Everybody's Got One

A secret that is. Everyone’s got a secret. What were you thinking?

One of my favorite filmmaking tips is as the director, to give each actor a secret about their character. One they can’t share with anyone, but will inform everything they do in every scene.

Secrets can add depth and subtext to a scene that might otherwise be merely functional, or ordinary. For (a poor) example: A character who is hiding a fear of heights, might try to convince his crush not to hike up to a popular make out spot on a cliff despite wanting desperately to make out with her.

While it works really well in film where we can both see an actor’s face, and hear their change in tone when responding to an innocuous request, I think it can also work well in a novel.

You probably already know your main characters darkest secrets, and maybe even some of their love interest’s or antagonist’s, but what about everyone else? This ties in with my previous post “Why Are You Here?” about every character having a reason to be where they are in every scene.

In this case, having a secret can help give conversations between characters more depth and realism. If you know a character’s secret, it will color everything they do and say. It will make the world feel more real, because the people in it are real. It might even change your main character’s or the reader’s opinion of the character, and that can be used to your advantage when working on stories with mysteries. (And I believe every story should have a mystery, even if it’s not a mystery story, but that’s a whole ‘nother post!)

I would bet that if you’ve gotten pretty far into writing the book, that most of your characters already have a secret, you just haven’t picked up on it because you’ve been too busy forwarding the story. If you’re just starting your book, or you haven’t seen your characters dropping any hints, try giving them one and see if it perks up one of your lackluster scenes, or changes the way your characters view each other. You might just make a discovery or two!

What about you, do you give your characters secrets? What are some of the ways you add subtext and depth?

Why Are You Here?

Wired has a great interview with Joss Whedon. It's very long, but a great read if you're a fan of his, or interested in his thoughts on writing, characters, and plot. Here's the part that I want to talk about though, it's about characters and their motivations:

"...everybody is here for a reason and they deserve, while they’re on film, or on the page, for people to know what it is, even if we don’t like it."

Reading this made me feel good because it's something I've always tried to do with both my characters and my plot. I think it's important that in any scene you write, you should be able to turn to each character there and ask "Why are you here?" and they should have an answer. Whether the reason is personal, "I'm here because I love him." or not, "This is my English class, I have to be here." they should be there for some reason that has to do with THEM, and not your plot. If I ask and my character answers, "I'm here because you need me to overhear this argument so that later I can use that info to solve the mystery." then, in my opinion, I've failed to make him three-dimensional, he's merely a plot device in the shape of a person.

Every character, whether they're the main character or one who pops in for one scene, should have a full life, regardless of how much we see of it. When people appear only to prove a point, or drop a clue, or to tell us something about the main character, the whole world of your story feels a little less real.

Achieving this can be tricky. You don't want a minor character to walk into a scene and say, "I'm here because this is my English class, where I'm supposed to be, and I just noticed that your hair looks different." Subtlety is key. This is one of those things where the reason doesn't always have to be spelled out on the page, but YOU need to know it. When you know why a character is there, it shows in your writing, and scenes feel more real.

When it comes to plot points, I always check that all the characters involved are there for a reason, and not because I NEED them to be there in order for the story to move forward. Without that reason -- personal or practical, things can feel "too convenient" or false. You want those moments to feel inevitable, where your readers can almost see it coming, as they weave all the pieces together, and they think, oh no!, at the same time that they think, of course they would all end up in this place just as the bomb goes off, it couldn't be any other way.

Because that's the moment that really connects with the reader. That's where the emotional connection to the story comes in. When they can look back at everything each character has done, and know that this is exactly the way it has to be, because they understand why each character has done what they've done so far, and why they're there at that moment. Without that it's just another thing moving the plot along.

Writing Structure

Ha! You thought this post was going to be about plotting or outlining or something else story-structure related. But it is not. Today I'm talking about structuring your writing... life.

One of the most surprising discoveries I had about living my dream of working from home is that it is very difficult for me to actually... work. Despite having a home office and plenty of time to dedicate to writing, I tend to find myself doing all sorts of other things when I should in fact be writing. It's strange really. I love to write. And it's not really that hard for me to hammer out 1k a day, and yet... frequently I find myself turning on the laptop and then... sorting clothes for a load of laundry, organizing my bookshelf, running to the store, reading the news, all with the thought in the back of my mind that I have ALL DAY to get my writing done, but these other things really should be done NOW.

Right. I am definitely one of those people who, the busier I am, the more I get done. If I can only squeeze in 30 minutes of writing in a day, I will write during that time. I work best with deadlines or when someone is waiting for something from me. I like having a list of things to do (okay, I like lists in general, if I'm being honest) but when the things I need to do are only for myself, I tend to falter. And then my dream life becomes, not quite a nightmare, but like one of those dreams where all you have to do is walk down the hall to the next room, but the hall keeps getting longer and you just keep walking and walking, but not reaching that room.

So. I'm going to try coming up with a strict schedule for myself. Something that has a lot on it, and a little time for writing. (I'm also going to finally start using Mac Freedom. I think.) I'm interested in knowing how those of you that have more "free" time available to write manage to actually write and not do something else. What are your tricks to staying focused?

Exercise Your Voice

Sometimes, when I'm writing or revising, I get so sick of my voice. You know the part where my characters sound like me rather than themselves. Or when they've described something the same way, like, three times in a row. It drives me nuts when I notice that the character is having the experience/thoughts that I would have in any given moment, rather than their own. But sometimes I feel stuck in my own word patterns and can't find the right words.

Recently, I wrote a character who has nothing in common with me or how I talk, and it was a challenge, but a really fun challenge, to come up with things that only he would say. And when I finished, I had a bit of an epiphany.

What if I turned that into an exercise?

And so here is a way to freshen up your voice:

Take a scene you're feeling is particularly lackluster. Where the voice is blah, or sounds like you, or is just not true to your character, and rewrite it with the voice of someone who's so distinct they're almost a cliche. Like, a southern belle, or a non-native English speaker, or Cookie Monster, or a Victorian era detective, or even a favorite character from someone else's book ... you get my point. Something where you're forced to stop and think of character voice specific ways this person would describe their thoughts and feelings and the events happening around them. Be over the top. Be cliche. Have fun with it.

For example:

Your character says: "I'm hungry."

Cookie Monster says: "Me want cookie!"


A very cliche southern belle might say: "Good Lord in heaven if I don't eat something soon, I'll be standing right up there with him at those pearly gates myself."

A Victorian lady might say: "I feel as though I might faint, I'm so weak with hunger." (and um, honestly I have no idea if this is even close, but that's okay because it's just an exercise!)

These are ridiculous examples, but you see how each one made me think past the bare facts of the statement, and into what that experience is like for each particular character. And they were fun. I wasn't agonizing over the exact right word, I was just getting out of my own head and seeing what happened.

At the end of the exercise you will have cleared your own voice from your head, and you'll be better able to see where the character-specific bits need to be. They will stand out in the scene as those over the top bits. Then use what you've discovered to re-write that scene the way your character would see it, in their voice.

So the next time you're feeling stuck, give this a try, and let me know how it works for you! Do you have any fun exercises or tips you use for freshening things up? Please share!

People Have Layers

For the last few holiday seasons I've worked at a book store. One of the things we do every year is a book drive for area children. Our goal is massive, around 400 books. In order to meet this goal, the store has a simple, but effective strategy. Ask EVERYONE. Even if they're frowning, even if they only bought a .50 newspaper, even if they're in a rush, even if they've said "no" to everything else you've asked them.

As a somewhat why person, this took some getting used to, but once I did, I noticed something fascinating. You never know who's going to say yes. Mr. Crankypants might just stop in the middle of his rant about rising costs, blink at you a few times and say "Sure." The sweet grandmother with the kind eyes might scowl at you and act offended you had the nerve to ask.

This is something I keep in mind when developing my characters, and writing my scenes. People have layers. There are all sorts of tiny things that affect them from moment to moment. What they show on their face or their body language might not be a true indicator of who they are or what they're thinking. They might be frowning because they can't remember a lyric to their favorite song, with no idea that they look angry. They might've just found out their kid got arrested while shopping for his expensive present.

So I try to make sure I have little moments like this in my book. Scenes where a character is thinking one thing but showing another, scenes where a character is completely misjudged or misinterpreted, because that's real, and I think it's always interesting to see the difference between the way a person is perceived, and the way they perceive themselves.

What about you, do you have any little tricks or reminders like this when you write?

NaNoWriMo Incentive and Inspiration

As we move into the second week of NaNoWriMo I thought I'd share a couple of great posts I've read recently that talk about persevering far better than I can.

The first comes from Chuck Wendig and his Terrible Minds blog. I like to think of it as incentive. You know, yes I can so finish my book!(Please note there is a fair bit of swearing in the post, so if that's not your thing, you've been warned.)

25 Reasons You Won't Finish That Story

Number 18 is one that is usually true for me.
18. Haven’t Answered Any Of The Critical Questions

Ask yourself: what is this about? Why am I writing this? Why will anyone care? Asking yourself some fundamental questions before you write — plus several others while you write — can help keep your nose to the grindstone and allow you to feel settled in both direction and purpose.

Also check out his list of those questions. He's got some really great ones.

The second is totally inspirational. It's about sticking with it when you've got that horrible feeling that you have completely failed at writing the book you wanted to write. It's a great guest post by Sara Zarr on Nova Ren Suma's blog:

What Inspires Sara Zarr

I bet you can't guess what it is. Failure. Yep. Go read why. If you've been feeling stuck, you'll be inspired to keep going, I swear.

Character Arcs

If you're not following Dear Editor you really should be. She takes all sorts of writing questions and answers them on her blog. Today she's got a great post on Character Arcs. I won't post everything she said, because you should check out her site yourself, but this really stuck out to me. About your MC:

"When he reaches The End, extract him from that last scene and drop him back onto Page 1. He should handle himself so well that you wouldn’t even have a story if this were the guy to really start it."

I thought this was a really great way of putting it. I'd never thought of it quite that way. But I can see this is an easy quick check to see if you've created growth in your character. Not the be-all end-all by any means, because of course every story is different and some characters might change in a way that still doesn't allow them to easily handle the problem, but you can still determine whether or not they would handle the situation differently. Because your character needs to have picked up some new skill, or way of thinking, or understanding that would allow them to take a different approach to the same problem.

I'm going to use this line of thought from now on when plotting. What about you, what do you do to ensure your character is growing an changing? Do you have a trick? Do you plot or outline or whatever you do with the character arc in mind?

When "I feel" Feels Distant

One of the great things about first person POV is its immediacy. First person takes the reader right into a character's brain, right into the middle of whatever they're experiencing. But sometimes, the very thing that's supposed to pull us into the scene, takes us out.

I think it's easy when writing in first person, to slip into a rhythm where, particularly when we're describing action we're constantly making "I" statements like, I feel, I see, I hear.

These "I" statements can be distancing to your reader. (Not to mention they get pretty tedious when almost every sentence in a paragraph starts out with I.)

Think about it. When I read:

Cold water trickles down my back.

I shiver because I feel cold water trickling down my own back. It's subliminal. We think to ourselves this way, so when reading a sentence that is something we would say in our own mind, we react as if it's happening to us.

Now, when I read:

I feel cold water trickle down my back.

I am forced to take a step back. I picture the narrator shivering as she feels the cold water. Because it's her experience. She's telling me what's happening and I have to picture it. So suddenly, I am sympathetic, and I'm still interested to know what happens next, but I'm not right there in the moment with her.

See the difference?

Of course there are times when you want to create that bit of distance, or an I statement is really the only way to drive your point home, but don't forget to pull your reader as close to the action as possible whenever you can.

It's Not Cheating If It Helps

So I was perusing my copy of The Art of War For Writers by James Scott Bell, looking for tips as I prepare to start my brand new book from scratch and I came across this suggestion from Chapter 20:

"It's the little things that mount up to victory. So make yourself a reminder list..."

Bell suggests that you list the things you know you need to improve in your writing on notecards, or post-its --a sort of cheat sheet-- and keep them where you can see them when you're writing.

Some of the notes that he uses personally include:

Emotion! Emotion! Emotion! - Which reminds him that his primary objective is to give readers an emotional ride.

Be Dialogue Happy - Reminding him to let the dialogue flow, he can always edit it later.

And my favorite:
The Second Right Answer - This one could be a post all on its own. Bell suggests that we should learn to stop at every major creative decision in our story (for example: plot turning points) and think of several options before moving forward. This is because usually, the first idea we have (the right answer) for "what happens next" is the obvious, or cliche, or standard way of going.

This is something I actually do when plotting. I ask myself, what is the obvious expectation here, and what are my other options. Then I pick the one that's most interesting, or surprising, or emotional, that makes sense for my characters and my story.

I think this is a great idea and am definitely going to make up a few reminder notes for myself. Other than what Bell has listed, I know I'll have one that says "Description! Description! Description!" because I tend to leave that out of my draft.

What about you? Do you make reminders for yourself? What would be on your post its?

Rules to Remember

We're reusing older posts here at SIS this month, and this week I'd like to re-share a few simple tips to remember when writing.

When writing fiction:

• Every scene needs to move the plot forward, needs to accomplish something
• Every
  scene
  page needs tension
• Don't be passive! Make things happen to your main character, not through a third party
• Ask yourself if this could be dramatized
• "Substitute the word 'damn' every time you are inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and your writing will be as it should." - Mark Twain
• "The road to hell is paved with adverbs." - Stephen King
• When writing an action scene, don't slow it down with descriptions

These are just a few things I keep in mind when writing, most of them have been drilled into my head by my lovely Sisters. I'm sure there's more, but these are probably my most important. I try to keep them in mind with every line I write.

Do you have any little rules you try to write by?When writing fiction:

And don't forget to enter our December giveaway for 3 autographed YA books! 

Save Some For Later

Now that we've been doing Tangled Fiction for a couple months now and I've had the chance to write two story starts for Natalie and Lacey to finish, I've made some discoveries about plotting and revealing information.

When you're writing something that someone else has to continue without knowing what's supposed to come next your first instinct is to put in enough details to explain what it is you're doing. But you soon realize that if you do that, the next writer either has nowhere to go because you already gave up all the cool plot twists and info, or is locked into your idea, which is the opposite of collaboration (unless you use James Frey's definition of the word) and what you've written is mostly telling and infodump with perhaps a side of interesting character.

You learn that in order to give the next writer a chance to shine, and to give the story a shot at being all it can be, you have to leave threads dangling and hint at things without explaining them. You have to trust your partners, and your readers to pick up on the subtle cues, and to want to keep reading to find out what they mean.

In a word, you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing when you write a book all by yourself!

You know that feeling you get when you're starting a book, (or short story, or introducing a new character) where you feel like you have to get ALL the necessary info out so readers will get what you're doing and LOVE it? Well, that feeling is wrong. Those writing books - the ones that say don't reveal anything until it's absolutely necessary are right.

It took until I had to take an idea, set it up, and then let it go for me to really understand how that works. When I write an opening to one of our shorts, like my most recent one, KISS OF DEATH, I start with an idea:

What if there was a girl so beautiful that every boy who saw her was compelled to kiss her? What if her lips were poisonous?

Then I have to do some world-building, some plotting, and I have to make sure I leave something for the next writer. In the case of KISS OF DEATH I had A LOT of ideas. There was so much I wanted to (and did in the first draft) explain. I knew how Rosemina came to be cursed. I knew what she did all day while she was home alone. I knew what the Queen really thought about her. I knew what happened after my section ended. But I cut all of those things because they would work better if they were revealed later on or in an active way. I trusted that I had an interesting predicament (Everyone wants to kiss her. Everyone that kisses her dies. And because of that, people want her dead.) and that people would want to keep reading to find out what happens next.

This is the key when plotting your story and maintaining your pace. Drop hints. Dangle potential plot twists, make your reader excited and curious to see what happens next. Let them form opinions about why a character says or does something, and then reveal the info when it will be the most active, the most important, the most mindblowing thing that could happen at that moment. Save something for later. (And, as I always say trust your reader It's scary, but you'll be glad you did.

When Uncertainty Gets Annoying

I'm at a loss for what to post this week so I'm re-posting something from last December. It's an issue that has come up for me lately in my writing so I thought it might be a good time to re-read it!

Recently I read a really good book. Really good! It was full of action, adventure, drama, suspense, and emotion, and it was also full of one of my pet peeves. The dreaded uncertainty that is seemed like, appeared as if, almost.

You know what I'm talking about. One character says to the MC, "I hate you!" and the MC's inner monologue says "He punched the wall, as if he was angry." Really? It was like he was angry, but you're not sure if that was it? Maybe he just likes punching walls? Maybe wall-punching means happiness?

This occasionally drives me insane.

I notice this happens most often in books written in close third person. I think it's because when writing in first person it's easier to slip into the character's distinct point of view and feel what they're feeling.

Think about it. In your own life, if someone shouts at you "I hate you!" and then punches a wall, you have a strong instant reaction. You don't think to yourself, "I wonder if he's angry?" You think, "Whoa, this dude is pissed!" Even if you're wrong, and he does just like to punch walls for no reason, you have interpreted his words and actions and made a decision on what they mean.

Characters are like this too. They jump to conclusions. They reason out why things are happening. I know that, especially in third person, there's a fine line between staying in one character's close POV and crossing into another's. This is where the trouble starts. Writers worry that if they say too much about what is happening, or how someone is feeling that they are switching POVs or crossing over into omniscience. I say, HOGWASH!

While it's true that unless your main character is a mind reader, he can't know what others are thinking. He can definitely take an educated guess or decide for himself how to interpret what he sees. When I see a lot of this in a manuscript I'm critiquing, I always write "Be authoritative!" and "Either it happened or it didn't. Which is it?"

Don't tell me "It seemed like the door opened all by itself." When I see this type of sentence structure, I expect a "but". As in "It seemed like the door opened all by itself, but it was just the cat leaning against it." When you leave the sentence as "It seemed like the door opened all by itself." and the character doesn't do any exploring to find out how it actually did open, I'm left wondering, did the door open by itself or not? You know whether it did or not, why not share? Your character, having witnessed this event, should have come to a decision about whether or not the door opened on it's own - even if it's the wrong answer. And if your character really can't tell if it opened by itself or not, then he needs to try and find out why (or run away in terror, whichever he's more prone to do).

I may be in the minority here, but I think it's best for your character to see things through his own world view and save the uncertainty for when he really doesn't know what's going on. If you stay focused and true to your character's personality and voice, it should be clear, even in third person, that what he sees happening is what he thinks is happening, and not absolute fact. To me this is one of the best things about telling a story through one person's eyes. Each character has a unique way of seeing things. What one character thinks is evil spirits haunting his house, another thinks is just the wind. Find out what it really is is what storytelling is all about!

Guest Post: K.M. Weiland!

Please welcome our special guest on the blog, author, mentor, editor, K.M. Weiland!

K.M. Weiland writes historical and speculative fiction from her home in the sandhills of western Nebraska. She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, editing services, workshops, and her recently released instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Multi-Media Inspiration

We live in a world that is saturated with artistic creativity (some more artistic and creative than others, admittedly). If you’re a writer, this is a very good thing. It means that inspiration is all over the place. All we have to do is open a magazine, read a book, turn on the television, or switch to a new radio station. In my recently released CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration (http://www.kmweiland.com/books_CWBASI.php), I specifically touch upon how to use music to up our creative output. But we can tap into all kinds of media for an extra-inspiration boost. Following are some ideas:

Create story-specific playlists. Every time you hear a song that fits your story or inspires some new aspect, save it on a playlist on your computer. You’re creating your own personalized story soundtrack! Whenever you need a dab of inspiration, give it a listen. Plus, it’s great fun for sharing with your readers, when the book is published. (You can listen to the soundtrack for my medieval novel Behold the Dawn here (http://www.kmweiland.com/free.php#playlist).)

· As an addendum to the above, don’t forget to give each character a theme song. Not only is it fun, but it can help distill the character’s personality and inner goals.

· Cast your characters. We all dream of getting our NYT bestselling book made into a blockbuster movie. So why wait on the all-important decision of choosing which actors should play your characters? Putting a face, voice, and gestures to your characters (particularly minor characters) can work wonders for bringing them to vivid three-dimensional life.

· Visualize your story as a movie. Whenever I’m approaching a tricky scene, I stop, close my eyes, and try to visualize what the scene would look like in a movie. I visualize everything: angles, lighting, stage directions. I even try to conjure up a soundtrack sometimes. And the results are pretty interesting.

· Keep a photo album. Thanks to the Internet, tracking down specific photos and bookmarking them or saving them to your computer is the easiest thing in the world. For every novel I write, I keep folders within folders of inspiring pix, everything from the characters themselves to settings to costumes to vehicles to pets. Not only are the pictures an endless well of inspiration, but they also come in handy for maintaining consistency in details.

· Create props. Sometimes a handful of props can come in very handy for inspiring or choreographing a scene. For my upcoming fantasy Dreamers (http://www.kmweiland.com/WIPs.php#dreamers), I used a sword-shaped letter opener in planning battle scenes. If your character receives an important letter, write the letter out for yourself and play around with the crinkle of the envelope. If a stolen necklace features prominently, buy a cheap replica and wear it while writing.

Who says writing has to be confined to words on paper? If we branch out from our notebooks and pens or our keyboards and word processors, we may find that a whole interactive world of inspiration is waiting for us to discover and play with.

Thank you, K.m.! *applauds* It's nice to know my fantasy casting can be seen as inspiration, rather than procrastination!

You can also find K.M. Weiland blogging at http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/

On twitter and on facebook.

Writer's Block

Tomorrow we have special guest author/editor/mentor K.M. Weiland stopping by the blog. She has a new CD out titled Conquering Writer's Block and Summoning Inspiration, so I kind of wanted to get everyone thinking about writer's block today. What is it? Does it exist at all? How do you get past it?

I've read, and I agree, that writer's block usually means you've taken a wrong turn somewhere. For me, getting myself past the block means setting the manuscript aside until I figure out what isn't working. And that's a lot harder than it sounds. Just putting it aside is difficult. It nags at me telling me I have to finish it immediately. But eventually, I peel my eyes away from it and take a step back to look at what I have objectively. This goes back to Valerie's post on killing your darling. Usually, the place where I went wrong was a scene I thought was epic, but it didn't fit with my plot and it ended up throwing everything else out of whack.

My wonderful cp's are great at spotting those out of place scenes, but I can't have them watching over my shoulder and checking every sentence, so Valerie suggested I try note cards. I bought colored cards and I wrote out every scene I had on those cards. Red for romantic scenes, puke-green for gore and supernatural stuff, yellow for action and the main plot thread, and a sea-blue for scenes with the secondary characters that fed the smaller plot threads.

Laying these out helped me see where I had to many slow scenes or too many fast paced action scenes too close together. Looking at that didn't solve all my problems, but it helped point me in the right direction. It made me realize where the problems originated. Now I have to go back to the beginning and rewrite a lot of the book, but at least now I'm past that block and I have some direction.

What does writer's block mean to you? What are some productive ways you've found to help you get past the block?

"So" Unnecessary

I've come to form the opinion that there is almost no need for the word so. In narration anyway.

Why? Well I'll tell you!

SO makes for wordy complicated sentences. Also, it's explain-y.

He knew he was in trouble so he hid in the bathroom so the teacher wouldn't see him.

Um... yeah. See? Wordy. Long. Complicated. Telling. You could say all this much more actively and with less explanation.

Footsteps in the hall. This was it, if the teacher saw him he was busted. He jumped into the nearest doorway, the girl's bathroom, just as she rounded the corner.


SO frequently states the obvious. It strings together two sentences that are often better left apart.

It was raining out so I grabbed my umbrella on my way out the door.

Since we were just told that it's raining, we KNOW WHY she grabs the umbrella. So makes the sentence almost feel condescending. And it would be better said in two short sentences.

Rain pounded on the roof. I grabbed my umbrella on my way out the door.

When you juxtapose two things together, (it's raining, grabbed umbrella) readers make the connection on their own. It doesn't need to be spelled out.


SO is lazy. It's like "and then".

Chances are good that if you're using so somewhere other than dialogue (where it can make for lovely, awkward conversation), you're telling. Which is lazy. Also, whatever you're telling about is probably boring and unnecessary.

He was tired so he went upstairs and took a shower so he wouldn't smell like french fries when he woke up.

This is just a list of things he did with explanations about why. It's not particularly interesting and the purpose of it is really just to say that he went to bed so that we can move on to the next scene where something actually happens. Boring and unnecessary.

I was hungry, so I went downstairs to get a snack. Then I was attacked by a ninja!

Is it really necessary for us to know why he went downstairs? Isn't being attacked by a ninja the important part here? In this case the so sentence is being used as set up and that's exactly what it feels like. Like we're being lead to something rather than experiencing it as it happens.

I was staring into the fridge trying to find something that wasn't expired when out of nowhere, ninja attack!

So... the next time you find yourself using SO stop and ask yourself, is it really necessary here? Am I telling? Can I say this more succinctly? Can I say this more actively? I bet you'll find a better way to get your point across!

Check It Out - First Chapters!

If you're looking for something to read today, Valerie is the guest post on agent Nathan Bransford's blog today!

Check out her post on the All Important First Chapter!

Robbing Your Readers

It's Thursday already! Wow! I've been super busy with rewrites and reading manuscripts and family stuff. This week just flew by me.

One of my sisters read my manuscript, GREYSKIN, recently and gave me awesome feedback (as always), but one thing really stood out to me as most important: I've been robbing my readers. Well, future, potential readers.

My protagonist, Charlie, is a sixteen-year-old girl. She gets thrust into some pretty heavy stuff and she ends up having to go at it alone. My problem was that I was having other characters relay information to her, and I had way too much awesome stuff happening off screen. I kept thinking, she's a teen, her parents keep this stuff from her to protect her. This is an adult situation, she wouldn't know this stuff. She wouldn't be able to handle it, or discover it for herself.

But I was totally wrong. I was thinking with my mom-head and not my inner teen. Not my inner Charlie. Charlie can totally do this! She can handle that! She would so easily figure that out herself! Now that it's been pointed out to me, it's so blatantly obvious. It's embarrassing, really. Hopefully, I can save you some embarrassment.

My Sister shared this great link on author Janice Hardy's blog: http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/06/re-write-wednesday-telling-yourself-to.html and I wanted to pass it on to you.

Think to yourself: would this scene be better if I dramatized it? If the narrator saw it first hand? is it possible for her to discover this herself instead of through a third party?

If yes, do it! happy re-writing!

Good Telling The J.K. Rowling Way

Not long ago, I did a post on Telling When You Think You're Showing which I hope was helpful in highlighting some of the common mistakes we make when it comes to showing emotions.

Since Show Don't Tell is the bane of most writers' existence I figure you can never get enough info on it.

So today I direct you to Andrea Brown agent Mary Kole's blog and her post When To Tell Instead of Show because it's done way better than I ever could.

I highly recommend that you also check out A Few Things Writers Can Learn from Harry Potter which is referenced in her post, as well. It's a really clear and amazingly insightful piece!

What Agents Wish You Knew - Or Why You Should Wait Until Your Book Is REALLY Ready To Query!

When I was just a fresh-faced Midwesterner, brand new to LA, I thought, hey, I'm in LA, maybe I should be an actor! (Because, you know, everyone was doing it.) So I started going to these Casting Director (*Casting Directors are the ones who go out and find actors, and audition them for roles in movies) workshops where actors would get a chance to hear a Casting Director speak about what they're casting, and give out some acting advice. One of the things I heard over and over from Casting Directors was "We want you to be good."

No one believed them.

The veteran actors who had been auditioning for years were sure that it was just some line they used to make them sound good, (because Casting Directors only wanted already famous people, anyway). And newbie actors thought, why would that famous casting director care about me? I'm nobody, there's no way they'd ever cast me.

It wasn't until I became a Casting Director myself and was faced with casting 6 major roles in my own film that I understood. It's true, Casting Directors are praying that every single actor that walks through the door is so amazing that they're THE ONE. They get excited by each new face they see. They really truly want actors to be good.

Here's why:

1. Auditioning actors is very time-consuming.
- First they have to sort through hundreds (literally) of headshots to find the ones who look most like what the role requires.
- Then they have to schedule auditions for all those with the right look (that might be a hundred again).
- Then they have to sit down with each one of those actors and have them read through the scene, narrow down the good ones, and do it all over again until they have 5 or 6 of the best that they can take to the director and producers.

If an actor comes in who is so amazing that they get immediately skip ahead to the meeting directors and producers stage, think of all the time the Casting Director has saved!

2. When a Casting Director finds the perfect actor for a role, that actor and film can win awards, which means more recognition and more money for the Casting Director. It's not in their best interest to cast their Uncle's cousin's best friend's kid. It just isn't.

Hmm... Does any of this sound familiar?

If you substitute Writer for Actor, Agent for Casting Director, and Editor and Publishers for Director and Producers, (and okay, obviously, books for movies) it sounds a lot like the publishing world, doesn't it?

So this is what I want you to know:

AGENTS WANT YOUR BOOK TO BE GOOD!

Before they click open your email they probably say a silent prayer like, Please God let this one be THE ONE!

Even though they might complain about their overflowing inboxes, they secretly thrill at all of those potential bestsellers just waiting for them.

How You Can Take Advantage Of This Knowledge:
DO NOT SEND YOUR BOOK OUT UNTIL IT IS THE BEST THING YOU HAVE EVER WRITTEN

Then, write a query letter that SHOWS your book is THE ONE. (Don't write "This is the book you've been waiting for!" Just. Don't.)

Don't let yourself think, It doesn't matter anyway, it's not like that agent will ever really rep me, I'll just send my query/partial/full and get the rejection over with. (WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? WHY WOULDN'T YOU WAIT AND SEND SOMETHING YOU BELIEVED IN 100%?)

Because trust me, that agent isn't looking at their inbox thinking I can't wait to reject all of these losers today! They're thinking, PLEASE let this next one be THE ONE!

The Importance of the First Line

Today the gals over at Adventures in Children's Publishing are hosting a contest judging first lines of completed manuscripts and it got me thinking about the importance of first lines.

With my first WIP, the opening had no real hook aside from the setting. It's a historical and takes place in an era we're all familiar with (or should be familiar with) so there's tension, but the line wasn't a hook.

With my newer WIP, I have a definite hook. The reaction to the two is very different. And not just because of content.

Someone said (and if I can find who, I'll post a name) that the first line sells the book, the last line sells the second book.

Out of curiosity I grabbed the closest book, LOW RED MOON by Ivy Devlin, and opened it up. The first line reads: I was covered in blood when the police found me.

That is a GREAT opening line! It catches my attention and it makes me ask questions. Why is she covered in blood? Who's blood? Was it a murder? Was it an accident?

Not all great books have a great opening line. In some cases, such as with TWILIGHT, the author uses a catchy prologue to grab your attention. This, in my opinion, is fine if that prologue serves a purpose. If you come back to it later. If you don't it can upset your reader. I can think of a few books who had catchy prologues that made me ask a lot of questions, but then those questions weren't answered in that book.

Frustrating.

In most cases I think we as writers need to avoid prologues.

Suzannah over at Write it Sideways came up with a great list of what NOT to do in your opening lines:

• Dialogue. Nice somewhere on the first or second page, but not in the first line. We won’t know who’s speaking or why we should care.
• Excessive description. Some description is good, but not when it’s long winded. Skip the purple prose and opt for something more powerful.
• Irrelevant information. The first few lines of your story are crucial, so give your reader only important information.
• Introducing too many characters. I don’t like to be bombarded with the names of too many characters at once. How are we supposed to keep them straight when we don’t know who’s who?

And a great list of thing you want to do:

1. Make your readers wonder.

Put a question in your readers’ minds. What do those first lines mean? What’s going to happen? Make them wonder, and you’ll keep them reading.

• “Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did.” ~Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel
• “A secret’s worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.” ~Carlos Ruiz Zafon,The Shadow of the Wind

2. Begin at a pivotal moment.

By starting at an important moment in the story, your reader is more likely to want to continue so he or she can discover what will happen next.

• “It was dark where she was crouched but the little girl did as she’d been told.” ~Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden
• “I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.” ~Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

3. Create an interesting picture.

Description is good when it encourages people to paint a picture in their minds. Often, simple is best so it’s the reader who imagines a scene, instead of simply being told by the author.

• “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” ~Daphne DuMaurier, Rebecca
• “She stands up in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance.” ~Michael Ontaatje, The English Patient

4. Introduce an intriguing character.

The promise of reading more about a character you find intriguing will, no doubt, draw you into a story’s narrative. Most often, this is one of the main characters in the book.

• “I was born twice: first as a baby girl on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” ~Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

5. Start with an unusual situation.

Show us characters in unusual circumstances, and we’ll definitely be sticking around to see what it’s all about.

• “They had flown from England to Minneapolis to look at a toilet.” ~Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked
• “Last night, I dreamt that I chopped Andrew up into a hundred little pieces, like a Benihana chef, and ate them, one by one.” ~Julie Buxbaum, The Opposite of Love

6. Begin with a compelling narrative voice.

Open your story with the voice of a narrator we can instantly identify with, or one that relates things in a fresh way.

• “As I begin to tell this, it is the golden month of September in southwestern Ontario.” ~Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief
• “I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.” ~Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

Write what you love, write the book you want to read, but always know your target audience and keep your readers in mind. From the first line to the last.