Vicki Delany on Creating the Character of the Antagonist will be first up on the agenda at Saturday’s Scene of the Crime Festival. In the afternoon it’s a discussion panel on Writing the Villain. Then Tactical Survival. I think I’ll walk away at the end of the day feeling a little more evil than when I walked in.

There is a crazy amount of information in one novel. #writetip I sometimes get asked how I keep track of it all.

The spreadsheet is my friend. I use one row for each scene and the following column headings: Act, chapter, scene, name of scene, POV, location of scene, characters in scene, characters introduced, objects, brief description of what happens, revelation, tension, weather, and TOD.

Some of these need a little explanation.

Name of scene: This helps focus thoughts and pinpoint what the scene is about. Taking a scene and summarizing it into one or two words tells me whether the scene has focus.

Characters Introduced: If you find yourself moving your scenes around, you might move a scene with a character to a point in your novel where they haven’t been introduced yet. You can quickly go to the scene where they were first written about and move the intro material for that character.

Revelation: Some important information gets revealed to the reader and one or more characters. This enables you to quickly remember when a character knows something crucial.

Weather: Here is where I catch if I’ve changed the weather by mistake. This can  happen if a new scene is added long after the original scenes were written.

I build the spreadsheet as I write the novel, but wait until a scene is complete before updating the spreadsheet. This way creativity is not interrupted for the housekeeping part of writing.

If you have any tips on how you keep track of your story, I’d love to hear about it.

Character naming can be difficult. #writetip There are many sources to find names suitable for age groups and geographical locations. I’ve used marathon results (or any sports event) listed in the newspaper and my nephews commencement brochure. Places that carry a large number of names in one place give you the opportunity to choose a name quickly. You can always change it later if you don’t like it. Halfway through a novel a name might not feel right for a character. Once I changed a name without realizing it until it was pointed out by an editor. I used the ‘find and replace’ feature to change all previous occurrences of the name. Clearly, my mind had decided a new name was needed.

I keep a spreadsheet that I can sort by characters first names and last names. This way, I can make sure I don’t have character names that are too similar to each other. I’m never happy when I read a novel and get confused on what character is being written about because the names sound or look the same.

After having two novels reviewed by friends, I’ve discovered it’s better not to give the manuscript out too early. It makes the reviewers work too hard. Once I found my friends that excel at proofreading, I didn’t want to waste their time be making them read an early copy. I think even my first readers deserve the best I can write. Sounds obvious, but I wanted to share it anyway.

Convincing friends to critique my writing was harder than I expected. Lots were willing to help, but  none wanted to hurt my feelings. First I had to explain how it helped me write better, then demonstrate I was able to accept the comments without getting upset, and then I showed my early readers the results of their work. Joan Barfoot was the first to critique my writing when I attended the HSW Correspondence program. I’ve kept all her notes and sometimes use them as examples to show my friends what I’m looking for. One of the greatest surprises about writing was how much time and effort my friends were willing to spend on my novel. I have friends who critiqued Fracture Line and The Final Gate and are now offering to do the same for Burnt (my third novel). Amazing.