Plotting

I'm sure I don't speak for everyone on this... but I find weird places to plot.

Plotting is important.  Sure, there's something to be said about being able to write by the seat of your pants.  And I do that as well.  I alternate between doing that, and severely plotting everything out beforehand.

I have a couple different levels of plotting.  One is "let me outline the basic plot points for the entire story."  This changes as I write and things get shifted around more often than not.  Things get cut, things get added.  I move things around to orders that make more sense now that I'm into the story.  Because, honestly, what makes sense when I'm thinking general timeline-wise, doesn't always make sense once I'm in the story.  And, it makes a better story to just change my outline to fit what I've got, then try to keep my story to the outline.

Then I have the level of plotting that is basically just scene-plotting.  Sometimes, I can sit down and start a scene with simply just the ideas as they pop into my head.  I love it when that happens.  It's certainly less stressful.  Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen, or I have a scene that needs a little bit more forethought.

This brings me back to my first sentence about me finding weird places to plot.  You want to know a great place to plot? The shower.  You're standing in there anyway.  And, face it, shampooing your hair probably doesn't require that much concentration, just enough to keep you from getting soap in your eyes.  So, while you're doing your shower routine, plot out your next scene! You can probably even talk and make funny faces and act out expressions and, at the very least, no one can see you to make fun of you.  (They might be able to hear you though, can't fix that.)  Once you're done with that, of course, it's best to write down what you've thought of, lest you forget it two hours later.

I am also known for sitting in front of my computer and filing my nails until I have a scene figured out.  Or at least a little bit of dialogue.  I like it when I do this, because then I'm less likely to bite my nails.  Heheh.

I also plot on the bus, right before bed (not that that's very effective, 'cause I usually forget), during boring classes (shh, don't tell my teachers), and... yeah.  Plotting.

Plotting can be fun.

Querying

Queries.

Are stressful things.

Not even just querying agents... which in and of itself is super nerve-wracking because you have to A) talk to people, B) talk about your baby, C) try and make your baby sound good, D) try and make yourself look good without coming across as a pompous asshole.

Despite all that, I'm actually talking about the process of writing a query.

Which, to my understanding is a ONE PAGE description of you and your book, nothing longer.  You start out with a grasping sentence about your book, then proceed to explain a little more in detail (think the backs of paperback books or the inside flap of hardcovers, except more detail than that if you have the space).  You're not trying to grab any old reader's attention here, you're trying to grab THE reader's attention here.  The AGENT's attention here.  Then, after that, you get a little blurb to make yourself sound good and professional and like you know what you're doing and what you're talking about.

If you're lucky, you're allowed an additional 1-2 page synopsis on top of the initial query letter.  This 1-2 pages must cover your ENTIRE book.  Imagine, taking a 300 page book and summarizing the whole thing in 2 pages? It's a right pain!

Sometimes though, you're not lucky.  Online query forms usually allow you a paragraph or two summary of your book and that's it.  Less than the query letter (from what I've seen.)

Writing my query letter and synopsis took me two weeks.

Thankfully, now that I'm done, I can send that out to a few people and see if I get responses.  Not at a point to write a new query letter just yet.  There's not many ways to change it, anyway.  Not without changing the whole book.

Did that once.

Publishing Update

I meant to do this last night while I was thinking about it.  But then I got tired and went to sleep.

I just wanted to make a formal statement about THREE RIVERS and its publishing status.

I'm not officially published.  Not even self-published.  Everything is all set up in CreateSpace for me to start selling on various channels, but I'm not doing that right now.  I used CreateSpace to get my five free copies of the book, as a result of winning NaNoWriMo, and that was it.  The five free copies are for me and my family and friends--end of story.

Sure, I could start self-publishing now.  But, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do once I finished THREE RIVERS and its editing stages and I decided I wanted to query different agents and see if I can take a more "traditional" route of publishing before I went the way of self-publishing.  But right now, my book is not out there.  I'm only querying.

Setting

In direct contrast to the post below, I have trouble with writing setting.

From the moment I first started writing, I've been told that "the characters are great, but what does everything look like?"

My response is usually somewhere between "I know what everything looks like, but I don't want to spend chapter upon chapter explaining what a building looks like" and "I don't actually know, it's just a clearing in some trees..."

Generally, I have a general idea of what's all going on.  "There's a courtyard here, and it's next to some gardens."  "There's a clearing here in the middle of woods."  "There's a treehouse in that tree."  Sometimes, I'm completely crazy specific and I draw out pictures of where everyone is sitting.  I've played entire chess games with myself to make sure specific moves are possible.

The problem comes somewhere in between me knowing what's going on and what actually shows up on the page.  Sometimes, I get worried that I'm explaining too much.  Or I get bored in my descriptions, and if I'm bored, my readers are bored.  I've read books where the entire first chapter is world-building and I have to force myself to get to chapter two where the story is.

Is setting important? Absolutely, my characters aren't interacting in a vacuum.  I usually try to say that someone's walking down a hall, or they're all sitting at a table, but I don't go in depth on just about anything.  It's something that I'm working on.  Being more descriptive in my setting.  I don't do everything well.

Characters

I have been told that I write characters very well.  (At the cost of other things, no doubt.)

Hmm, that is incredibly depressing, I cannot find the original post for this.  Someone asked me a question about writing good characters and I feel that I answered it really well on my tumblr, but now I cannot find the post.  That is incredibly depressing.  Alas, oh well.  I'll try and recreate it as best as I can.

Heh, if I hadn't told you any of that, you wouldn't have even known.  Regardless.  Moving on.

Anyway, one of the reasons I feel that I write characters so well, is that I pay attention to real people (including myself.)  And then I put what I've learned into my characters.  And I bet I'm not the only author who will tell you that.

I watch people, everyone from my sister, to my best friend, to my ex boyfriend, to my roommate, my coworker, my boss, that person I just can't stand, etc, etc, etc.  It helps me see how real people react to things.  I can then translate that onto the page when I'm writing characters.

By using just myself as an example, I know how to write everything from sprains and migraines, to heartache and anger at someone close to you.  I put myself into every major character I write (and some minor ones as well.)  It puts life into them and they are believable.

Believable characters can drive a story.  I've heard that even a story with a compelling plot and well-described setting will fall flat if the characters are not believable.  Similarly, a setting can be less-thought-out and the plot can be a retelling of an old trope, but the story will do better if it has realistic and compelling characters.

So, long story short: watch and listen to your surroundings.  You will learn something.

Reasons for Actions

So, writing tip! This came up a lot in my rounds of edits.  

I think we've all pretty much got a good idea of what our characters do.  But a more important question is: WHY do they do it? 

What are the reasons for their actions? You don't necessarily have to explicitly state what the reasons are, but you, as the writer, should know.  Sometimes, though, you need to say in the story why someone is doing something.

Why does one character constantly glare at another? 

The answer is usually obvious, "Oh, he doesn't like him."  Human beings are very good at inferring that "glaring" is a sign of dislike.  

Why does a character constantly avoid the cafeteria? 

The answer is less obvious, but it might be because she dislikes crowds.  

Even that second example has a fairly simple explanation.  But it might need a little bit more explanation.  It's not possible to infer that she dislikes crowds.  An audience could take a guess, but not be sure.  

However, there are times when you don't want to explicitly give the explanation in the text.  Take, for example, when you've got a villain you're writing.  You probably don't want to give him or her a monologue describing exactly why (s)he is doing what (s)he is doing.  (Unless your villain has that particular character trait).  

But why did your villain steal the purse? Is it because they're not actually a villain at all, but they really just need money to pay rent and (s)he's stealing a purse in the hopes that there will be some cash in it.  Or, maybe that purse has valuable information in it that the good guys need and the villain is finally foiling their plans at last.  

As the writer, you need to know motivations for your characters.  It makes your characters more believable and can prevent you from writing yourself into a corner because you don't really know what a certain character is up to.

I'm not above this issue.  I spent the first half of my reread of my draft back in January wondering why the heck two characters were behaving the way they were.  It was unclear all around.  

For one of the characters, that lack of clarity seriously prevented my audience from understanding the character I knew him to be.  He seemed to flip-flop and be inconsistent.  It wasn't what I wanted to be portrayed.  I knew his motivations for the most part, but I was unclear on the finer details.  And I needed to know those finer details so I could write him properly.  

For that second character, the lack of clarity was okay as far as my audience was concerned.  He's the villain, so they don't need to know why he's doing what he's doing.  They expect to find out by the end of his story arc.  And while that story arc will span more than one book, it's still fine that his intentions are mucked at the end of the book.  What is a problem, however, is that I have a general idea of why he's doing what he's doing--but I'm missing a crucial detail, which is going to be a problem later.  And I need to come up with that crucial detail NOW, so that I can have his plans come to the correct fruition later.  

So, moral of the story is, sometimes, sitting down and plotting out not just WHAT a particular character is doing, but WHY they are doing it.  It helps with character building, it helps with plot, it simply just helps.