When do you write? #writetip My dog (updated cruising with dogs today) hasn’t noticed the water is cold or that it’s Friday. He doesn’t know we’re preparing to go cruising for the winter. And he doesn’t feel guilty about not writing.
I read somewhere once that “writing is like having homework for the rest of your life.” How true. To overcome this feeling, I write Monday to Friday and take the weekend off. Because I’m not trying to get words on the page every day of the week, my mind relaxes and sometimes a plot issue solves itself or the next scene pops into my head.
Everyone has different writing times. Find yours, but also find your time off.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
