Up Your (Story) Game: Seven Tips

I wrote last week about games in middle grade fiction—especially in books that appeal to boy readers. Great, you may be thinking, but how do I do that?

If you’re like me, maybe you weren’t the most athletic kid in the PE class…maybe you were more likely to spend your spare time with your nose in a book than kicking around a soccer ball...

*Photo courtesy of kainr on Flickr Creative Commons 

But if you write for young readers, you don’t want to limit yourself to fellow geeks and bookworms (much as we love them). And that means that many of the kids in your intended audience will love games: sports, contests, puzzles, challenges, games of all forms and shapes and sizes. Actually, even geeks and bookworms love games—different ones, maybe, but still games. So why not consider whether a game might play a role in your next project? For instance, a game can…

Read more »

Using Archetypes to Create Characters

It’s been on my list for a while to write a post about character archetypes and how they can inspire your writing…

…but Mark Nichol over at DailyWritingTips has such a comprehensive post about character archetypes—including the use of horoscope signs, Jungian psychology, Shakespeare characters, and the “personality enneagram” for character inspiration that instead of writing my own post, I’m going to point you over there.

Here’s a taste:

In essence, any literary character is drawn from one or more archetypes. An archetype is basically the pattern for a character, associated with a trait or a concept. Archetypes are most easily recognized in genre fiction — science fiction, fantasy, horror, thriller — but they are applicable to any fiction, whether of high or low literary aspiration. The key is to select one or more archetypes as just the first step in character building.

But there are many types of archetypes from various belief systems and other sources. Try, for example, associating a character with one of the figures from the Chinese zodiac — boar, dog, dragon, horse, goat, monkey, ox, rabbit, rat, rooster, snake, and tiger — each of which is endowed with a complex array of both positive and negative traits….

See? Don’t you have to go read the rest?

Enjoy!

:-) Cheryl

Writing from Your Character’s Point of View: 5 Guidelines

In my current work-in-progress, I’m writing from the POV of a 12-year-old boy. As I wrote earlier, finding his voice has been a challenge! And since I’m writing in first person, I have to stay in that voice ALL THE TIME—when he speaks, when he thinks, even in the details I include when describing setting and other characters.

*Photo courtesy of exfordy on Flickr Creative Commons

Despite my love of writing flowery description, 12-year-old Elliot probably won’t think about the way light reflects golden from the many-paned window, and even he does happen to notice flowers growing alongside the path, he certainly won’t know that they’re tiger lilies unless I’ve already shown him to have a love of horticulture. (He doesn’t. He loves squirrels.)

I never get voice perfect on a first draft, but keeping the following guidelines in mind can help me get closer. On a rewrite, these guidelines help me analyze whether the voice is consistent and believable—or whether it strays into author-speak.

Five Guidelines for Writing Character’s POV

Read more »

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

Read more »

Writing Your Character’s Thoughts: 3rd Person Limited POV

On Wednesday, I wrote about the importance of showing your characters’ thoughts in your writing—especially your main character’s thoughts—and gave examples for a first person point-of-view narrative. But what about third person narrators? How do you portray a character’s thoughts here without a constant stream of “he thought this” and “she thought that”? Here are some ideas…

Read more »

Writing Your Character’s Thoughts

Character thoughts are a powerful tool for any fiction writer—but one that many don’t, well, think about. What can you accomplish by writing your character’s thoughts? For starters, you can:

• Introduce problems or worries
• Explore relationships
• Expose insecurities
• Show the logic that drives a decision
• Illustrate bias
• Develop the character’s voice

Great, you say, but how do I do those things? It depends on your chosen point of view. Here are some examples for writing in first person—I’ll have some third person limited examples for you on Friday.

Read more »

More Thoughts on Voice

Thanks for such a great discussion last week on voice, what it means, and how to find it! Blogging friend Charissa Weaks was inspired to write more on the topic on her blog in the post “The Difference Between Voice, Style and Tone.”

Here’s a taste:

THIS IS A BROAD TOPIC WITH EVEN BROADER OPINIONS AND I'M ADDING ANOTHER TO THE HEAP.

Why is this such a vague area?  Well...because there is no specific definition for it, so everyone defines it in their own way - which is exactly what I'm about to do!

After Googling around I came across several articles about voice and style and tone.  Some people see the trio as separate entities and others see style and tone as a part of voice.

Maybe they are the same thing...I don't know...but in my eyes they are not.

Visit her blog and join in the discussion!

:) Cheryl

*Photo courtesy of UggBoy*UggGirl on Flickr Creative Commons

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?

Read more »

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.

Read more »

Creating Emotional Impact

What sorts of scenes create the greatest emotional impact for your reader?

A few weeks ago, a friend invited me to the International Film Festival to see The First Grader, the story of Marugi, an 84-year-old Kenyan man who goes to first grade when the government offers free education to all. Sounds light and fun, right?

The First Grader was a phenomenal film, but light and fun—not so much. The main character’s past unfolds via flashbacks of murder and torture. The violence in Miagi’s past helps the viewer understand his character better and lends weight to the story.

And yet—these intense scenes of violence were not the scenes to draw the greatest emotional reaction from the audience. They contained elements you’d expect to trigger emotion: vivid imagery, graphic display of emotion, a sympathetic main character in gut-wrenching situations. It made me wonder why not.

Read more »

Happy Valentine’s Day! …or: Ten Ways to Embarrass Your Characters

First: Happy Valentine’s Day! V-day happens to be my birthday…

Photo courtesy of terra in Virginia from Flickr Commons

…and it started me thinking. About how EMBARRASSING it was (when I was a teen and EVERYTHING my parents did was embarrassing) when my parents revealed my birthday.

Invariably, someone would say, “A Valentine Baby! How sweet!” And I would blush the same shade as all those frilly red hearts that seemed to decorate the WHOLE world for the SOLE PURPOSE OF EMBARRASSING ME.

Ahem.

Now that I’m older and much more mature, I can’t help thinking of ways I can use this memory to torture…I mean, breathe life into…my characters. I write about teens and pre-teens. And, in my experience, teens and pre-teens in the 21st century are just as prone to embarrassment as I was. Because, as every good writer knows, the more trouble you can cause your character, the more interesting the tale becomes.

Ten Ways to Embarrass Your Character

Read more »

Writing Craft: Show-Don’t-Tell*

Cranking through the rewrite of my current WIP, I found a lot of “telling” that I needed to replace with better writing. In the spirit of show-don’t-tell, I attempted to come up with five ways to show that it’s cold without saying “it’s cold.”

1. Let the character experience the cold: Gooseflesh prickles up my bare arms as soon as I push off the covers.

2. Let her observe the cold: Ice filmed the inside of the cabin windows. I started shivering even before my feet touched the frozen floorboards.

3. Let her think about the cold: I didn’t expect the day’s chill, not in June. If I’d bothered to check the weather, I might have brought along a sweatshirt or jacket. Instead, I’m here in shorts and a tank top, resisting the urge to curl into a ball or warmth.

4. Let her worry about the cold: As the sun drops beyond the mountains, shadows lengthen, bringing with them the sharp-edged chill of the coming night. It pierces through my thin sweater and I wonder how long it will take before I turn into a human icicle. I have to find the cabin. Quickly.

5. Let her discuss the cold: “Brrr!” I tuck my hands into the sleeves of my rain slicker, drawing deeper into the sheltering overhang. “My fingers won’t bend, they’re so frozen.”

Not masterful prose, perhaps, but the exercise helped to get my brain moving in the right direction.

Do you have a technique you’re trying to master? A bit of concentrated practice can help you learn incorporate a new technique smoothly into your writing, the way a batter might practice hitting a hundred balls before the actual game. Pretty soon, the technique becomes second nature. Give it a try!

:-) Cheryl

*This post was originally published Jan 2010

Tightening Your (Manuscript’s) Belt: a Checklist for Eliminating Unnecessary Prose

Writers: we like to write. Some of us (like me!) like to write lots and lots and lots of pretty words…and then have to cut half of them during the rewrite/polish process.

I’ve been doing a LOT of rewriting—and cutting and tightening—these past few months. If you need to do a bit of your own manuscript pruning, read on for ways to tighten your story and bring down your word count!

Checklist for Tightening the MS Belt

1. Do you say the same thing twice?

• Example: Sudden tears burn at my eyes, angry and hot.
• Rewrite: Sudden tears burn at my eyes.
  --“angry and hot” doesn’t add anything to the description
  

Read more »

Make Every Character Count

I’ve been re-reading some of my favorite books (my favorite form of writing inspiration) as I rewrite my own, and I’ve been struck by the attention authors give to secondary characters.

For instance, in Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty (a Victorian fantasy about a young woman discovering her dangerous magic ability at boarding school—minor spoiler alert), each of the girls has her own fears and desires that come out in the course of the story.

Read more »

Society of Environmental Journalists conference 2010: what children’s writers can learn from SEJ

I just finished my time at the 2010 SEJ (Society of Environmental Journalists) conference. My head is spinning with information and ideas—a good sign, since I wasn’t sure whether to come to this conference. I mean, look at the title: Society of Environmental JOURNALISTS? I don’t think of myself as a journalist: I’m a writer. A children’s writer, a medical writer, a science writer, a nature writer—but not a journalist.

This conference made me question that assessment of myself. I write for magazines (journals); I do interviews and research; I fact check and look for bias. My first day here, a fellow attendee quizzed me on what kind of writing I do. When I finished, she said “I think you are a journalist. You just don’t know it.”

It’s an interesting question, because in the past few days I learned that journalists receive different training than “writers” do—and I think we writers (yes, even children’s writers) can learn a thing or three from them. Here are a few for starters:

Read more »

Nature Writing Class: Week 1

This past week, I began an online nature-writing class with a fellow science writer I met at the May 2010 Writing Away Retreat, Wendee Holtcamp. Our first week’s assignment: start a nature journal in which to record observations about a specific location.

This seemed fun to me—but a little old hat. I mean, as a writer, I do this already, right? I practice noticing details such as smells, sounds, colors and textures, the mood a place evokes in me.

But—because I’m the kind of person who does every exercise in a class (and most of those exercises in writing books, too)—I picked my spot and christened a new notebook. Besides, did I mention that it sounded like fun? I had an officially sanctioned half hour to sit outside and absorb nature.

The spot: the wooden slat lounge chair by my front door.

The time: late afternoon, on a cool, cloudy May day

I sat without writing for ten minutes (as instructed—I even used a timer) and just…observed. I breathed. I noticed the moisture in the air, scanned for manmade sounds and then let those sounds fade into the background.

And then I wrote. And wrote. And discovered all sorts of wonderful details about this place, mere inches from my front door, that I thought I knew—including three birds’ nests, one abandoned, one occupied, and one still a work-in-progress.

It was wonderful.

It made me think:

• …How much detail can I capture about a place by paying attention that I miss if I’m not wearing my observation hat.
• …How valuable those details will be for my writing, if I ever need to write about my yard, or the birds I observed, or the garden, or even another like it.
• …How I’ve visited other places and then, later, decided to write about them…only to discover that I can’t remember the details as well as I thought I would.

I want this practice of nature journaling to become a habit—and I’ll start collecting notebooks of setting detail to bring my writing to life, whether I’m working on nonfiction or fiction.

:) Cheryl

PS: If you’re interested in delving more deeply into the art of nature writing, check out Wendee’s class. It’s so jam-packed full of information, market analyses, and writing resources, it’s worth the cost even if you *don’t* do the assignments. I’d recommend doing the assignments, though. They’re a blast!

The week’s Tweets on how to bypass roadblocks and WRITE THE STORY!

WTS=Write the Story! Why? Because it's fun--rewarding--excruciating--fulfilling--and ultimately cheaper than therapy :) Happy writing!

WTS 64: Spend a day writing down everything you say/hear in conversation for inspiration. Notice: how is written dialog different?

WTS 65: Sometimes the subconscious needs to work without interruption. Occupy the conscious mind w/meditative task like stirring soup...

...crocheting, walking, ironing, yoga...experiment!

Kitty Bucholtz (Routines for Writers) looks back on a month-o-author interviews & finding a routine that works for YOU http://bit.ly/c8xotM

Cultivate daydreams as a source of innovation & motivation http://bit.ly/cshbCv

Happiness: just finished @LaurenMyracle's Peace, Love, Bby Ducks; stripey socks via http://bit.ly/aGqasJ; and a novel to rewrite....

Looking for a low-key, children's writer-focused #NaNoWriMo alternative? Check out Nancy Sander's Book-in-a-Month Club http://bit.ly/aj5P6k

WTS 66: Give your inspiration a target. Pick a story problem and start looking for ideas--you'll be surprised what you notice!

More on paying attention to find inspiration at Freelance Switch: http://bit.ly/aA3gIt

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read -(GK Chesterton)

WTS 66: Make small goals when you're "too busy to write". Baby steps move you forward, if only by eliminating what doesn’t work.

Every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.

(Thomas Edison)

On Beginnings: WAKE by Lisa McMann

Yesterday, I blazed through Lisa McMann’s YA paranormal, WAKE (Simon Pulse, 2008). It’s a fun, fast-paced, gripping read about a girl who gets sucked into others’ dreams—which turns out to be problematic when students nap during classes.  

This book is worth checking out, though, because of the author’s unique (and successful) approach to the book’s beginning. Know how you’re “not supposed” to dump backstory in the opening chapters? McMann does exactly that—and makes the reader love every second of it.

The book opens with a scene in the present:

December 9, 2005, 12:55 p.m.

Janie Hannagan’s math book slips from her fingers. She grips the edge of the table in the school library. Everything goes black and silent. She sighs and rests her head on the table. Tries to pull herself out of it, but fails miserably. She’s too tired today. Too hungry. She really doesn’t have time for this.

And then. 

And then we’re pulled into the dream with Janie. The first chapter covers six minutes in just over two pages of text.

The next chapter is titled “Where It Begins” and it takes us through Janie’s dream experiences from age eight to the present. Backstory, presented in a series of scenes titled with dates and times. Twenty-four pages of it before we return to present-day Janie on the first day of school, August 30, 2004.

Why does it work? I think it’s because McMann adopts a style that reads almost like a series of incident reports: terse, but so packed with compelling information that it draws you ever onward. She writes in present tense, lending immediacy to every page. The third person narrator feels just distant enough to add to the incident-report feel of the book.

This style choice lets McMann pack key stories from Janie’s past into a relatively short amount of space. Sure, she presents a ton of backstory in the second chapter, but she does so by flashing the reader through one intense scene after another. The short scenes continue, resulting in a book that (for me) was surprisingly difficult to put down.

Check it out!

:) Cheryl

Studying Beginnings

I’m working on a new type of writing project right now. A memoir. (No, it’s not my own—I’m working with someone who is MUCH more interesting than I am on THEIR  memoir.) But since it’s new kind of writing for me, I’ve been reading and taking notes on a LOT of memoir to see how other authors handle it.

In the process, I’ve stumbled upon a wonderful tool for studying book beginnings: the Kindle. In my case, the Kindle for iPhone.

Did you know that the Kindle allows you to download sample chapters from most, if not all, available books? I knew this, but it wasn’t until I was sitting in a kid’s orchestra rehearsal, wishing I had a pile of memoirs with me so I could check out how various authors begin their stories, that I put two and two together. With the Kindle, it’s incredibly simple to download and compare ten or twenty of fifty book beginnings.

As a fellow writer, I did, in fact, wrestle with whether it was fair to the authors I was reading to download their book openings for free. I decided it was. First, I could have accomplished the same thing by picking up the books at my local library and spending a few afternoons at my local bookstore. I’d already done the first and was planning on the second—the Kindle just made the browsing process a bit easier.

Second, when I scan through 20+ book beginnings, I inevitably find a must-buy title that I would not have found otherwise, just like I go out and buy the best of the library books I read.

Meanwhile, I was able to peruse a wide range of memoir openings from the relative comfort of my folding chair during orchestra rehearsal. What more could a writer want?

:) Cheryl

PS: For those of you who do not own the Kindle or iPhone, many books are available to “browse” online through author websites, Amazon, or other bookselling websites.

Classes, Classes, Classes!

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to take a class of some sort this year—a class that would help me to grow as a writer. I’ve narrowed it down a little; but there are so many great options! How do I choose?

• A. Suen’s picture book writing classes (recommended by several friends)
• Margie Lawson (http://www.margielawson.com/) recommended by Randy Ingermanson (“the Snowflake Guy” and author of The Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine). Online classes for 2010 include:
  • January: Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors  
  • March: Empowering Characters' Emotions
  • May: Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More
  • June: Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a
    Psychologist.
• Gotham Writers’ Workshop writing classes
• Memoir Writing (I’m working with someone on their memoir)
• Photography class (to help me with photos for my nonfiction writing)

And no, I’m sure that this has absolutely nothing to do with procrastination….

Cheryl