ORAcon2013: Worldbuilding

The first topic covered at ORAcon2013 was worldbuilding. Here are the basic bullet point notes that I took:

• People always interact with their settings in a way unique to themselves. So, an OCD character would notice things out of place, a photographer would notice any pictures, a purple heart on display might catch the attention of a military person or a police officer, signs of a battered wife/child/husband might be recognized by a counselor, etc. Know who your characters are and when writing from their point of view, write what they would see.
• The setting becomes a character too. I found this statement especially well worded. I have never thought about my world as another character, or in a sense, even the different cultures in my novels could be considered different characters.
• Create and know the norms for the culture and how the people live.

Research

• Do Lots of Research. Use original sources such as mythology, history, etc. Use academic writings, google, wiki, and the internet in general (be careful! double check your facts!)
• Interview!! Get real people to answer your questions for you about how hospitals work or how police stations run or how travel works in the country you are writing. These details will throw off any reader that knows better.
• Research Vacations. Well, this one is obviously a little more difficult if you don’t have the funds, but it would be a good thing to do if you can.
• Read Real Life Accounts.

Setting Details

• Specific details lend authenticity. Little details and unique specifics allow a quicker pace but still creates a good setting. There is no need to go into long bouts of irrelevent detail.
• A few well-chosen, distinctive details go a long way. Make sure details are pertinent to your character’s point of view. Different characters should notice different things.
• Terrain/Geography can add setting detail, be an obstacle, be a symbol or shape your entire world. Use description of terrain/geography wisely.

Sample questions to consider when wondering if your world is fully built

• Give AT LEAST three details that are particular and distinctive to your world: sight, sound, smells?
• Can you identify the most powerful detail of your world for each character’s POV?
• What is/has/will go wrong in this world?
• Who is the most outrageous character?
• What is the class system?

Last thoughts

• If your POV character doesn’t see, touch, or feel it, should it be described in your book?
• It’s about the expectations you’ve built for the reader. Don’t build your character in a certain way, say as a smart alec, and then have some scene where they are super respectful with no explanation.
• Write a “Series Bible” and a “Character Bible” where you lay your ground rules, limitations, and basic descriptions of culture and people.
• Don’t answer all the questions in the first book of a series, but don’t leave everything up in the air. The reader needs to want more, but be satisfied at the same time. This reminds me of chocolate or cheesecake.
• Your characters should not be surprised by the world- other than the character who might be a stranger in the world.
• If any detail or scene pulls the reader away from the story or confuses the reader unnecessarily, leave it out!

Here are some articles that I’ve found dealing with worldbuilding that are extremely helpful:

http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/

http://io9.com/7-deadly-sins-of-worldbuilding-998817537

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/09/17/25-things-you-should-know-about-worldbuilding/

3 Ways for Writers to Be Wise With Reading

As a writer, sometimes I get too busy with life and writing that I don’t have time to read. That might not seem like such a big deal. However, reading is like studying for writers. If you are a writer, whether seasoned or inexperienced, reading is essential to developing your craft. That doesn’t erase the fact that we are busy people. How do we best utilize our reading time? Here are a few tips:

1. Reading within the genre you write. This is the most obvious and easiest way to be wise with our reading time. In order to write mystery, you must read mystery. To write fantasy, you must read fantasy. You write best what you know, and reading quality pieces within your genre will help you put together the best story possible.
2. Branch out into purely literary work (or if you write literary work, check out genre work). Literary work is all about the art of language. Genre writers often get so caught up in the art of storytelling, of advancing the plot, that they leave out important details or description. I am writing a series of other world fantasy novels. My first draft of the first book has far too little description; the reader won’t be able to picture the world I’ve created. Purely literary writing can be more work in reading than I’m used to, but it forces me to think about description, details, and the art of language. Adding a little of those things to my own work will improve it. I’ve bought a few back issues of The Glimmer Train, a well known literary magazine. It has short stories so I don’t feel bogged down, and it has quality work full of truly artful use of language. Now, I’m not saying to add in a bunch of flowery sentences and long drawn out descriptions. I am saying that poorly written sentences ruin a story and that too little description can leave a reader confused and disconnected.
3. Read different lengths of work. Especially if you write novels, throw in a few flash fiction and short stories into your reading regimine. I would suggest trying to write some flash fiction and short stories as well. Short stories are great for studying how to make a scene concise. There are no wasted words in quality short stories and flash fiction, which is an excellent attribute of truly great novels.

Writers, how do you choose what to read?

Top 4 Benefits of Joining a Critique Group

If you are serious about being a writer, I would highly recommend getting involved in a writing group.  I’ve gotten involved in three groups here in Columbia: The Columbia Novelist Group, Columbia Chapter Writer’s Guild, and a MeetUp group for fiction writers.

There are at least five benefits to joining a writing group:

1. Encouragement. Simply being around other writers always gives me a boost of encouragement to keep going, to keep writing and to have a little more confidence and motivation. Other writers understand what it means to sit in front of your computer banging your head against the desk, just trying to get one sentence out. They have conversations in their heads with their characters, too. When they watch a movie or read a book, they think about plot and how the audience is engaged.  When you are the only one you know who writes, sometimes you feel a little out of place or you don’t write as often because it feels like it shouldn’t be a priority, but other writers can be a great source of encouragement.

2. Critiques. It is very difficult to see all the problems with your own work. Critiques can help you see the holes, the areas where you added too much or put too little, the strength of your dialogue, and so much more. But hearing your own work critiqued isn’t the only benefit of belonging to a critique group. I’ve found that listening to other writer’s work being critiqued gives me a lot to bring home to my own writing project.

3. Expanded Knowledge. Many critique groups also have speakers and some even host conferences. I’ve listened to writer’s talk about self-publishing, character development, and plot. I’ve learned so much about the art of writing just by having conversations with other writers. I’ve gotten recommendations on books and materials that have helped me with technique.

4. Exchange of Ideas. When you don’t know where to go with your work or when you know something is missing, belonging to critique groups means that you have someone to brainstorm with you. You don’t have to always figure it out on your own. You can talk it out, hear what it sounds like, and find the right direction before you even begin writing it out.

Do you belong to a critique group? What benefits have you found from being a part of one?

5 Steps to a Customized Blog Planner

Blogging is harder for me than other types of writing. I have no idea why, but when writing fiction everything is normally pretty smooth. Once I get that idea or I have a direction, fiction writing to me is natural. Don’t get me wrong, writing fiction, especially a longer work, is HARD. One of these days I will probably give myself a concussion from banging my head against the wall when trying to fix a plot point or when I realize that my dialogue is BORING or when I just spent two hours and all I could get out was maybe two hundred words. But overall, fiction writing is my thing, it’s what makes me excited to call myself a writer. But blogging? Good grief. Figuring out what I’m going to write about each new post drives me nuts. When I write fiction, I write fantasy; I can make things up. Not so with blogging. It’s nonfiction. It has to be relevant and to some degree personal. And, at least for me, it has to be planned out in advance. Otherwise, I skip posting days and the content of my blog becomes inconsistent.

So, I made myself a blog post planner for the year. It cost me about ten bucks to make, and it’s exactly what I need. I looked around for one I could just buy, but I couldn’t find anything that fit my exact needs. Here is how I put together my own customized blog planner:

1. I found the perfect (free) blog post planner page and printed out enough for three posts a week for the year. This step took up the most time. I had to search the internet for a free page that I felt would best help me plan out my blogs in advance. Here is the one I chose:

This blog planner (from Confessions of a Homeschooler) and this one (a whole blogging binder set from Measuring Flower) seemed good for someone who had a very large audience and performed giveaways or made money off of their blog and things like that.

Here are a few other planners I found: From Oh My Handmade Goodness! (includes a marketing worksheet); From Living Locurto; From The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking

2. I bought a set of monthly dividers.

3. I organized the dividers and the printed blog post planning pages.

4. I took everything to Office Depot and had them coil bind the whole thing. Why coil binding? You could just hole punch the pages and put them in a binder, but coil binding is only $3.99-5, which is not much more than you’d spend on a binder. It looks better, it lays flat on a table, and you never have to worry about the pages bunching up or ripping because they got stuck on the binder.

5. The last step of making my blog planner is…planning my blog posts!!!

What do you use to plan your blogs? Do you have a planner or do you just wing it?

5 Tips for CampNaNo Success

I DID IT!!!!!

Last night I reached 50,035 words for the month of July bringing my total word count for my novel up to just past 62,000 words. I started Camp NaNo with 12,000 words, and those 12,000 words took me four months to write. So, I am super excited and maybe a little proud of myself for hunkering down and getting out those 50,000 words in just one month! YAY!!!! My story isn’t finished, but I’ve got a basic skeleton to work from and flesh out. I’m excited about the story, and I have more confidence in who I am as a writer. I would definitely recommend Camp NaNo to writers, both new and experienced. You can always jack the word count up if 50,000 words isn’t as much of challenge to you.

So, how does a busy Momma find the time to get 50,000 words down in one month? It wasn’t easy, but here’s how I did it:

1. I had the support of my husband. I suppose you could tackle this sort of thing without the support of your significant other (or if you rock the single crowd, the support of your family and/or friends), but I wouldn’t recommend it. Really, I couldn’t have done this without my husband. He went solo many nights with the kiddos, and every Saturday. And when I still had 15,000 words with less than a week to go, he made me believe I could do it; he encouraged me and pushed me and enabled me. (I love that guy!)

2. I practiced writing when my kids were in the room. Before Camp NaNo, I couldn’t write with the kids in the room because they are 4 and 2, and in case you haven’t heard, very young children always have a lot to say, a lot of questions, and require pretty much constant attention (not to mention all the daily chores and meetings with friends and errands to run). But I knew that if I could knock out a couple hundred words here and there during the day when my kiddos were climbing on me and in between listening to their stories and for the five minutes they were coloring or playing nicely together, those words would bring me a little closer to my goal.

3. I developed more discipline as a writer. Even if I didn’t want to, I kept writing. Even if I wasn’t sure or I had that nagging from my Inner Editor to go back and fix something, I just kept writing. I made a note to the side of my document and I just kept writing my story. My goal was to get that beginning, middle and end, not to make the story perfect on the first go around.

4. I recognized and utilized the places where I could be most productive.  I went out to do most of my writing. For me, I am most productive when I am sitting in a coffee house or at subway with my ear-buds playing white noise and my chromebook out in front of me. That uninterrupted time of writing was essential to my success.

5. I recognized and utilized the times I could be most productive. I did my writing at home with the kids before lunch; that’s when I found my mind could do the most multitasking. And when I knew I would get to go out to write in the evening, I took a nap with my kids (something I don’t normally do). I knew that if I wanted to be productive in the evening, I couldn’t be tired, and I’m almost always tired in the evenings these days. I did what I had to do to make use of the times when my mind was at it’s sharpest, when I wouldn’t have to sit in front of the screen slamming my head on the table trying to figure out how to spell liqueur  or  spend twenty minutes coming up with a name for a minor character.

If you attempted CampNano, do you have any tips for success?! Did you reach your word count goal?

Camp NaNoWriMo

So, I signed up for July’s CampNaNoWriMo this year. What is that, you may ask? It’s basically an insane attempt by authors all over to write 50,000 words in one month. It’s insane for me, at least. I only have 10 days left, and I’m only at 23,833 words. But I’m surprisingly happy with that. Would I like to hit 50,000 words in one month? Absolutely. I would throw myself a party if I did. I’m actually proud to say that, no matter what my word count at the end of this month, I will be content with my progress. In the past, I’ve set unrealistic goals and beat myself down for not obtaining them. This time, I went into CampNaNoWriMo not necessarily with a goal to hit 50,000 words, but to simply improve my writing discipline and advance my novel. I started with just over 12,000 words in the beginning of July; that 12,000 words took me months to get done. So, for me, even if I didn’t write one more word this month, 23,833 words in one month equals success.

My First Publications!

This last month, I have received copies of my first two publications! The first is a story called “No More Bernie”  in Well Versed 2013, an anthology put out by Columbia Chapter of the Missouri Writer’s Guild showcasing writers and even photographers from all across the state. “No More Bernie” was initially inspired by the memory of sitting in the social security office when I first got married, wondering why people chose to change their names (besides the obvious reason of marriage). But as I was writing the story seven years after that experience it became more about how there are no easy solutions to life’s problems. Life is complicated, and we are always seeking to find that one thing that will make life easier, simpler, less painful. You can buy a copy of Well Versed 2013 on Amazon.

My second publication is a children’s story in The Kid’s Ark. “The Right Call” came out of the magazine’s theme, Intelligence/Wisdom. I wanted to write a practical example of how kids can use the intelligence and wisdom God has given each of us to think and pray through situations where they might be tempted to break the rules or cave to peer pressure.

 

 

All in all, I am really enjoying my pursuit of writing. More on that later, but for now, I think I will just be excited about my first bylines!

Write or DIE!!!!!!

I recently hit the 10,000 word mark on a novel I’ve been working on. It took me FOREVER. And now for the other 90%…

Anyway, I’ve been working on turning off that pesky “internal editor.” She’s plagued me through many writing projects, papers, and assignments. I get out a paragraph and have to go back over it again and again…and maybe one more time.

But everything I’ve read and everyone I know who has published keeps telling me that Ms. Editor needs to shut her mouth during the first draft. I’ve got to get out the story. A beginning, middle, and end. It will probably be a far cry from what I want it to be, but I’ll have the bones I need to flesh out the story I’m looking to tell. Some writers never actually finish their work because of their own internal editors, and I don’t want that to be the case with my series. I feel like the story that’s been spinning itself from my mind and heart down through my fingers onto the computer screen is worth something. I want people to be able to read a finished product.

Recently I ran across a website that I believe will help me kick Ms. Editor to the curb (or at least make her comfortable in the deep recesses of my mind until that second draft, where I will need her desperately.) It’s called WriteOrDie.com.

I gave it a try and in an hour I was able to pump out almost 1500 words. For me, that’s pretty awesome. So what is Write or Die?

First, you choose a time goal. I chose an hour. Then you choose a word goal. I chose 1,000 (which I accomplished in about 40/45 minutes.

Then, you choose your grace period. Forgiving, Strict, or Evil. I chose strict, which I think gave me about 30 seconds before the consequences kicked in. (Forgiving I think gives you closer to a minute and Evil gives you about 10 seconds.)

And then there are the consequences. Gentle, Normal, and Kamikaze. With each consequence the outer screen slowly turns red so you know it’s coming. Gentle is just a box that pops up reminding you to keep going. Normal (which I chose) counts down to screaming babies that just get louder and louder until you continue to type. Now, Kamikaze scared me to death. It begins UNTYPING your work if you stop for the allotted amount of time.

So, if you do well under extreme pressure, Evil + Kamikaze=Crazy Cakes Production. I work better being annoyed, so I think I’ll stick with Strict + Normal. Crying babies can apparently do more for me than make me feel like I’m about to loose my mind.

Check it out all you writers! (And students, too, if you think it would help!)