Fi's Magical Writing Haven

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-05-21T10:19:00.002+01:00

Synopses: The Nitty and the Gritty is an incredibly useful article by Mindy Klasky on the Magical Words site. I'm keeping it at hand for my own synopsis.

How Ian Fleming Turned James Bond Into A Bestseller is an interesting article on the Write to Done site.

Novellas and unconventional routes to publication is a podcast by Iain Broome.

World Building Tips Learned at the Louvre is a useful article on The Other Side of the Story.

Finally, a wondeful film of Fay Weldon and her thoughts on writing.

Sharing Our Writing

2013-05-18T21:21:00.001+01:00

As writers, we often get very nervous about sharing our work. A cutting critique can frighten us back into our caves while our reaction to praise can occasionally be disbelief. Baring our soul (through our writing) can be a torturous path to walk.

Friends and family may be diplomatic in their response or we can feel their over-the-top reaction of 'wow' or 'well done, this is wonderful' is not heartfelt or earned. On the flipside, if they are critical of our work, we can feel hurt.

Other writers can be incredibly critical because they are approaching our work from the way they write which isn't necessarily the same as ours. Their voice is their own as our voice is individual to us.

Even a professional critique can leave us heartbroken or confused.

The problem is often with our own attitude to our work rather than that of other people. We have invested so much time and emotion in our writing that it has become an extension of ourselves. We want everyone to love it and understand it and appreciate it as much as we do. The problem is that adoration and praise, although wonderful in themselves, are not as helpful as they may seem.

The value of constructive criticism is that it shows us where to go with our writing, which sections work, which don't, which are almost there but need to be improved. That is much more helpful than a "lovely" here or a "well done" there.

If we can remove our emotional reaction from the equation and ask for honest feedback then there really is nothing to fear or lose. At its most useful, feedback will arm us for the next re-write. At the worst, it will inform us that we can't please everyone with our writing.

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-05-14T07:46:00.003+01:00

Take Two: When to Start a Sequel is an interesting post on the Other Side of the Story.

When just write is not enough talks about breaking through your insecurities to write. It's from Em's place, the website of writer, Emma Newman.

Help! My Book Isn't Selling is an informative article by Joanna Penn on her site, The Creative Penn.

“Don’t be afraid to write out of order. I used to write every book from first sentence to last, but the ideas don’t always come that way. Rather than hope you remember what you want to write later, enter down on your manuscript and write whatever scene is speaking to you at the moment. And if you use Scrivener, just create a new section and type away. The ideas come out best when you go with the flow, even if that flow is out of order.” Kelly Hashway, writer

Finally, a video, 'Top Ten Writing Rules From Famous Writers'.

What I Live For

2013-05-10T07:56:00.000+01:00

Today, I'm taking part in 'What I Live For', an online event organised by author Satya Robyn. People like me all over the world will be sharing what gives their lives meaning. In Satya Robyn's novel, 'Thaw', Ruth gives herself three months to decide whether she can find a reason to carry on living.

When I initially thought about what gives my life meaning, I instantly thought of my family. My children and my husband are what I live for. That seemed like the right answer and yet something was missing. Life carried on as normal, school runs, family meals, bills to pay, and still that 'something' eluded me.

During a writing session, the 'something' tapped me on the shoulder with a cheerful 'ta-dah' and I wondered why I hadn't seen it in the first place.

What I live for is not only my family, those three souls who have dragged me through a roller coaster of house moves, tantrums and laughter over the last decade, but for what we are together. I live for the memories we have built and revisit every week. I live for the things we share, good and bad. I live for the stories we have written together and the hardships we have overcome. I live for the stories we 'will' write in years to come, the paths we will walk and the future we will build together. It's a cliche, I know, but we truly are more together than we are as four individuals.

I live for the rich, enchanting experience that spending my days with my family brings. What do you live for?

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-05-07T13:46:00.000+01:00

Three Keys to Writing Memorable Fiction is a guest post by Ruth Harris on Anne R Allen's blog.

Why Writing Had Made Me An Emotional Wreck is a fascinating read from Joanna Penn on her site The Creative Penn.

How to Write a Killer Space Adventure Without Breaking the Speed of Light is an excellent article on sci fi writing from io9.

Steven Pressfield explores the concept of perseverance in "In the End, We'll Succeed".

How Practicing My Pitch Helped Me Write a Better Book is a fascinating and informative article on the diy MFA site. Well worth a read.

Photo Inspiration for May

2013-05-02T11:38:00.000+01:00

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-04-30T09:46:00.002+01:00

Story Abounds is a thought provoking article from Wired For Story.

The Biggest Problem with Writing Advice is an interesting article from Write It Sideways.

Top 10 Writing Tips is a post on the website of crime writer, James McCreet. Well worth a read.

Risky Business by Tania Hershman on the Writers & Artists site suggest that taking a risk can improve our writing.

And finally, a little visual advice from Leslie Gordon Barnard.

How well do you know your book?

2013-04-29T14:14:00.001+01:00

Is it a passing acquaintance or a life long friend? Do you know all its dirty secrets or are you making a massive number of assumptions?

I write murder mystery plays for a living. I started doing this back in 1997 for the am dram group I was part of at that time. In case you haven't attended one of our murder mystery events, they go something like this:

Introduction by the compere.
The Play!
Interval.
The suspects return to the stage to be questioned by the audience.
Deduction time.
The Verdict.

Initially I co-wrote the plays, publicised the plays, acted as producer to my writing partner's director, helped with front of house, occasionally did lights and sound, and also acted on stage. The rehearsal period and production nights were incredibly busy - my hours frenetically filled with all manner of tasks - but ultimately they were was richly rewarding. I quickly learnt the knack of developing an overview of each production, knowing what stage each element was at and what still needed to be done.

One of the tasks assigned to me was to run the actors through their character histories and practice question times. The audience could be devious in their questioning, imagining motives that my co-writer and I hadn't considered, and on occasion extremely random. Each actor had to know their character inside and out, filling in the gaps in the histories we had provided them, so that they could ad lib convincingly in the face of the audience's interrogation. They had to not only know the bare bones of their characters but the muscles, sinew and tendons that encompassed those bones and held them together.

It's just the same with writing a book. It's not sufficient to simply have a pencil sketch of your characters and the world in which they exist. It is necessary to have all the answers to all the questions that your readers may throw at you:

back stories for your characters,
the history of your world,
cultural rules,
physical laws,
the condition of the environment.

It may well be that you never write any of these, or all of these, into your book but to have them to hand, to know your world inside and out, to fully realise your character histories lends an assurance to your writing. There is no longer a reason to stop and consider the legal implications of a character's actions or what their house might look like, if you already have that information to hand.

Try it. Write a history for each of your characters (job, dreams, relationships, times spent in different places, family life) and a culture for the world they live in (landscape, social mores, laws, mythology, religion). Learn it so well that you can then forget it and still be able to write your world without distraction.

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-04-23T08:02:00.001+01:00

10 Writing Exercises to Break You Out of your Creative Rut is an excellent article on the BookBaby blog.

When Is My Story Ready for Publication? is the first part of a topic that is currently being discussed on Writerly Life.

Neil Gaiman made a keynote speech at LBF this year which has got people in the publishing industry talking. Here it is.

Are you choosing the best words to describe your setting? is an interesting article from The Other Side of the Story.

The Elf in the Kitchen is about normalising the unusual in your novel. It's written by Mindy Klasky on the Magical Words site.

A Daily Practice

2013-04-22T09:52:00.001+01:00

One piece of writing advice that has always been thrown at me is this,

"Write every day",

and for a long time, I took that to mean write your novel or work in practice every day. I tried. I really did. Every Monday morning I would say to myself, "This week I will work on my novel every day". During a very rare, peaceful week, I would succeed but for the most part, I would fail. And every time I failed, I would get angry with myself, doubt myself and basically give my self esteem a good kicking.

It took me a long time to realise that, for me at least, what 'write every day' meant is that I should do that exactly. I should write every day but not necessarily write my novel or work in practice. I should write in my diary. I should write small stones. I should write blog posts. I should write letters or emails to friends. I should write down new ideas that came to me.

When my family and I went on holiday last week, I knew full well that having any time for writing would be difficult. The physical removal of my children from their computers meant that we had to keep them busy while we were away. There was the morning club which usually meant sticking miscellaneous brightly coloured objects to pieces of card, balloons or available adults, and a screaming run around several highly enthusiastic but I assume deaf members of staff. We also threw the children at the pool on numerous occasions and on differing vehicles (aqua jets, aqua gliders, inflatables, water walkers). We dragged them round the mini golf, fed the ducks and swans (until the invasion of seagulls put a stop to that) and generally walked them to exhaustion. I spent very little time sitting down. Opportunities to write were limited but precious. I got up early to work on my novel on a couple of days. When the children were engrossed in an activity, I made notes on my phone for blog articles and two new murder mystery plays that occurred to me over the break. I wrote my diary each night and I even dreamed up a new novel idea, literally. It came to me in a dream so I noted that down as soon as I woke. I wrote a little each day.

This isn't a get-out clause. This shouldn't be an excuse for procrastination. What it is, however, is an admission that on some days, picking up your work-in-practice just isn't going to work. There isn't enough time to get any work done on it or perhaps you've hit a pothole in the road of your novel and need to pull yourself out by mulling the dilemma over for a bit. To have written something that day, be it a note on your novel, a blog post or a letter to your Great Aunt Mildred, is always valuable because in writing a little or a lot each day, you keep the writing muscle in action.

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-04-16T10:00:00.000+01:00

Shut up and write the book is a post about, well, just getting on with it, from Austin Kleon.

This is Secret Two of M R Hall's series, The Secret to Crime Writing. It deals with how to build your central character.

Elements of a Successful Ficton Platform is an excellent article by Christina Katz on the Writers Digest site.

Irreconcilable Goods is a post by Steven Pressfield about presenting your characters with choices.

Tightening Your Sentences is a guest post by Reena Cruz on the Writerly Words site.

Photo Inspiration for April

2013-04-14T13:56:00.000+01:00

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-04-09T09:54:00.000+01:00

How to Write a Killer Logline is a post I need to inwardly digest. Do you have a decent logline? It's from the diy MFA site.

Matters of Life and Death on the Magical Words site discusses how to use death (killing off a character) in
your book.

Four Steps to a Winning Query is a useful post on the diy MFA site.

Princess, and some thoughts on writing by Neil Gaiman discusses a miscellany of topics. One particularly interesting subject he touches on is a find from his writing youth.

The Rewrite Rules! is a guest post by Bess Weatherby on the diy MFA site.

Defiance

2013-04-06T23:32:00.000+01:00

http://www.defiance.com/en/

I like this time of year because a whole host of TV series, old and new, begin. One which I have been looking forward to is Defiance. As in much of the fiction that I enjoy, there are large areas of grey in this story. We see humans and aliens working alongside each other in peace (even if that peace is troubled, to say the least) and joining to fight those who would threaten their community.

With a brilliantly diverse cast of characters, I was already looking forward to discovering this new tale of survival and tenacity, when I found out about an additional element to the Defiance concept.

Alongside the TV series, there is a game featuring the same characters and storyline. Now, although this is a moneygrabber, merchandising the game as the TV series is launched, it's also a chance for players to be included in the storyline because the characters of major Defiance game players may appear or be mentioned in the TV series. This is the first time that there has been such a linking between a TV series and an online game.

You can find a more in-depth explanation here.

"The experience of one is going to enhance the experience of the other in ways that are both overt and very subtle."

"Immersive stories on two platforms that are seamlessly living together."

"The real crossovers happen while the season is going since we planned from the very beginning to do this, things like a character leaving the game and going to the show and talking about what they did in the game."

Defiance takes storytelling a step further than a regular TV series or film, drawing the audience in to take part in the peopling of the story and experience the world of the story for themselves. This is a new way of spinning a tale. Fingers crossed it lives up to its promise.

I want to be a baglady...

2013-04-04T08:24:00.000+01:00

if these are the kind of bags I can have. I recently came across these on the arms of several American celebrities and, ever the magpie for bookish accessories, I just had to share. I think the Edgar Allan Poe bag is my favourite. Which is yours?

Natalie Portman with a Lolita clutchbag from Vladimir Nabokov

from http://www.etsy.com/people/spoonfulofchocolate

from http://www.olympialetan.com/

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-04-02T13:00:00.000+01:00

Weaknesses from Magical Words suggests that not only should your hero be flawed but also your villain.

There Are Two Kinds of People is a fascinating read from Write It Sideways.

Is Your Description Helping Your Story Or Holding It Back? from The Other Side of the Story discusses how to keep your descriptions efficient and effective.

This is Secret One from a series of writing advice videos from crime writer, M R Hall.

Premise vs Plot is a guest post by Janice Hardy on Rebecca Belliston's blog. It's part of her March Book Madness series.

Photo Inspiration for March

2013-03-27T21:31:00.002Z

Inspired by two trips to the zoo, one in the autumn last year and one this spring.

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-03-26T18:05:00.001Z

Be Your Own Book Doctor from the Other Side of the Story discusses how to analyse your own book.

Time Management for Writers Who Work From Home on the Bookbaby site has some useful suggestions for handling your writing routine.

Endings is an article by Misty Massey on the Magical Words site. Guess what it's about?

What changes when you become a published author is a thoughtful podcast from Ian Broome on his Chat Broome site.

And finally some wise, writerly words.

Writing All Over The Place

2013-03-23T18:12:00.002Z

Last year, I read an article from Writerly Life called Write in a New Place. It suggests that our location affects our mental state and that as writers we should occasionally switch our writing station for somewhere new.

This year, I decided to take the challenge a little further and find lots of new locations for my writing. I like to write alone and usually in silence. Normally, I write at the computer in the dining room/study on a morning. The house is empty with my husband at work and my children at school. I'm aware that this can be distracting however - the sounds of the washing machine, dishwasher and guinea pigs are all audible from there - and my drift of thought is often interrupted. So far this year, I have picked up my writing pad and a pencil or pen and relocated to:

the sofa in the lounge (TV switched off),
my bed (when I'm not tired but the rest of the house is taken by my family),
my local library (got a few strange looks there - I don't think they're used to people using the place for anything other than book browsing and borrowing),
a couple of nearby cafes and McDonald's (which, when relatively empty, are fine but the noisier they get, the less I can concentrate on my writing and the more I people watch, surreptitiously of course),
and the doctor's surgery (again with the people watching).

The most successful by far is the sofa. I can spread out with my notes and easily spend a couple of hours writing non stop.

In the summer, I plan to set up a writing station for myself in the garden and when I go on holiday, I shall be packing a pad and pen.

Where do you write? Do you relocate or have you a set writing location that you're faithful to?

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-03-19T09:25:00.000Z

You Have Pacing Issues, My Friend is a guest post by Rebecca Ethington on Finding Bliss.

Handling Cliffhanger Endings with Multiple POVs is a thought provoking and informative post from The Other Side of the Story.

What Writers Need To Know About Tumblr from the Galleycat site offers tips on how writers can use this social network.

Although Show the World Your Magic is approaching creativity from the vehicle of art, this article on the Etsy blog by Mati Rose McDonough is well worth a read for writers too.

Planning Trilogies/Series is an interesting post by Diana Pharaoh Francis on the Magical Words site.

Write Handed Thinking

2013-03-14T09:26:00.000Z

I follow the writer Anne Rice on Facebook. Putting her wonderful books aside, she often offers informative and well balanced advice for writers. This is what drew me to her page initially but what she also shares through her Facebook page are some truly insightful questions and topics.

Today, she wrote this,

"Question: almost all writers today use two hands to write - drawing on the left and right side of the brain. This is after thousands of years of one hand (one side of the brain) writing. Why is it no one is studying this and what effects it might have on writing?... I'm asking how have keyboards influenced artists? Not just writers, but musicians who compose on the piano? And for the piano? Anyone else curious about this?"

As a trained typist, typing with both hands is second nature to me. I've been using this skill since my early twenties. Before that I was trained to use both hands to play piano. I'm typing this article now using both my left and right hand. Does this affect my writing or am I simply transcribing the thoughts that have already been created and edited in whatever part of my brain creates those kind of thoughts?

According to this article in the Huffington Post, writing by hand "uses more complex brain power" than typing on a keyboard does. In my own experience, the writing I do by hand is revised in my head mainly before I put pen to paper. When I type, I probably haven't thought through the words so extensively and hence most of the revision happens on screen. This is backed up by another article, Hardwired for Writing which suggests that writing by hand encourages a 'flow' of writing whereas typing is more of a stop start process.

My daughter is right handed. My son is left handed. Both create wonderful stories, whether typed up or written down. The same goes for their artwork.

When I was a child, I spent several weeks in hospital. One of my injuries was a broken right arm. While it was in plaster, I couldn't write using my right hand. This was quite a few years before computers and tablets were available to me (okay, decades). If I wanted to write, it had to be with a pen or pencil. I used my left hand. The result was a scrawly, barely legible mess that looked as if I'd dictated it to a spider running through a pot of ink. I wrote nonetheless and the quality of my writing was none the worse for using my left hand.

I type because it's efficient to do so but I also know that, personally, my writing is of a much better quality when I write by hand using a pen and pad. I use my right hand to do this but my left hand is working too, holding the book, supporting my head. Maybe it's some other aspect of the process of writing by hand that improves my writing, my level of concentration or the intent of sitting down to write and only write.

The discussion on Anne Rice's page has thrown up very few answers but some interesting articles. You'll find the links to these articles at the end of this post.

What about you? What do you think?

Articles

Left Brain, Right Brain: An Outdated Argument - Yale Scientific
Why Does Writing Make Us Smarter? - Huffington Post
The left brain/right brain myth - CERI
Hardwired for Writing: The Intelligence of the Hand - Oak Meadow

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-03-12T07:45:00.000Z

Thinking about Plot is a guest post by author Stuart Horwitz on Jane Friedman's site.

I've applied Three Questions to Get to the Heart of Your Story to my own novel and it raises some very enlightening queries. Try it for yourself. This is a post by Janice Hardy on The Other Side of the Story.

Why Some Books Are Harder To Write Than Others from The Other Side of the Story discusses growing pains as a writer.

How To Win More Readers With A Powerful Close is an interesting article from Write To Done.

Deleting is a guest post by Jennifer R Hubbard for The Sharp Angle.

I dream of books

2013-03-11T13:38:00.001Z

Part of being a writer is a love of books. My house is overflowing with books - mine and my family's. I'm running out of places to store them but wouldn't it be lovely to have some of these options?

Tuesday Choice Words

2013-03-05T09:18:00.003Z

Little Things that Yield Big Results is a post by David B Coe on the Magical Words site.

The Benefits of Talking Through Your Scenes from The Other Side of the Story is a method that I use myself with my long suffering husband.

How To Identify Flat Scenes from The Other Side of the Story is an interesting read.

How To Write a Scene is an infographic from GalleyCat on, well, how to write a scene.

On Endings is a post by Carrie Ryan on the Magical Words site.

7 Ways To Keep Your Writing Rich

2013-03-01T10:08:00.001Z

That's rich like a good coffee, sumptuous chocolate or the deepest red of a velvety rose, not rich as in financially overflowing (although that one would be good too). How do you achieve and maintain that quality within your writing?

1. In the competitive world of Nanowrimo-esque word counts, it can be tempting to write as much as possible in one go. This can be a useful approach when creating a first draft or tackling NaNoWriMo, just getting the words down, but there is another option that I've recently found to serve me much better. Try to write a little at a time, concentrating on those words, until they are as 'right' as they can be at that moment. I've taken to writing 3-500 words in one sitting, taking my time to reach the correct tone. That might only be a handful of paragraphs but there is nothing to say that you can't have more than one session like this in a day.

2. Don't 'info dump'. Do you like that phrase? I recently came across it on the Magical Words site. To quote Faith Hunter from Magical Words, info dump means,

"...the places in a novel where a writer dumps way too much info on to the page, thinking that the reader needs all this stuff to understand what is going on. In the writer's head, they are paramount to the reactions of the characters and the forward motion of the story".

I've been guilty of this myself. What I do in that situation is put my 'play writing' head on. When I write my murder mystery plays, I make a list beforehand of what I need to reveal (mainly motives for doing away with one of the characters) and then find a way to work this information into conversations and actions in the script. Similarly, in my novel, I find a way to portray what I need to reveal through conversations and the characters' actions rather than through a narrative voice. Rather than say, "Steve didn't want to be there", I suggest his reluctance and nervousness through his actions, (pulling at his collar, fidgeting, etc). I suppose this comes down to 'show, don't tell'.

3. Reading through the first draft of my novel, I came across a number of scenes that do not move the story on. They are mainly 'resting' scenes where the protagonists and supporters gather their thoughts but don't do much else, perhaps have a meal and a drink, but nothing truly constructive. All that this does is interrupt the flow of the story (and perhaps give the impression that several of my characters have serious drinking issues). Ensure that each scene you write aids in the progression of your story in some way. It may only be a tiny piece of information that will prove instrumental in your protagonist's journey or it could be a massive turning point. What matters is that it is adding to the equation of your novel.

4. Cut out unnecessary words. All too often we find ourselves including words in our writing that serve no purpose. We are blinded to them because they are so mundane - 'had' is a perfect example, 'began' is another. These words make our writing bland. "He began to feel sick" is weak and non-involving whereas "His stomach churned" is stronger.

5. Use alliteration. Now, I know that alliteration is generally thought of in connection to poetry and tongue-twisters but it can work wonderfully in prose. From Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway,

"A breeze flaunting ever so warmly down the Mall through the thin trees, past the bronze heroes, lifted some flag flying in the British breast of Mr Bowley..."

Can you see how that adds to the flow of reading? In my third draft, I have a "curious crowd", a "peeling painted sign" and "powdery plaster".

6. Ensure that each character has a unique voice. This is another lesson I learned from writing plays. When I think I have finished a play, I will read it with the characters' names covered up to ensure that I can tell who is speaking by their words alone. Listen to conversations you hold, or conversations around you, and you will notice that most people have something individual about the way they speak. It could be a mixed accent or particular words or phrases they use. Apply that to your characters. Make them sound individual.

7. I'll leave this one to novelist, Sue Grafton to explain because I couldn't say it any better myself.

"You've got to write and revise every sentence, every paragraph, and every page over and over until the rhythm, the cadence, and tone are properly attuned to your inner ear."