#sailing Farley loves to play on the beach. What Wheaten Terrier wouldn’t? He’s spent hours back on the boat sneezing. A little bit of sand up his nose must be really irritating.
He uses the tramp to roll around and get clean.
We love this because it keeps sand out of our main salon. By the time he’s done rolling, he’s fairly sand free.
#writetip. Who wants to read about ordinary life? We all live one. It’s ours to live, but that doesn’t mean reading about it is anything but boring.
I’m trying to edit out the ordinary life stuff. You know, the lines where the character walks across the room, opens the door, and discovers who is there.
I think the readers get the “skip to the next scene scenario.” We see it all the time on television shows and in movies. Why not just have your character react to whomever is on the other side. We know if their reacting, they’ve walked across the room and opened the door.
Once I started looking for ordinary life, I was surprised to find how many times I used it. It’s an easy place to cut words if you need to.
#writetip Every season I have the dream that I’ll have endless hours to write. We live on a sailboat. What could we possibly have to do to keep us busy?
When the wind changes direction, and we have to move the boat, it’s not like I have an option. I can’t say, “This is my time to write, close a door and settle in.” Sometimes I’m even mid-sentence when an issue comes up and I have to move quickly. So much for completing a thought before leaving my Mac.
What I’ve learned is to write in short bursts. I still get my writing time in, just not in long sessions. I’ve also learned that if it’s impossible to write, I read about writing and how I can improve. Short time frames are useful if you read one good writing tip and think about how you can use it on your novel.
Meanwhile, I’m living on a Lagoon 380 S2 in the Bahamas, so who will feel sorry for me?
For each scene, establish a point of view character and stick to it. If you find yourself throwing in other characters thoughts or feelings, see if you can get rid of them without hurting the scene. This narrows the POV to one character.
Once you’re that far, check the scene for anything the character can’t know, but you’ve described. There’s a good chance this is telling. It might be something that can be removed or put in as part of what the character is doing. This way you’re revealing the character’s experience and not what you as an author want the reader to know.
I’m not saying write your whole novel this way. I’m not even saying this works. What it does is give me a process to check if I’m telling and not showing. Then I can decide whether or not to make changes.
If you have other ways to check if for telling versus showing, I’d love to hear them.
#writetip #sailing Continuing with my theme of writing and cruising, here are some tips on writing in a small space.
I don’t actually consider my Lagoon 380 S2 a small space. She is 38 feet long and with her two hulls, there is a lot of room. It’s just close together.
There are three sleeping cabins, a main salon and a cockpit. There is a built in desk in the starboard hull. But, and here’s the big but, It’s hard to be invisible and write. I can hear all that’s going on in the boat and around the area.
So I hear my friends launch their kayaks, heading out to explore and how to I resist? I allow myself one (okay maybe two) activities during work days (Mon – Fri). Saturday and Sunday are my weekends. I might write, but I don’t feel I have to.
That modern invention, the iPod, is a great way to tune out noise. If you can write to music, and don’t have a quite place, it might work for you.
Hungry? Is Farley thinking the crab hiding under the sand is his next meal?
So far, the crabs are too quick for him. It’s amazing how fast a crab can run when motivated.
Farley – 0. Crabs – 50. Not a good streak.
Lucky for Farley we’ve provisioned enough dog food for the season.
#sailing As we sail through the Northern Exumas, we play the game of finding a WIFI connection or a cell tower.
We have a Bad Boy to connect to WIFI and a Kindle to connect to a cell tower. Other boats use other technology.
Connections are slow and that means no photos, no facebook or twitter, for a while, but these beautiful islands are worth it.
#writetip Should you drip out information on complicated relationships or get the info out early?
Here’s the advice I got from an acquiring editor: If the relationships are key to the motivation of the crime, then it’s better to define them early. You can do this and still keep the reader intrigued.
Now to go do this…
I’m writing from Norman’s Cay in the Bahamas and the nearest cell tower is 7 miles away. I’m amazed I have a connection today.
I have to keep the posts short, and it may be slow, but at least it’s working.
#writetip In a mystery novel, can your character be too evil? An acquiring editor told me yes!
If you want the reader to take your evil characters seriously as the character who committed the crime, you must round them out. Give them a few positive characteristics. Maybe they foster cats, are nice to their spouse but no on else, but don’t make them just bad, bad, bad.
Here’s to putting some niceness in your characters.
I’ve talked about this before, but I keep learning new things. #writetip It’s a surprise how important spreadsheets are during the process of writing.
The latest addition to my team of spreadsheets is for characters. I already had one spreadsheet per novel where the character details are kept.
Now, I find I need a new one. The latest spreadsheet keeps track of character details per novel, but in one place. I have several characters who made it into all three novels.
After that length of time, characters gain/lose weight, change their hair, get a new job etc.
As I am editing the last two novels at the same time, I need an aid to tell me what hair cut they have. The spreadsheet five me a quick place to reference this.
