Category Archives: Writing

Behind the Story: Things Blow Up

Owl & White/Red BookBehind the Story posts will be about what goes on behind the scenes as a writer creates their story.  I’ll be writing about my own writing process and sharing any tips or advice I’ve discovered on my own or gathered on the topic. Hopefully both readers and writers find these posts fascinating!

This week’s topic:
When Your Story Blows Up


I was really struggling with what to post about this week for Behind the Story because, quite frankly, my work on my own story has been faltering this week.  So I’ll give you a recount of what issues I’ve come up against, and how I’m trying to go about solving them.


How a story goes kablooie (and how I’m striving to fix it):

  1. Comparing my own writing to published books: Kind of inevitable if you read a lot and dream of being published, but not productive at the stage I’m in with my current project.  Why?  Because it’s like comparing a newborn to a college grad.  My book baby is cute and exciting and full of possibilities, but right now all it’s doing is pooping, drooling, and crying.  We haven’t moved beyond the basics of life yet.  I’m just getting a grasp on the characters, setting, and plot.  A published book is like a college grad.  You’ve proved yourself.  You’ve mastered the basics plus things like theme and voice.  You went on to get accepted with your fancy query letter (college admission essay).  And you’ve been groomed by editors (college professors).  So I’ve been really cruel to myself and my project this week and have been comparing it to other great books and thinking about how under-developed it is.  I keep trying to reason with myself and telling myself if I keep working, it will get there.  But what I really need is a brilliant idea to dig me out of this hole I’m in for the week.
  2. Where to set my book: My game plan was to set my book in a setting of my own creation.  I even made a map of my city with different districts.  And drew geographical features surrounding the city.  And the city has a cool name.  But now I’m second guessing my decision because I had a plot idea to use real historical references in association with my villain and what her secret society had done in the past.  I really liked this idea, but I can’t see how my made-up city will mesh well with real historical references.  And so that’s where I’ve gotten stuck.  Someone suggested I read some “alternate history” books.  I think perhaps I need to finish Westerfeld’s Leviathan series.  He’s a genius at world-building and this series is an alternate history, so maybe it will help me figure out the logistics of what I’m trying to do. 
  3. Finding a purpose besides just “looking cool”: So for the sake of protecting my ideas, I’m going to use some substitutions here.  So, my main character is going to be creating something and the villain is after her creations.  Let’s say she’s making “GIANT OWLS.”  I kind of got the idea because I thought GIANT OWLS would be really cool in a story.  (If you haven’t caught on yet… my character is not really making giant owls.  I’d just like to keep a secret what she’s making.)  So, this week I got to thinking why the heck would my villain want her GIANT OWLS besides the fact they they are insanely cool and look awesome.  What does my villain want to do with these GIANT OWLS?  What could be sinister or powerful about them?  So far all I got is one kind of lame idea that conflicts with my setting again.  Darn you setting!  I chatted with my brother tonight and that kind of helped.  He had some better ideas, but I have to mull them over because they conflict with some plot details.
So my verdict from this week:
My story blew up.  It’s in pieces this week and I’m at a loss for how to put it back together and make some sort of sense.  But that’s why it’s so important as a writer to not get too attached to what you’re writing.  I realized that I am probably going to have to change how I originally saw my story going (whether it’s the setting or what my villain is after).  I still have pieces to work with, and hopefully whatever I come up with will be one step closer to an end product I can be proud of.

How do you overcome writer’s block?  What do you do when your story blows up?

Writing Resolution: Week 4

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My New Year’s Resolution was to write. Preferably for a novel, but any creative writing will suffice. I must have my butt in my chair behind my desk for two hours each night to write. The time frame I set up was from 6-8pm Monday through Friday. Weekly posts will report on my progress and keep me on track!

Week Four Results:
Did I write all five days for two hours? YES
Word count for the week = 3093 words

What I Learned This Week:

  1. I didn’t increase from last week’s word count, but I’m okay with that because this week was rough at work.  Report card time makes me want to pull my hair out.
  2. I did a better job of balancing my writing and reading time this week.  I finished TWO books, and I am thus a much happier person.  (Finished books were Liesl and Po and Cinder.  Look for my review of Cinder tomorrow!)  
  3. I’m writing a bunch of random scenes right now.  Nothing is in order.  I don’t know if I’ll hate myself later when I have to pull things together, but I’m learning about each character as I hop around.  At some point I’ll probably need to make some scene cards and start arranging things and figuring out what I need to write to fill in holes.  I’m kind of likening my creative process to how they do movies.  Don’t they not film the scenes in order?  And sometimes go back and re-film?  And then edit everything together.  Yeah.  That’s what I’m doing.  
  4. Writing creepy scenes, about ghosts, at night… FREAKS ME OUT.  I don’t read horror books.  That’s the one genre I stay away from.  And these will be nice ghosts, but they’re still DEAD PEOPLE.  And even if I know they aren’t real (since they’re from my head), I’m still getting freaked out.  Come on Winter, hurry up and be over so I have some daylight in which to write in… and then don’t get scared.
  5. I just wrote a scene with multiple mentions of the word pink and lots of butterflies.  It kind of makes me want to hurl at the girliness of it.  I’m so not a pink and butterflies person.  Where did this come from?  And the bigger question being… will I keep it?  Is there a way to make butterflies less girly?  If I mention proboscis and antennae… will that help?

Anyone else write scenes out of order?
Anyone else scared of ghosts?
Anyone else scared of pink and butterflies?


And a big “woo hoo!” for keeping my resolution through the whole month of January!!!

Behind the Story: Choosing Character Names

Owl & White/Red BookBehind the Story posts will be about what goes on behind the scenes as a writer creates their story.  I’ll be writing about my own writing process and sharing any tips or advice I’ve discovered on my own or gathered on the topic. Hopefully both readers and writers find these posts fascinating!

This week’s topic:
Choosing Character Names


In this week’s post, I’ll delve into how I go about choosing names for my characters.  There’s a lot of things to consider, and I definitely think certain authors have a gift for choosing the perfect names.  Two authors that come to mind are J.K. Rowling and Charles Dickens. Here’s what I’ve learned so far, but by no means am I an expert!


My own tips and tricks for choosing character names:

  1. Baby name websites: Best resource ever for finding character names.  My favorite website is Behind the Name.  You can browse or search for names, and each entry is organized much like a dictionary with pronunciation, origins, meaning, history, and popularity.  I love when my names have special meaning, and I’ve used this website more times than I can count!
  2. Using sounds to your advantage: Certain sounds have certain connotations, whether you are conscious of it or not.  A sharp sound is going to be more serious than sounds that long.  Sorry to keep using Harry Potter for my examples, but Rowling was a wiz with names.  Voldemort = Both the V and T sounds are sharp and bookend the name with their sharpness, plus the added meaning of mort as death.  Severus Snape = Both the V and P sounds are sharp, and the S sound makes his name slippery to say and perfect for a spy.  Whereas Neville Longbottom uses several sounds that are long and slow, particularly the O sound which is one of the slowest vowels.  And his name ending in the “UM” sound just makes the poor bloke sound unsure of himself just simply in his name.  I’m not an expert on this sound stuff, but as I become more aware of it, I’ve found it helps me in choosing the right names for my characters.  
  3. Coming up with a list for later reference: I like to have a list of stock names that I can grab from later if a new character announces its arrival.  Especially if I’m in a certain time period, I’ll make a list of names I like from that period, and make short notes regarding my own reactions to the name “evil” or “sounds strong.”  Usually our own first impressions come with our own subconscious connections to root meanings and sounds.  My lists so often come in handy when a character pops into my head fully-formed and needs a name, and usually one from my list will jump out at me.  It saves me the time of pouring through websites again, especially when I’m in the throws of writing and would rather not stop.
Some other sidenotes:
Surnames have been a lot harder for me to come up with than first names.  I’ve yet to find a single website that I love. Sometimes I have to search for surnames by time period or country in order to find what I’m looking for.
Knowing the time period of your novel is a must in choosing the right name.  But what to do when your novel is in the future?  When I was working on a dystopian/futuristic novel, I went with a sort of melting pot of sorts.  I found names, chopped up their syllables, and made new combinations using the sound connotations and roots I already knew.  It was actually great fun!
Don’t be afraid to change a name if your character grows and changes.  The point at which we assign a name, in a novel’s infancy, is often before we’ve discovered the core of the novel.  I’ve changed a character’s name more times than I can count when the name doesn’t feel right anymore.  It’s okay.  And it will always be good interview fodder for those blog tours down the line  ðŸ˜‰
What authors do you think have great names for their characters?

Do you writers have any neat tips or tricks for choosing character names?

Resolution: Week Three

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My New Year’s Resolution was to write. Preferably for a novel, but any creative writing will suffice. I must have my butt in my chair behind my desk for two hours each night to write. The time frame I set up was from 6-8pm Monday through Friday. Weekly posts will report on my progress and keep me on track!

Week Three Results:
Did I write all five days for two hours? YES
Word count for the week = 3125 words

What I Learned This Week:

  1. My word counts are going up!  I’m averaging 600 words per day, up from 470 words last week.
  2. Writing is really cutting into my reading time.  To the point where I’m craving curling up with a book in the evening.  I really didn’t realize what making this resolution would do to my reading time.  I don’t want to cut down my writing time because I’m making so much progress, so I guess I’ll just pray for a snow day…  
  3. I’m a very plot and character driven writer in my first draft.  Plot and character details flow smoothly.  The thing I’m struggling with right now is voice.  My main character does not have a consistent voice.  One day she’s logical and snarky, and the next day she’s meek and obedient.  It’s starting to frustrate me, but this isn’t the first time I’ve struggled with voice.  It’ll work itself out eventually.
  4. And my brother is awesome!!!  He made me a CD to inspire my writing (without me asking him to)!  He knows about the basic plot and genre and compiled 20 songs with various moods.  I can’t listen to music with words when I write because I find the words distracting.  And I needed music with some mechanical sounds… The songs he picked out are PERFECT.  ðŸ™‚

Anyone else struggle with voice?
Anyone else have specific music preferences when they write?

Behind the Story: Creating a Villain

Owl & White/Red BookBehind the Story posts will be about what goes on behind the scenes as a writer creates their story.  I’ll be writing about my own writing process and sharing any tips or advice I’ve discovered on my own or gathered on the topic.  Hopefully both readers and writers find these posts fascinating!

This week’s topic: 
Creating a Villain

Unless you’re writing a novel that revolves completely around an internal conflict or a natural disaster, chances are good that your story requires a villain.

Villain is the popular term.  The literary term is antagonist.  An antagonist is a person who actively opposes the protagonist.  (Protagonist being your leading character.)

There are lots of questions an author might ask themselves as they create their villain, but one of the most important ones is:

What is my villain’s motivation?

  • What do they want?
  • Why do they want it?
Villains can’t just be evil for the heck of it.  Well, they can, but then you’ll have a very flat and boring character on your hands.  The best villains have a reason behind their wicked ways: something they want and a reason they want it.
Let’s take a look at some particularly well-known and fabulous villains:
Voldemort
What he wants: to be all-powerful, immortal, and to kill some Muggles
Why he wants it: After learning his heritage, he loathes his Muggle father for abandoning his pureblood mother.  His solution to what his father did is to become all-powerful and live forever to squash Muggles and their ignorance.
Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker
What he wants: To prevent those he loves from dying
Why he wants it: After watching his mother die and dreaming of Padme’s death, Anakin promises to find a way to conquer death.  When Emperor Palpatine proposes that the Dark Side can offer him powers that will conquer death, Anakin turns to the darkside and lets his fear consume him.
Those are just two examples, but I bet if you look at some of your favorite book villains, you can identify some sort of motivation that goes beyond “I’m evil!  Let’s kill something!”
As I set out to craft a villain:
I initially was going to make my villain some sort of fire witch.  I wanted her to have some sort of association with fire because my protagonist is going to by pyrophobic (fear of fire).  But I never could get myself to fall in love with the idea of a fire witch.  I couldn’t define it.  I couldn’t get a strong image in my head.  I’d named her Hestia after the Greek goddess of the hearth.  So the name alluded to fire and sounded witchy.
But I wasn’t satisfied.
So I started to think about motivation.  A new idea formed that would replace fire witch.  I’m making use of a different character of magical lore which I’m not going to share here because I want it to stay mine.
But I will share the motivation I came up with.
What my villain wants: To manipulate men
Why she wants it: Throughout history she’s watched women be controlled by men.  She doesn’t want to be controlled.  She wants to do the controlling.  And she’s accompanied by an entire secret society of women who have been controlling men for the last three thousand years.
Think alternative history and hidden clues like DaVinci Code or National Treasure.
So much better than a fire witch.
And let’s just say that once I came up with my villain, my word counts have been higher.  What can I say?  Evil characters motivate me  ðŸ™‚
What are your favorite villains and what motivates them?

Resolution: Week 2

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My New Year’s Resolution was to write. Preferably for a novel, but any creative writing will suffice. I must have my butt in my chair behind my desk for two hours each night to write. The time frame I set up was from 6-8pm Monday through Friday. Weekly posts will report on my progress and keep me on track!

Week Two Results:
Did I write all five days for two hours? YES (sorta)
Word count for the week = 2514 words

What did I mean by sorta? I worked 13 hours on Friday and came home feeling achy and exhausted. So I went straight to bed and made up for the time I missed on Saturday.

What I Learned This Week:

  1. My magic word count number is 470. I’ve hit that average number of words four times. I think once I get further into the story, the word counts may get higher because I’ll know my characters better. But we’ll see.
  2. Blogging can be a distraction. I really should log out of blogger when I sit down to get started.
  3. One night, I was stuck on what to write, so I forced two characters together who I knew weren’t going to get along. Magic happened, words flowed, and what came out of it revealed a lot about who these characters are.
  4. I came up with the most glorious villain this week!  I’m really excited at how evil she’ll be, how she fits into the established plot, and how she evokes some themes that I really care about.

Anyone else want to join me in writing every evening? I swear it’s fun!

Writing Advice from Amanda Hocking

NPR published an article about Amanda Hocking’s amazing success story:

A Self-Published Author’s $2-Million Cinderella Story

I already knew her amazing story, but there was a great piece of writing advice at the end of the article that helped validate the resolution I made to make time to write everyday:

Before we leave her story, however, Hocking has some advice to share. She says she got it off a video from Mark Hoppus of the band Blink-182.
“He said that it’s not enough to have a passion — you have to have a work ethic,” she says. “That’s been the most life-changing advice that I got, because I had a passion for writing — and I know a lot of other people do, too — but it’s not enough to just want something, you have to be able to work for it, too, and put in the hours and the time.”

Not only will putting in the hours get words on the page, but hopefully the more hours you put in, the better writer you will become.  Great advice from someone who’s found a happily ever after in writing.

And if you haven’t read Amanda Hocking’s Trylle series (which was previously published only in e-book form), the first book, Switched, came out in paperback this week.  I adored this series (click here for my review) and you should definitely check it out!

Resolution: Week 1

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My New Year’s Resolution was to write.  Preferably for a novel, but any creative writing will suffice.  I must have my butt in my chair behind my desk for two hours each night and write.  The time frame I set up was from 6-8pm Monday through Friday.




Week One Results:
Did I write all five days for two hours? YES
Word count for the week = 3,242 words


What I Learned This Week:

  1. Even on the days I wrote total crap and was totally braindead exhausted, I was glad afterwards that I stuck with it.
  2. I hadn’t done enough prep work for my novel in the areas of secondary characters and world-building.  I got a little stuck halfway through the week, but then decided to use my two hours to do character bios and setting sketches.  Still progress on my novel.  Still typing.  Still words.  And it’s more than I would have done had I not made this resolution.
  3. I’m going to run late sometimes.  Three of the five days I didn’t get home until after 6pm.  So instead of cutting my writing time short, I adjusted the two hour time window to 7-9pm.  I’m glad that I still kept my writing a priority, and hopefully I’ll continue to do that.
  4. The writing time is cutting into my reading time.  I thought I’d have finished Daughter of Smoke and Bone by now… and I haven’t.  Late night binge reading on the weekend might be in order.
I think that if I can make this a routine for the next three weeks, it will stick.  And while two hours sounded like an enormous chunk of time, I found that it was getting easier later in the week and the time was flying by.
I’m pretty happy I made this resolution, and I can’t wait to see how much progress I will make over the next few months.
Anyone else want to join me in writing every evening?  I swear it’s fun!

Doubts as a Writer

My New Year’s Writing Resolution is in its first week, and so far I’ve kept with it.  Each night for two hours (typically 6-8pm) I’ve been sitting my butt behind my desk and working on a new novel.

The first night went splendid.  I wrote a whopping 1,256 words of glorious stuff.  Afterwards I was merrily leaping around my living room in joy and so full of energy that I did not get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Second day, I was dragging.  I was tired from a lack of sleep the night before.  I didn’t know what I wanted to write next.  I tried to eek out some words and got 400 words of crap.  So then I decided I needed to do some research for my novel.  But research and reading about tons of stuff I don’t know much about… threw me over the edge.

Some doubts from my second day:
-My novel is going to be too weird.  No one will like it.
-This novel isn’t going to fit in a genre.  People will hate that it’s not quite ______ genre and also not any other genre.
-I’m a lazy writer for making up my own world instead of researching a real place that I’ll never be able to afford to visit.
-I don’t know anything!  There’s so much I have to research!  How can I possibly do it?!?
-If this novel isn’t going to work, then why should I invest so much time in it?
-Gosh!  Am I bipolar?  Yesterday was great.  What’s wrong with me?  Why do I feel this way?

Then this morning, one of my professors from grad school posted this link on Facebook:
25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing
Beware–There’s lots of profanity…if that bothers you.

Within that article was everything I needed to hear.
From #1 Stop Running Away to #4 Stop Worrying to #14 Stop Playing it Safe
These were all things I needed to hear, and it helped me move forward on Day Three.

Who cares if I don’t fit perfectly in a genre mold?
I have a story to tell.  I have to be confident that if I love it, others will too.
And who cares if it’s weird and different?  There’s plenty of weird stuff out there (sparkly vampires would have sounded pretty darn strange ten years ago).

So my doubts have been stuffed back in their box.  Day Three was spent doing a character sketch and drawing a floorplan of a house.

Hopefully Day Four will be another day of writing progress–and doubt free.

Setting Up a New Year’s Writing Resolution

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I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions, but this year I’m taking the opportunity to goal set and start up a writing routine.  No more excuses.  If I want to call myself a writer, then I need to write! (And regularly, not just when the mood strikes me.)

Between now and April is the most free time I will get all year.  No grad classes.  No reading lists to get ahead on.  Just me and my time.  I’ve already said that I relish this time of year because I get to read what I want to read, but this year, I’m setting a goal to start and complete a first draft of a new novel…by April 1st.  (April is when I get started on my reading list for summer, hence the April 1st deadline.)

It’s no NaNo (writing 50,000 words in a single month), but considering there’s some research that needs to be done, I think 3 months is a tough but realistic time frame.

Now here’s where I had to do some troubleshooting.  I wanted to set up a specific time of day where I could productively write.  I’ve struggled with this in the past.  I get out of school around 3pm each day.  And while afternoons would be the preferred time to write because I’m not dragging tired yet… it’s not realistic considering after school I could have meetings, parent conferences, errands, etc.  So 3-5pm is out.

And 8pm is prime TV hour.  So 8-9pm is out of the picture.  And then to be totally honest, any time after that I’m too tired to be productive.  And I need to start winding down around that time or else I suffer from insomnia.

So, I’ve decided prime writing time is going to be after fixing dinner, while drinking tea, from 6-8pm.  My goal will be 500-1000 words per day which will place me at perfect first draft range of 45,000-90,000 words over a 3 month time frame.

So if anyone would like to join me in gluing their butt to their chair from 6-8pm every night and cranking out some words.  Let me know.  We can exchange word counts or something.

Here’s to a new year filled with the click clacking of freshly typed words!