If your spark of an idea comes from a character rather than a situation, now may be the time to work on developing this character and a few more.  Again, I’m not suggesting that you delve into total character development.  Maybe develop the protagonist and the characters immediately connected.  Then start looking at what kind of a story you’d like to share about this character.  What does this character have to tell?

Since the story, I’m working on started with a scene.  I wrote a draft of how I pictured that scene.  I then took the characters in that scene and started developing them.  I use a template that helps me to describe their physical appearance.  Then I start answering questions about their current situation, where they live, what kind of clothes they wear, what their occupation is, anything that helps me get to know the character better.  I then look at the past and try to create some history for that character.  What happened to them that brought them to where they are now, type questions.

I will get more in-depth with both plotting and characterization but this is where I stick my toe in the water to test the story.  I bounce back and forth between the plot and character, working on each character and storyline as it comes to me.  This practice helps me to determine if I have a story or just an idea.

 What do you do at this stage?  I would love to share your ideas with readers.

Your Assignment:

This week take your original idea and test it by developing the scene or characters to help you determine if you do have a story or just and idea.

 Next week – developing characters.

 Happy writing,

 Virginia

            Now that you have your spark of an idea for a novel, what do you do with it? This is when it starts getting fun.  There are several methods and I will share a few with you to get you started:

            1. What If – This is where you start asking questions. What if this happens, then what happens next.  When doing this, I look for a domino effect with the story.  I like to find something that is a natural result of what happened before and let it build until you have some scenes that feel like puzzle pieces of the story.  Each piece links together forming the story, but sometimes you need to take it a step back before you can go forward.

            2. Mind mapping – is a visual way of doing the – what if.  Take the subject you want to expand upon and write it down in the middle of a sheet of paper.  The first thing that comes to you that connects with that subject, write it down off to the side and circle it.  Connect the two with a line.  This can be another character, a setting, an object, or even a situation.  Continue adding more circles and lines to whatever you’ve written in the center of the sheet of paper. You can then add more circled subjects to those that you’ve developed from the original. Keep making connections, even if they don’t totally make sense at the time.  Eventually you will have some threads that you can’t let go of and have to develop.  Those thoughts are the ones you should use to develop your story.

Don’t throw the rest away; keep them handy so that if you find yourself needing more to work with later, you already have something to play with.

            3. I suggested in my earlier post that you should think about journaling.  Your journal can provide more ideas that you can now develop.  I am going to suggest that you have a book journal.  It is a record of you writing this book.  Some authors keep one with each work in progress. Each day as you journal, you can keep track of any new ideas for the story.  I will go into more detail about the book journal in another post.

            4. Brainstorming is another way to develop a story.  You could do it as a group or with a trusted writing partner.  I have a friend who is great for bouncing ideas off because she always sees something that I miss.  It’s also nice to have someone to turn to when you’ve written yourself into a corner.  Hopefully with a little planning, that won’t happen.

            5. I call it multi-tasking.  While you are doing something mindless, like washing dishes, vacuuming, dusting, or whatever – think about your story.  Keep it in mind while you go about your everyday tasks and besides helping you develop the story, it will work to pull you into your next writing session. 

            6. Take a walk and mull over your story.  Getting out and getting some exercise and fresh air can’t hurt and again is something you can do without thinking about it to allow your mind a chance to wander and ponder your story.

            7. Get out of the house.  Watch people.  Take notes describing the people you see, the sounds around you, the smells, listen to people talk to work on your dialogue.  You can’t write dialogue exactly the way people speak because it wouldn’t hold the reader’s interest.  But listen for the way people speak that might help your characters to sound like individuals rather than everyone sounding alike.  Again, I will have a later post that gets into more about dialogue later. Look for ways to describe gestures.  Watch body language and you interpret what it means when you see it.  Think of how you could describe a character better by how they move.

            Like an artist, you can describe what you see and use it later with your work.

            8. Start thinking about your characters, I have writer friends who go through magazines looking for their characters.  Sometimes it is easier to describe something if you have a picture in front of you.  One of the writers I know made an excellent suggestion.  We have a used bookstore in my area and she picks up used magazines just to find pictures of her characters.  You can take it a step further and use it for settings.  All those home and garden type magazines have great pictures of houses and rooms with descriptions and terms you can use in your writing.  The same thing goes with character clothing.  If you’re writing about someone who wears designer clothes, here’s a personal guide to description.

            9. Listen to the words in music; sometimes it will trigger a reaction that gives you an idea for your story.  Also, think about what music you were listening to and see if you can make your own soundtrack to use while writing.  If you have a strong connection between the music and your story, it can pull you back into the story for each days writing session.

            10. Start developing your characters.  Write down everything you need to know about them.  As you get to know your characters, they can help you develop your story.  I will post later about character development but now is a good time to start who your characters are and what their motivation is.  What do they want and why are you writing about them?

YOUR ASSIGNMENT – Start brainstorming your idea.

I look forward to comments and suggestions.  Next week – Genre and is this a series or stand-alone? Who’s your audience and who publishes what you write?

Virginia

I have always been fascinated with the writing process.  That is one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed the author interviews on this blog.  If you have read enough of them, you will see what I mean.  They are all doing the same thing, writing novels, but they all have their own path they follow.  There are subtle differences as to their methods.  But as a writer, we all know there are, basic steps to take to complete a novel and those steps are what I want to cover with this series of posts.   

Each week I will cover some aspect of novel writing.  This week, let’s look at where to start.  Some writers start with characters and others have a plot.  I generally picture a scene that won’t let me go.  The current novel that I am working on started that way.  It was the basic what if scenario. 

What if a woman came home to find her husband dead in their bed and she had proof that he’d been with another woman? And then what if all the evidence points toward her as the main suspect in his murder?  Like an onion, I started peeling back layers of the story. What makes it look like she’s guilty?  What did the crime scene look like?  What happened between them to make others think she could be capable of murdering him?  What really happened and who really killed him?  What kind of person could have something like this happen to them?

The questions are endless. 

Some other suggestions for story ideas are:

1. Reading – Have you ever read a book that started out pulling you in but half way through you felt like something was missing?  The jacket blurb and even that first chapter or two didn’t go where you thought the story should have gone. It’s disappointing but it also could be one way to determine what you need to write.   Maybe you like the premise but didn’t care for the way it was developed.  Take the premise and make it your own.  Now is the time to develop and write the story you want to read. 

2. Movies and television – Basically the same thing can be done with movies and television.  Take the idea and write something that satisfies you.  I’m not suggesting you plagiarize but its okay to share a premise and make it your own.

3. Read or watch the news.  It’s great if you write mysteries.  Take a real crime and fictionalize it.  The article will only tell you the skeleton of the story.  Create your own characters, locations, reasons for committing the crime and even change the murder method.  Create your own mystery.

Don’t stop at reading the crimes. Read the letters to the editor, advice columns, local politics, and the good feel stories about your area. Did that letter to the editor sound as if the writer was upset about something? Upset enough to do something about it?  Advice columns are full of quirky questions that make you wonder about the writer and whether it could really be true.  Local politics can give you a wealth of ideas. Corruption and power can thrive in your stories.

4. Personal experiences in your own life and in the lives of family and friends.  Of course, you’ll need to be discreet and fictionalize the situations you can’t write it down verbatim.  Besides most true life, adventures usually are too boring without using a little creative imagination to juice it up.  Many writers have received feedback from others telling them it wasn’t believable when in reality it did happen but that doesn’t necessarily make it a good story. 

5. Journals – Write down something about your day.  If time doesn’t allow you to write daily try to write down the interesting stuff, the things that have touched your life or your world that day.  Put it aside and when you’re looking for ideas, go through your journal entries and see what calls to you. 

6. Dreams – I started keeping a dream journal a few years ago.  I don’t seem to remember most dreams but the ones that I do remember I write down.  Like your regular journal, read them occasionally for new ideas.  I think this could be a great source for mystery and horror writers, especially those nightmares that wake you in a tangle of sweaty sheets.

These are just a few ways to find that spark of an idea.  The ideas that won’t let go until you do something with them. 

YOUR ASSIGNMENT –

Take a few days to work on your next story idea.  I hope you enjoy this project and feel comfortable sharing questions and suggestions along the way.

Next week, I will cover how to develop those ideas.

Virginia

I love to read devotionals on a daily basis.  This year I am reading Halle Ephron’s Bibliophile devotional. Each day she has the  first line from a book, a breif description of what it is about and a short review written by someone else, usually a reviewer with a national newspaper.  Though I have read quite of few of the books she suggests, it has also giving me lots of other ideas of  books to read in the future.

I plan to write a weekly post instead of a daily post, I thought it might be fun to write something once a week about writing, starting with the first spark of an idea through the actual writing process, revision and then the steps to take to find a publisher and agent. 

I will break the year down and share with you suggestions for each stage.  At the end of each post, I will have an assignment for you to do that week.  I’m hoping that you could be my first readers. I’m thinking that by the end of this year, I could have a novel finished and possibly a non-fiction how-to book also.  I hope you like the idea  and will follow my posts through to the end of the year.  Because I am using this medium it allows this process to be more inter-active than if you were reading it as a how-to book at home.  If you have questions or suggestions, I would love to hear from you along the way. 

So welcome to a new adventure as we write a novel together in 2010.  I’ll be back tomorrow with Story Ideas and How to Start.

Virginia

Today I pulled out my manuscript and put it into a binder.  I am starting from the beginning and will work my way through to the end.  With my work schedule, I do believe 3-5 pages per day are possible.  I will try to keep you, my readers, informed about the process.  If I run into something that I am struggling with, I may ask for some help.

Feel free to share any of your writing suggestions as I will gladly share with you.

I know I planned to have the first draft done by the end of the year but it didn’t happen.  My new job seemed to wipe me out more than I expected it to.  I tend to be a night owl but because of my hours, I have to get to bed early.  It has taken me a while to adjust.  I am up by 5:00 AM and out of the house by 6:00.  It takes me that long to get to work by 7:00 and that’s on a good day.  I like what I’m doing and truly hope they will make my temp position permanent.  I am a Claims Specialist at a large bank.  I am doing Fannie Mae claims for foreclosed properties from all over the United States.  It is interesting and challenging and sad.  As a former Realtor I understand that those names and addresses are real people who have lost their homes. 

I do hope 2010 is the best year ever.  I plan to read and write and push on to the next step toward publication.

I have been reading a lot the past month.  I read all of Louise Penny’s books and now wait breathlessly for the next.  Love the series.  Want to live in Three Pines – except for maybe the winter. Canada’ s got to be worse than Iowa.  I also read a Debbie Macomber holiday book called Mrs. Miracle.  Hallmark made a movie starring Doris Roberts as Mrs. Miracle.  The movie was okay but the book was great.  I would almost say it could be a modern Christmas classic.  I don’t save too many books but this one I plan to pull out again and read next year. 

I always read nonfiction as well as fiction.  I am currently reading James Scott Bell’s ‘The Art of War For Writers”.  Will tell you more about it when I finish reading. 

Wishing you the best this year and may your writing dreams come true too!

A fellow Nano writer sent me that post on facebook today.  No I wasn’t at the write-in last night.  I spent the evening going out to dinner with my husband.  It’s the middle of the month so I should be at the middle of my 50,000 words.  I’m not, quite.  I am at the middle of my story, almost so I guess I’ve outlined it pretty close.  I need to spend some time today working on the last half of my outline.  I know how I want the story to end I only need to figure out how to get there now.  I’m debating on whether to go to the write-in today or not.  I can count on getting 2000-3000 more words in the short amount of time that we meet and that, in itself, tempts me to go.  I also am still looking for work so am spending most of my days during the week alone and I am craving human companionship. 

I thought I had the job thing taken care of last week.  I had a phone interview and I thought it went well but I also am aware that there were probably several hundred applicants who didn’t even get the phone interview.  They were interviewing for two spots that would be kind of a test for that position and that they would be adding to that department within the next 90 days.  So, no I didn’t get one of the two openings but I am hoping they will remember me when they start hiring more.  In the meantime, my person at the temp agency sent my resume out Friday for a position that has seven openings.  It won’t start until end of next week or the beginning of the following, so I’m thinking the odds are that I will have plenty of time to catch up with my Nano writing this week.  My plan is to send resumes to everything that I might have an interest in, and aptitude for, early in the week and then instead of worrying around waiting to hear from people, I will write.  Writing is one thing I can control in my life right now and like Martha Stewart would say, “It’s a good thing.”

Hope your writing is going well and either way, keep at it.  I hope to have a book review for you early this week.  I have several more author interviews in the works.  Sharelle Byars Moranville, an author I met at the Author Fair – here in Des Moines a few weeks ago.  She writes fiction for all ages and has published four books so far.  I’ll post her interview on the 23rd of this month.  Can’t wait to share what she has to say.

Until next time, keep writing.

Virginia

My main murder involves a someone who didn’t take a bad rejection lightly.   The story also has a sub-plot that is based off of a true crime that happened here in Iowa several years ago.  Of course I don’t know all the details but what I do know I’ve embellished to make the story even more interesting.  My close friends and past buyers (from when I was a Realtor) may remember the story.  It was one I used to explain why the seller was required to sign a document called the Ground Water Hazard form and involves disclosing what may be buried on your property. 

I attended the first write-in this afternoon at Smokey Row, a coffee shop in the Sherman Hills District of Des Moines.  I surpassed my word count goal of 1667 words a day by writing about 2300.  It has helped having an outline to follow.  Since I’ve only outlined about half the story so far, I will continue outlining as I go.  I really have a good feeling about this story and hope my enthusiasm will carry me through to the end.  The 50,000 words necessary for Nano will not be enough to finish the story but my new goal is to have the first draft complete by the end of the year and start revising the first week in January.  At that time I will be looking for either a critique group or at least a couple of readers.

Hope your writing is flowing smoothly and if you are taking the Nano journey with me, I wish you good luck.

Until next time, keep writing, plotting, and reading.

Virginia

Part of me feels like I’ve been floundering.  I’ve been reading more than one book for advice.  I’ve read Lights, Camera, Fiction by Alfie Thompson a writer friend I met several years ago.  It had lots of great advice.  I followed up with the Book In A Month(BIAM)  by Victoria Lynn Schmidt Ph.D. and have been filling out all the worksheets in hopes of developing my story better.  I will continue to fill out the forms and develop my story right up until November 1st and this year I will hopefully have enough of a story to complete for a novel by the end of November. 

By attending the kick-off event, it stirred up the good memories from past events.  If you have never participated, maybe this is the year you should give it a try.  There is an energy at the write-ins that feels productive.  I don’t always get that much out of the push yourself to the limit exercises the group I attend promote but I do feel the energy of so many fellow writers.  I will participate but it will be with the focus of creating something worthwhile that I can revise later.  My plan is to write the minimum per day word count , which is about 1667 words per day, and add to it at the two events per week, I plan to attend. That way, I can more than make the word count needed to succeed and hopefully finish with a feeling of true accomplishment this year. 

As far as my blogging this month, I plan to interview a couple of the participants in my local group for this site.  One in particular is a guy named Demon.  He threatens to take your soul if you fail to get the word count.  I will continue with author interviews but they will be twice a month instead of weekly.  I hope to add a little more writer interest content to this site in between those interviews. 

In the meantime, keep writing or plotting, and as always keep reading!

Virginia

I had wanted to post three times a week but have been finding it difficult to post more than once a week.  I want to change that.  I’m going to be realistic and aim for twice a week starting today.

As I posted earlier, I bought a net book in hopes of taking it to work with me to write over my lunchtime, and then I found out how security conscious the employer was that I was assigned to.  They wouldn’t allow anyone to bring in their own computers so that went to the wayside.  I did work on developing my story so it wasn’t a total loss.  I needed to be doing something that made me think because the assignment was boring.  I was doing data entry, funding for credit cards, also verifying addresses and shortening Canadian addresses.  Compared to what I was used to doing, it was low-key. I needed to do something mentally stimulating over lunch to survive. 

A friend gave me a superb idea to look for new characters.  I do that anyway but this gave me so many more people to watch.  Downtown Des Moines is flooded with people Monday-Friday who mostly live in the suburbs so I did start watching people with that thought in mind. 

This week my goal is to have my story plotted out sufficiently so that I can participate in Nanowrimo in November.  I have participated in the past and got my badge. I completed 50,000 words but to be honest, it didn’t make me feel all that great about the time spent.  Yes, I got my 50,000 words but I really didn’t have a good story.  I had scenes, some I could use but others were, putting it less delicately, crap.  I have decided to do my own thing this year.  My goal will be to write five pages/day, everyday.  If I can pump out enough to get the 50,000 words then I will but,  if I only manage to write five pages that I am happy with, per day, that will make me happier.  I want to use the time to get into the habit of writing daily more than to accomplish the word count. 

I have been seeing quite a few web sites that encourage the five pages/day habit because it is doable.  The other thing I heard about was at a writer’s group meeting I attended last weekend.  Someone said that if you looked at the number of books that Nora Roberts puts out each year.  They said that she writes four/year.  They calculated that if you wrote five pages/day, you could write four books a year, like Nora. 

How are you doing with your book?  I will bet many of you are much further ahead than I am.  I am making life choices to change that.  Along with taking the time to clean and de-clutter my home this weekend, I have been de-cluttering my life.  It hasn’t been as easy but it took me a while to realize that if I wanted to complete a novel in this lifetime, I would need to prioritize whom I gave up my writing time  for. In case you hadn’t figured it out, I am a very sociable person, I love getting together with people but that doesn’t always allow enough of the alone time a writer needs to complete projects.   I have decided to attend some of the groups when I have met certain goals with my writing. 

One event that was worthwhile this week was the Authors Fair at the Central Library in Des Moines the other evening.  While there, I did run into several writer friends who were checking out all the authors. It was great to see the ones I knew, like Shirley Damsgaard, Leigh Michaels and my Ya-Ya buddy Kali VanBaale and it was fun meeting all the other authors in attendance.  I will be sharing new interviews in the future with some of those authors I met that evening.

 Now that you know that I am still out here plugging along, I will make it a point to post at least once a week with where I’m at with the writing.  If you have any questions or suggestions about writing, please feel free to share.

 Until next time – keep writing,

 Virginia

So I have to confess, except for my blog, I haven’t written anything this past week.  I have had another adventure though besides the new job and it is what I’ve decided to share with you. 

When this big change in my life came up, I knew I was going to have to look at making some changes with my writing.  One of those changes was what I planned to use.  I first noticed the netbook last year when I participated in Nanowrimo.  A few of the members of the group I belonged to had them.  I didn’t instantly desire one but I did think about it.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted one. I do like the convenience.  It’s about the size of a book.

Up until now, I have been using an Alpha Smart Neo.  I do like it too.  I like the convenience and the fact that a set of batteries can and has lasted for years.  But the one thing that swayed me to think about changing is that with a netbook, I can save it on a flash drive, save that on my desktop and then print it out.  With the Neo, I have to hook it up and let it print onto a Word page and hope it doesn’t do any funky while it’s doing it, and it has occasionally.  I also think it’s nice to be able to format and see more of the page than four lines at a time.  So after selling my lockboxes and an extra all-in-one, I had enough money to buy the netbook.

Here is where my adventure begins.  This all started a week ago yesterday when I went to Best Buy to buy a netbook.  I had stopped in several times over the past few months and had an idea of what I wanted.  I had my eye on a D**l so I purchased it. I have to admit, I really liked the look of this one.  It looked just like the larger version but smaller. I paid to have the Geek Squad set it up and because it was too late in the day, I had to arrange to pick it up on Sunday. 

I picked it up the next day and brought it home.  I tried to connect to my wireless modem but it wouldn’t work.  So I called Qwest.  They were very helpful and walked me through re-configuring some stuff.   Eventually we got it going.    Before we hung up though, they gave me D**l’s direct number in case I had further problems.  That should have been my first warning. Unfortunately, I had to go somewhere so just shut it down and left. Next time I turned it on, it wouldn’t work.  So I called D**l.  They told me they could help me but it had to be registered first.  Since I couldn’t get it connected to register, they told me to call Best Buy and have them register it for me and then they could help me out. By then it was too late to get anyone at Best Buy. 

The next day, I called Best Buy and the Geek Squad had no clue.  They said they couldn’t register it for me.  They said to bring it in and let them look at it.  Well I wasn’t a virgin to owning a laptop; I do have an older one that worked right away without any hassle. So I grabbed everything and en route to Best Buy, I decided maybe a D**l wasn’t for me.  Best Buy was great they understood and were more than happy to credit me and let me pick out something new.  I did end up with an HP.  The salesman at that time mentioned that they had a joke about the number of D**l netbook returns and they thought it was because the consumer wasn’t intelligent enough to figure out how to do it.  When I related my story, they said that maybe it wasn’t the consumer and maybe D**l.  Best Buy wasn’t aware that D**l used a totally different system to connect than anyone else.  I learned that little piece of information from Qwest.  Well to shorten this story a little.  I got the HP netbook and it works just fine.  I plan to spend this afternoon at either the library or coffee shop and get back into my story.  I will have made some progress by the next time I post on this subject. I do plan to participate in Nano.  I am calling it my outlaw version of Nano.  I don’t plan to start a new story but take this one and add my 50,000 words to it.  Hopefully I can have it nearly completed by the beginning of November.  Well…that’s my plan.

 For now, how is your writing going?  Have you run into any snags and how do you deal with them?  Do you use a desktop, laptop, Neo or a regular pen and paper?  Do you have a routine you need to get into to write?  Want to share some of your writing methods? I really would like to hear from you.

 Watch for tomorrow’s post, an interview with Donna Ball, the author of A Year on Ladybug Farm.

 Until next time,

 Virginia