Do You See as a Writer?

I took this photo last week when I went around town taking architectural photos. An eyesore if ever. But something made me snap this. Then planning Monday’s post I was thinking of seeing as a writer sees: seeing the things that are and aren’t there, the hidden stories in scenes, the things that make Story. I like to do image prompts, a daily writing exercise from whatever springs to mind from an image. This picture is as good as any to start with. What do you see in this picture? I’ll list what I see. A gaudy paint job in the midst of a neutrals only neighbourhood, paint discolouring from the sun and weather, graffiti on the side. An overgrown front yard, with a few stray cottage garden perennials still bravely growing fenced in blue picket. Missing soffits and a big black splotch on the canopy that now reads ‘taurant gallery.’ This much is obvious to any viewer.

Closer in is a door nailed shut and unreadable letters scratched in the yellow  near a peach doughnut shaped peephole. And top left–what’s that? A man cage near that other window? It’s too big to be a light fixture. What  is hiding behind those foggy windows? In those roof top gables? The neighborhood wild man? Does Frankenstein hang him in the cage at night to give the neighbours nightmares? And that canopy is a great hang out for bats that buzz around the wild man at night and make him frantic with hunger. He zapps them like a mosquito zapper if they get too close.

What else might a writer see in this place. Perhaps it’s an eccentric fellow’s paint factory. He’s trying to make eco-friendly paints with all natural dyes that don’t fade in the sun. He tests them himself on his own house. Every batch of new paint has to spend the night in the cage to cure in the moonlight.

Personally, I think its a free daycare. It’s painted bright sunny colours to show that children will receive bright sunny care, from a bright sunny lady. She lets bright sunny flowers grow randomly over a strange mound in the front garden, that gets higher every year. Occasionally bones poke out of it and in the dead of night she adds soil and seeds to it while humming bright sunny songs. And that  cage, once in a while it’s covered with a thick tarp and muffled noises come from there. But no one asks any questions.

Challenge: Take one of the following pictures and see what all you can see in it. Make a story or list it point form and remember, writing exercises are for fun–don’t take yourself too seriously or you’ll never fly!

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Trouble with Character Creation?

For me character creation has become not just easy, but one of my favourite parts of writing.  I know that some others struggle with it. How do writers create memorable, unique characters that their readers fall in love with and root for? Because let’s face it, the plot can be fantastic, but if the main character is   flat, we may never follow through to the end of their story.

Fortunately the answer is all around us. Whenever we’re in a public place, or at home with just a few people, all you need is the “O” word. “OBSERVE.”

People aren’t generic. We all have “qualities” and not just the physical sort, like moles, freckles, birthmarks, scars.

When you sit in a coffee shop, library, or work cafeteria–observe. People have a million different habits, speech patterns, ways of moving, gesticulating, making facial expressions. There are the slurpers, noisily drinking coffee while it’s still too hot. Tea drinkers with health bars to eat. There’s a lady daintily breaking off tiny pieces of a muffin because biting off it would smear her hot pink lipstick. A man who dabs off his mustache after every sip of his frothy latte. A child  stretching their gum out across the table longer and longer while the mother and grandmother are poring over a brides magazine.

When walking in the mall, notice how people walk, sluffing their feet, stepping high, toes out, toes in so far they tend to trip. See how they stop and look in shop windows, walking boldly by the sales personnel or skirting the edges of the store to avoid being greeted. Do they point to stuff or pick it up? Some people like me have to feel everything. Others touch seldom and then wipe their fingers off on their pants or a tissue when done.

Out in the park or street, some people walk casually, others slouch, some strut. Someone will bob their head while walking, their earbuds in. Another has a dog on a line pulling them hither and yon. One has a pink poodle in a fancy rhinestone carrier bag. A young fellow constantly rubs his fingertips together while waiting for the bus. A girl in bohemian clothes rolls a cigarette in her lips, never lighting it.

Big family gatherings? Great fodder. Joe always pulls his pocket watch out at dinner and sets it three minutes behind the mantel clock. Once an hour Harold checks to make sure the cover hasn’t blown off his Mercedes. Aunt Pru asks mother everyday for a new bar of soap; she can’t be expected to use the one from the previous day–it’s all germy now. Carol and her twin dye a streak of their hair a different colour for each exam, or they will fail in school. Barney, however he fits in the family no one even knows, has worn a different tie every day for the last 34 years and always says “hiveway” instead of “highway.”

I really do know a “Barney.” People do have strange habits and also strange fears and capitalizing on these things creates characters that intrigue and interest your readers.

So whenever you’re in a public place, take time out from whatever you’re doing and note some observations on a notepad. Collect observations like gold. Then use them to draw from when you have as character that needs fleshing out. It becomes a productive and stimulating game of solitaire.

Journal Your Characters

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Do you need a new method to tackle a new novel? Is your current one not gelling like it should? Here’s something that might work for you.

As my first manuscript is undergoing what I hope is the last revision before submission (cross your fingers for me, peeps) I am beginning another one separate from that series.

A whole new world to explore, a whole new set of characters and a a new protagonist who likes to make herself known, very different from Lexi in my first book. But the idea for this novel, again for middle grade readers, spawned from a series of photos as a setting, not a story line. So I took the setting, brainstormed a protagonist who might fit into it, and just a whispery spidersilk of an idea.

So, how to flesh this out? How do I get to know my cast of characters and see where this takes me? How do I find out what my spunky Octavia has to say about what’s going on around her and to her?

A favourite author of mine uses scrapbooks and a journal to collect images, research and notes about her stories.  I decided to adapt that to my use. 

Since the story idea sprung from images, I created an album of pictures that could populate my story: buildings, scenes, people and actions. I knew I wanted Octavia to live with her family in a mansion of some sort with a village nearby. I searched for mansions on google maps. It’s amazing how close you can zoom in. I found a small castle that fit the image in my mind, but it was in Belgium, so I “moved” it to an area of England that suited my needs better. In Kent I found a little village with a river alongside and room for the castle on the other bank of this river, (that part’s important,) and voila! I printed maps of the area, tailored to suit my needs and printed them out large. Bits of fact and bits of fiction.

I love journals. So I bought 2. A dollar store one for rough, off the cuff notes and scribbles, bare bones ideas and questions. The second is a nicer one with a hardboard fabric cover that lies open beautifully for easy writing. This second one has become Octavia’s journal. In it I write, in her voice, totally random scenes that I am exploring for possible use in the story. I also wrote up a list of people’s names from which I can draw when I need a barber, or a shopkeeper, or an electrician or a school bully.

I have many quick reference lists in this journal,about Octavia’s quirks, her weaknesses and strengths, her likes and dislikes. (For this I used the mobile app Writers’ Lists–incredibly handy app.)

Like a scrapbook, I insert pictures–from the internet, magazines, catalogues–that inspire me and I use those like firestarters. And so I write all sorts of things that might go through Octavia’s head, things she might experience. I explore her relationship with her cousin, her friend, her parents. I discover how she reacts in situations. It’s like whenever you make a new friend or acquaintance–you don’t know them all at once, you have to go through hell and high water to understand them. And when I know my protagonist well, I will understand what she needs thrown at her to make her story worth reading.

Besides that, this way it’s a heck of a lot of fun and keeps the journey interesting!

Talking Up the Tools #2–Microsoft OneNote

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Continuing last week’s Useful Tools discussion, this is number 2 on my lists.

I was fortunate to have OneNote included in my Microsoft Office Suite. Apparently it’s not always.

I discovered OneNote before Scrivener. OneNote is more freeform and I love it for the way you can stick absolutely anything on the page.  Images, links, text. And you can rearrange them however you want. You can have any number of tabs each with any number of separate pages, resizable to your specs, and you can color code them.

On the left you have easy immediate access to every “Notebook” you create–no fishing for files on your computer, and you can change in between them as frequently as you want. Along the top is the “Ribbon” that all Microsoft  Office users are all ready acquainted with.

OneNote saves to your computer if you wish but it lives on the SkyDrive Cloud (google) and is therefore accessible to you anywhere there is internet. You can work with your documents on the computer program, or online, or even on a mobile app, (although these two are simplified,) so you can add notes or check them on the fly.

I love OneNote in the preliminaries of an idea, the collecting of bits and bobs that help gradually form a concrete story in my mind. The images seen on the internet, the scribbles I come up with when just about falling asleep, or when I’m commuting. It’s like a giant, easy to use, mind mapping game.

http://www.onenote.com/
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store

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Mobile Tool #2

Writing Prompts

When I was first introduced to doing writing exercises I balked, staring at blank pages. But I tried. Now I swear by them. You discover so much story material in yourself when you relax and cut loose with your writing, no publishers to please, no one but yourself. Prompts can contain random words, random sentences or scenes, images.

This app has them all, including random headlines. Just spin a yarn with whatever a shake of your phone brings to the category of your choice.
Download here: ($1.99)
Android  Apple

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Talking up the Tools #1--Scrivener

Talking up the Tools #3– Pinterest

Tools of the Writing Trade

Just a big FYI, heads up I’ve added a new page to the menu at the top of the blog. Tools and Inklings. It will help you with:

This page now stores several writers charts and lists with links to the original sites from which they are drawn. Since I am a visual operative, these are great at a glance tools to keep writers on track.

And here’s a bit of encouragement:

(Besides this awesome manifesto, Kim’s site is full of concise writing advice. Well worth the look.)

Pen & Paper Love Affairs

Once in a while you see cool pairings of animal buddies. They grow up together and are total BFF’s. Best Friends Forever. Best Furry Friends. Best Fake Families. Totally against their innate nature. Fox and Goose. Bird and Cat. Llama and Hog. Maybe you’ve known some.

Well writers aren’t so much drawn to their own kind as to the stationary aisle in the local office supply store. There we hover like dragonflies in love.

I gulp at all those lovely pens, the $3 gel packs of 12 right up to the $60 executive pens, and fountain pens so delicious I want to buy them, showcase them so they will outlive me and I  will them to some future protegee of mine at my demise.

Skim over to the pencils. Most writers may not use pencils, but the artsy fartsy in me (my mother’s words,) loves good pencils.

Move along to paper. Lined, unlined. Stacks of crisp white sheets without a blemish on them—yet. That’s what the glorious pens are for. We wield them with reckless abandon and create our brilliant masterpieces wherewith we shall push Tolstoy and Tolkien and Tennyson into the toes of their boots.

And we can’t forget journals. We collect magnificently bound journals, too beautiful to write in, and scribble in the dollar store ones.

I hoard all my precious stationary like Gollum on crack. The Hub will back this. I have to. Some years back, with 6 kids and the Hub, I took a karate stance on the table and kicked up a storm. I’d finally gotten my own desk, all set up for writing. Several times I sat down to work, (I like to do rough drafts in pen and ink,) and—

“WHERE ARE MY PENS?” All of them gone. I got a few sheepish answers. “There’s one in the drawer.” The public drawer, for everyone, which I liberally supplied with pens etc,  recently, just for the rest of the household. I retrieve it and say, “I licked it now. Do Not Touch.”

Next time, “WHERE’S MY LOOSELEAF?” Then, “I couldn’t find any.” I find the large family stash still in the usual place in the office, just underneath one sheet of unlined paper.

And then, “WHERE ARE MY SCISSORS AND TAPE?” I get up and find the tape in Blip’s room and the scissors in Blop’s sock drawer. I do not ask why. I find the 3 pairs of ‘public’ scissors in the gift wrap box along with the tape and restore them to the ‘drawer.’

Hence the karate.  I now guard my precious pals, my tools, my stationary partners with a ferocious devotion, and it took time, but everyone has learned some respect for my property. They  know—mother/wife will detonate if you

—MESS—WITH—HER—BFF’S—

What The ‼Ⱡ₰₯#ʔ ᾇ ҈҉ YðϠ₰•₯‼♠᷂᷈ᵷ ҈҉ ҂Ϯ ʡ¡‼

Now that I’ve got you’re attention…(Bwa ha ha ha ha ha)…I wasn’t really swearing.
You know what has to grab people’s attentionʡ Present them the WOW Factor?

First lines. First sentences. First paragraphs, pages and chapter.

They have got to catch the eye and the interest. They’ve got to get the reader saying,“Wow. What the bloop is going on here?”

Here are some  first lines of published books:

• A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
• Sophie had waited all her life to be kidnapped. —Soman Chainani, The School for Good and Evil
• It was the day my grandmother exploded. —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road
• The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.  —Jim Butcher, Blood Rites
• We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. —Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.— Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
• Please tell me that’s not going to be part of my birthday dinner this evening. I am staring into the hissing face of a cobra.—Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty
• The ghost was her father’s parting gift, presented by a black-clad secretary in a departure lounge at Narita.—William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive
• Lex wondered, for a fleeting moment, what her principal’s head might look like if it were stabbed atop a giant wooden spear.—Gina Damico, Croak

Each of these lines has a quality that sets a reader to asking questions— this is different: who? how? what? why? —and questions beggar answers thus they keep reading to find out more. Every starting line of a book, and also the following paragraph, then page and then chapter needs to feed, to inflame these questions.

Talking with fellow writers recently, we spoke  about where to start your story, where to find that beginning line and snag your reader by the gills. We as writers need to know a lot of back story on our characters, but to plop that into the beginning, well, none of that  is interesting, or important until the reader has met the character, learned at least in part what his plight is and why he should root for him.

So the beginning of a story needs to start at the point where something significant changes for the main character. Something that shakes up his world, and it has to relate to whatever ending you’ve planned for him, by end meaning the conclusion of the story arc and character arc.

This doesn’t mean every story must start with a murder or an explosion or a fight. With a story deeply internal, and dealing more with relationships or inner demons, rather than outward circumstances, a powerful beginning may be sprung by a loaded conversation between two characters, with things said that have undercurrents (did they really mean that?) that dig deep and cause the characters to do things they may not have otherwise and you begin that escalating domino tumble.

Just remember it’s a change we’re after, or a cause for change, a trigger to set in motion the plot points of your story and keep the readers following.

We don’t want readers, picking up the book and 10 minutes later they’re like:

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