year.

I've also got my Christmas tree up - what do you think?

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8 Things to Give Up for NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month.

50,000 words in one month. Sounds crazy. Ready to give up? Great! Me too. I'll give up lots, just so long as I don't have to give up writing my novel. It's all about the words and we know getting words on  the page can often be all about finding the time to write. What are you prepared to sacrifice?

Here's a list of the things you could give up for November to win NaNoWriMo:

1. Plot - 'But I'm not a pantser!' I hear you shout. That's okay. Maybe you spent all of October planning every scene for your novel. Fine, try that. But if you don't have your story plotted out already - now is not the time to do it. Just go with it. And if you do? Add some random things on the days you feel stuck. Sometimes knowing what you have to write can slow you down. Have your character pop into a cafe for a bowl of jelly and find a fly in it. The thing is you'll get your word count, it's great writing practice and you can always delete it in the edits.
2. Perfection - Repeat after me - 'This will be a crap draft, but at least I'll have a draft.'
3. Cleanliness - Now I'm not suggesting you stop showering, that's a great place for inspiration. But forget the vacuuming, washing clothes, mowing lawns etc. Kids can wash their own clothes and wear their uniforms crinkled. The family will figure out how to make baked beans on toast, and maybe they wouldn't mind whipping up something for you while they're at it. It is a universal rule that NOBODY EVER visits an author's home in November. Make sure you don't visit a writer friends house and comment on the cobwebs either. That's like killing puppies, you don't want to kill puppies... do you?
4. Television - Ooh this is going to be a hard one for some people (me). I can't remember the last time I turned on tv to see what was on, but we watch a lot of DVDs and download tv series from iTunes (I love Castle, The Walking Dead, Justified & Bones). But for November I've pledged to watch NOTHING. My family are sadly not supporting this challenge, so I'll be spending a lot of time alone in my room typing.
5. Company - Those people called family and friends will only weigh you down dude! Ditch 'em now. You may however, hang with other writers and encourage each other with word races and accountability for word counts. If you can't trust yourself not to wander off for coffee with mates, hide all your shoes for the month.
6. Stress - Nothing slows action more than worrying about it.
7. Blogs - Don't panic, I'm not suggesting you HAVE to close down for the entire month (although many bloggers are), but you shouldn't let yourself on until you've met your word count for the day (at least). I'm not planning to do much blogging over November and I doubt I'll be visiting blogs, unless I get ahead of schedule. There's a zillion blogs to visit, no one will mind if a few of them slow down. Plus, I don't like to blog unless I'm reciprocating by visiting blogs, otherwise I think it's a bit selfish and rude. And I don't want to be rude. I want you to like me :)
8. Internet time - Schedule a reduced time, maybe thirty minutes a day, to check emails, Facebook, Twitter etc, or again, let yourself online AFTER you reach your daily word count.

That's my list. I'll be giving up all these things for November. How about you? Another one for the guys is shaving, let your stubble go wild this month!

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E is for Easter and Editing

Love vintage? You HAVE to check out French, Pink, Poodles and Pearls

Tomorrow begins Easter weekend and for me, time to edit. There's a few manuscripts backed up to edit, and a few more waiting to be written, but this weekend I'm focusing on some short stories. I don't usually read short stories or write them, but I've been dabbling as a way of tightening my skills. Editing is its own skill that needs to be strengthened. There's a few ways you can do this:

1. Search the Net - There's loads of great sites out there, try this one: The Editor's Blog
2. Take a workshop - Look up your local writer's centre, mine is QWC
3. Read a book - Grab something like Revision and Self-editing by James Scott Bell
4. Get professional help - This is what I recommend if you funds allow. I have a wonderful manuscript editor helping me with my girls' mystery novel. Through this process I'm learning a lot and my manuscript is becoming much tighter. It's important you find someone you're comfortable working with, I'm very appreciative to my editing angel, Margot Finke.

Enjoy your weekend, and your chocolate!

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Writing 2012

2012 - it's arrived, but I won't have time for the end of the world, I'll be too busy with changes to my world.

I'm proud of my productivity in 2011, got quite a bit of writing done and learned a lot about the craft. This year my focus shifts to publication. I'll need to:

Edit - Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. I've a few manuscripts that need polishing. I need to prioritise my manuscripts and work through them one at a time.

Submit - Time to circulate finished manuscripts. I had a taste of this when I had a meeting with a representative from a popular children's publishing house for MY ZOMBIE DOG. The main thing I came to learn? Putting your work out there does not have to be scary, this is a very supportive industry.

Connect - I'll be attending writer's workshops and events in Brisbane and I'll focus on growing my blog and online groups.

Read - In 2011 I read 102 books. My plan is to lower that goal this year and pay more attention to what I'm reading. I'd like to read and implement 5 good guides on writing/publishing and learn from the fiction I read. It's also time to delve back into reading blogs, I gain so much from those and promise to share links to the best ones with you.

Write - But of course! My optimistic goal is to finish WARRACKNABEAL KIDS and THE PIRATE GIRL. I flunked NaNoWriMo in 2011, but will aim to write one new novel this year in November. My other favourite type of writing? Lists. I'll be making lists for each of these resolutions with ideas and steps to achieve them.

Those are my writing goals for this exciting year - the year of possibilities. My whole world is not just writing, I've started going to the gym and want to get super-fit, I'll be renovating my new home in Brisbane and plan to add a library. As a family we are aiming to reduce waste and excess. Packing up a house really brings to light how much stuff (i.e. crap) you accumulate. 

2012 - BRING IT ON!

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E is for Editing Tools

You've finished your first draft - woo-hoo! You're excited, you want this book on shelves and read on Kindles NOW. Maybe you think it was a pretty good first draft and you could send it out to agents and publishers, after all, they have editors that will fix it up... right? Um, no. You want to give your story the best chance to be loved.

If you're anything like me, the first time you'll feel uncertain of where to begin with the editing process. There are lots of methods of editing to make sure you tighten your manuscript, here are the resources that I found most valuable:

1. Editing Courses

After I took on the How To Think Sideways course to help me write my first novel, I decided to try Holly Lisle's How To Revise Your Novel online course. This was fantastic. I can not rave enough. Holly's course provided instructions and charts in step by step modules to take you through the most thorough and productive editing process. You will chart up characters, backstory, plot lines, themes and more. You'll understand the importance of each element as it is explained clearly to you. If you think you'd like to learn more about producing a finished manuscript, you can check the course out by clicking below:

2. Books

The books I found the most helpful during the editing phase were:

Manuscript Makeover by Elizabeth Lyon. 

This book is also featured in my list: 13 Best Resources for Writers. It will help you take a rough draft and turn it into a well-written manuscript. I think it's a must have. I read through it for editing, but it also has a lot of helpful chapters about the creative writing phase. One key thing I picked up from this book was about Power Positions, I'd never thought before about the importance of the first paragraph, sentence and even word for each chapter. 

Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell.

There is so much information about identifying your priorities in your manuscript and editing the elements of your story, that I suggest reading through it with a notepad and pen and writing down the dot point. Bell even helped me work out how to liven up slow passages (bringing in a man with a gun). You can read more about this book in a previous post: Read, Write, Drive.

3. Time

There's no way around it. You need to put your manuscript down and give it some time before trying to edit it. Everything in there will still seem like a good idea right now, because you just wrote it. What can you do while it ferments? Plot out your next novel, try some creative writing exercises and READ. Read a lot of novels in the genre of your manuscript, with similar characters, or, aimed at the same age-market. You will pick up a lot of tips on structure, pace and characterisation just from reading these books. Keep a note pad and record the pages that show examples of well-written text that you could use to help your story. During my waiting phase for Dog Show Detective (as well as writing my next WIP), I read books from the Trixie Beldon series, books with dog characters and general cosy mysteries like Agatha Christie's. This is research (and it's fun).

Do you have a favourite editing resource you want to share with everyone?

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The Perfect Critique Reader

Matilda reading Dog Show Detective on her iPad

There's a lot of advice online on how to find a critique partner. Here are the best tips I found.

1. Know what you want from your critique - do you want advice on how to fix the plot problems or do you just want to know if the story is paced well?  Pick the sort of person to suite the job, are they literary or just great spellers?
2. How much effort do you want to make? Are you happy to swap manuscripts and have another writer critique your work while you critique theirs? If you think you just don't have the time for that, then you might want to find a keen reader who is happy to critique your work for a free read, or pay a professional to critique your work. You can check out sites like Novel Doctor, The Manuscript Appraisal Company, or,
3. Jessica Andersen in a guest post on The Knight Agency suggests you find a writer with strengths that differ from yours. I'm not strong on dialogue, so I'd  look for someone who writes great dialogue to pick up on my weak spots.
4. You can find a critique partner at your local writer's group, or by joining your state writer's organisation and checking their website for notices. Or you could even advertise for a critique partner online through your blog, facebook or twitter.
5. Put up a notice at your local library looking for readers of your genre, that's were readers gather!
6. Writing childrens books? Then let kids critique your work. My middle grade novel is being read by my kids and their friends who are submitting notes on the experience. Matilda, my youngest, is one of my most astute readers, she has no problem at all telling me when the story gets slow.

Emily reading my book on her Kindle

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T is for Timelines and Thanks

T is for Timelines. The online editing course I'm taking, How to Review Your Novel, has gotten me to use my scene cards (a previous exercise of recording each scene on a separate index card) and note down the day and time the scene takes place. I'm including the start time and finish time.

The object of this exercise is to catch yourself up on parts where the story does not flow cohesively, but also to think about time of day for your descriptions and actions. Things are easy to find in the daylight and night time is best for sneaky characters.

What did I gain from this exercise? Once all my cards were laid out in time order, I saw ways to shorten the overall timeframe of the story, down from three weeks to just over one week. This provides my narrative a faster moving pace.

Another part of the exercise was to decide exactly what time of year this is all happening, which makes you think about scenery (snow or falling leaves?) and the temperature (bikinis or sweaters?). The full rewrite of Dog Show Detective starts next week!

T is also for Thanks and I have to thank some lovely bloggers for awards! I try to get to everyone's blog every couple of days, the A-Z blog challenge is fun, but when I get back to blogging every couple of days, I'll be able to keep up with leaving comments :-). The awards:

From Mason Canyon at Thoughts in Progress

From Niki at Wool n Nuts

This award is from Angie Paxton at Answering the What if

It was easy to work out who I should pass them onto, because I owe great thanks to my beautiful followers who have made the effort to also follow my daughters (8 & 12yrs. old)  book review blog at Paper Dolls. The girls are absolutely thrilled when they get new followers and a comment is like christmas for them. I appreciate the supportive enthusiasm you've shown (and always feel free to post a link in the comments here, if you know of a young person's blog we should visit), so I want each person to receive all three awards, THANK YOU to:

• Book Dreaming
• Answering the What If
• Writing in the Crosshairs
• Wool N Nuts
• Unedited
• The Watered Soul
• Neat Zine
• The Innocent Flower
• Head in the Clouds
• Dutch Hill News
• Literary Rambles

And, because I've seen the girls working hard to finish books and spend hours on each review, I'm also passing the awards onto Milly and Tilly at Paper Dolls - keep up the good work girls!

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E is for Enter the Book Giveaway!!!

The contest has closed! I'll announce the winner on tomorrow's blog

  

   

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C is for Competitions, Courses and Children

C is for Competitions and I've found a few new ones!

Juiciliciousss Reviews is offering a surprise book giveaway - a whole parcel of YA books! It's open internationally, so Aussies can enter too :-)

I Heart Monsters is also hosting a huge book giveaway - also open to international entrants!

Princess Bookie is hosting several contests including one just for international readers (not for the US) to win Before I Fall by Lauren Olivier.

C is for Courses.

I've been working steadily on Dog Show Detective edits using How to Revise Your Novel, an online course by Holly Lisle. Recently I posted about Holly's use of the Sentence for Review (My Take on Premise): each scene should have an index card with the sentence. The sentence should be: protagonist with need versus antagonist with need in interesting setting with a twist, or record a moment when everything changes: protagonist is doing this UNTIL....

Since then, I have gone through and followed with one thing I want to keep in that scene and one thing I want to change. By breaking the novel down to scenes, the editing is much more manageable for me (this is my first time editing a novel).

I had a wow moment with the course. I was asked to sit down and re-write the sentence for review in a notebook, the catch was I had to write the sentences for the story in order, without peaking at my cards. I had to do it from memory. Pfft, I couldn't see the point of this. Then I did it. Wow. I found I came up with a tighter more functional order for my story scenes, a few new scenes to tied everything together and forgot a scene that was a flashback, confirming it really isn't needed at all in the story.

C is also for Children and Compromise and Class.

I mentioned in my last blog that my girls wanted to start their own blog. At first they were adamant they needed separate blogs, even though they would both be doing book reviews. The compromise was that Miss 12 picked the title: 'Paper Dolls' and Miss 8 could choose the background (she actually managed to find one with paper dolls).

http://paperdollsbooks.blogspot.com/

And for no particular reason, C is for Cat:

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My Take on Premise

Most definitions of 'premise' seemed to use the word premise to explain premise (???).

Let's start with what premise is not. It is not theme. Theme is more than a singular words, like LOVE or WAR. If I said the theme of my novel Dog Show Detective is IDENTITY, you would be right to ask 'what about it?' If I said 'Identity is based on perception' or 'Identity can be misleading', then I would be getting closer to relaying my theme.

What about premise?

Premise is more specific than theme. It tells the reader/potential publisher/anyone who will listen, exactly what your story is about. Premise is the basis of your story.

I found a great blog that covered Premise at: Screenwriting Tips for Authors

Alexandra Sokoloff said: "That sentence really should give you a sense of the entire story: the character of the protagonist, the character of the antagonist, the conflict, the setting, the tone, the genre. And - it should make whoever hears it want to read the book."

Based on Alexandra's explanation, my premise for Dog Show Detective would be:

Kitty Walker is a shy 11yr. old, she thinks entering her Miniature Schnauzer in shows will impress her busy mother, but she could never imagine she would find a valuable missing dog, which the owner claims is an impostor, or that someone is trying to keep the dog's identity a secret at any cost, even murder.

In Holly Lisle's course on writing a novel, How To Think Sideways, this is called the 'Sentence'. Holly goes on to use the sentence in How To Revise Your Novel, (one of my favourites courses), where every scene is given its own sentence. This technique has made revising much easier for me. For example, one scene-sentence from my novel is: 

The Walkers tend to the mess left by the intruder and wonder why nothing is stolen until Kitty realises Hitchcock [the mystery dog] is missing. 

I'd be happy to leave my premise as these examples. But there is another step. James Frey in How to Write a Damn Good Novel explains premise as a "statement of what happens to the characters as result of the core conflict of the story". He goes on to say you then take the elements and break it down into a message that is proved by your story.

For example, a Winnie the Pooh animation I saw with my kids would have had 'the sentence' of: 

Pooh and his friends must go on a dangerous adventure to find their beloved Christopher Robin, they each doubt their ability to succeed, but must prove themselves wrong. 

The Premise?  

You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think. 

Ok, I stole that line from Pooh quotes. Perhaps it could be: You can surprise yourself with what you can achieve if someone you love needs your help.

'You are braver than you believe...'

Another take on Premise comes from Sandra Scofield in her audiobook course, Writing from Premise (available in iTunes), with the suggestion that Premise must be when one element or action in your story LEADS TO a set conclusion (which could be positive or negative). One example given is: Unconventional love leads to new life. This was a premise given for a story about a woman who falls in love with a younger man despite her misgivings and enjoys the journey.

Taking this advice, my premise for Dog Show Detective could be: Making assumptions leads to being deceived. And, I probably have a premise of: Believing in yourself leads to surprising achievements.

Many experts have implied a lack of premise leads to failure in a novel (oooh, that's a premise!), but I believe if you have a 1st draft of a story, you can always revise your novel with a premise. Once you have your premise, make sure every scene moves towards either proving your premise correct, or being the exception to the rule (one character's subplot might act as a binary to the premise). If you find a scene that has no relation to the premise, perhaps it needs to be cut?

Remember: Having a premise leads to a 'damn good' novel!

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Changing Characters

I've been checking out Scrivener. At first I was disappointed when I realised my program Plot Builder wouldn't work on my new Mac. I begrudgingly downloaded Scrivener and promptly declared it 'too hard to figure out'. There were tutorials available but... pfft. who has time for tutorials?

Of course once I gave in and watched some of the tutorial clips and played around, I've found that it's now my top pick for fiction writing. I can even make onscreen plot cards to use in the How to Review Your Novel course. I've a lot to learn, but I'm loving Scrivener.

With the edits of Dog Show Detective coming along, I have now attacked my characters. Viciously. I've gone over when they first enter, how important they appear, and the big one: WHY are they even in the story? Some characters needed to be given more important roles - or get axed. Holly Lisle has a good system for these revisions, she uses a points system in her course (How to Review Your Novel). 

For example: The character name; 'Tommy' vs 'little Tommy snot-nosed Williams' - using the first suggests a smaller role in the narrative. There are other methods of weighing your characters in this course and making sure you don't put too much emphasis on characters you won't be using much, but make important characters stand out enough.

Another thing to consider about your supporting characters is what do they have invested in this story? What's their motivation for helping or hindering the protagonist? What do they hope to gain? You don't want hanger-ons or submissive personas just taking up space. Every single character counts. You might think because you have a young protagonist then you need to include parents, possibly, but they still need a role in the protagonists journey. Either they make the goal harder to reach or they have their own reasons for helping.

I've also been revisiting my audiobook version of Chris Vogler's Using Myth to Power The Story. This looks at traditional storytelling of the journey of the hero. There are a pool of traditional roles for characters, such as Mentor, Trickster, Hero etc. You can find out a little more about these archetypes at: Using Archetypes to Write Meaningful Characters. Using archetypes as guidelines for your character list can help make sure you don't end up with characters that are too similar. And don't forget every character needs flaws, you can read more about that in a previous blog post: Creating Character Flaws. I wouldn't take the archetypes too far, you don't want a story that seems too formulated or it might end up like this movie trailer:

(not as raunchy as the image looks)

To Write Is To Know (Gabriele Rico) is my most recent audiobook download and I've found it filled with creative writing exercises to get you making new connections. I'm going to try some of these exercises to get some new material for The Warracknabeal Kids and will report back the results soon!

Do you have a favourite book, podcast or course to help you through editing? I'm always looking for more!

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First Impression & Lasting Impact.

Dog Show Detective edits are coming along nicely. I owe this completely to the resources I've found on editing that turned a daunting task into an achievable process. This week I've been looking at position and placement.

'cause position matters

(pic found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/68003527@N00/254633689)

Position, Position, Position!

By now you all would be knowing about the ol' opening hook necessity (or you can see a previous post I did on hooks here). The opening hook can get your reader interested in starting your novel, but it won't be enough to keep them going. There's no point in letting the rest of your story drag through.

In Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore, Elizabeth Lyon explains the importance of certain positions throughout your novel. This guide (which I've found very practical) suggests spending an entire round of revision on 'power positions'.

What is Power Position?

"When a word, phrase, or sentence is in a first position, it serves as a hook to draw the reader in. The impact of the last position should cinch the meaning of the sentence or paragraph, and create suspense and curiosity leading to the next hook." Are you at least thinking carefully about where you pack the important stuff?

Examples:
Miss 8 was today writing a story about a valuable piece of paper missing from the museum. Her story started by telling me all about Greg, the man in charge of guarding the valuable piece. I heard about his family and his work habits and then finally about the day he discovered the piece of paper was stolen. I suggested she start with the discovery, and then tell us about Greg. The re-write started by expressing the concern in finding such a valuable piece missing and what it might mean for his job, then we learn who 'he' is.

Miss 11's story would be about a thief who is escaping a detective and during the pursuit get's hit by a car. After learning about 'starting with the action', she decided to begin with the impact of the car hitting the thief and then explaining how he got there. This shows how the opening paragraphs of the chapter would have the hook, the excitement, the puzzle and the closing ones would explain and deepen the curiosity of the reader.

In Dog Show Detective, I've been working through my chapters and paragraphs to see how I go on position placement, but I think a big change will be for the placement of chapters in the book. I start before the action, I figured I needed to 'inform' my reader of what was going on. Wrong. I can inform them later, right at the start I want to make them wonder what's going on.

My other main source for editing has been How to Revise Your Novel. 

I know I rave about this course, but it has broken the process of editing down to weekly steps. I'm not sure what's coming up, but so far I've been able to complete the steps without difficulty. 

In lesson 2 I looked at the weight of each character and item mentioned in the narrative and making sure it directly links to the story and hopefully propels it along.

This week was lesson 3 and I had to summarise each scene into an impact sentence and write them on individual index cards (without knowing what Holly Lisle will want me to do with those cards, I have already found scenes that will be surplus). So far this course has had me identify problems and I haven't had to actually rewrite (yet - I KNOW that's coming!)

As well as editing, I have been working on my plotting for my next book (possibly named The Warracknabeal Kids). In 1939 a fire swept through the Warracknabeal racecourse, burning down the old decrepit clubhouse and providing much-needed insurance funds to build a new one. I'm using this as a setting for my story about a kid who struggles with morality and understanding that sometimes you have to do wrong to make things right. I think this is my favourite part of writing - planning. I love research and finding out more about my MC's world. Today I'm going to get a Google Maps pic of the small town he lives in.

I also received a Kreative Blog award (from Ann at All Write With Coffee - thanks!), the idea is that I pass it on, but you know what? I've decided if you follow me, or I follow you - then that means I love your blog and would like you to accept this award (I realise most of you probably already have it). Feel free to post it up and share ten things about yourself (I won't do that because I did it last post and things about me actually run out at 12). So for all my followers and followees - your award:

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A Linky Kinda Day

I was thinking about how pictures can be used as story prompts (something I like to do in class) and I came across this pic entitled "There's always one idiot to spoil your holiday snaps" in an environmental newsletter. It made me laugh and think about the classes I teach, there's always one kid like that seal, exasperating but delightful too.

I've decided this week is a Linky week, I've been spending a lot of time blog hopping (when I should be editing) and wanted to share some writer's links I've found.

Publishing:

Dreaming In Text Brian Keaney took the time to comment on my blog about self-publishing last week, and his site has many posts regarding this topic. This link will take you to Brian's posts on publishing.

A Newbies Guide to Publishing for the flip side, here is an author exploring what works when self-publishing on Kindle.

Editing:

NaNoEdMo If you've read previous posts from me you'll know I became a huge fan of NaNoWriMo this year, to the point of creating a lesson unit for high school English. NaNoEdMo is a separate site which starts in a few days and encourages you to edit a novel for 50hours in one month. I'll give it a go with my NaNo novel: The Costume Maker.

Story in Literary Fiction this site has essays on editing fiction.

Reviews:

I also branched out more this week and started reading more book review sites (usually I stick to the blogs about writing fiction). Reading reviews can help you find your market, see what similar fiction is out there and get direct feedback on what readers like and don't like in fiction. Here's where I was reading reviews this week for YA fiction:

Rhiana Reads the reviews here are quite honest and critical. Positive and negative feedback is given for popular YA fiction, this week was Evermore.

Teens Read and Write I think I was most blown away with how professional this site looks, makes me want to make mine a bit more snazzy now.  What better way to write YA fiction than to hear what YAs have to say about it?

Hooked on YA Books Blog on YA literature by YA.

Have a favourite link or blog about writing or books? Feel free to add the link in comments, I'd love to visit!

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Opposite Day

My kids have a favourite little game where they give me the response I don't want and then tell me it's "Opposite Day", they say there should be a day at school like that. I ask how would you know it was opposite day and they respond that you would ask someone. The trouble is if you asked on the day and they said it was, then that would mean it wasn't? And if they said it wasn't then it might be, but if it actually wasn't opposite day then that would still be the response? My 11yr old said you should ask the day before. Sometimes the answer is so obvious it takes a child to find it.


As writers for children we need to tap into that magical way of viewing the world where even the complicated things are simple. I think this can apply to our plotting and structuring of narratives.


I came across this talk that seemed to prove to me there would no one right or wrong way to write my story, I'm hoping it will ignite your imagination too (it's very short):



This week I watched Monsters Inc (again) and thought the opposite idea applied to this script. If kids are scared of monsters then couldn't monsters be scared of kids? And what would happen if a kids wasn't scared of the monster, but loved him instead?


While writing Dog Show Detective I carefully plotted and planned every step. This was helpful for most of the story, but when you get to one section that doesn't seem to fit, it can be hard to let go of all that planning. This certain event 'needs' to happen in the story because that is what we planned. Maybe not.


Freewriting or Riff-writing is a way of approaching edits for dull or awkward parts of your manuscript.  Romance Writer's Revenge has more information about this style of writing. To over-simplify, instead of writing to the plan, just write anything. 


Go random, go wild, maybe go 'opposite'. If you planned for your villain to escape into the night, have him trip on his way out and break his neck - then what? Everything in your story might change, and that might be scary - but it might be brilliant too. You're not married to this idea, if you write a scene the opposite way to what you intended, it may just prove that your original idea is better, now you'll have depth because you'll know why the characters act that way.


There is no wasted writing, you can always find hidden treasures for your story or ideas to be gently put away and returned to for another day and another story.

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