Where to Begin...courtesy of Elana

Okay, I really hope Elana doesn't mind that I am totally stealing her topic here - but as I was responding to her blog post this morning, I realized my short little answer was turning into a post of my own. So, here we are.

Elana asked the question, "How do you start writing your story?"

This question made me stop and think for a second because, up until now, I have always started at the beginning. Occasionally, I would write a scene that went somewhere else, but for the most part I tried to start as close to the beginning as possible and keep things in order.

And it just didn't work for me. I'd get stuck somewhere and just stew over it forever instead of moving on to something else. I suck at beginnings, really. I will spend as much time editing the first 3 chapters as I will on the entire rest of the book, I kid you not. And I was always, ALWAYS stressing over coming up with that perfect first line. And the consequence was four books that never made it past chapter three.

I have started and abandoned those 4 books in the last year, trying to write from start to finish. My new book was different though. Now, I just don't worry about it. I start with whatever wants to come out at the moment, and then I work backwards and forwards and I start filling in the gaps. (and knowing how OC I am with schedules and being organized, the fact that this crazy method of writing is working really well for me cracks me up to no end, but hey, if it works, I'm not going to poke at it too much) :D

For this one, I actually wrote what I thought would be the first five pages first, not because they were the beginning, but because it was the scene in my head at the time. When I was done, I thought, "hmm, sounds like a good beginning"...turns out they are really right smack dab in the middle. But I wasn't sure where to go from there. So I wrote another scene that was in my head. I figured it would be in the middle somewhere. Turns out it will probably be my ending scene. So, I had some end stuff, a bunch of middle stuff, and hardly anything for the beginning.

This should have freaked me out. But it didn't. It worked for me. I took that middle stuff and worked backwards, filling out the stuff I knew needed to come before it, the stuff that I needed to build up to what happens in the middle.

I can't tell you how exciting it has been writing this book. I am always working on something, there is always something going on in my head. And when a scene pops up, I grab my notebook and write it down instead of leaving myself notes for later (which never worked - it was frustrating in the extreme to look at these notes, knowing there was a good scene there, but not being able to remember exactly what it was).

Once I have a scene down, I figure out what I need to do to get to that scene and what needs to happen afterwards to link up to the other stuff - and IT'S WORKING! It is working better than I would have ever thought possible.

I will write a bunch of scenes in order for a while, but I don't ever feel like I am stuck because if I can't figure out what goes next, there is always another scene lurking that I can work on in the meantime. So, while I still experience the inevitable highs and lows and pauses that Real Life throws at me, I have continuously worked on this book since the day I started it. And the best part...I think I might actually finish it! :D

Right now, I have most of my beginning done. I have actually got my beginning up until the middle and a few scenes that will go at the very end. I'm starting to work on the second half of the middle stuff while still stewing over that perfect opening scene (which I haven't figured out yet).

So, my advice for those struggling with that perfect opening (or at least what works for me) - don't stress over the opening so much. It will come eventually. Just write what's in your head - stew about what comes first later (or while you are working on the rest of it). I like stewage time, don't get me wrong, but it has a tendency to derail me if I let it take over. So I just don't anymore :) And I am loving every minute of it :)

Work in Progress Wednesday

I actually have progress to report this week! Yahoo! :) I was in such a slump after my grandfather's funeral a couple weeks ago. With the travel and then the recoup time when we got home, I just didn't get much writing done at all.

And then this last Saturday, a bunch of writer buddies and I got together in one of the chat rooms at RallyStorm and had a write-a-thon. Basically, we write for 15 mins and then chat for 5 (or 10) :D then write for 15 more, etc. It really helps get the creative flow going and is fun to boot. And it got my momentum back in swing!!! I have done so well this week, even wrote about 4000 words on Monday alone.

Life is good :)

Though, when the time comes to type this thing up...well, let's just say it will be interesting. Here is a snapshot of one of the pages....


It's not a great shot...you can hardly see all the arrows flying all over :D Luckily, not every page looks like this...some look worse :D

In any case, I am now 4 pages from filling this notebook (pen count 4...just started with #5) - which means I've got roughly 30,000 words and about 100 typed pages. So, I am very happy this week. And I'm going to finish those 4 pages no matter how late I have to stay up tonight!

Think my daughter's teacher will understand if I write my way through our Parent/Teacher conference today? :D

How To Tackle the Show vs. Tell Problem

Ack! My internet has been down all day. I have been in the corner twitching with withdrawals. So sorry this is so late.

One of the “rules” I hear all the time is to show not tell. The first time I heard that I thought, “What does that mean, anyways?

Well, TELLING means you are just, umm, telling the reader what is going on. SHOWING means you show them :D Seems easy, huh? Not always. It is ridiculously easy to fall into the habit of telling.

As this is something I used to do….A LOT…it is something I have become fairly good at spotting. When you are writing, you want to draw the reader in as much as possible. Action and dialogue are two elements that really help to keep the story moving, that draw the reader in, make the story exciting, and all that other fun stuff.

So, if you have a scene where your main character is angry, just telling the reader, “Eric was mad,” is okay…but probably won’t be nearly as good as, “Eric’s eyes flashed and the big vein in his forehead throbbed like it was about to burst from his skin.” Don’t tell the reader he’s mad…show him.

In my first book, Treasured Lies, my main character, Min, was irritated that she had fallen in a puddle and made a fool of herself. I had her storming up the stairs to her room with the description, “Min was freezing in her wet clothes and annoyed that she had yet again made a fool of herself.” (Or something to that affect…it’s been a while) :D

One of my fabulous critique buddies pointed out that this was “telling.” She said that I should show my readers that Min was irritated, instead of just telling them. So, the passage was changed to: “Shivers ran through her chilled body as she climbed the stairs. She huffed and kicked at the muddy skirts that tangled around her legs, irritated that she had managed to disgrace herself once again.”

I do tell you WHY she was irritated, but I also show that she is freezing, and show her annoyance with her actions (huffing and kicking skirts). Yes, it takes longer, uses more words, but the result is much more effective.

Now, are there occasions when you should tell rather than show? Definitely. Physical descriptions are pretty difficult to “show.” If someone has blue eyes, it is perfectly acceptable to just say they have blue eyes. And instances like in the above sentence, when you need to explain why someone is acting as they are.

Show the emotion, tell the reason. Show me that your main character is sad by describing her face, her tears, her sobs. Don’t tell me she’s crying…show me: “Laura sat on her bed, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her tears fell unheeded down her face as her shoulders shook.” (as this is just an example, I won’t stress over the fact that I used the word ‘her’ six times in two sentences – but you get the point of the showing over telling). :D

Then you can tell me why she is crying. “Laura sat on her bed, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her tears fell unheeded down her face as her shoulders shook. She just couldn’t believe her mother had forgotten her birthday again.”

As you can see, the sentences “Eric was mad,” “Min was freezing and annoyed,” “Laura cried,” tell us what is going on, but there is no action, they aren’t exciting, they don’t connect you to what is going on.

The new sentences:

“Eric’s eyes flashed and the big vein in his forehead throbbed like it was about to burst from his skin.”

“Shivers ran through her chilled body as she climbed the stairs. She huffed and kicked at the muddy skirts that tangled around her legs, irritated that she had managed to disgrace herself once again.”

and

“Laura sat on her bed, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her tears fell unheeded down her face as her shoulders shook.”

These make me care, they are exciting to read, there is something going on. I don’t care if someone cries…I do care if they are curled around themselves with uncontrollably shaking shoulders.

Dialogue is another great way to change a telling passage into a showing extravaganza.

For example:

(telling) David and Tony argued back and forth about who was right. = blah

(showing) “You did too!” David shouted, his face growing redder by the minute.
“Oh whatever. I did not and I have witnesses,” Tony said, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, well I have witnesses too.”
“Liar.”
“You’re the liar! Just admit you’re wrong and get it over with.”
“No way.”
“Yes way!”

= oooo, action, dialogue, something’s going on!! :D

So, bottom line – if it is possible to show something rather than tell it, do so :) But don’t stress over the occasions when telling is necessary, because they will come up. For the most part though, try adding some action or dialogue to really help show the reader what is going on instead of just telling them.

How to Have Fun with the Crickets in Your Inbox

Querying is a tough process. The hardest part, by far, is the inevitable rejection. However, the WAITING is a close second. How many obsessive email checkers are out there? Come on, raise your hands...you know who you are *she says as her own hand waves proudly* My writers buddies call that sad emptiness inside their inboxes Crickets...cause that's all you hear when you open the box ;-)

Now, I've been querying for a long time. Not intentionally. But, every time I decide to shelve my book, another request will come in, and then some nice rejections with a few revision suggestions will squeak by...so I revise, send out a few more queries, get a few requests, get a few rejections, decide to shelve again, get some more suggestions.....well, you can see how this goes.

I've been doing it long enough that I've gotten pretty good at just ignoring the fact that I even have queries or submissions out. The crickets can still get pretty irritating though. So I came up with a few ways to distract myself from them.

1. Spam Your Friends

Now this one is fun :D Especially if they are waiting on agent responses too. Cause you know every time they get a message saying they have email, their heart jumps a little (wicked, ain't I?) ;-)

I dig up funny stories, pictures, etc to put a smile on their faces, so it's not a total evil past time :D I mean, it's fun to get mail, even if it's not from an agent.

Oh, and this ONLY works on very good friends. Never, NEVER spam an agent. They will not appreciate your message full of funnies. They have enough mail to read. If you send them more, it will just take that much longer to get to whatever query or submission you are waiting on, and that wouldn't be good.

2. LOLcats

Ah, what a wonderful distraction. I am pretty heavily addicted to LOLcats (as you could probably tell seeing as how I post one with almost all of my posts!). The dogs, celebrities, political jokes, graphs, and FAILs are pretty hilarious as well. Not only can you spend hours reading (and emailing) these, you can also make your own. Tons of fun!

3. Research a New Project

Okay, this might only be fun for me. And maybe a few select others. So...moving on...

4. Blogs

Read them, write them, search them, comment on them, follow them....you get the picture ;-)

And, while there are many, many, MANY other things you could do to distract yourself from the pesky crickets, the single best way is...

5. WRITE

Pull out a new project and write. Focus on something besides the book you are querying. Work on that sequel because you know the first one is going to sell and sell big! Lose yourself in the world of a new character. There is nothing like get swept away in a new story. Get excited about it, swim in it, devote all your available brain space and some that is not so available to it. Pretty soon you'll find that you don't even hear the crickets anymore :)

Blog Chain: Must Love Books

Okay, Kate started this round and has picked a topic I could seriously go on for DAAAAAAYS about. Unfortunately, I'm on a time crunch as I'm getting ready to head out of town. So please forgive me, because I am not going to do this topic the justice it deserves.

Kate posted:

This time...I'd like to focus on the flip side of the writing coin - reading. Specifically, what books have influenced you? This can be books that influenced you as a writer, or simply books that touched you as a human being. If you want to talk about one book, a top three, ten, or even twenty go right ahead.

Oh. My. Goodness. I can't think where to begin and I'm telling you now, there is no end to this for me (don't worry, I'll cut it off at some point) ;-)

I could read almost before I could talk. At the age of two, I was sitting on my mother's lap while she read me Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She skipped a line. And I corrected her. Word for word, I told her what she should have said.

Fairy tales were my first love. Still are. I adore them. I buy the big expensive fairy tale books with the gorgeous pictures and pretend I'm getting them for my daughter :D

I also remember the Amelia Bedelia and Miss Pigglesworth books. Hilarious. I highly recommend.

My mother had most of Victoria Holt's books. Le sigh. Gothic romantic suspense at it's finest. I have every book she wrote under her own name, and I'm working on the books she wrote under Phillipa Carr and Jean Plaidy. Jean Plaidy was the pen name she used for her historical fictions. And I was hooked again. I LOVE historical fiction. One of my current favorite authors is Philippa Gregory. Jean Auel was another one whose books I just devoured. And Celeste de Blasis' Wild Swan series. Just wonderful.

I don't know if Diana Gabaldon is considered historical fiction, general fiction, time travel fiction...but whatever genre she falls under - she is beyond awesome. I read her books and weep into my Cheerios that I will never, ever be able to write like she does. She is made of sheer awesome.

Anne McCaffery's Dragons of Pern books were my first introduction to the fantasy world. I didn't think I'd like them at all. Up until then, I had only read historicals and romances. But I think I had gone through my mother's entire library and needed new material and she had one of these stuck away somewhere. I quickly read the whole series.

And then I found Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon. Holy wow! The King Arthur story from the women's point of view. And they were powerful, mystical, magical women! I quickly went through every book of hers I could find as well.

Anne Rice's vampire series had me hooked. I'm not into ghosts much, just because my overactive imagination has too easy of a time freaking me out with those shady little creatures (although there are exceptions to that rule)...but vampires? Oh yeah. I love 'em! Once I found Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books and Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books, life was good.

There have been many, many, MANY other books over the years. But those are the ones that really stand out for me. Lately I have been very much into YA, and have poured through Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series, the Cast's House of Night series, and Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series as fast as I can get my hands on them. The Twilight series, of course, I have read multiple times, and, though I fought it for so long (not sure why), I finally broke down and read Harry Potter last year. And read the entire series again a few months ago.

I also read biographies...but usually historical stuff - people like Marie Antoinette, Cleopatra, Lucretia Borgia, Queen Emma (early English queen), Henry VIII and all his various wives and sisters, Queen Elizabeth, Catherine the Great (hmm, do you see a pattern here? :D ) Philippa Gregory and Antonia Fraser are two of my favorite biographers.

I think I am a little influenced by all of these writers. I want to build world's that my readers get so sucked into they can't escape. I want them to fall in love with my characters. I want them to think and dream about the stories I create long after they've read them. And I want them to love my books so much they have to have them on their shelves so they can reread them over and over. Each and every one of these books had that effect on me. And so many more that I can't even begin to name them all.

I am excited to see what kinds of books my fellow writers love. Carolyn is up after me, so be sure to head her way!

Reading List 2009 Update

Finally got another book read!! I tell ya, all this writing is crimping into my reading time ;-)

#18 - Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr - very much enjoyed it :) And I'm looking forward to Fragile Eternity coming out in a few days!!!

WIP Wednesday

Well, I've slowed down a little in the last couple of days. My grandfather passed away early Monday morning, so I've been busy helping get his funeral together. However, since last Wednesday, I've still made some great progress - thanks mostly to Elana's Writer's Throwdown challenge.

So, for this week, I've gone through another 2 pens, not sure how many pages, but have written approximately 8,860 words this week. And I passed the 20,000 word mark!!! I am so excited about that!

And I should get a lot done this weekend as I have an almost 8 hour round trip car trek to make. I'll let the hubby drive so I can write :D

How is everyone else doing?