Paper Dolls

Sometimes when we take on courses on a topic we love (and think we already know) it isn't so much to learn something new, but rather to be reminded of something we already knew or that should be obvious.

In the course 'How to Think Sideways' on writing a novel (find a link at ink-fever), I am reminded of the importance of knowing your characters before writing their scenes. 'Well Duh', thinks I, only to be faced with my own shortcomings in this area.

I find I have thought through my main characters to the point of being able to predict their reaction in any given situation, but what of the surrounding characters? In the Dog Show Detective I've been satisfied with my building of my 11yr old girl, who upon embarking on Junior Handler dog show competitions also manages to solve mysteries, and I thought I had created her surrounding world well. Not so. I gave her a mother, a significant relationship with her mother, a father and a little brother - oh and of course a clever but naughty dog!

Curious about software for novel writing, I downloaded a trial for Plot Builder and started to play with it. I started with creating characters and managed to fill all sections easily for my heroine. Next I entered the mother. That was when I realised how little I knew about her. I knew her occupation, her family commitment, but by gosh, I didn't even know what she looked like! Another big shortcoming is that I had not thought through any negative aspects to her personality - and I'm pretty sure as part of the human race, we all have undesirable traits. Without that you are just dangling paper dolls around in the narrative and not people.

What have I learned from this? Don't assume you know what you think you know and writing software may be helpful after all.

Read More

Why Wait?

A common theme is emerging amongst all I read about the writing craft, the Podcasts I listen to with tips from Authors and the writing course I'm progressing through on completing a novel. It concerns those times that we want to continue with our novel but can't find the time or inspiration or words.

Don't wait, just write.

If you wait for the perfect words, they may never come - after all, what is perfection? Just start with anything, a character, a setting, a situation and write and write and write. Once the words start to spread across the page they will take on their own life and grow and dance and play.

When you give up control of the pen (or keyboard) the story will take form, characters will emerge to find out what is going on and hopefully join in.

After all, with the technology of word processing and computers, words can be edited and edited, they can change and disappear and appear again. I hear of the importance of the rewrite and I wonder how much editing went on in the day of quill and ink?

So instead of letting menial distractions take me from my writing (like cleaning house, writing blogs... oh), I'm going to get stuck into my writing and reach my 500 word goal for the day.

Read More

Flashy

After finding and inserting a designer background from 'cutest blogs on the block', I heard back from some people that the background does not show up on all computers.

Sometimes I romanticise technology beyond its abilities. Now test driving a generic background in hot pink - if it is too much for the eyes on a cloudy morning, let me know and I tone it down (a little).

Cheers
Charmaine

Read More

Interupting Characters

Where do characters come from? Well, when a Mummy character and Daddy character love each other VERY much.... Not quite what I was thinking, but probably as good as a response as any I could come up with.

My plan was to write a mystery novel set in Australia in the 1930's. I have the plot, I have the characters and I started to write. That piece of work has now gone to the waiting room, because there was another character forming that needed to be written first. She was a tomboyish 11yr old redhead that lived in the 16th century and wanted to be a pirate.

I resisted, after all it was a period I knew little about. However this little girl was adamant. So I started researching and writing the story of The Pirate Girl. Very quickly other characters formed around her, such as the Duke that has become an outcast and knows nothing about sailing...or survival.

While working away at this story, another 11yr old girl asked to be written; this time a contemporary young 'preppy' girl who, along with her canine companion, enters dog shows and solve mysteries.

Both girls wanted attention and I loved them both equally. How could I choose between my characters? So I write both and sometimes when I work on one too long, I hear the other complaining (kids!).

I'm not sure why I am drawn to this age. Perhaps it is the in between time of leaving being a little girl behind but not into the teenage years yet. The place of what is left behind and what is to come.

Read More

Don't wake me, I'm writing a novel.

My desk is cleared, I have my favorite pen (after testing many for weight and texture), a brand new notebook, kids out of the room and I decide to work on my novel. Nothing comes.

I can work on plot elements, story structure, research details, but the creative writing does not happen on demand. When my brain is active, alert and ready to go, this is the time I can observe and take inspiration, think of different angles and solve character problems. It's only when my brain is switched off, in that soft space between wake and sleep that the narrative starts to flow.

I hop into bed, longing to just pass out, but thinking I'll just jot down a few notes before I drift off; before too long my head drops down and I have that quick moment of not being here. When I shake my head to wake myself enough to put down the pen and turn off the lamp, I realise I have already written pages of narrative, it just seems to flow. I think the key here is I don't over think what I am writing. I don't put up my own mental obstacles to block the story from moving forward. I get out of the way of my characters. I just write.

Perhaps this is where the theory of keeping a journal of dreams comes from. There may be a few plot ideas pop up from a bizarre dream, but possibly it is where you allow those words to lead when you keep writing in that 'not quite back in reality' space.

So alert time is for planning (and blog writing) and those times I'm too tired to write are for, well, writing.

Read More

No time to finish that novel?

As soon as I felt the craving to get back into finishing my children's novel The Pirate Girl (possible choice out of... well not many yet), I had to have a chuckle at myself.

Yes this is the time to pick up the writing craft, when I am approaching the last run of my Graduate Diploma in Education at Uni, undertaking Prac teaching experience for 5 weeks, making costumes for my kids' school plays and parades, grooming a dog for show that needs to have his hair stripped back regularly and generally taking care of the family. Yep, I definitely needed something to fill all those quiet times.

Of course once I looked like I was making progress with The Pirate Girl I also just had to start a new series of children's mystery books about a dog show detective.

In order to inspire me to keep writing I took on the online writing course How to Think Sideways (which so far is brilliant by the way), because obviously it would help me to find more time to write if I had yet another obligation to fulfill.

You know what? It did. For some reason my schedule does not run well on empty, but fill it up and give me deadlines, and I absolutely whizz through tasks and seem to think more clearly. I am once again filling my days up with my much loved 'To Do' list (categorised and sub-categorised) and my creative ideas are rushing in again. I fill every spare moment with words (thus at 3.30 am, with the wind whistling and my tin roof clanking and while I'm unable to sleep, I am writing this blog).

I guess it's like they say "If you want something done, give it to a busy person to do", so it would make sense that if you want to do something new, make it seem like you wouldn't possibly have time, then you'll do it!

Read More

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.

Read More