Searching for the Right Ideas

Brainstorming, created by advertising genius Alex Osborn, is meant to be a group activity, a way to encourage everyone to participate. It’s usually set up with rules that encourage ideas, even if they are wild, while discouraging any negative comments which might stem the flow of ideas. What it encourages is the flow of ideas, without concern for quality.

But what if you’re alone, or no one really knows what you’re working on and you want to keep it that way?

I’m still working on brainstorming my ideas for a novel and here are some things I look for:

Prompts. Randomness is good. By adding in random tidbits here and there, you have a better chance of creating something new and fresh. That’s where prompts come in. For example, Natalie Goldberg has many odd (in a good way) prompts in her book about writing memoirs, Old Friend from Far Away. It almost doesn’t matter as long as you try to relate each piece of writing toward the idea you have.

Tools: Beyond brainstorming, there are literally dozens of structured ways to search for new ideas. The idea-generation techniques may be intuitive or structured, systematic or random. I like this book as a reminder of various techniques: Thinkertoys: a handbook of creative-thinking techniques by Michael Michalko. Or for fun, try his ThinkPak card pack.

You know what I like best about this time when I’m starting a new novel? I’m never wrong. Right now, before anything is committed to paper, the new story is all possibilities and that’s so nice. No critiquer can tell me I’ve done something poorly. At least not yet.

Here’s to fresh, exciting, high concept and fun ideas.

Revise with confidence.

NaNoWriMo and the Evolution of a Writer

Guest post by Beth Cato.

Follow her NaNoWriMo progress at her blog, Catch a Star if It Falls.

For years I dreamed of being a published writer, but I didn’t actually write anything. I had plenty of excuses – college, a full-time job, marriage – but I couldn’t stop that yearning to create stories. NaNoWriMo changed everything.

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo is described a a writing contest with no rules, no judges and no awards; winning manuscripts are deleted. The goal is to write 50,000 words during the month of November. Of the 120,000 writers who start, about 18% complete the 50,000 words. There are special NaNoWriMo rules for schools that participate.

NaNoWriMo offered a firm deadline and a supportive community, but most of all, it taught me discipline. If I could write 2,000-words-a-day during a November, I could do it all year long. If I dared to post excerpts of my novels-in-progress, I could work up the nerve to submit my work to agents and editors. But it’s been a gradual process, and it reflects my personal maturity as well as the maturity of my writing.

8 Years of Writing

2002

Too afraid to start a work from scratch, instead I wrote a fictionalized autobiographical piece about a disastrous family trip that took place when I was ten. About a week into the November, I posted on the NaNoWriMo forums and declared myself a failure. I was working ten-hour shifts four nights a week, and I was far too tired to write when I got home. My fellow writers encouraged me to keep going. I did. I forced myself to type 5,000-7,000 words on each of my nights off and I made my goal.

2003

I dove into my first original novel effort about a ghostly unicorn, an abused girl, and selkies. No outline, no real plot. I felt tremendously proud of achieving my 50,000-words, but when I re-read my work a few months later, and I was stunned to find it made little sense and my heroine had zero personality. Ouch.

2004

My husband was on full naval deployment and I was entering my second trimester of pregnancy. Writing was a bit tricky since I felt nauseous if I sat at the computer for more than thirty minutes at a time. I somehow fulfilled my 50,000-word goal for MOUSE, and the novel wasn’t even close to completion.

2005

With my husband gone again, an infant crawling underfoot, and under the burden of constant fatigue, I resolved to finish MOUSE. But when my husband returned home partway through the month, I stopped writing at 38,000 words. I didn’t have the energy to walk to the mailbox, much less type.

2006

I was not going to fail again. I did most of my writing via a laptop while my son watched his two favorite TV shows – Sesame Street and The Price Is Right. The story wasn’t done when we went on a Thanksgiving trip to California, so I brought the laptop along and finished the novel at my parents’ house. I did it. For the first time, I felt I had something that might be publishable.

2007

Queries for MOUSE led to agent rejections, but I wasn’t giving up on the dream. THE LOCKED DOOR followed the cross-dimensional adventures of a disillusioned Navy wife. I finished my 50,000 words on November 19th, and then completed the novel in January. I learned my lesson: now I was going to write and edit all year long, not just in November.

2008

After the concept for NORMAL came to me in a dream, I knew this plot would mean trouble. I began researching in May and read and bookmarked my way through five books on anatomy and emergency medicine. Full chapter outlines and character biographies guided my writing, and my word count exploded. In twenty-four days I churned out 74,000-words on my superhero urban fantasy, NORMAL. I finished writing the novel in January and February, and after receiving critical professional feedback, rewrote the entire thing in autumn 2009.

2009

I intend to start on a sequel to NORMAL. I may be a slow learner, but I’m getting better every year.

Lessons from NanoWriMo

What have I learned from slogging through this masochistic ritual
every year since 2002?

• Don’t give up.
• Write when you can. Think out plots while exercising, showering, changing diapers. Jot down notes.
• Set high word count. For NaNoWriMo, the basic daily word count goal is 1,666. Aim higher. I give myself a minimum of 2,000 words a day. It’s worth it to have a safety buffer in case of busy or sick days.
• No time to be stuck. There isn’t time to suffer from writer’s block. If you’re stuck, skip the scene. You can go back and flesh it out later.
• Quantity. NaNoWriMo is about quantity, not quality. First drafts stink. That’s what editing is for.

The tears, carpal tunnel, and sleep deprivation are worth the effort. Nothing compares to seeing that completed progress bar on the NaNoWriMo site. “I wrote a novel. I did it. I made the time. I’m an author.” Once you experience that high, you’ll understand why suckers like me keep coming back every year.

Revise with confidence.

Review of

Nail Your Novel by Roz Morris

British author and writing teacher Roz Morris has a new book out just in time to help you with that first draft of your new novel. You know, the one you’re going to write in November for National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo.

Hiccups in your Confidence and Motivation

Morris writes with great wit and wisdom about the writing process, starting with those awkward moments when you actually admit, “Yes, I’m, uh, writing, well, you know, something a bit longer. Maybe, a, uh, a novel.”

Writing always begins here, by acknowledging the writer as a person with the usual insecurities. Morris address this directly by providing you with some structure. No, structure isn’t for everyone, but for beginners, structure can be a comfort and save them a lot of time. Her process involves a series of tasks, breaking down the process into smaller steps:

• Task 1: Shaping your inspiration
• Task 2: Starting this specific novel
• Task 3: Focused research
• Task 4: A structural survey for you novel
• Task 5: Detailed synopsis
• Task 6: How to free your muse and turn off your inner critic
• Task 7: Before you look at your manuscript again
• Task 8: The beat sheet game
• Task 9: Revising your manuscript
• Task 10: Your submission process

Help for NaNoWriMo writers

Authors embarking on the month-long adventure of writing 50,000 words in November will appreciate the first few tasks. Morris gives you direction on how to thicken the plot, find inspiration, decide what does NOT belong in the book, accept random input, and generally get the overall story thought out.

Research (Task 3) can flesh out details further:

“Research might throw up all sorts of interesting situations. For instance, I was commissioned to write a novel about people selling kidneys in India. Reading about the poverty in the villages inspired the start of the story – a young girl decides to sell her kidney to get her family out of debt. Of course, once she’s in the clutches of the butchers, she changes her mind, poor love. Meanwhile, her family are desperate to get her back.”

Overall, Morris’ experience enhances the book. This is a process she is intimately acquainted with and daily practices. Even if you’re experienced, I recommend the book as a review for concepts you already know. Because I think you’ll also find some unexpected nuggets. And for more nuggets, read Roz Morris’ blog, Dirty White Candy (Yes, a strange name for a blog, you say. Morris explains it on her home page). Example of her posts: How to Make Readers Root for Your Character

NaNoWriMo Special!
For three weeks, until 21 October, you can download the e-book of Nail Your Novel for 99p! That’s a whopping £2 off the usual price of £2.99. So if you’re preparing a book for NaNoWriMo this will help you firm up your plans, fill your plot holes – so you are ready to blast off on 1 November with confidence. Just click on the pic!

Revise with confidence.

Does Format change a story?

Format. Yes, it makes a difference. How you present information or how you present a story make a difference to the text. For example, I’ve been wanting to write a nonfiction book about a topic and tried writing a proposal for a middle grade book. It didn’t seem right. But then, I decided to try it as a non-fiction ABC book and it has worked well. That format – short snippets of information about 26 subjects – covers the topic very well. Yes, I could include much, much more information; isn’t that always true about a topic you’re passionate about? But this covers the right amount of information for the early elementary years. Just enough, but not overwhelming. The format is right.

Notice that this format change also meant a change in the age of the intended audience.

I’ve taken stories and tried them as a graphic novel, as a middle grade novel and as a YA novel. I’ve taken an early chapter book and divided it into six equal-length chapters, and then divided it again into multiple short, uneven-length chapters (such as Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little). The story doesn’t change, but it feels very different. There are books which I find I can’t read, (Heaven’s Eyes by David Almond) but when I listen to the audio version, I love it. I wonder if stories will feel different when read as an ebook?

Audience and format can change the content, the voice, the tone, or the overall feel of a story. What format do you envision for your story? How does that affect what/how you write?

Revise with confidence.

On my WIP, I’m closing in on Act 3 of writing my novel and heading into the home stretch. This first draft, I’m focusing on the scene structure.

So, yesterday, I made notes about the scenes needed to finish the story. This is different from writing a synopsis of the story.

Differences in Synopsis and Scene Layout

A synopsis tells the story in a condensed form. But scenes are the actual events that will be used to flesh out the story.

For example, if you write the story of the Three Little Pigs, you could start at the beginning: a momma pig and a poppa pig have triplets. Starting from there, you could tell a long, convoluted story up to the point of outwitting the Big Bad Wolf.

Using scenes, however, forces you to decide what events are important, visual, exciting, dramatic. Writing a novel isn’t just about telling a story; it’s about telling a story in the most dramatic way possible to make an impact on the reader.

So, yesterday, I knew the rest of the story. But I tried to decide which parts were important enough to give over to an entire scene and which could be left to narrative summaries.

Criteria for Choosing Scenes to Include in Your Novel:

• Which events would connect with readers best?
• Which events have the most emotional power?
• Which events have the most visual interest?
• Which events BEST advance the action and SHOW what is going on with the characters’ lives?

Today, I’ll look over the list and reevaluate again. And then start writing the final scenes! Hurrah!

Revise with confidence.

Need help on the first draft of your novel? Here are some great resources.

• Planning or Outlining: Many revision techniques found here can also be invention techniques for those first drafts. As I’m working on my first draft of a new novel, I’m finding that many of the same techniques are helpful.

  For example, spreadsheet plotting works equally well as a revision technique or as an outlining technique for the first draft.

• Subplots: I searched through all my how-to-write books for tips on subplots and finally found a whole chapter in Robert Kernen’s book, Building Better Plots. He does a great job of laying out options. I’m choosing to contrast with a slightly comic (I hope!) subplot.
• Characters: While there are many great character books around, I still go back to John Vorhaus’s The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even If You’re Not. I know it’s about comedy — and it does help you be funny. But I read it mostly because it helps me develop characters better and faster than any other resource. Since I’m hoping my subplot will be a bit of comic relief, I’m using his plotline for that subplot, too.
• Narrative Arc: CD player in my car. One of the best things I’m doing right now is listening to a long series as a Books-on-Tape. Right now, it’s Garth Nix’s Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen trilogy. I read them long ago, but hearing them one right after another brings the overall narrative arc into much better focus. I did this a couple years ago with the Dark is Rising series and it was fascinating, too, to hear them all in relatively a short space of time.
• Emotional Arc: In Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot , Peter Dunne lays out two great charts of how the emotional arc intersects the narrative arc. I have a column in my plotting spreadsheet for the emotions of the scenes, so I can monitor the emotional arc while I’m planning, too.

Revise with confidence.