Characters: Where Do They Come From?

Yesterday, I spent the day retooling a novel I'm trying to write.  It's called Daughter of the Scribe, where the main character is exactly what the title says she is, and she's tasked with protecting a magical artifact.  It goes on but my plot was limp and I felt like I was pulling teeth while writing it.  I'm reworking the plot today, but before I could do that, I had to look at my characters.  I needed to figure out what was wrong with them in order to figure out what was wrong with my plot.  When I did that and tweaked the main character - same background but different life experience growing up - the characters around her changed for the better.  The plot is fitting into place and makes it something that I want to write.  She's now a thief who can kill you with an arrow from an impressive distance and I changed how she grew up.  Instead of living the life of a scholar, she grew up with her uncle who trained her to be an assassin and thief.  She's still the daughter of a scribe but she didn't grow up with her father.  Now, he was disappeared by an evil king and she needed to change her life goals, but there comes motivation and, therefore, plot.

My main character, Liliana, when I think of where she comes from, is not from just one person.  My life, while not as jarring as what happens to others, changed completely due to something outside of my control.  At the same time, this character isn't me.  She's not just one person, but she's someone who's story is familiar to a lot of us.  She adapted and she might or might not be okay.  She might be okay on the outside but inside, she just wants to curl up away from the world and make it go away.

What I'm trying to get at here, if you're still reading and not just rolling your eyes at me, is that there's no one place where I get my characters from.  When I look at all of my characters, from Power to when I first started writing Mystery of the Dark to where I am today, there's no one single person or thing that defines them.  I think that gives the character strength because it makes them easier to relate to.  I think, well more I hope, when I publish and you read my stories, that you see a bit of yourself in the characters I put forward.  It might not happen but that's my hope.

Readers, where do your characters come from?  Are you like me, where there's no one point or person, but they're several different little things put together?  Or are your characters pointed to be the one person that touched your life, no matter how briefly?  Feel free to leave your answers in the comments and, until next time, keep on writing.

You vs the Blinking Cursor

Everyone knows that, at one point during your writing life, you're going to sit down at your chair.  You have the want and the urge to write, so you open your favorite program to do so - in my case, Microsoft Word - and then nothing comes.  The page is blank, the cursor blinking at you in a teasing and taunting way, and nothing comes.  Your great ideas have escaped your mind.  The character that you want to give this great little scene to has disappeared into the ether.  You're not alone in this.  It happens, as we're all human, but I have some tips on how to get back in the groove.

There is a caveat.  They might not work for you.  They might only work for a short while and then you're back at the blank page with the blinking cursor.  Again, it's common, we're human, but we've got another great resource.  Google is more than happy to help find the writing prompt that will get your juices flowing.  If none of these work, then go there.  Until that time, read on and I'll give you my tips to defeat the evil blinking cursor.

1. Change how you are writing and/or your surroundings.  This is really simple, isn't it?  Yet, I never think about this until I'm lamenting on how I can't seem to write at home.  The answer is "well, why don't you go to Starbucks / outside / somewhere other than home?" and I have that 'aha!' moment.  If you can't change your surroundings due to money or little kids or what have you, then I recommend changing how you write.  Write by hand for a chapter and then type it up.  It is double the work but I've found, when I use this method, that I also edit as I type.

2. Get rid of all distractions unless it will distract you more.  Don't worry, I'll explain.  One piece of writing advice is turn off your internet on the computer you're writing on.  This article, written by Mayr on WritetoDone, has it as number 2 on it's list of writing without distractions.  There are others who will put it as their first piece of writing advice but I only agree to a certain point.

I have tried this advice and it only works for me if the internet is truly gone.  At Panera, depending on the time of day, you can only have their free WiFi for a hour.  In situations like that or a power outage, I write like nobody's business.  When I simply turn off my internet in a place I know that has good internet, like at home, I can't focus.  It gets worse.  I start checking my phone and getting distracted by that.

Also, in a random poll of the WriYe chat room, the three people there all responded that not having the internet doesn't help.  For one of the respondents, they use Google Docs to write.  While that does have an offline mode, she doesn't feel safe using it as there's no automated backup.  So, you can try it and defeat the blinking cursor.  You might try it and be even more frustrated.  Trust your frustrations and let's try one more thing.

3. Evaluate the project you are writing and see if it is less a problem with you and more of a problem with your story.  I am thirteen chapters in on a fantasy novel about the daughter of a scribe who runs away from home and joins a band of thieves.  It is like pulling teeth to write this story and I hate that because I really like the characters.  I need to change something, go back and either change the plot or change a character, and that will change my story.  It'll be something completely different and need a different title but then I'll be writing the novel.  I'll have defeated the cursor of doom and it'll be one more novel I need to edit.  I'm okay with that because, at the end of the day, I want the novel written.  I want to go into the next phase and that involves getting the novel out of my head and onto the page.

My last piece of advice is this - if you have tried all the above and nothing works, then you might need a different project.  You might need to edit that novel that's been sitting in the edit pile for years on end.  You might need to plot out what you will be writing next month or in a few months from now for NaNoWriMo.  Sometimes in order to get down to writing, you need to get away from writing for a bit.  It's not defeat and it's not saying you're not a writer.  You're doing other writer stuff by editing and plotting and that's a good thing.

Well, dear readers, those are my tips for getting past the blank page and blinking cursor.  What are yours?  Feel free to share them in the comments below or, if you try one of my methods, how it works for you.

Until next time, keep on writing (or editing or plotting).

Welcome Weekend: The Friday Five

Say hi to Welcome Weekend everyone.  I am going to attempt, every Friday, list five things that I found interesting during the week.  They will be anything from articles on writing to news stories to funny Youtube videos to pictures of my dog.  Okay, maybe not the last one, but she is an adorable Cavachon.

Alright, here we go.

1. The 9 Best Tips on Writing from Ernest Hemingway from Inc.com.  He did live what he preached.  If you need more evidence, you should find and read "Hills Like White Elephants".  If you're me, you'll then go and devour For Whom the Bell Tolls and then the Sun Also Rises.

2. If you remember from Wednesday, I wrote a post on fictional women presidents in television series.  I submit, for your reading pleasure, this article from Bustle about seven books with / about a woman president.  There is a good amount of non fiction on the list, but a bit of non fiction never hurt anyone.  Unless said book was used as a weapon because someone broke into your house.

3. If you haven't already, please go read Vice President Joe Biden's open letter to the Sanford Survivor.  It will make you tear up, it will make you think, and we should rethink the culture of how we treat rape victims.  It is not right to accuse a victim for bringing on their attackers - full stop.

4. One of my favorite blogs, I Love Coffee, celebrated their four year anniversary this week along with the author's birthday.  One of my favorite posts explains the third wave of coffee and how we've gone from consume to enjoy to appreciate.  She's got fantastic other posts, including one about the correlation of drinking coffee to going poop, and explains a lot about coffee that I didn't understand before.

5. What I'm Reading This Weekend: The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly.  It is the fourth book in the Harry Bosch series.  I cannot recommend this series or his writing enough.  I love how his writing feels so casual but you're drawn in because of the strength of the characters.  There is a show tie in, called Bosch, on Amazon.  Titus Welliver (Agents of SHIELD, Lost) plays Detective Bosch and his take on the detective makes you want to read the source material.  There's only two seasons of it and it is easy to binge watch.

I hope you all have a great weekend!  Do you have a book or project you'll be trying to get done this weekend?  Leave a comment below and we'll cheer you on!

Until next time, keep writing.

Art Influencing Life

Unless you went to bed super early and didn't listen or read to any news at all today, you probably didn't miss the fact that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the majority of pledged delegates (Huffington Post) in the Democratic primary.  This is historic and I watched her victory speech with tears in my eyes.  I didn't think this would happen in my lifetime, even after the 2008 primaries and a lot of talk in this primary cycle on how she was going to win.  It didn't seem possible as the country has to have fatigue from being historic eight years ago.  I like being proven wrong.

I would like to make a side note - I think Senator Sanders should be the one to decide when he leaves the race.  I also think he has one week before it starts to look like he's a sore loser for not getting out.  Those two statements contradict each other, I know, but it's how I feel.  It's how I felt eight years ago when I was a supporter of then Senator Obama.  I thought that then Senator Clinton should get out, even though she won a lot on that last night, but that's how I felt.  I'm also not about to say which way someone should vote or feel or anything else that is outside the sphere of myself.  Just go vote.  Vote down ticket.  Vote for the top of the ticket.  But just go vote for the love of <insert your deity here>.

Now, to get back to the title of this post, life is imitating art again.  It did it eight years ago - I think that President Obama doesn't get elected if not for 24 with David Palmer played by Dennis Haysbert and Jimmy Smitts playing an Obama inspired character on The West Wing - and I think it's doing it again.  The Nerve has a brilliant article about the history of fictional women presidents.  I can't point towards one actor or one portrayal but I do agree with the article on who they pick for the one big shining example of who did it best.

Spoiler: It was 24 again.  For a show where the focus is on one guy saving the world in 24 hours with no bathroom breaks, it was a progressive show.  Quietly progressive too.  I would add on Geena Davis for Commander in Chief but that's because I was a fan of the show.  I also thought they did an interesting twist with the character making her an independent but needed to leave off a lot of the family plots sometimes.  Readers, if you've got a favorite female president (or even a vice president), feel free to leave your choice in the comments below.

The point being, if we can so easily turn to the idea of a woman president in fiction, why not in real life?  Let's let art influence life for a while, even though we might not agree with the person up for the real life world.  Let's catch up to other countries who had a woman at the helm.  Let's step forward, not just in art, where more and more women are shown in leadership roles, but in life as well.  I hope Secretary Clinton goes all the way and, like a great things in life, fiction will become reality.

Until next time, keep writing.

Clichés - Why Yes, They Work

Today, we’re going to talk about something else that a writer uses a lot, even though they shouldn’t.  They’re clichés, the tool in our arsenal that we’re not supposed to use, because nobody wants to read the same thing twice.  However, as much as that is true, I have an argument for why they actually work.  You might have heard this argument before, which I’m hoping isn’t the case, but here it goes.

Clichés work because, at the core of nearly all stories, we’re retelling something.  It’s a new idea or a new way to go about it, but, honestly, we’re copying a lot of the same stories from before.  Here’s another curveball for you – it’s not a bad thing.  It’s literature’s natural selection.  These stories get retold, in different formats, because they’re the stories that we want to listen to.  They’re the stories that are going to survive throughout generations, even if only a small handful of people read them.  It’s why, at the library, they have those sample bookmarks of “if you like Neil Gaiman” and then a list of other authors to try.  It’s because even though one book is different from the next due to characters or plot, we see we’re going on the hero’s journey.  We see that the detective is going to attempt to catch the killer and will or won’t by the end of the novel.  We see there’s going to be romantic tension until the couple gets together and then torn apart again only to have a happy ending.  We see, in literary fiction itself, that a main character goes from being a kid who lost his mother because of his best friend to someone who accepts the greater mysteries of life.  Now, Prayer for Omen Meany has a bigger meaning than the one sentence version I just wrote out.  You should go read it and it’s one of my favorite novels.

Going back to clichés, before I bury the lead entirely, is that we’re told it’s a bad thing.  It’s a no-no.  But, considering all that we know, is it really true?  I don’t think so.  Considering the amount of television on right now that is either a procedural – thanks to ER or Law and Order or soap operas – or comedy that follows a certain pattern, it’s showing that we want the clichés.  I can even point it out in literature where you cannot find a good fantasy novel where the male main character and the female main character don’t get together by the end.  I will go happily read a fantasy novel that is not A Song of Fire and Ice where that doesn’t happen by the end of the novel or series.  Leave a comment down below as I’m always looking for more to read.  Or give me a detective novel where the bad guy isn’t captured by the end of the novel or the series.  We want our clichés, in the broad sense of the word, and we should not be afraid to embrace them as writers.

In that same vein, we shouldn’t be afraid to write stock characters, like the naïve chosen one.  What we need to do is change how they come about it.  Harry Potter is successful because of how he became the chosen one.  Yes, there is a prophecy that he is the one to vanquish the Dark Lord (hello fantasy clichés - a two for one) but there were two who could have fit that prophecy.  How different is Harry Potter if Neville Longbottom was the one that Voldemort picked?  How successful would that story have been if Neville was the main character and gone through everything Harry did?  It’s too much of a stretch, considering how Neville is introduced and written until the seventh book where he shines.  He’s the one who kills Nagini with the Gryffindor sword and kept up Dumbledore’s Army while Harry’s off saving the world.  Would J.K. Rowling have written Neville differently if Neville was the one Voldemort gone after?  Or would Neville be dead and the Harry Potter series a lot darker?  We don’t know because the cliché was kept of the naïve chosen one who, despite his limited faults, vanquished evil and the world is better for it.

That is one big example on how clichés can work.  I can go on, and will if anybody wants me to, but you get the idea.  Clichés are good if you can wrap them up all bright and shiny and new.  The advice for today is as same as I gave at the top of the post.  Embrace your clichés in the genre you’re writing.  You can use them, you’ve just got to make them interesting.  It’s the same as in everything in life.  You’ve got an amazing idea, that others have done, but you have a different take.  It is not wrong to keep to what we’ve read as they get through.  Unless the publication industry is going to shut down completely, we’re going to keep on reading clichés.  Why not take the old clichéd advice and write what you know?  As shown time and time again, it works.

Until next time, keep on writing.

WriYe Blog Circle: The Best Writing Tool Ever

You're looking at that title and going "wait, how can she know? She's not published!".  You're half right - I'm not published yet.  However, I know what it is because I have given and gotten it.  I listen and question the people who give it and am grateful when they start out with "I love this but".  The but is how I know I'm about to grow as a writer with what comes after it.  I could go on and on but let's not bury the lead.

The best writing tool ever is... Drum Roll Please....

Criticism.  Yes, the C-word of the writing world.  It is the best thing that you can give a writer, either as a fellow one in a writing group, or as a reader after they are published. It is how we know what we are doing wrong and what we are doing right.  It is not easy, either giving or receiving, but it is needed.  

Without it, we writers will stagnate.  We will not reach our full potential.  Most importantly, we'll think our work is good when it's a big old steaming pile of you know what.  There is a higher chance of being rejected by an agent or publishing house if you do not get someone to read your work before you get there.  All writers need it.  I highly recommend going out and finding a small writing group to share pieces with and get feedback.  I also recommend using the sandwich method - say something nice about the piece, give the harder feedback, and end with another nice thing to say - as how you should give a critique.  You'll get a solid three sentences out of just using that method.

Now, there is the other side of criticism.  There are times, in life, when you're are good.  You did the work, you put in the effort, you got published, and then the reviews come in.  The general public loves it, but the newspaper critics don't.  They don't understand how that got published.  They don't get that you are amazing, possibly the next insert-person-here, but they don't get it.  It'll hurt, for a few minutes or hours, you might cry, but then suck it up buttercup.  For one, you're published.  You're awesome for even getting that far.  For two, you take in what they say and you make your next book even better.  You silence the critics and then both sides are with you.  

Alright, it's a blog circle post, so there are questions.  Let's get into them.  Please feel free to answer the same questions in the comments.

What is your method of critiquing a piece of writing?
I touched on this lightly up above, so I'll expand down here.  I use the sandwich method when giving a critique.  That is giving a nice piece of feedback, then the negative, before giving one last piece of nice feedback. 

Here's an example from last year's Last WriYer Standing - we all write to a prompt and one person gets cut a week - that I gave: 

I wasn't sure where this was going in the end.  Is she really dead?  There wasn't any real conclusion to this.  It worked with the prompt, I think, but wasn't satisfying to me.  It was the fact that there was no showing what truly was going to kill her.  Or not kill her.  And where are the friends?  There's so many questions for this one.  Maybe try closing up story threads next time.

There's good, then what I thought could have been better, and giving some things to do better next time.  That's my way of doing a sandwich method.  Now, I don't do this all the time, just when I need to give feedback alone.  If someone gives me something to edit, I go in and find typos.  I make sure that I caught everything I could and then, at the end, give a summary of what I think using that method.  I would recommend, with using this method, you do more than three sentences, but you could compact it down to three alone.

What do you expect out of people critiquing your work?
Ooo - so, this is a very good question.  At the very least, I expect a three sentence sandwich.  That is my bare minimum, feelings will not be hurt, but that's the lowest level.  With me, my level of expectations go up as I know the person who is giving me a critique.  I expect a best friend to take my hand, giving me a cup of strong coffee, and go "Liz, you are a great writer, but this is crap and here's how we're going to change it".  They don't even have to go "here's how we're going to change it" but tell me "hey, fix x, y, and z and I'll read it again".  I've had that conversation several times with my best friend because she knows I have to hear it, plus I'll listen to her.

It's also why Power is slowly being edited / not edited.  Dear gods, my writing is horrible from 2008.  However, if anyone else but my best friends told me that my grammar was terrible but the plot is good, I would have covered my ears and go "lalalalalalalalala" like a five year old.  That's where I was as a writer and now I'm at the point where I will take a lot of criticism.  I've grown a lot in eight years, even though my grammar still sucks, but that's because of criticism.  You'll grow too, dear readers, if you open your mind to knowing that you might need someone to tell you that your Great American Novel needs the Great American Edit.

Until next time, keep on writing.

End of the Month: Just What Liz Has Been Doing? (Warning: Rambling)

It feels like procrastinating but it's more of a dragging my feet.  I'm not working the projects that I want to be working.  I have to wait on one, because it's a month theme challenge in July for zombies, and the other one... I want a good sit down with the edits of book one before I dive into book two.  Plus there's the fact that I don't know where my plot is going just yet.  Fun times.

Getting back into what I'm supposed to be doing... I don't know.  It's not hitting a wall, it's more that I'm not sure if I'm writing what I should be writing.  I like the plots of both stories but maybe it's a rut.  Maybe I should get off my butt and work out the mystery novel.  Maybe I'm spending too much time in fantasy that I'm bored with it.  I doubt that, as I like living and breathing fantasy, so maybe it's that I'm being too cliche-y.

Note on cliches - they're there because they work.  If they didn't, then they wouldn't be cliches.  However, this is not getting into how cliches are actually a wonderful thing for novels because that's a separate post.  Maybe Friday.

Anyways, I did get some work done on Daughter of the Scribe (fantasy with thieves woo) and I did start Devil's Daughter.  I sense a theme going on here too but that's where my mind is at the moment.  Even though they both have daughter in the title, they're vastly different.  Daughter of the Scribe deals with the main female character being forced into an arranged marriage and running off to join a band of thieves.  She didn't plan on that, but I did, and there's fantasy-ish elements in it.  Mostly dragons.

Maybe it's that I'm having a meh on dragons.  I might have to scratch the dragons part and come up with something else.  Now that?  That would be a good idea.  Rambling has it's uses, even though you all are probably rolling your eyes at me.

As for Devil's Daughter... why yes, it's a literal title.  It's also a three part stand alone that I don't have the plot for the last act on, aside from knowing they save the world.  Or maybe they don't.  I haven't decided yet, but if they don't save the world, it might not be a stand alone anymore.  Also, what's the point of the book if they don't?  Other than it being dark and I don't like writing dark things for dark sake.  There needs to be a better reason for not doing something other than apathy.  Even if that was the theme of my month.

So, those were my two May projects of the month.  I didn't do any editing, even though I've got loads of editing to do in other projects.  I didn't do any plotting, save for a bit of plot rambling and basic stats, and I kind of miss it.  I'm going to attempt to have a more structured month in June with goals and all.  We'll see if it comes to pass.  I mean, I have two freaking planners.  I should be able to give my life structure and then follow it.  Maybe.

Anywho, dear readers, how did your May go productivity wise?  Were you keeping up with your projects and getting words down?  Or were you like me, a snail, slowly inching towards the end?  Either way, congrats on getting something done this month - even if it was just a chapter.  A chapter is a big thing in the life of a writer, even if it comes with having to edit it once the novel is completely done.

Until next time - Happy Tuesday!