We’re done! But I thought you might like a re-cap and a table of contents.

The 31-day Think Like a Writer series challenges writers to write at least 750 words each and every day for a month. I used the website 750words.org, but you can do it with pencil and paper or on your computer. These creative writing prompts are meant to be “morning pages” or practice in Thinking Like a Writer.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Observe the world around you
2. Observe Sensory Details
3. Noses: Observe Characters
4. Make Your Characters Move
5. How to Create a Mood with Sensory Details
6. Discover Your Passions
7. Be Mean to Your Character
8. How Old is Your Character?
9. Subtext: What is this story really about?
10. Write in Scenes
11. Give Your Character Something to Hold
12. Emotion from a Photo
13. 3 Ways to Handle Time in a Novel
14. Titles that Readers will Love
15. Make an Image become a Symbol
16. What what you are SCARED to write
17. Everything is Worse and Worse
18. Writers Need to Whine Sometimes
19. Found Object Stories
20. Set the Scene: Panorama
21. Set the Scene: Zoom
22. Set the Scene: Scan
23. Omniscient POV
24. 1st Person POV
25. 3rd Person POV
26. Different Perspectives for Different Audiences
27. Before and After: Reveal Character
28. Secrets and Letters
29. The Other Side of the Story
30. Unlovable Characters

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

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This month, I am trying to Think Like a Writer and write 750 words a day, practicing my writing, much like a musician plays scales daily.

Today, I will be a Grinch, a mean one.
Why? Because fiction is built on conflict: without bad things happening, the reader is bored. A bored reader equals failure!

Today, I’m going to fill up my 750 words with things that can go wrong in my WIP (work in progress). I’ll go from the totally ridiculous chain-saw massacre things to the kindergarten and tea party small things. Anything and everything that can go wrong.

If I run out of ideas, I’ll try a different scene. But today, I’m all Grinch: my heart is two sizes too small and mean and nasty. Don’t talk to ME today or I’ll snap off your head!

Lists. I don’t care if I write complete sentences or not.

Tip: If you’re using 750words.com like I am, after you write, click on the green image of the number of word you wrote at the bottom of the page. It will take you to your Stats. One of the stats is your state of mind: you’ll see a pie-chart that shows if your writing today was Affectionate, Self-Expressive, Self-Important, Happy, Upset, Sad, or Anxious. I am shooting for Upset, Sad and Anxious today. NO happy, NO Affectionate. GRRRR!

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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The following are the top posts of 2011 on Fiction Notes.

1. Checklist of 17 Character Qualities
2. 43 Book Trailer Sites to Inspire, Instruct and Share
3. 15 Days to Stronger Characters
4. 29 Plot Templates: Know the Readers Expectations Before you Bust Them
5. How to Create Whacky, Interesting Character Descriptions that Stick with a Reader
6. Outline Level of Plot
7. 4 Goals for a Novel’s Opening Chapter
8. 30 Days to a Stronger Scene: Table of Contents
9. 30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book
10. 9 Traits of Sympathetic Characters
11. 9 Ways of Plotting a Novel
12. 15 Graphic Novel Resources: Read, Evaluate, Write, Illustrate, Submit

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Use Outlines to Revise Fiction

Organization of a nonfiction piece of writing is paramount. Ideas and/or should build upon each other is an inevitable progression that leads to understanding. For fiction, the outline is the plot structure, events unfolding in an inevitable progression that lead to entertainment. When you use a narrative structure for creative nonfiction, with the curious blend of information and entertainment, the structure is doubly important. Just as the purpose of fiction and nonfiction differ, so do our organization methods.

Yet, I still find that outlining is an effective revision strategy for fiction. I don’t use it to plan fiction, but to revise. And maybe the word “outline” is wrong. Because what I do is record what I have already done.

The problem is the disconnect between what we intend–a fantastic story–and what we produce–a disappointing draft. What is in our heads is always better, and therefore, it is what we remember when we look at at draft. But it is not what is on the paper. We need some way of forcing ourselves to look, really look, at what is on the paper. Did you really make yourself crystal clear at all points? No, you did not. The connecting bits are still in your head, I guarantee it.

At this point, two things might help: feedback from astute readers or outlining, or careful observation of words on the page. Doesn’t matter to me which you use first, but you should use both methods. Today, I’m assuming that you’re going to do the outlining.

You’ll find many methods to outline a narrative structure. To use outlining as a revision strategy for a novel, I like to print out a single-spaced copy and just read through. You must base this outline on what you wrote, not on what you thought you wrote. Read your story!

Most writers have their story divided into chapters, but you can work with scenes or any other natural division. Write one sentence about what happened in each chapter. One and only one. Outlines look at the top level of organization, not the fine details. If you find that you can’t describe a chapter in one sentence, then it’s probably not focused enough yet, it’s a muddy telling of the story.

Once you have the sentence outline written, you can look through:
Inevitable progression: Is there an inevitable progression of some sort? Do things become increasingly difficult for your main character?

Main story v. subplot: Does the main story dominate the sentence outline? Do subplots integrate into the story, creating more tension and interest?

This is the place to make sweeping changes, move chapters, omit chapters, add chapters. This top-level look at your story can reveal structural problems for you to resolve in the next revision.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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I am thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year, joining with thousands of others in trying to write 50,000 words–a novel–during the month of November.

You can’t count any words written before November 1, but I know I can’t do this if I don’t work on a plot before the mad rush officially begins. So far, I only have a situation.

What’s the difference in a plot and a situation?

A situation is a single event, a strange combination of story elements. For example, there’s an annual contest called Stuck on a Truck. The idea is for selected people to put their hands on a truck and keep them there. The last one standing–and still stuck on that truck–will win the truck. It usually takes 100 hours for the last ones to drop out. That’s 4-5 days with no sleep.

It’s an interesting situation and one that I’d like to write about. But it’s not a plot.

Transform a Situation into a Plot

For the situation to become a plot, I need to add characters with real problems they must overcome. I am sifting through the ideas for characters, looking for flaws, quirks and a heart for readers to connect with. I also need to add a setting, ground the story in a particular historical period (contemporary, historical, fantasy, etc.), a particular geographical place. And finally, I need to be mean, cruel, despicably unfair to my characters; in other words, I need intense complications that force my characters to make decisions they don’t want to make. Tension on every page.

Fortunately, there are 29 plot templates I can follow when considering options.

Also of interest:

• 30 Days to Stronger Scenes
• 30 Days to a Stronger Novel
• Villains: A 3-part series
• How to Create Whacky, Interesting Character Descriptions that Stick with a Reader
• The Mesh of Plot and Subplot
• 4 Ways to Deal with Narrative Summaries

Need help with something else? Use the Search Box to look for more information. Or ask a question in the comments or send me an email at darcy at darcypattison dot com.

Are you doing the NaNoWriMo? Why is it right for you this year?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Guest post by Carol Fisher Saller

Writing Eddie’s War, which consists of 76 prose-poem vignettes, wasn’t easy. I’ve chronicled elsewhere the trouble I got myself into by writing the scenes every which-way in random order without first outlining a plot or getting to know my characters. I’d think of a scene and write it—mostly little slices of life. Here’s a short one:

May 1939
Sarah Mulberry
In the first grade
she was Sam,
not even all that much
a girl.
Smile as wide as her feet were long,
feet made for puddle-jumping,
fence-hopping,
running from boys.
She could bat a ball and fling a cob
with the rest of us.
In junior high, though,
she became Sarah,
still flashing that smile,
but avoiding the cob fights.
Unless she was
provoked.

Sometimes I’d think of a new character and write a scene for him or her. Sometimes I’d build a scene around something that happened in the 1930s or 1940s, like the crash of the Hindenburg, or the invasion of Poland, or the movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

This is a terrible way to write a book. But I did have a few characters who kept coming back to me, and two or three story lines that began to emerge. The character of Eddie started speaking in the first person. And I at least had some historical facts in the background that forced a measure of chronology.

And that’s when my group came up with the sentences. (Actually, as I remember it, I was the one who thought it up, and since I’m the one blogging here today, I’m sticking to that.)

The idea is to write a single sentence for each scene or chapter in your book. Include the main plot point and the name of every character who appears in a memorable way:

January 1934, Eddie learns to read newspapers at the library.
May 1937, Eddie and Thomas find some baby foxes and Dad tells them to kill them.
July 1938, Eddie and Gabe argue a moral point.
July 1938, Gabe becomes a hero when Curtis Ray falls out of the tree fort.
September 1938, Dad tells a story about an early experience with a shotgun.
September 1938, Eddie remembers Grampa Rob in the duck blind.
(and so forth)

My list took a couple of pages. Then, in order to see the organization more clearly, I used a different color to highlight each character’s name. (I didn’t color Eddie, since he’s in every scene.)

Plot with summary sentences.

• I put a * in front of any scene that included historical or farm-season facts, so I would be mindful of that when rearranging scenes.
• I put an H in front of scenes that had some humor so I could inject some into the dry spells.

My sentences were becoming an outline! Once I had an improved plot summary in front of me, I decided to make use of the character names in another way. From the sentences, it was easy to make a list of all the scenes a character was in. I called these threads:

• Sarah
• Junior High
• In the Ditch
• Typing Contest
• The Date
• The Hat

In the case of Sarah, by studying her thread along with the SENTENCES, and I could see that she was important but underwritten and that her scenes were clumped awkwardly. I saw that there was nothing about her early on, when she was small, and that I needed some scenes of tension between her and Eddie—I couldn’t let love run smooth!

I added plans of scenes to my list of sentences, like “November 1938: Toddler Sarah dazzles toddler Eddie,” and “May 1944: Sarah and Eddie, tense but funny; he tells her about Jozef.” I used square brackets [like this] to indicate scenes that weren’t written yet.

I have to say, it felt great to come to the laptop every morning and have an assignment waiting between those little brackets instead of just a churning feeling that I would never be able to finish the book. Quite honestly, I’ve never been drawn to writing exercises, but approaching my writing problem as one of organization, I surprised myself by finding that organization can lead to inspiration.

I’ll stop here, but if anyone has questions about this technique, I’d be happy to try to answer them. And if anyone would like to know more about Eddie’s War, I hope they’ll visit my website.

http://www.carolsaller.com
Carol Fisher Saller is a senior manuscript editor and assistant managing editor at the University of Chicago Press and editor of the Chicago Manual of Style Online’s Q&A. She has also worked as an editor of children’s books at Cricket Books (Carus Publishing) and has published several books for children. In addition to Eddie’s War, she is the author of The Subversive Copyeditor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself) (University of Chicago Press, 2009) and currently writes for the Lingua Franca blog at the Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Debut Novel: Spreadsheets Used for Plotting and Revising a Novel

Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. I featured Revision Stories from the Classes of 2k8 and 2k9 and this feature returns this year with the Class of 2k11.

• Class of 2008
• Class of 2009
• MORE 2k11

Trinity Faegen, THE MEPHISTO COVENANT, YA, Fall 2011

Revisions: Literary Fast Forward

Guest post by Trinity Faegen

Ironically, I’m writing this just after receiving the editorial letter and line edits on my first YA novel. The editor has an issue with my timeline and asked me to extend it.

How long is your story from beginning to end? A day? A week? A year? Mine is about a week, and he feels this is too short, that I need to extend it to ten days or even two weeks, but how can I lengthen the timeline without adding extraneous scenes that read like filler?

The answer is the literary equivalent of fast forward.

First, I’ll find one or more areas within the manuscript that are already transitional, such as the end of a scene that draws a subplot to conclusion, or one that ends a dramatic confrontation. I’m fortunate because one of my plot elements involves a character’s need for information, which can’t be had quickly. I will find a scene ending that lends itself to a lapse of dramatic action until things begin to happen again. I’ll add a few paragraphs to the beginning of the next scene, in the appropriate point of view, to let the reader know time has passed, but nothing happened off-screen. The characters ate, slept, went to school, lived their lives, until now, when we are picking up the pace again.

The paragraphs might read something like this:

“After her miserable first day at Telluride High, Sasha didn’t think it could get worse. She was wrong. As the lie Brett told about her spread, it morphed into something even he, in his twisted, pervy little mind, couldn’t have dreamed up. Not only did everyone believe she had sex on the Internet, they now thought she did it for money. She was like a leper, always alone, everyone avoiding her as if she was contagious.
By Friday, her fifth day in Hell, she’d had enough. Somehow, she had to turn the tables on Brett, and since she had not one single friend to help, she’d have to do it alone.
First period began like always, Mrs. Redmon calling on another victim to read from The Metamorphosis. Sasha could feel Brett’s eyes staring at her, knew he was smirking, smug and pleased with himself. She waited until….”

You get the idea. I’ve skipped ahead four days, in two paragraphs, segueing into this comeuppance scene where new drama will unfold. Sasha’s home life is also horrible, but I established this earlier in the story, so no need to cover it again. Even though I don’t mention it, the reader can intuit that her nights were as dreary as her days during the time we just skipped over.

When revising, literary fast forward isn’t difficult, but it’s important not to fall into the trap of telling, not showing. A little bit of exposition goes a long way. Just make sure all you’ve skipped showing is the passage of time.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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I am working on a novel revision for an editor and I expect to turn it in by Monday. But today, as I was reading through one last time to polish everything up–oh, my gosh!–there’s still so much work to do.

Last Minute Revisions

At this point, it’s not major structural changes or big plot changes. Instead, I am looking to tighten every scene and make as many connections as possible. And I am polishing language and voice.

Here are some thing that I’m working on:

Connections. I noticed that K gave A something. Now, K is a minor character, and while I like K, the connection here was weak. Instead, I wondered how the story would work if C gave A that same thing. Much nicer! It brought back in a sub-plot/theme with C that I thought would never work into this part of the story.

Conflict and Tension. Yes, the mainstay of fiction is conflict and tension and you’d think I would have that right by now. Instead, I realized that I was relying on the external conflict and ignoring the internal conflict. What I needed was conflict to be within my main character, while at the same time, she is facing external problems. I had to go back paragraph by paragraph and make sure that the internal conflict was present, was related to the external problem and that it grew over the course of the story.

Pacing. I separated one long chapter into two chapters, making sure the ending of the first chapter was a cliff-hanger and the beginning of the next chapter had a good hook.

Verbs. Yes, verbs. As we all know by now, strong verbs make for good story language and a strong voice. And I was doing pretty well. But I noticed in this chapter that I was slacking off some. For example, I replaced “They stared” with “They gaped”, and later with “They gawked.” Subtle differences, yes, but important.

Characterization. I am confident that A is a strong character. But what about B, C, D, E, F, G? As I read through, I am looking for places to characterize them better.

When is a Novel Revision Finished?

Um, never. I think I could endlessly revise a novel and my friends will attest to that. But at some point, I’ve done all I can do without more feedback. With this final pass through, I’ll be at that point. It will be time to send the novel out into the world for someone to read and evaluate. Does that mean I am finished with revisions on this particular novel? Doubtful. Bu until some fresh eyes catch weak areas, I can’t see anything else to do. Soon, very soon, it will be on its way.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Using the 3-Act Structure: Adjusting Expectations

Most writers use a 3-act structure and for good reason. It works.

• Act 1:
  25% of the length, sets up the story conflict and ends when the main character (MC) commits to doing something about the conflict.
• Act 2:
  50% of the length, develops and deepens the conflict and ends when the main character begins to make a last, heroic effort to solve the problem.
• Act 3:
  25% of length, is the last attempt to solve the problem and eventually ends in either success or failure (tragedy).

Top-heavy manuscripts fall over!

Somehow, in all the revisions, the structure has become top-heavy. Skimming those chapters or laying them out in a shrunken manuscript revealed that several scenes repeated; there was escalation with each repetition, so it wasn’t all bad. Still, I wondered if I could cut a considerable chunk from the first section.

Today, I cut 2000 words! Hurrah!

But, with a sinking feeling, I realized that it is still top-heavy. Could I stand to cut another 8000 words? Probably not. That would gut too much of the emotion and story.

Restructure the 3 Acts

The only answer then, is that I must restructure the story, must think about it differently, set it up differently. Fortunately, there are 29 plot variations or plot templates and at least three types of character arcs. Will one of those work?

As is, it’s set up as a quest: now in a quest, there should be character growth and often what the character sets out to discover is not what they need, not what they find. But it’s that definitely stepping into a “new world” that is bothering me in this story. The new world can’t be the fantasy world they find in the story because that now comes at about halfway through the story.

IF I consider this a story about maturation, and not a quest, then the current structure is very close. At page 21, out of 80 (single spaced, small font—just the way I like to work; I will reformat before I send it out), there is a first step of defiance of Father, a step into the world of adulthood, if you will. That’s about the 25% point and works perfectly. Likewise, the rest of the plot points fall into line.

Making this type shift is subtle: it’s not about the plot or actions, per se. Instead, it’s about setting up expectations in a reader’s mind. They intuitively understand this deep structure of dividing a story into acts, and subconsciously expect it to happen. If I set up the story, with subtle word changes, as a story of maturation, I think it will work. That crucial transition from Act 1 to Act 2 will be the move into the world of adulthood, of being responsible for your own actions, of defying parents and doing what you think is best. Act 2 will be the various problems encountered when you attempt to do things on your own, and Act 3 is the result of those actions.

My next task is to comb through the first twenty pages or so and make sure this structure is set up.

P.S. I’m still glad I cut those 2000 words. They were dead wood anyway.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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OK, so I have this revision to do and one key element of it is to deepen characterization and relationships. Uh, oh. My weakness! How did the editor know that it was my weak area? Even after spending agonizing hours on characterization, I’m still not hitting the mark.

Which left me stumped on this revision. I’m not blocked. Just don’t know what to do next.

Here’s my analogy. In China, we passed by open doorways that led to teensy courtyards from which four houses (or more) might front onto. We could look through the doorways, but the glimpse was brief, you didn’t get much detail.

That’s how I tend to write characters, from the outside looking in. But this week, I’ve been rephrasing the question.
NOT: How can I deepen this character?
INSTEAD: What is the relationship in this scene? How do these characters affect each other? What is each character fighting for in this scene?

The answers can NOT change the plot, the actual actions of what is going on. I’m actually happy with the plot. Instead, I’m looking at the inner person, the relationship which is revealed by the plot events.

Asking about relationship seems easier to me than asking about how to characterize. It’s interactive, as one character does something, the other must respond. If I can find a central thing around which I can center conflict and reveal character with that, it will work.

In the current scene, the characters are discussing going somewhere and they both agree that they need to do that. Well, there is conflict in the plot, because it’s a daring thing they do. In the revision, though, I’m having Character A hesitate, wondering if she should consult her father or someone other adult before going. Meanwhile, Character B is impulsive and confident. “A” generally has a superior attitude to B, so she can’t let him get the upper hand by being so bold. And thus the relationship develops. Who will bluff the other into action? Who will compromise their ideals to prove to the other they are tough?

It’s like zooming into that Chinese courtyard to see the small details. Suddenly, the relationship has revealed details of the character and we see clearly.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win