T is for THESAURUS FOR WRITERS

Do you have overused words? I do. Looked is one of mine, when I could use stared, glanced, glared, gaped, gazed (wow, lots of g words). Sometimes the quickest way to find a fresh replacement is to use a thesaurus. No need for big heavy books on your shelf, there are these great online ones. 

VISUWORDS - This is a more graphic way of viewing words, you're provided with the synonyms, opposites, verb groups etc in a brainstorming style map.

THESAURUS.COM - exactly what you'd expect from a thesaurus.

Remember a few rules for thesaurus surfing:

• Only use the words that stay true to the voice of your narrator or character. Don't use big long fancy words for the voice of a young child.
• Check your spelling - a lot of the online sites are US spelling, so double check you have a UK site if you need that (or your computer might pick it up).
• Don't overuse the variety in words. Sometimes a character can just walk, in one stroll they shouldn't wander, trudge, storm, stomp, tread and race. The reader will get exhausted!

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S is for Scrivener

I listed Scrivener in my blog: 13 Best Resources for Writers, it's a amazing tool for writers and is available on Mac and PC. Here's some reasons I love Scrivener:

• You can write your scenes and chapters into separate documents, but have them all listed in your sidebar as part of your novel project. Then you can move them around into a new order or add scenes between others. 
• All your images and research handy in the sidebar. 
• There are templates for character profiles and settings.
• You can switch views to index cards, this is great for us visual people who like to chart out our story, it also helps with plot building before you start writing.
• Scrivener AUTOMATICALLY saves as you go - no more lost manuscripts.
• It can compile and export your files to Word, PDF or many other formats.
• Best of all, it will format your finished manuscript into a Kindle document or other ebook format.

There are many tutorials on the Scrivener site in video format, if you're thinking of switching to this program, check those out. There are also lots of blog posts about to help you with formatting your documents and getting the most out of Scrivener. This one is a real winner, it's a list of Scrivener templates you can download to suite your genre. Want to write to a traditional mystery novel structure? Download the template - I've grabbed all of these templates, they're gold!:

S M Worth - Scrivener Templates

At first Scrivener was only available for Mac, then they made a PC version, but soon (very soon I hope) Scrivener will come to iPad. That's exciting news for me, especially since the newest iPad just about replaces laptops. Check out the latest news on that:

The Cellar Door - Scrivener for iPad

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J is for Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is a strong tool you can use to create imagery and emotion. It occurs when two things that shouldn't usually go together are placed side by side for comparison. For example, seeing children playing and running through a war-torn village, amongst rubble and death. Children and Death are two themes we don't expect to see together.

I use this writing technique when teaching English for assignments such as creation a visual representation of a poem. Using a poem about the vietnam war, a student showed children on swings and the next slide was of dead young soldiers. The image was made stronger because we were reminded that those dead soldiers were once just kids on swings. Even though the two images seem totally unconnected, we find a connection. That's what people do, we look for connections.

Cinderella appears even more beautiful and sweet because she is contrasted with her wicked ugly step-sisters. But rather than have such black and white juxtapositions, make good and evil exist within the one character. Seeing your bad guy condemn a prisoner to death and then buy his little girl a pony shows a contrast of personalities within the one character. 

If your theme is loyalty, you'll want to contrast it by showing betrayal. If it's bravery, show cowardice. And try to show new ways of placing these themes together, rather than the old one bad guy, one good guy. Mix it up.

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Get a Little Irony in your Diet

Most writers I know are also lovers of irony (so are most teenagers, but they like to call it 'Fail'). I just had to share my own recent example.

Yesterday, I posted about distractions from writing that I pretend are devices to help me write. I've long suspected Twitter and Blogger are not actually helping me get words down in my WIP (although I think the cookies still do help?). Right after I posted my list of distractions, mostly found in the Internet world, my Internet went down. I was without social networking for the whole day (today I've managed to slip down to the local library for an online fix). Had I upset the ADSL gods?

After a moment of stunned shock, I pulled out my WIP, The Warracknabeal Kids, and wrote. I got in two new chapters and opened up some new connections between characters. I also discovered some important motives. Once I'd exhausted my words, I turned to editing Dog Show Detective, which also turned out to be time productively spent.

Afterwards, I polished off a novel I'd been reading I Am Not A Serial Killer. Dan Wells' novel is about a teenager who feels it is left up to him to stop a vicious serial killer in his home town, ironically, this kid is also a sociopath.

I've learned that sometimes it pays to turn off the technology and just write (but not always! I still need my blogs to read and twitter friends to contact!). I'm thinking of introducing one day a week where I 'switch off'.

So, if we all love a bit of irony, how about finding ways to put it into your manuscript? What if your MC devises a plan to achieve what they want, but it ironically turns out to give their antagonist what they want instead?

And on an exciting note - I've almost reached 200 followers! Keep an eye out for the competition I'll run as soon as I get there (any day now!) - big book giveaway coming up!

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13 BEST RESOURCES FOR WRITERS

Take in too much advice or data and you absorb none. Now, you can be like me and buy every single book on writing that you come across, or, you can just try my favourites. These are my all-time-most-helpful resources for creating a manuscript and knowing what to do with it.

CHARMAINE'S 13 BEST RESOURCES FOR WRITERS:

1. Scrivener Scrivener seduced me. I love going into the program for each WIP I'm working on. I can have 'index cards' up on the corkboard screen, outline my plot, keep research files and photos handy and write scenes in any order. I can also convert my text and load it onto my Kindle (which then reads the novel back to me).


2. NaNoWriMo Held over the month of November each year and the idea is that you start and finish a 50,000 word novel (minimum) in that month. Last year I finished the first draft for The Costume Maker, a fantasy tale about a group of teenagers transported to an alternate world by an angry Gypsy. It's a great way to enforce a deadline!

3. Manuscript Makeover Elizabeth Lyon's guide is both practical and thorough. It's helpful for revision or when you get stuck in your manuscript. The book covers 'power positions', modelling (take a descriptive passage that impresses you and try to imitate the syntax and emotion of the sentences) and riff-writing as powerful techniques, but contains much more.

4. Les Edgerton on Writing One of the best FREE resources you'll ever find on the craft of writing. Scroll through the archives and read Edgerton's articles, brilliant. I also loved Edgerton's book:  Hooked


5. The Creative Penn Joanna Penn provides great advice for building your online presence and creating a platform for yourself as a writer. There are articles, podcasts and free downloads.

6. Beth Barany's Free Archetypes Chart I posted this link when talked about Building Characters with Jung's Archetypes. The chart includes character profiles, motivations, mottos and desires. Adaptable to any story!


7. Screenwriting For Hollywood by Michael Hauge This audiobook is like attending a full class on story structure. I got it from iTunes, but it is also on audiobook sites. Team it with  Michael Hauge's 6 Stage Plot, it's a free pdf file you can download!

8. Writers' Festivals You'll need to work out which ones are convenient for you to attend, but this year I'm going to book myself into The Brisbane Writers' Festival (join me?).


9. Inspired Novel: Creative Hypnosis Maggie Dubris In my post on Stories from the Subconscious, I trialled this audiobook from iTunes. I've used it many times since then and am now a huge fan of hypnosis before bedtime. I ALWAYS have imaginative dreams when I try it and always remember them the next morning. The title and picture link will take you to a sample of this audiobook.

10. How To Revise Your Novel Holly Lisle's online course takes you through weekly steps to perfecting your editing routine. I had no idea about editing before this course, but after learning what to look for in characters, pace, setting, plot, etc, I am sweeping through Dog Show Detective with just one revision/rewrite. Just one. And you get to play with index cards - what could be more fun?

11. The Elements of Style Usually I avoid American grammar books, because Australia follows English Grammar - but this book is great. I'm an English teacher and this is the first grammar book I've found easy to read.  Or, read it free online: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

12. Writing Excuses

This is my favourite podcast. Short, fun and helpful. You can also find them on iTunes.

13. Pen and Notebook

At the end of the day, this is all we really need.

Phew! It was hard picking my favourites, there were many that 'almost' made it. What is your favourite resource for writing, one of these, or, something else?

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Creative versus Creation

Browsing through other writer's blogs, I've notice a lot of advertisements for writing software. My mind has been racing. Does the software write the novel for you? Is it like the online poetry creation sites that I use with year 7 students - where they enter names, colours, nouns and verbs into boxes and the computer puts them out into a generic poem?
Do you just give the program a general plot outline and away it goes? Or does it just prompt you along the way for what comes next, like a pop up box "time for a conflict"?

Do writers who use these tools get published? Do they get all credit or is there a little hyperlink on every manuscript? If they do get published are we going to be bombarded with a range of one story for each genre with just the names and places changed? If a computer creates it is it still creative?

I love when one little thing can spark a whole quest for answers in our mind. I don't really need the answers, it's the questions I enjoy.

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