Mystery Novels

Character Balloons

~ Kristina Stanley ~ Leave a comment
purple latex balloon 24" in diameter with...
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How to organize your cast of characters quickly. #writetip I don’t draw, but this is an easy cartoon anyone can create. If you’re like me, you’ve kept a list of characters, however small the role, somewhere on your computer. Mine are in a spreadsheet.

I start with the protagonist,  putting her/his name in the center of a blank page and drawing a balloon around her/him.

Now the fun begins.

Add the antagonist. Don’t worry if you have more than one. Pick the character who has the largest interaction with your protagonist.

Draw a line between the protagonist and the antagonist. Then write their relationship on the line. Father/daughter. Boss/Employee. You can put any other relevant information in a balloon. Words like killer, victim etc.

Continue until you have all your characters on the page. Draw a line between balloons that hold characters who have some type of relationship. This can get messy. I use dotted lines if I have to cross through one balloon to get to the next.

Add then end, you’ll have a spiderweb of  balloons.

Now you can analyze it and “see” if all the connections make sense.

The drawing will show me if there are two characters I could fold into one or if I’ve confused any relationships. Best of all, it often gives me scene ideas. Here is where I can “see” if there are questions I need to answer or  story lines I’ve left unfinished. This is why I leave this exercise until I’m close to a first draft.

Have fun with this one. It’s an entertaining way to look at your novel.

Dialogue

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

How to write good dialogue is a popular topic for blogs this week. #writetip There is great advice out there.

Jody Hedlund describes Seven Ways to Develop Dazzling Dialogue.

Girls with Pens writes about 5 Basics About Dialogue You Need to Know.

But how do you know it’s good? You need to hear it. Grab a digital recorder and read the dialogue to yourself. This works for me. If I stumble over words I’m reading, I know it’s not right.

You get two shots at it. Once when reading, and once when playing the dialogue back to yourself on the recorder.

Repeat until you’re happy with how it sounds.

Literary Mentors

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

How do you get one? #writetip The Crime Writers of Canada(CWC) offers a mentorship program each fall. To apply all you have to do is send in an application, your bio, a synopsis and ten pages of your novel.

I’ve just been notified that my mentor is David Cole, author of the Laura Winslow Mysteries.

I’m using my third novel, (working title Burnt) for this program. David and I will work together on improving the first 50 pages.

My first experience with a mentorship program was the Humber School for Writers when I had Joan Barfoot as my mentor. I believe this helped me get my manuscript into shape and accepted by my agent, Margaret Hart.

The mentors from CWC offer up their time and knowledge for free, proving the  generosity in the writing community is unbounded. Thanks to David and the other mentors for helping those of us at earlier stages in our careers.

I’ll blog about what I learn and how this program works out for me.

– A very excited mentee signing off for a day of writing.

Proofreading A Novel

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

Being asked to proofread someone else’s novel is a scary and flattering task. #writetip I’ve been asked to do this, and I started thinking about what this means.

I asked the author and myself the following questions:

What is the author looking for? Does he want comments on punctuation and grammar, characters, or plot line.

Does he use a style guide that I should consult?

What are my own talents? Being honest here is important. Can you pick up typos? Or does your eye easily breeze over them?

Do I have the time? It’s a big commitment to review a manuscript. It deserves my full attention. The author has spent many hours creating the manuscript, and it’s better to say no to reading than to rush through it.

With that said, I’d better get focussed and start reading.

New Characters

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

Characters can create themselves. #writetip It’s a great experience when an unplanned character appears in a scene. Don’t stop to think about it. You can go back later and create a bio for the character. Depending on the character, a Bio can be as short as one line (the character’s name) or it can take up a whole spreadsheet.

I’ve used a few characters across three novels and need to keep track of them. Some of the things I record are:

– appearance

– habits

– personality traits

– relationships

– likes

– dislikes

– secrets

– something unique about them

– important information about the past (before the novel’s starting point that the reader may or may not know about)

You can keep whatever you might need to look up later. To keep the bio up-to-date, when I reread or edit my novel, I add details as I go.

New Points Of View

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

When a character appears out of nowhere and wants the POV, let the writing flow. #writetip Sometimes a scene needs to be written. You many not want the extra POV in your novel and can decide later whether you use it or not.

Yesterday I wrote a scene with an existing character, but one that I have not given a point of view scene before. I didn’t end up using the scene in my novel, but I did write a follow-up scene with a different character as the POV, and it was much better (in my opinion) because I knew exactly what had happened behind closed doors.

Character A and B argued. Character B revealed a key piece of information to character A. I wrote this from Character A’s POV. Then I removed the scene.

Next Scene. An RCMP officer interviews character A right after the heated argument. I found it easier to describe Character A, his mannerisms, his answers, etc. because the fight was fresh in my mind. Character A had a hard time talking with the RCMP when he hadn’t processed the information.

Writing and Cruising

~ Kristina Stanley ~ Leave a comment

#writing Demands on our time that take us away from writing can be managed. Over the next couple of months I’ll carefully split my time between writing and preparing for our trip south.

Cruising requires long checklists, and I try to tick off one or two items per day and then move on to writing. Part of my checklist includes getting our boat, Mattina, ready for our dog, Farley (Cruising with Dogs updated with medical info).

On the topic of writing, this morning a friend of mine reminded me of Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. It’s a good follow-up to yesterday’s blog about back to school studying and is an entertaining commentary on the value of punctuation. It’s been a while since I read it, but definitely worth it.

Back to School

~ Kristina Stanley ~ Leave a comment

The writing profession is like any other when it comes to keeping your skills honed. #writetip

For me, fall is an exciting time of year. The change of seasons, the freshness in the air clear my mind. Fall in Canada means new clothes, colour in the trees, candlelit evenings, and late dawns.

This is the time of year I study. Maybe it’s because for many years fall meant a new term at school or maybe it’s because it’s dark in the evenings, but every year, I read one grammar book. I choose a recently book published with exercises in it. The exercises make the reminders stick and ensure the material is understood. The exercises seem like crosswords puzzles and keep me entertained.

Even If I only learn one new grammar rule or new trend with punctuation, it’s worth the time. More time spent studying rules means less time spent looking them up when writing.

Listening to Your Novel

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

What do you hear when your novel is read out loud? #writetip

I’ve tried reading my novel out loud and taping myself.  Although this helps find errors and hear the tone of the story, it is very time-consuming.

I use my Kindle. The text-to-speech sounds like a robot, but that’s okay. While I listen, I concentrate on the words on the page and it takes me half the time it took with the tape recorder method. I use the slowest reading speed available.

The comment feature enables me to put corrections into the kindle, like leaving comments in a pages or word document. When I’ve finished hearing the novel I go back to my computer and enter the changes. This gives me a chance to review the changes before updating the novel.

If you’re used to typing on your phone, then you’ll have no problem with your kindle keyboard.

Hearing a novel helps find typos, repeated use of words, awkward dialogue.

I’m sure there are other products for this, I just happen to have a Kindle and use this feature. If you know of others, I’d love to hear about them.

Points Of View

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 5 Comments

Do you have too many? #writetip This is where a spreadsheet comes in handy. If you write in first person with one point of view, then you don’t have a problem. Same goes for third person and one point of view. I like to write from several points of view.

Use the sort function in a spreadsheet to sort by POV. This will give you a quick overview of how many POVs you have and how many times a character gets a POV.

If I find that a character only got one POV then I take a hard took at that scene. Does it need to be in that character’s POV?  Could it be rewritten from another character’s POV?

If the POV is needed, I study the character. I must have been interested enough to write a POV scene, so maybe that character should have a bigger part.

Only you can decide if you have too many, but you can’t do this if you don’t know how many you have.

See my blog about Keeping Track of Scenes for more ideas on how to use a spreadsheet.