Tuesday Ten: Character Development Through Hobbies

This week, I wanted to expand on one of the character quirks I listed in last week’s Tuesday Ten post: hobbies. If you’re like me, you might give your character a hobby simply to add a bit of color. And hobbies do add color: a good hobby will make your character quirkier and more memorable.

As a writer, though, you may want to make this character detail work even harder and, especially as you get deeper into a book, it can useful to think about what a character’s hobby can accomplish beyond adding surface color.

Photo Credit

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Plot: Finding the Threads (or: How to Eat an Elephant)

Last week, fellow YA author and blogger Julie Musil wrote a terrific post on how to use a spreadsheet analyze and improve your novel’s plot: Performing Plot CPR. If you haven’t read it, check it out. In this post, she provides a framework for getting the big picture of your work in progress so you can see what works, what doesn’t, and what you can cut without regrets.

Photo courtesy of GollyGforce on Flickr Creative Commons

I, too, am deep in the rewrite process—and rewriting a 300-page novel, even one that’s already been through multiple rounds of rewriting and revision is an elephant-sized task. When I try to take on the whole thing at once, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

However, there’s a time-honored technique for tackling any immense task or problem: divide it into smaller pieces and work on one at a time. Julie’s post explains one way to identify individual story elements where you can focus your efforts, and I want to share another technique: tracing individual story “threads” to make sure that each progresses smoothly and logically throughout the book.

After all, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

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The Writing Life: Using the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

If you’ve stopped by my blog lately, you’ve probably noticed that things have been a bit quiet. Between a sick kiddo and an exceptionally large amount of freelance work, my blogging time has been sadly limited.

I’ve also had little time to write—but I’ve been so busy "living life” that without realizing it, I’ve filled up with ideas and inspiration that are now itching to emerge on the page. I’ve been collecting bits and pieces over the past weeks: characters, settings, conversations, emotions and how I experienced them physically. I feel like my creative pond has been restocked, even though I wouldn’t have expected a time of stress and busy-ness to recharge or refresh my muse.

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Games in Boys’ Books

I’m racing forward with the first draft of my latest middle grade fantasy…and learning things left and right as I go. Is it just me, or do other writers find the writing process a terrific teacher? Since I’m writing middle grade fiction right now, you all get to hear about my middle grade fiction insights <grin>.

****DRUMROLL….Here it comes….BOYS LOVE GAMES!****

*Photo courtesy of Jerry on Flickr Creative Commons

Okay, maybe it’s not *that* revolutionary an idea, but I think it’s worth keeping in mind if you write middle grade stories. Games can be a great way to add action, explore theme, develop character, and engage the ever-elusive boy reader.

Games feature prominently in several great books for middle school students.

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Crafting Believable Villains: 52 Questions to Ask

If you read much writing advice, you probably know that villains are supposed to be believable, well-rounded , and not necessarily evil. (And if you haven’t read that writing advice, now you know.) But how do you go about creating such a believable-yet-villainous character? Plunking a black hat on your bad guy is oh-so-much easier!

When in doubt, I like to start by asking questions—so I figured I’d share :). Don’t feel the need to answer them all; instead, ask and see which evoke answers that surprise or inspire. Happy writing!
52 Questions to Ask Your Villain
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Finding Your Voice: Seven Tips

Despite the oft-repeated advice for authors to write for a single audience (to build that elusive brand), many childen’s writers write for both middle graders and young adults. Denise Vega entertains middle school students with her novels Click Here (to find out how I survived seventh grade) and Access Denied (and other eighth grade error messages), but reaches teens in Fact of Life #31 and the soon-to-be-released Rock On. (She also writes picture books, but only because she’s an overachiever <grin>).       

Fantasy author Hilari Bell targets younger readers with fast-paced adventure in The Prophecy and Wizard Test, but writes for a more mature audience in books such as her latest release, Trickster’s Girl. How do they do it? How does one change from a young voice to teen and back again?

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Care and Feeding of the Discouraged Writer

Jami Gold's recent post Have You Ever Been Tempted to Give Up? is thought-provoking and true. In a weird way, it’s encouraging to realize that even published, successful authors struggle with this question.

Jamie’s post ends with a question: “What pushes you to the edge of giving up (lack of time, rejections, something else)?  What things help motivate and encourage you (a support system, wanting to prove something, finding successes wherever you can)? ” Visit her blog to see what other writers have to say.

Have I ever been tempted to give up? Absolutely! As has every writer in my critique group. As has every writer I know personally. And yet, most of us don’t. What keeps us going? I think the answer depends on why we’re tempted to quit, the way different illnesses respond to different treatments.

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5 Tips for Getting Back in the Groove

Spring Break! Those two words take me back to memories of school—and a few days’ freedom from it. What do you think when you hear those words? Sunshine? Beaches? Sleeping in?

This year, our Spring Break involved four days of camping, hiking, and biking in the desert of Moab, Utah, where it rained and snowed and didn’t fit the typical Spring Break imaginings. No high-speed internet, no cell phone coverage, no electricity…just lots of time to explore, read, play card games, and hang out. And it was wonderful.

But now here I am, back at my desk, trying to figure out what the heck I was working on when I left. I’ve written before of the importance of keeping your writing momentum—but everyone has those times when, for whatever reason, you’ve had to take a break from the page. How do you get back in the groove?

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Ten Reasons to Practice Freewriting

Many writers I know think of freewriting as writer-style therapy—a way to get worries out of your head and onto the page. However, freewriting has so many more applications. The Faculty Leadership for Writing Initiative at the University of Nebreska-Lincoln defines it as “an invention strategy where students write for a certain amount of time for the purpose of generating ideas…”

Great. But what does “generating ideas” really mean? The truth is that I don’t *want* new story ideas when I’m supposed to be editing my current work-in-progress. New story ideas = distractions, so if that’s your view of freewriting, you’ll probably shove it on the shelf until you’re ready for a new project (or a new therapy session…) And that would be a shame, because freewriting has a lot to offer writers at all stages and skill levels.

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When the Book Is Finished…Tips for Surviving the Post-Novel Mourning Period

After months of living, breathing, and dreaming about my YA paranormal, VOICE, I'm finally finished with the rewrite. I’m sending  it off to my agent, and if he doesn't have any suggestions, it will soon be on its way to editors again. I feel...odd. At loose ends.

I think I go into a period of mourning after completion of a novel. It's strange, because I'm happy—ecstatic—to be finished; but after spending so much time with a book, it can be difficult to move on. Anyone else experience this? It reminds me of how I felt as an actor, the day after a play closed. I was apt to wander back to the theater, expecting another hectic afternoon and evening of rehearsal, only to discover an empty stage where there used to be sets, costumes, and a frenzy of activity.

Luckily, I’ve been through this a few times. I know it’s normal to feel a little down; I know it will pass. Meanwhile, here are some strategies that help:

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A New Year’s Plan: The Power of Small Changes

After the success of the past two months, when I worked to establish a new exercise habit, I’m ready to embark on a new goal: I want to develop the habit of getting up earlier so that I can write at the start of the day, when I’m fresh and undistracted.

Why do I want to do this? Because although I can write any time of day, I tend to get distracted as soon as the rest of my household starts moving. Sad though it is, an argument over whether a child has to wear a coat to school (10 degrees and snowing? What’s that have to do with wearing a coat?) or (still sadder) even a messy kitchen can sabotage my muse for hours. As the day progresses, my head tends to get cluttered with to-do’s and should’s and don’t-forgets.

First thing in the morning, I’m at my best writing-wise. I want to harness that time and become more productive.

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Dropbox: New Favorite Writing Tool for the Writer on the Move

My writing discovery of the month is a little tool called Dropbox. Dropbox is a tool that automatically syncs files stored in the Dropbox folder (on your computer) with the Dropbox server. It’s not just an online backup tool, though: the magic of Dropbox is that you can access—and edit—these files from numerous computers.

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Fear and Success and Keeping On…

I promised myself that there would be NO MORE BLOGGING—or Tweeting or random researching, or any of the other ways I distract myself and procrastinate—until I began the much-dreaded rewrite of my latest YA, VOICE.

  I usually love to rewrite, but this round has been unexpectedly difficult to begin. Why, you ask? For an unanticipated reason: an editor or two actually LIKE the manuscript.

Intellectually, I know this is a Very Good Thing. The problem is that now it’s up to me to sift through advice and suggestions, dive back into the story, and turn around a rewrite that WOWs…and that’s a little scary. I’m close, but I’ve been this close before. I’m afraid I’ll screw it up.

I think my inner 6-year-old is holding onto the logic that, if I don’t ever turn in the rewrite, I can’t possibly fail. It’s the same logic that keeps writers from submitting manuscripts, because that which is not submitted can never be rejected, right? Surely I’m not the only writer to struggle with gut-level illogic?

I know, I know: the solution to this problem is to trick my subconscious into moving on, which is what I’ve been working on this week. I’ve made enough progress that I’m allowed to blog again and maybe even write a Tweet or two.

If I’m a good girl and keep on writing that story!!

:) Cheryl

How to Write a Book: the Storyboard

I’m working on a work-for-hire picture book project right now, a project for which I need to assemble 40 pages worth of info on text, graphic novel-type dialog, sidebars, text boxes, and illustration notes. For the first time in my life, I’ve used a storyboard as a writing strategy to help me see the “big picture” of what I’m writing. I’m now officially a storyboard convert: Fitting your story into a visual format is a great creative exercise to help you look at it with fresh eyes.

A storyboard can help you answer questions such as:

1. Do the page turns pull you forward?
2. Does the excitement build? Where do surprises or changes of direction occur?
3. Are there enough scene changes (and, therefore, illustration possibilities) to make this a good fit for a picture book?

I found plenty of info out there on how to create a storyboard manually (i.e., stapling pages together), but I wanted a storyboard where I could move content from one page spread to another, something where I could play and change things without starting from scratch every time. I wanted to be able to type in text, but within a visual layout. Here’s the result:

And here’s the how-to:

1. Create a table 1 row high and 2 columns wide using your favorite word processing program (I used MS Word).
2. Click to place your cursor inside the box. Enter hard returns until the table is sized as desired. This is your first spread (pages 2 and 3, which are usually the copyright and title pages, respectively).
3. Click outside the box and enter a hard return (to separate the first table from those following). Select all (CNTRL-A), copy all(CNTRL-C), and paste (CNTRL-V) until your document contains the desired number of tables (14, 16, and 40 are some common numbers—count the number of spreads in a book similar to yours to decide how many spreads to play). 

Note: this is NOT the format you’d use to submit your book, but I find it very helpful as I write and revise. Have fun!

:) Cheryl

Collaging the Subconscious

Yesterday, two of my critique group friends and I got together to make collages for our current book writing projects.

 

 

This is one of my favorite creative thinking exercises, because I always learn more about my story in the process. This board leans against the wall above the desk where I write, where it will provide encouragement, inspiration, and a continuing reminder to take a little time each day to spend time with this book.

…speaking of which, I think it’s time for me to go get started!

Happy writing!

:) Cheryl