Choosing Your Detective

Romantic Friday Writers provide an interesting writing prompt every month. I try to join in when I can because it's fantastic practice and allows you to get feedback on your stories. This month I was extra-excited because the prompt is:

I love crime novels, especially mysteries. On the Romantic Friday Writers' site, I posted an article about the need for a strong motive in mystery stories. Another essential element is a great detective. Who will solve your crime? Will it be the:

• world-weary detective who's seen it all before;
• young enthusiastic copper, who makes too many mistakes;
• suspended police officer working outside the law;
• criminal only slightly more moral than the perpetrator;
• old lady playing amateur detective; or
• a child or other innocent, now exposed to the harsh truth of life and death?

I've been consuming a lot of kids' mysteries lately and here are some of my favourite child detectives:

Miranda from When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Beautiful story about friendship. Read a review from 11yr old Milly at Paper Dolls.

Phyllis from Phyllis Wong and the Forgotten Secrets of Mr Okyto. Reviewed at Paper Dolls.

The Masked Avenger in The Amber Amulet by Craig Silvey.

Here is my flash fiction for the prompt Driven to Murder (if you're motivated, feel free to critique for improvement):

Grisly Business

'Think it’s too late Sergeant?' Officer Sarah Camden hurried to catch up as Sergeant John Hart trudged across the gravel parking lot.

He looked up from his extended sigh. 'Too late for what?'

'For the woman sir. I mean, if someone grabbed her between here and the tavern then it was an opportunity attack—not likely they’re keeping her somewhere.'

'Yes, I’d say it’s too late for Donna Locke.'

'Think we’ll turn up something on the CTV cameras?'

'Nah.' John clicked the button on his keyring and the Commodore’s lights flashed once. With his hand on the door he added, 'What we’ll find Camden is that Donna Locke did indeed walk home alone at 2:15am this morning after her friend’s hen’s night and that her walk was relatively uneventful.' He got into the car and shut the door.

Sarah rushed around to her door and scrambled in.

'You don’t think she’s really missing?'

'Oh she’s missing to some, her friends, colleagues, and her children. She’s missing to them.'

'Think she’s pulling a Fairly Arrow Sir?' Referring to the hack pop singer who’d faked her own abduction in the nineties, hoping to gain celebrity status on her 'miraculous' return.

John grunted as he fastened his seatbelt and adjusted the rear-vision mirror. 'That’d be the best outcome. But no, she didn’t strike me as the type.'

Sarah pondered this for a few moments and slapped her knee. 'A lover! Donna Locke met up with a lover and chances are she doesn’t know there’s a search on for her.'

'Hmm, maybe.' John checked over his shoulder and the car rolled out of the lot.

'What? That’s logical.'

'Yeah, except she made no calls. How would this fellow know where to meet her?'

'She jumped in a cab?'

'I’ve got Johnson on that now, don’t reckon it’ll turn anything up. Hope I’m wrong.'

'So if she didn’t get grabbed or take off, why didn’t she make it home?'

John indicated and merged into the traffic. 'That’s just it Camden, experience has developed my gut feeling, and my highly-trained intestines are telling me she did make it home.'

'Then why… the husband?'

'Usually is.'

'You think he killed his wife, dumped the body, then reported her missing?'

John sighed again. Thirty years with Robyn, they’d had a lot of rough ones. Even now there was no knowing if things could be repaired. Still, the act of murdering your spouse? It was just so… final.

'But Sergeant, why’re we putting out a media release to find Donna Locke?'

'Two reasons, I’m hoping to pick up an eye-witness who places Donna entering her apartment around 2:30am, and, because I don’t want Damien Locke to suspect we’re onto him. There’s evidence in that apartment and as long as Locke thinks he’s in the clear, the better the chance he’ll slip up.'

A horn blasted, and a silver Audi zipped around them. Sarah glanced at the speedometer, as usual the Sergeant was driving ten kilometres under the speed limit.

'Sir?'

'Hmm?'

'You think he did it because of the affair?'

John raised an eyebrow at the girl.

'I mean… if there was an affair.'

He shrugged. 'Jealousy or money are the most common motives, although money usually wins out.'

Sarah opened her mouth to speak again a few times, but the deep furrows across his forehead and the weariness in his eyes stopped her. 

They pulled into the station car park.

'Grisly business Sir.'

'It always is.'

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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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How to Write Better Stories

What really drives your story?

I'm going to share with you a secret that will knock your socks off. This tip will make your plot richer and deeper and... more meaningful. Okay, when I say secret, it may be that I'm the only one that didn't know about it before. But I'm still excited, it's made a world of difference for my writing. Alison Goodman, author of the well known series Eon, revealed this writing technique in her course on narrative structure. Goodman passes on this golden advice from Robert McKee, who outlined the method in his book on writing screenplays, Story. 

The importance of character motivation in fiction is obvious. Characters must want something real bad, this is their goal. Your character might even have more than one goal. They should have an existing goal before we meet them, you know - they want to travel the world but they've been stuck in a small town since they were born, they want to meet their prince charming but only meet pigs in the strip club they work in, or they want to be a rock star but their parents expect them to become a priest. This goal drives a lot of the protagonist's decisions. In Warracknabeal Kids, Harry Conner's existing goal is find his mother, or at least uncover what happened to her. But then something happens...

We have the sneaky old inciting incident. The moment that things change for the protagonist and their everyday life is shaken up in some way. The inciting incident may provide a new goal for your character. My inciting incident involved a fire and the discovery of a body. Now Harry has a whole new mystery to solve. 

I always thought the protagonist's goal drove the narrative. But that's a limited view. There's something missing here. If you want to have a character with realistic depth then they need more than motive. They must posses an underlying need.

This need is something your protagonist won't be aware of. And here's the kicker, it's this need that will drive your story, everything in your novel should in some way address the character's need. 

I was floored by this news. I always thought Harry NEEDED to find out what happened to his mother. She disappeared and left him alone with a father who can't connect with Harry. But when I explored the fact that Harry can't know what he really needs, I realised... Harry NEEDS to connect with his father. These two people need to find a way to be together, because Harry's mum is gone, but his dad is here.

Suddenly my narrative developed a new thread and theme. A stranger comes to town, and he was important to the story before, but now he is important to Harry as well. The charismatic stranger encompasses all the traits Harry wishes for in a father. 

Your character's underlying need should contradict or conflict with their goal or desire. The character who wants to travel the world, might really need to recognise the value in belonging in a small town and the satisfaction of living up to your responsibilities. They might NEED to stay.

When your story reaches its climax, your character should be facing a serious dilemma. It is at this time they need to make a difficult choice. Go for the goal or the need? This dilemma is resolved when your character manages to acknowledge their need and unify the goal and need. That is, either they will find a way to have both, or they will release their grip on one and be satisfied with the other.

Knowing about my character's need to connect with his father has added a theme of fatherhood to my mystery novel. Other characters in the novel either compliment or contradict this theme. The theme touches everyone in this town in some way. 

I've fallen even more in love with my novel and my very flawed characters. So here's what I want you to do right now, start brainstorming your character's need. You might not hit it straight away, keep going, you'll feel it like a punch in the stomach when you get the right one.

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Structure Complicated Plots

I posted about epic fantasy and its need for multiple plot lines, you can find tips on Creating Multiple Plot Lines here. It's one thing to come up with lots of ideas for multiple plots, but this can become confusing when you try to outline or compose your epic fantasy novel. Here's some different ways to keep track of and add structure to complicated plots:

Time-lines

Create a time-line for the events of the story, beginning just before the inciting incident and ending just after the final climax. Now using the same time frame for each main character, plot out their story events on that time line. Next you will compare each character's events. You want everyone's story to come together or peak at the same major climax point, but the events that confront them on their individual journeys could happen at differing times. This way, you don't get too much overlap or repetition and keep a constant pace with tension rising right up to the big climax.

Index cards

Many authors use index cards to plot out their novels. Write a short synopsis of every scene on the cards, labeling each card to identify which main character it relates to (some will relate to multiple characters when their paths cross). Then lay the story lines out in order, in rows of character plots. This way you can coordinate when they should cross, move scenes around to suit and identify unnecessary or repeated scenes.

Colour coding

A very simple idea, but whichever structure style you prefer, assign different colours to the main characters, it will make it easier and quicker to identify each plot line.

Story arcs

You'll probably already know about story arcs, this is the path your character takes and the changes to your character throughout the story. Almost always, a character should grow and learn through their experience. You can chart a character's story arc similar to the time line, the overall arch will be your leading protagonist, but they may have other characters they meet along the way, and those characters will have their own arcs. Some might stay to the end of the story and others might come and go (or just go, if they die). By using a different colour for each character, your story arcs might look something like this (apologies, I found a great example online, and then couldn't find it again when I was ready to do this blog):

Mix up the structures

Some of your characters may be on a hero's quest, or some might be experiencing growing tension until the climax, other characters might follow the classic three act structure. You can mix it up, and probably keeping track of their comings and going in the time-line will be enough.

I've also been reading James Scott Bell's Plot and Structure, and he suggests when writing complex plots you understand your theme, which can emerge from your characters' struggles. He also says that in an epic plot, the lead's (protagonist) objective may change to suit the stage of their quest, for example, in the beginning of the story they might want to fulfill some personal desire, during the middle they might be just trying to survive, but in a later stage/setting, their objective might be more selfless and they may set out to save someone (like a princess from a dragon). If you have two or more parallel plots (two characters, each with their own quest and objective), cut back and forth as each character heads towards the shared climax.

My study into writing fantasy fiction continues. To help on my quest, the kids and I visited a local games store and for the very first time in my life, I have now played:

It totally baffled me. 

As well as the two instruction manuals included, we were talked into taking another 300+ page manual on character creations. Turns out, there's lots of maths and recording to this game. Day two of instruction reading, and I was still not any closer to understanding the game so we could play. I then paid a nice sum to subscribe to the online community. Still confused. Matilda, who is all of eleven, got frustrated with me, sat down and read through the thinest manual and quickly became our Dragon Master. She has been talking me through. What I have discovered, is it's a great way to create novel plots and... I really like squishing goblins.

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P is for Plot

I came across this brilliant resource (which admittedly I found it linked on someone else's blog but can't remember which one to credit) for writing novels. There are many different methods writers use, and mine has usually been, get an idea and just start writing, once I can see some direction, I then plot the whole thing out.

Some writers claim novels don't need plot, but realistically that makes the story hard to follow and most readers won't want to continue the meandering journey. I love plot. This video from The Plot Whisperer will help anyone just starting out that can't find the direction they need to write a novel, and experienced writers who'd like some motivation and increase productivity in their writing time.

So enjoy, and remember, these tools are only useful if you USE them. As soon as you're done watching, make some notes on that next novel!

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NaNo - when now????

I was so cool about NaNoWriMo this year. Planned way ahead. Figured I'd do a sequel to my children's mystery novel DOG SHOW DETECTIVE. Plotted it out, have character sketches and a few little plot twists all mapped out. Now I've changed my mind.

After much feedback from beta-readers, both writers and kids in the targeted age group, I've decided DOG SHOW DETECTIVE is not as completed as I first thought. I need to juice up the start and add something more to the main character to push us into caring about her. Knowing this may change other aspects of the story, I'm not sure I should be jumping into the sequel.

The big question is what project do I focus on for NaNo. I could do another kids' horror story like MY ZOMBIE DOG, or I could go with a Science-fiction YA piece, or a teen spy-thriller. No rush there's still two and half days before I need to begin writing. No hurry.

How are your NaNoWriMo plans coming?

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I is for Ideas

Keep those ideas handy!

It seems almost every author interview includes the question 'where do you get your ideas?' Ideas spurt from our imaginations at an alarming rate, too fast to ever record them all. The trick is to find a plot worthy idea, one that can extend through a whole novel. 

One way to check your idea for substance is to dot point all the things that could possibly happen in that story. If you can come up with at least 20 points, then you could write a chapter for each and there's your novel outline. I like to aim for 40, because some will be rejected or changed as I go.

But if you really need some inspiration to kickstart your ideas (or more likely, just to recognise them as they surface - because I know you have them already), then try these:

Keep a Notebook

You hear it over and over again, but how many of us remember to carry ours around with us at all times? I try to, but if I forget, I have an 'inspirations' section in my iPhone notebook, or I can even record a message (if I'm driving). I've blogged about the sacred notebooks in:

The Writer's Notebook

Record Your Dreams

You will feel silly at first and have lots of random images that don't seem to tie together, but flesh it out and you'll see a possible plot emerge. My previous posts on dreamwriting:

7 Tips for Keeping a Dream Diary

Turning Dreams into Stories

Forgetting Dreams

Steal from Headlines

The newspapers and current affairs programs are filled with great ideas for stories. Take a headline, without reading the article and start to see what plot-line you can come up with. Who would the characters be and what would the main conflict be? If you want to try this, visit:

Plot Ideas from Headlines

Just Write

There are plenty of writing exercises you can try to come up with new stories. Here's one of the many books I use for writing exercises:

Now, get to that notebook and write! *Should heed own advice*

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Christie's Classroom for Murder

Most of my fiction contains a murder - murder most foul. As a teen I loved going to the cinema to see Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot solve Agatha Christie's murders. So, when I was recently looking for an audiobook to keep me company on a long drive, I decided to revisit Christie and downloaded And Then There Were None.

Not all Christie mysteries are created equal, this thrilling story was the best I've come across. It surprised me (and that's not easy - there's not many plots I haven't already come across before). Right to the end I kept guessing the culprit, and then re-evaluating my conclusion when that suspect would turn up dead. It was suspense at its best and brightest.

Agatha Christie was shunned by my Feminist Literature lecturer at Uni. Why? Just not literary enough - she was likened to the Mills and Boons of mystery. So what? Sometimes I want a plot. Agatha gave good plot. Her stories are told simply and her writing style does not get in the way of the story. I think this was a big lesson for me - stop trying to prove you can write well and just get on with the story. Her novels are also so well planned, they'd have to be to carry the complicated lines of suspects, victims and red herrings. 

The next audiobook I listened to was The Crooked House and Christie was also masterful in her story-weaving with this one. You follow the clues and just can not guess the murderer, and yet, at the end, the culprit is the only logical choice. This is the way murder mysteries should be told.

I'm excited about rediscovering Christie and I've just downloaded her book about her story-writing for my Kindle:

Now I'm off to read and research!

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NaNoWriMo Ready

The clock is ticking, NaNoWriMo begins... tomorrow morning!


Come join the madness, and friend me at NaNoWriMo here.

Last year I worked out my plot by starting with a brainstorming (also known as Clustering) session. This year I had my story prompt from a character exercise I did at the recent CYA Writer's Conference (you can see my post about it at Character to Plot Workshop).

Our family workshop (because, yes I make my whole family join in) was to write down our story premise (one sentence that sums up what your story is about), mine was: Psychic paleontologist tries to solve a murder after receiving a vision of the victim's death.

Then we wrote down, as a dot point, just ONE thing that could happen in our story, mine was:

• Dusty finds a body.

Then we passed our notebook around the table and, based on our premise and dot point, each person would add their own dot point of a plot idea that could happen in the story. This would work well with a critique group because you'd get lots of ideas. These are the ones I found in my notebook:

• A dig explosion goes off early, burying a volunteer - was it an accident or something more sinister?
• When Dusty accidentally touches the body she sees the killer has a cute little teddy bear.
• Dusty love jello.

Once we received our books back we went on to write as many plot ideas for our own story as we could. You just write ANYTHING that could happen in the story, small or significant. You do not have to use the suggestions given to you, but you're not allowed to cross them out either. All ideas are there to inspire.

The great thing about this approach is if you get 40 ideas and write out each one as a scene or chapter, you could easily reach your 50,000 words.

In last year's NaNoWriMo our family all included an evil Pomeranian puppy within our story, I look forward to seeing what quirky element or character we can share this year.

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Turning Dreams into Stories

 

I love this image I found at: www.josephinewall.co.uk/stairway.html 

In my last post, 7 Tips for Keeping a Writer's Dream Diary, I talked about ways to provoke, inspire and remember your dreams. But what if you have a big list of bizarre images, how does that help you create a story or add to your WIP?

Don't worry if you think your dreams don't make sense, mine hardly ever do. To show you how I turn a dream sequence into a plot idea, I'll give you an example of a dream I had just a couple of nights ago. This is how I recorded the dream:

Black Tweety-bird, human size. Lives in it's own house.

For some reason it's essential to modern society, it performs some necessary function for our lifestyle and it's a machine.

It's lonely.

The people try to find it a match, they send them in boxes with barcodes.

The robot (it's changed now) scans the barcodes to get a probability percentage of happiness with the match.

Finds a reasonably high percent and chooses that box.

It's changed again and is a woman. The match is a man with his two kids, they move in.

The kids are thrilled but the man is not.

What the...?

After brainstorming the idea with my daughter, we came up with this story plot:

Woman with OCD, decides to find herself a partner because she's lonely. She can't stand the idea of taking her chances with strangers, so she joins a dating service. She's sold by the idea they will give her a percentage rating of compatibility with each match. She's a numbers girl (really, she sometimes has to recite increments of seven or count the number of parked cars she passes on a walk).

Let's call her Nancy. Nancy agrees to a date with a man she's never met or seen, because the lady who runs the agency (let's call her Jill) told her the compatibility was 98%. That's good odds.

But...

Jill has a loser brother called Chris, he gambles, drinks and picks up cheap women. Party-boy Chris thinks it will be easy to pray on desperate woman looking for dates through the agency. No way is Jill going to let him join. So... Chris steals the identity of one James Brown, accountant and prepares to turn up to meet his blind date - Nancy.

This couple has nothing in common. Chris is wild and unpredictable and Nancy is straight-laced and needs routine. She is not impressed by Chris, but believes in the numbers so much that she overlooks all his obvious faults.

Chris has never had to work so hard to win over a date, but he can not accept failure - womanising is the only thing he's been proud off. He has to pretend to be a bit more like she'd want, less drinking, less flirting. He even turns up for the job interview she helps arrange for him, and to his disappointment, he gets it. He finds Nancy's ways rubbing off a bit, he's started washing his hands three times before and after meals and has caught himself counting parked cars.

Nancy slowly starts to unwind. She's still OCD, but learns to have fun in spontaneous moments as well.

Finally it looks like Chris will get his night of passion with Nancy, but...

Jill finds out what her brother has done and rings Nancy to warn, just as Nancy was heading to the bedroom! Nancy storms out.

Chris is miserable. He can't even be bothered getting back into the drink and gambling.

Nancy dates the real James Brown, accountant. She discovers he would have indeed been perfect for her, but... that was before she met Chris, before she started to change.

Jill realises she's interrupted true love when she allows her brother to join the agency and runs his statistics to find his perfect match is Nancy. She arranges a secret blind date for them so the lovers will be  reunited. They find compatibility is not about being the same, but about creating a balance with differences.

I'm sure your dreams won't be any worse than a lonely giant-Tweety-bird, so see what plot ideas you can get from your dream notes.

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Plot Ideas from Headlines

This political news reads like a tragic romantic comedy

NaNoWriMo is fast approaching, the month where crazy writers try to get 50,000 words on paper in just 4 weeks. As I've roped my whole family into attempting NaNoWriMo, we've been holding family writing workshops. Last night we brainstormed story ideas from news headlines.

I got this idea from Writing Excuses, they have the best podcasts on all aspects of writing fiction, so check them out.

These were some of the headlines we dug  up to use:

• Road Rage: 9 ways to get your self-killed
• Spy Anna Chapman at U.S.-Russia Rocket Launch
• Dead Fish Tell Evolutionary Tales
• Is Your Dog Pessimistic?
• Building Rome on a Cloudless Day
• New planet 'like earth', say astronomers
• Teens die in horror road crash
• Frozen in Icy Tomb - Arctic gives-up the secrets of Russia's lost adventurer
• Child Bride Set Free

On our browser homepage I found some more today:

• Violent Games Pose Threat to Young Boys
• Cancer-causing Chemicals Found in Wells
• Pig Hunter Wins New Zealand's Biggest Lotto Prize

We brainstormed around the table on each heading and came up with different story ideas. One example was:

Anna Chapman is not a human spy, but a computer chip in the Russian rocket. This launch is meant to be a test launch. BUT... The USA agenda has for some time been to start a war with a small oil-rich country, but their biggest fear is Russia will side against them, and they don't want to risk nuclear war. So... the chip in the rocket is designed to have the rocket 'accidentally' target that small country, sparking a war between the target and Russia, so that America can step in and back Russia up. This would make sure they were Allies. Only one down-and-out internet geek (let's call him 'Mike O'Sopht') unravels this conspiracy and the world now depends on his actions. 

Okay, this example is why I don't write political thrillers. But you get the idea, you take the headline and see which story ideas it prompts for you. How about you, can you come up with some new story ideas from these headlines?

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10 Best Links for Novel Writing Structure

Hyperbole - important part of any good storytelling formula

Some writers use formulas to outline their plots before writing, others just get pen to paper and write wherever their mind takes them. I'm a plotter. There are endless tried and true formulas that can help writers needing a little more structure. Here are the best links I've found to help you.

1. The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot
2. Structure by Screenplay Mastery
3. Get a Little Conflict in Your Scene
4. Writing Novels - Formulas and Structures
5. How to Write Your Novel Using a Formula
6. Story Structure and Plot - Novel Writing Tips
7. Plot and Pacing Part One, Plot and Pacing Part Two and Plot and Pacing Part Three
8. Story Elements Checklist for Brainstorming Index Cards
9. Writing Lessons by Richard Setlowe
10. Novel Endings 

Plus, two educational links on plot and structure for teachers:

http://www.vrml.k12.la.us/2nd/more/graphic_organizers.htm

Teaching Plot and Structure through Short Stories

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NaNoWriMo 2nd Week!

9 days into NaNoWriMo and all is well.

I've 16,336 words towards my novel The Costume Maker, so at this stage I am very confident of making my 50,000 word goal. In fact I'm planning to step it up a bit now and aim for 75,000 words for a good first draft.

The story is coming along well. My characters have found themselves in the magical realm and need to get home. They have encountered dragons, mystery forest creatures and Fairies. The three teenagers are very different characters, although they are just starting to find they do have some things in common.

What I have learned so far...

• If I can set aside the time each day, I can be a writer! Well at least with the quantity of words.
• The novelty of carrying a notepad and whimsically writing up chapters while in restaurants and on walks starts to wear off as far as the rest of the family is concerned.
• Book writing is addictive. My Dad turned up for a visit and has gone home with a notebook with paged filled for the book series I've talked him into writing.
• There are a lot of books on how to write, I can't possibly read them all. BUT, I can BUY them all!
• Plotting rules! see my post on PLOTTING. I wrote lists of anything that could possibly happen in the story and different places the characters would go. This has been fantastic, I've not had to stop to think about what happens next. I wrote all my ideas on index cards and rearrange them to change the story.
• Fantasy works well if every cause has an effect. E.g. through experiments of genetic engineering, my Fairies are almost human size, the consequence however is that they can no longer fly, even though they have wings.
• I like to write to podcasts, my pick are The Creative Penn and Litopia After Dark. Let me know if you have a favourite podcast about writing - I might do up a list soon.

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