3 Steps to Getting Unstuck in Your Novel (FIND THE GOLD)

Greetings! I'm writing to you from the middle of the vast swamp that is NaNoWriMo. I am, at the time of this writing, about 4,000 words "behind" because reasons. But I am still 22,000 gloriously bad words into the first draft of a book that is close to my heart, and it is time, not inspiration, that is keeping me from writing.

And so I am here to share with you the three-part system that is keeping me writing currently. It is just my little thing, not something important or big that will work for anyone. If you're stuck, maybe it will help you be inspired, too.

1. Write Until You Get Stuck (The Writing by the seat of your pants part)
   This is the easy part. The fun part. The part that us baby writers think is supposed to last forever. The first step to writing is, surprisingly, just to write. Presumably something about this story has you excited enough to want to start putting words onto paper, otherwise, why bother? Ride that wave. Write until the words run out. Write past your bedtime and through meals. When you're supposed to be working, scribble jokes and plot twists and dialog onto post-it notes. If someone gives you a weird look mid-conversation because your eyes lose their focus, you're probably doing it right. You're writing right. Good job.
   
2. THEN SUDDENLY BAM YOU'RE STUCK
   Okay, so you wrote and wrote and wrote until you hit the wall. Good for you. That's normal That's what this article is about. Do me a favor right now:
   
   DON'T PANIC
   
   This is the time to stop and think about your story. This is the time to think about what happens next. Ask your characters to tell you the end of the story. Read a couple of plotting articles. Jot down twenty steps that will lead to the end of the story. Nothing fancy, nothing methodical, just all the steps that lead to the Big Finish. You can change them chapter by chapter. Just give yourself a general map. It's okay if this takes four hours or four days, because it's going to be your lifeline. For me, each chapter ends up being about a paragraph or two of thinking out loud, rather than a list of Roman Numeraled bullet points.
   
3. Find The Gold
   
   This is the magic step that is making everything work for me. Look at your outline, look at the next two chapters that you are going to write. Just those two Now dive into them in your imagination. Look around.
   
   What excites you? What do you love about the scenes? Make a list. List at least ten things you want your readers to SEE and FEEL and TASTE and GET EXCITED ABOUT.

Now, for your reading pleasure, I am going to show you what mine looks like in action. It's very rough and ugly, but writing this down for the first chapter propelled me easily through a 4,000 word chapter and then ready to write the next one.

Someday when I am very famous and Lux is a household name, this stuff is going to be worth gold. I'll sign it for you because I love you.

The Seventh Judge 2014 NaNoWriMo

Chapter One 

Summer and Lux are walking into the Bronx Zoo. They are joined by Lux’s “man” El. They are getting ready to do a sparring show which is how Lux is making his money these days. El uses laser pointers and a fog machine to make an impressive light show which has the audience spell bound. Summer has seen it all and falls asleep. She’s awakened by El pulling her to her feet, trying to get her to run away because her father’s being taken. She runs from him and manages to get to the edge of the crowd, where she sees her father being cuffed by a quiet blond boy who’s explaining in pedantic language to the crowd that her father is being redeemed, not arrested. She wants to run up and pound him, but El pulls her away, throws her over his shoulder, and skillfully knocks her out.

Awesome things to describe: (Here's the gold, people)

the light show

Lux’s eyes

El’s grace

Summer’s drawing

Andrew’s mannerisms

The masculine beauty of Lux’s grace under fire

A look between him and Summer as he’s taken away.

Summer’s soundless grief

El’s skill in knocking her out

Cheesy, right? But each of the things I listed are things I want the reader to feel and love as much as I do, and they propelled me through this chapter. When I was done, I even had a guide for things to work on harder when I edit it.

Can I be honest for a second? Just reading that list again - and I've read it at least a dozen times - makes my breath a little harder. My heart beats a little strong because I'm in love with my story, and this helps me focus on what it is I love about it.

Not everybody needs this kind of thing. Other people will have their own ways of doing it. But this is what worked for me, and I hope it will help someone else find their way, too.

Unicorn Farts

The main reasons I read and write (and play tabletop/computer games, for that matter) are escapism, straight up. That’s probably one of the reasons I start with setting in my development process.

I start with this explanation to show that I totally understand wanting to make something near and dear to your heart a special experience or relating to it as such. That being said:

This is straight up horseshit.

Ideas do not come to any writers from some mystical plane filled with elves and spaceships (or rape and dick chopping, depending on what you're doing).  Sure, sometimes writers get inspired, everything comes together and the words come like conversation with an old friend.  There's nothing magical about that beyond being in the right state of mind.  You can have good days where you're really on the ball for a lot of things, but nobody is going to romanticize the source of your incredibly well-crafted and presented spreadsheet.

Ideas are spurred by something, even if we can't nail down what that something is immediately.  Apply a little introspection, trace back your thoughts and there's an excellent reason you had the idea you did.  We don't need to talk about it like we're traipsing about a world of dreams.  That kind of does a disservice to the hard work writers put in to what they put together.  It also discourages introspection that may allow a writer to dig down and understand themselves and use that understanding to improve their craft.

On the same vein, language like "I'm just listening to my characters talk to me" is, while a nice internal paradigm, unnecessarily mystifying the process when we talk to people.  I suppose my concern is primarily with those who wish to become writers or who are relatively new to the craft.  I can see where it would be disillusioning to conceptualize writing as a fairy tale adventure when really it's mostly just hard work.  When I'm creating a character, I'm imagining a person and, essentially, role playing them to myself.  I do not have a telepathic connection to some other person somewhere, as much as I would like to.  I make very conscious choices about how a character works, and saying "it just comes to me" isn't going to help somebody else who wants to write.

Basically I'm just angry that this wasn't a documentary.

As a closing note, though, I don't want to discourage these paradigms for internal consumption or among groups of writers that are well past the point where they might mistake Fairyland with the Word Mines.  If everyone's on the same page, great!  No harm no foul.  In talking about writing to wider audiences, though, one might want to consider the realities behind our fiction. 

More on Process.

At least, my process.

I may have mentioned before that I am currently writing a book set in a militaristic magitech fantasy setting.  I probably need to work on my elevator speech for it, since the other day someone asked me what it was about and my reaction was basically:

 My inability to tell you about my story does not inspire confidence in regards to its quality.

Fortunately, this medium lets me put my thoughts together in a slightly more organized fashion.  The plot of my first book is a combination of a Wizarding School story mixed with a missing-persons mystery in the nearby city that unfolds into a much larger threat.  The two threads begin to coil together, with our precocious protagonists encountering the law officer investigating the case by being where they shouldn't and have to deal with an unfolding crisis while still attending class at a place that is basically Harvard meets Ender's Battle School meets Hogwarts. 

Hogwarts Military Institute.

Plotting out the general direction of the mystery has been fairly straightforward since I'm working backward from what I know is going on; I have a lot of fun figuring out different ways my characters can figure out what is going on.  This is a fairly intuitive process and makes writing the mystery part pretty easy.

What has been much less easy, and where I've been stuck until recently, has been my precocious teens.  I have general ideas of what sources of conflict should be, but for a while I didn't have any specific path that I had set down.  This left me unsure of where to write to or what I should necessarily focus on.  This is not an unusual problem for me; I typically build a story in order of Setting->Characters->Plot.

I decided that the easiest (and possibly even best!) way to figure out what should go on was to take a look at what other writers have done.  I took three books about Wizarding schools and did a quick plot overview of each: Harry Potter, The Name of the Wind and A Wizard of Earthsea.  I ended up junking A Wizard of Eathsea as it wasn't quite as good as I had remembered, but the other two gave me a lot of insight into how I should arrange things occurring and what kinds of elements I should focus on and when.  It let me know that I need to design some specific rivals for our intrepid heroes so I could introduce them nowish.  It let me know that I needed to get a little bigger in revealing the more magical elements of the setting.

It hardly took me any time at all, and now I feel silly for not having done it sooner.  Now I have many more ideas for what I want to do and a path for what I need to do.

Now I just need to, you know.  Do it.

 Oh sure, I get pissed that everyone is LITERALLY TALKING IN RIDDLES and suddenly *I'm* the asshole.

3 Ways to Start Writing Deep POV Today

Have you ever gotten to the end of a story without caring about the protagonist? Or worse, have you ever put a book down after a chapter or two because you just couldn’t be bothered to continue? Chances are great that the author kept you at arm’s length by writing too shallow a point of view. Basically, the protagonist didn’t love you enough to let them into your head. It’s not you. It’s them. So don’t take it too seriously.

On second thought... do. Because you’ve got this story of your own, right? And you don’t want to let your own readers down. You want to be emotionally available to them. You want to make them ache. You want to make them scream. You want to make them laugh and cry.

So resolve to be different. To do better. 

But how? How do you engage your reader? How do you make them fall in love with the characters that live so vividly inside your head?

The answer is all about point of view.

What is deep point of view?

Shallow point of view: Red Riding Hood decided to take a walk. The road she walked on was rocky and long, so by the time she got to her grandmother’s house, she was tired.
Deep point of view: It was a cool, breezy fall day, and Red wasn’t really up for housework. She needed to be outside. Why not take a walk in the forest and visit grandmother? Instant karma, right? By the time she arrived, her muscles throbbed and her feet ached, but it was a good ache. Totally worth it.

Explain.

Okay, so, shallow point of view tells the story from outside the mind of the viewpoint character. A well-defined POV will be right over the character’s shoulder, but might still be from outside. The language is clean and sterile. Details will be from the reader’s perspective, not from the character’s.

Deep POV slips right behind the character’s eyes. The narrative language is the narrative inside the character’s head. Their words, not yours. The reader feels, not in response to the character and the events, but with the character and through the events.

So how can I start?

Here are three simple ways to start writing Deep POV. This list is a jumping off point, not a comprehensive guide. Deep POV is an art form, not a science. There’s no one right way to do it. As you think about these tips, be reading other stories, particularly modern fantasy and sci-fi, and watch how the writer sharpens her POV.

1.       See What the Character Sees

When you walk into your living room, do you take in all the details at once, in a counter-clock-wise motion, while also noting the exact shade of the paint on the wall and the family history behind the displayed artwork? Course not! You’re seeing what’s important right now. If you’re tired, you see only your chair. You sink into it, noting how comfy the cushions feel under your aching muscles. You see the magazine you knock to the floor when you put your feet up and then you notice the dust crusting the TV when you flick it on. When the phone rings and you have to drag yourself out of the chair, you notice that the one of the screws that holds the phone to the wall is coming undone and the lime green paint is started to chip loose where the base of the phone is rubbing against the wall each time you bump it. And why the hell is your apartment so small that you’re bumping against the phone, anyway? Clearly you need a better-paying job. Of course it’s your boss on the other end of the line and while he berates you through the receiver, you peer into the connecting kitchen, hypnotized by the second hand spinning around the Elvis-themed clock your grandmother gave you last Christmas, and as he talks and talks, the hand seems to slow almost to a crawl. Now, I’ve never met you, and I’ve never been in your apartment before, but I see the whole thing now, all through your eyes.

2.       Talk the Way the Character Talks

In our geek and writing group, there are people from all different parts of America and all across the world. Rcently, we had a weekend-long conversation, with almost five hundred comments. About what? Beans on toast: yes or no? Through that conversation, we learned about different kinds of food in different parts of the world, different words that mean different things to different people, and different ways that people feel about things that you would think were the same.

Mostly, we learned that we’re all different. That those differences make us interesting, and they don’t have to make us dislike each other. We can learn from each other.

Your characters need to have these same kinds of differences. How do they think about the world? For example, what word do they use for people of a different gender? A man who thinks about lovely ladies is a very different sort of man than the sort who thinks about sexy chicks. Another man entirely might categorize different women using words like sluts, bitches, and dykes. Your reader probably won’t like that man — I only just wrote him and I already kind of hate him — but it’s a strong way to define a character, isn’t it?

Here are just a few ways to differentiate narrative voice. There are many, many more:

Education: Is your character intelligent or poorly educated? Do they use long, poetic words or short, punchy ones?

Slang: Do they use slang? How much? What kind of slang? Are they using is habitually, or are they being ironic?

Geographic background: Where are they from? How does that affect their words?

3.       Feel the Way the Character Feels

Traditional narration is emotionless. Deep POV swims with emotion. Drips in all over the reader. If something exciting is happening, the narrator may use obscenities or ejaculations. The narration may express surprise, disappointment, reluctance, or judgement.

Shallow POV: Susan was confused and felt sad. She didn’t understand why this was happening.

Deep POV: Why was this happening to her? What had she done to deserve it? Susan’s eyes stung with unshed tears. Life just wasn’t fair.

Shallow POV: Landon had waited impatiently for the names on the list. When it was finally released, he was disappointed to be named the understudy rather than the lead actor. He didn’t feel that Jerry was as good as an actor as he was, but he resolved to learn the part anyway.

Deep POV: Bullshit. Jerry? Jerry got the part? Jerry couldn’t act his way out of a detention, let along play Peter Pan with the flair and panache the part deserved. Bullshit! Mrs. Haney liked him better; that was all. Kiss-ass. Whatever. Maybe Jerry would get sick and he’d need to step in. Landon Harrison would be the best damn understudy the Steelton High Drama Club had ever seen.

Well, what do you think?

Can you make your reader care about your main character? Try it right now. Even if you are already working through deep POV, take a few paragraphs out of your WIP and follow each of these steps to deepen it further. Share the results with us in the comments below!

Sharing Is Caring

I don’t pretend to speak for every writer, but for most of us there comes a time when we want to share what we’ve made. To talk about it, to fan over it, to give it to someone else.

This is a good urge. I’m not talking about the urge to show off here, though that is natural and (sometimes) good in a number of ways, like when you’ve done something you’re particularly proud of and you want to show a friend.

Look here. Writing—art—is about connection. Maybe you do it alone with the lights off, but you’re still trying to speak, to communicate, with someone. Here’s something. The book is different for every reader, right? How are you going to know how it reads to someone else if you never share it?

Of course, there’s an etiquette to this. For example, it’s best not to ask a working writer, especially one who’s working as a writer, to read for you. It’s absolutely a gesture of respect to the writer involved, but it’s best to wait and see. Let him or her offer. Most often, they don’t have time, and many of them (okay, I) feel bad for saying no to you. If we’re really interested, we’ll ask for it.

Ultimately, I think the best place to share more than a couple hundred words is with your writers’ group, where you have all agreed to set aside time for each other’s work.

No, it doesn’t work for everyone. But sharing your writing is the fast track to improvement. Some people like to have just one critique partner. This works best at or near your own skill level—you learn together. I’ve done that, too, and found it an excellent way to grow as a writer. Is it hard, sometimes, to find beta-readers and others who will give you critique? Sure it is. But it’s worth it.

Share it. There’s no way it’s the worst thing in the world. Trust me.

Look here again. This is a lesson I need to learn every day. Your eyes are nobody else’s eyes. Everybody reads a different thing, even if it’s the same thing. If you can reciprocate, do it, and take the work you’re presented with seriously, even if it’s not your particular cup of tea. It’s as important to the person who shared with you as your work is to you. They’re as excited about it as you are about sharing yours. It’s a gift: “Look at my naked soul. Look what I’m excited about.”

Just keep that in mind.

3 Steps To Write Off Your Emotional Baggage

Write it off. See what I did there? Hahaha.

It's not funny, is it?

A few weeks ago the other Scriptors and I were supposed to be talking about whether we do or do not write sex scenes. I didn't actually know the answer to the question. I'm a relatively new writer myself. Confession: I haven't actually finished anything.  I've written some catchy flash fiction, a few gripping short stories, and some large chunks of half-digested post-apocalyptic novel. But sex scenes? Truthfully, I haven't decided yet. But I believed I could still sit down and write an honest, truthful answer to the question anyway. At the least, I could show my thought processes.

I ended up in tears.

I cut what I wrote, begged off the question, and chose to save my answer for another day, a time when my Issues wouldn't take away from my colleagues' clever, well-though-out, and varied answers.

So I thought I'd wait. For a spotlight. Cuz, I mean, clearly, there's nothing more fun than having a spotlight shone on your Issues, right?

Everybody has issues, don't they? They sell classy little air-freshener night lights for the bathroom: know why? Because you've got your grown ups who are afraid of the dark. There are a dozen apps in the Appstore with the sole purpose of making distracting noises that will drown out your thoughts, fears, and worries as you are trying to get to sleep. Medication for depression, anxiety, and various mental disorders are at an all-time high.

Look, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. People are getting help. They're doing something about it. Mental illness is slowing losing its social stigma. It's okay to be broken.

It's okay to be broken.

Really.

When I was unpacking my answer to the above tricky little question, I found multiple layers of baggage. Emotional abuse. Religion. Guilt. Adolescence. Confusion. Love. Things that had burned my soul for better or worse, and by sitting down to write, I had accidentally peeled off the scab that had been covering a bloody wound. You can't put scabs back on. I had to let the thing bleed for awhile before it could be stopped up again.

And when you write, even fiction, you're going to be pulling that scab off again and again and again. Why? Because writing isn't good unless you're putting pieces of your soul into it. It won't ring true. Your readers won't care. As Robert Frost said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

So what can we do? As writers, how can we deal with this job hazard of opening up old wounds in order to make good art?

1)  Watch for the signs

You might not know ahead of time that something is going to hurt. I was caught by surprise when answering a simple question about writing technique had me in tears and reevaluating my whole life. Try to be aware of how you feel while you are writing. Sounds simple, but so often we put ourselves into our characters lives and allow ourselves to feel their feelings rather than our own. That's good. That means you're doing it write. (hehe. Sorry. Doing it write. Darn again. Doing it right. There we go.)

But when you are done writing, take a moment to evaluate your feelings. You okay? Did the trauma that your characters went through affect you personally? If so, is it just a natural writer's mood swing, or could you be chipping away at something that you've pushed down, something that needs to heal?

2) Get it out

If you decide that there's something deeper going on, find a healthy way to observe those feelings. If there's someone you can trust, try talking it out. You need someone who is a good listener, who is non-judgmental, who won't tell you that your feelings are wrong, and won't try to fix them for you. Tall order. Not everyone has a friend like that. If you do have a friend like that, go write them a love letter or send them a bar of chocolate. Yes, right now. It's okay, the rest of the article will wait until you get back.

If you do not have a friend like that, write your feelings out in a blank book that can be hidden somewhere reliably secret or in a secure location on your hard drive. You need it to be secure so you can be totally honest. When you have wounds, some of the feelings that come out are going to reflect your true feelings, and some of them are going to be reactionary. You might find hatred, bitterness, violence, or sexual feelings that you feel aren't healthy. You might have feelings of love for someone that doesn't fit with your life, or that will hurt someone else. You might want to express feelings about hurting yourself, or hurting someone else. You need to get them out. Burn the paper afterwards if it's something that could really get you in trouble.

Don't hold onto the feelings. Sometimes writing things down makes them more real and you can fixate on them. Don't do that. Write them down with the intention of purging them. Write them out and out and out and out until they are gone then let them go. Repeat as necessary.

3) Take Action

After you've gotten the feelings out, replace them with something positive. Take a long walk outside. Play tag with a kid. Beat your spouse at Candyland. Or Risk, if you're really brave. Listen to music that makes you feel alive. Look at the stars. Swim. Eat pasta. Break bread with someone you love or someone that makes you laugh. Hug. Have some reallyreally good sex. Write a list of things that are still good about the world, of things that have improved in our generation.

Feel better. And then go back to writing. Tear the scabs off again, as gently and firmly as possible. Did you know that while scabs are good for keeping germs out (protecting us from further harm) skin actually heals better without them? I only learned that this past year. My whole life I thought you needed scabs to heal. Well, you don't. Rip them off, throw some powerful germ killer on there, then let your wounds breathe. Feels good to hurt sometimes.

Caveat.

I'm not a psychologist. I'm not even old enough to be wise. If you're hurting, please get help from a professional. Talk to a doctor or a therapist or a non-oppressive spiritual leader of your choice. If you're thinking about hurting yourself, tell somebody ASAP. The world would be less without you.

We need your smile. We need your art. Thank you.

Deadlines

I'd like to say I prepared for this post by missing my September 28th blog posting deadline, but that wouldn't be entirely truthful.  Rather, in this case, missing my deadline turned my thoughts directly to deadlines.

.
Mr. Adams had a few things to say about deadlines.

That being said, that deadline is the reason I'm writing this post at all, even if it is three days late and totally a cop out in terms of being incredibly self-referential.  I need deadlines to spur me on, and even when I get knocked out of the saddle by work or study or the weather changing.

I have to say that joining a group like the Scriptorium has been a huge help in making me accountable to someone.  Well, at the very least, making me feel like I'm accountable to someone.  I had been with another writing group at the university where I work, but it wasn't working out.  A lot of it had to do with scheduling, but some of it (I came to realize in retrospect) was the fact that I wasn't getting a lot of suggestions on things to change or refine.  I would have a manuscript that my group would give me a thumbs up on that I would take home to my fiancee, who would promptly say, "What is this shit," and light it on fire in front of me.  Then one of the cats would throw up on the ashes.

Incidentally, she doesn't get to see first drafts anymore.  Neither do the cats.

You can't even get to the point where you're horrifying your pets and loved ones if you don't write, however. For me to write, I need a schedule.  Goals.  Writing deadlines.  Structure.  If I don't have structure, I can't have discipline, and without discipline my writing slows to a crawl.  Having a zany 2k word day once a month isn't going to get your shit written.

Discipline and deadlines also helps me to get my priorities straight.  I realize that I need to outline a particular thing or get create a name or a person or technology and that I need to do that in non-writing time because while that is planning for writing, that is not writing.  Sometimes that means I have to get really creative on the fly instead of deliberative, and you know what? That's okay.

I have found that I need to operate under some form of pressure to write.  Too much is obviously bad; there is definitely a zone of 'comfortable pressure' that I experience where I'm motivated enough to write but not staring at the page staring back at me and wondering why I can't just get my shit together dammit.

This is what (mostly) works for me.  Sometimes shit flies by.  I was just chatting with Casey and he reminded me I missed the corporate post.

Looks like I've got more shit to get done.

Addendum: Turns out I actually already did it, before deadline, and promptly forgot that I had submitted it and it's already sitting pretty under September 11th.  How's that for getting shit done?

Beta Readers Are Superheroes

You've just typed the words “The End”. Your masterpiece—weeks, months, sometimes even years in the making—is finally finished. Sure, it might not be the next Great American Novel, and it may never win any awards, or make it to the number one spot on the New York Times' Best Seller List. But you're enamored of it and you think it has potential.

So what do you do next? Send it out to agents and editors at one of the big five publishing houses? Upload it to Amazon or CreateSpace? Shell out some cash to Lulu or BookBaby?

Nope, nope, and nope.

The next step is to corral some friends—bribe them with chocolate cake or brown butter cookies or a really nice chicken tagine with lots of harissa, if you need to—and offer them the chance to help make history, to become so important that their opinion will alter the course of the world. Ask them to become Beta Readers!

What's a beta reader, you may be asking. A beta reader is an author's bestest, most important friend in the publishing game. Even more important than an agent, an editor, and yes, even more important than the guy who fixes computers. A few good beta readers are the difference between life and death to your book.

You see, they see the manuscript in its rawest form. They see your book naked, in front of one of those dressing room mirrors with that awful lighting that exposes each little flaw, each little bump and curve and divot, and they help decide which parts need liposuction and which parts are perfect just the way The Maker created them.

But how do you find the sort of beta readers who will be honest with you, who are capable of giving you in-depth insight, who can say more than, “I liked it. It was good.” That, my friends, is what I'm here to tell you. I'll share with you the secrets of finding the perfect beta reader.

1. Ask friends who are writers. Most writers are capable of a certain level of deep critique; they know what they like, they know what works and what doesn't, and they're able to express those opinions in a way that is constructive.
2. Ask friends who are heavy readers. I'm talking about that one friend who reads like three or four books a week. They are clearly intelligent people, capable of thought, and probably know whether your protagonist is a rip-off of Jefferson Nighthawk, or if your antagonist is too perfectly evil to be sympathetic with your readers.

Once you've assembled your group of five to seven readers, hand over the manuscript. But don't just give it to them, pat them on their head, and send them off. That's a big mistake. Tell them what you need. If you're looking for help making sure your plot is air-tight, tell them that. If you're looking for ways to ensure your female characters pass the Bechdel test, tell them that, too. Admit to them which parts of your book are weak and ask them how to shore them up. Ask them to tell you which were their favorite characters and the ones that can die in a fire. Ask them to go over your baby with a fine-toothed comb and pick out the nits. And then give them this list of seven questions, designed to sharpen their focus. Feel free to add or take away your own questions, based on your own needs.

Then sit back and relax. Your beta readers have got this. Enjoy the feeling of knowing that you're well on your way to becoming a published author and that you're doing everything you can to ensure your story is the best it can be.

And try not to stress out about finding the perfect editor.

Five Ways to Give Birth: Writing Kids as Characters

So much of childhood isn’t what most of us would consider child-appropriate. A child’s world can be, often is, as dark as an adult’s—or darker. Here are five ways to put breathing children into fiction meant for grown-ups.

1.       Remember that every child is his or her own person.

“My dad can eat six pizzas!”

“Yeah, but my dad is stronger than Superman.”

Like any character, any child is shaped by his or her experience, whether it’s peace and shelter, horrific violence, or anything and everything in between. Make them people first, and little people after.

2.       Think back to your own childhood.

“You’re ruining my life!”

Do you remember that thing you wanted for Christmas so badly? That one thing that would’ve made your life absolutely complete and you’d never ask for anything ever again? Yeah?

You didn’t get it, did you? How intense, how gripping, was that disappointment? The world was ending! Capture that when you write children.

Or maybe you did get it! You lucky cuss. How excited were you? Oh my goodness the world was wonderful! Capture that emotion.

Children feel so deeply and broadly. There’s no end to the well. For the most part, they’re just learning about emotion, their own emotions. Try to bring that to the page.

3.       Talk to some kids.

“Mommy, I doed it!”

“Yes, you did.”

If you’re a parent, you already know this. And if you aren’t, and you’re lucky enough to have kids in your life, have the best conversations you can with them. I’m not advocating asking them questions like “What if you were sold into slavery?” What I mean is, you’ve got to enter into the conversation with the interest of listening, really listening, to them. Hear the different ways they speak and the ways they’re learning language. Hear what they talk about. I promise, they are interesting. You haven’t really lived until you’ve discussed robots with an eight-year-old.

4.       Give them grown-up problems.

“I’ll get us some food.”

This is actually true of kids’ fiction too. Let them deal with things out of their depth—as you would any other character. Challenge them as people. Thank goodness, they aren’t real, though it ought to feel as if they are.

5.       Give them justice.

“The Queen had saved the little Prince. And they loved each other, whatever came after.”

This is truer of some kinds of fiction than it is of others, I suppose, truer of some works than others. But give them as much as you can, for your own peace of mind and your readers’. Poetic justice is always appropriate when writing about children, or so I believe. The world is screwed up and real kids deal with terrible situations every day, often with no recourse, no punishment for the wrongdoers, nothing.

It would be better if no child had to go through anything like what real (and fictional) children go through. At least in fiction you can give every little one a chance.

Sex Scenes Are Hard (Part One)

For this month's Scriptorium roundtable posts, we asked a question of each writer. You probably clicked to read this article because of the title. We will not disappoint you. This month's question is:

Do you write sex scenes? Why or why not?

It proved to be a hard question. Ah ha. Ha. Ha.

Fiona Skye says:

I don't publish sex scenes.

It's not because I'm a prude. It's not because I'm a hoity-toity artiste who's too good for that nonsense. And it's certainly not because I don't think a little sexy time doesn't have its place in fiction.

I don't publish sex scenes because fading to black and allowing the readers to use their imaginations to picture what my characters are doing is more titillating, more tantalizing, more intriguing than any black and white description could be. There is no way that a sex scene, with its awkward euphemisms for body parts (and occasional outright vulgarities), myriad sighs and moans, and ridiculous adjectives to describe an orgasm, is better than what the reader has experienced in his or her own lives. The reader taking from that experience and applying it to what he or she is reading is what really makes my work come alive.

And okay, maybe it is a little because I'm a prude. I can't help it. It's how I was raised.

Matt Green says:

I have written hardly any sex scenes! I tried my hand and writing erotica once and never revisited it. That's not to say I do not greatly enjoy it, though, and attempting to put together another one intrigues me.

As with all things, my first steps are going to be research! My fiance has provided me with an excellent selection of texts to broaden my understanding of how works of quality are accomplished. I also plan to solicit recommendations from other Scriptors, as I gather they are also more well-versed in the genre than I am.

If I do this right, what I produce will incorporate intriguing, well developed characters who have crazy hot sex.

Jen Ponce says:

Why did I start reading romance books when I was 14? For the sex, of course. Sure, some of the books had great stories, neat history facts gussied up as story, great characters that I loved, but mostly it was the sex. My mom knew it, too, and tried to ban them from the house. Yeah, like that worked. 

I expanded my reading to other genres but I have to say, I still think the best books have the best sex scenes. What can I say?

I've read a lot of sex scenes and because of that, I know what I like and don't like and can even articulate it. Here, let me show you: 

I love a great sex scene. Sometimes I love them because they are funny, clumsy, silly, or downright outrageous. I love them when they are perverted or sweet, crass or emotional, one paragraph or ten pages long. 

I don't like sex scenes that are timid or apologetic (unless it's the characters being timid and apologetic, that's different.) I don't like sex scenes that don't fit the story. If both characters are balls-to-the-walls perverts and they have sweet sex, I ain't buying it (unless it's part of the story/character development.) And the inverse is true as well. Don't give me two uptight sticks who don't even curse and then have them act out a scene from Deep Throat.

The important thing to remember when you're writing sex scenes is to keep the story moving forward. Ask yourself:

How does this develop my characters?

How does this move my plot forward?

What can I reveal in this moment, that changes the relationship between these two people?

I will read sex all day long if the story moves within it. Don't be shy. Let your characters bump uglies. Let me in there to see what happens. Show me who they are with their clothes off. Don't shut the door unless that's the genre you're writing. (If you write all day long about people hacking each other's heads off and then you shut the door on the sex, I shall be highly annoyed with you. Just saying.)

So, do I write sex scenes? It's probably obvious by now. I do. I enjoy writing them as much as I love reading them, both sweet and sexy, naughty and goofy, and all the stuff in between or on either side.

M.A. Ray says:

Yes, I write sex scenes.

I write them because they’re an important character tool; how two (or more, or fewer) people behave with each other when clothing is optional shows who they are in a very fundamental way.

I write them because I generally don’t hold back on the violence, and don’t see why I should hold back on sex. It’s just naked people. Nobody’s losing limbs or lives (we hope). 

I write them because they turn me on, and I want to see if I can tweak my readers’ nethers like I tweak their tear ducts.

I write them because they’re difficult for me. A well-written sex scene is a thing of beauty. If I can do that, I can do anything (or so I tell myself). It’s a challenge.

I write them because I like to read them, and I want to write books I enjoy reading. That's flat.

Do you write sex scenes? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments! And tune in next time for more answers from the Scriptors!

5 Things to Write When You Don't Know What to Write

Say you’re a new writer. Like me.

And say you never had the bug to write every single day like the “real” writers. Say maybe you even went a few years without writing any fiction at all, because you decided you weren’t good enough. If you were good enough, after all, you’d be finishing stuff. You’d have the instinct and it would come easily.

Then let’s say something happened. A tragedy, perhaps, something that seared your soul shut and you had to find a new way to let things out. And you thought maybe you could write about other things, about stories or poems, about other people’s tragedies until your pain would disappear.

And it did. It worked. You rode the wave of a writing high for a few weeks and words came spurting out of you like bad blood, flushing out pain and sorrow and leaving you feeling thin, dizzy, and light, but deliciously, ecstatically happy.

When the last spurts dry onto the page, you feel some life rushing back into you. You begin to be able to walk straight again. Chin up, eyes bright. Best of all, you have a purpose for your life. This is what you were meant to do.

You are a writer!

One problem.

You have no idea what to write. For a while, you fool around with extending the pain you were writing through, but it falls flat. That’s not who you are anymore, and even when it is, it’s not really getting you anywhere. You want to write something amazing, something to win prizes, earn money, and most importantly, something that you can show to your girlfriend.

But what?

You sit down in front of the keyboard and peck away at a novel. You get fifteen thousand words or so, but it’s not good enough. If Tolkien and Rowling got together and had a baby, and that baby grew up and adopted a cat named Butcher, and then the cat got sick and started hacking hairballs all over the living room, then one of those hairballs was your novel.

What to do? Well, you know what to do. It’s rule one.

Write more. Write every day. Write when you don’t feel like it. Write when you’re short on sleep or when you’re out of coffee or when you had too much coffee. Write when you’re sad or lonely or angry or happy or lustful or tired or bored. Get all those things down on paper. Write a million words and then you’ll be a “real” writer.

But you still don’t know what to write!

First of all, you don’t have writer’s block. That’s not a thing. That thing is banished from the Scriptorium. Writing is always hard, it’s never easy, and there’s no excuse for not doing it.

Here are a few suggestions for things to write.

1. Flash Fiction

This is my go-to for dry days. Pick a topic, a funny idea, a dream, or even a piece of art and sit down to make a brief story out of it. How brief? Well, that’s up to you. I like to aim for 1800 words. This is one of those times when outlines are unnecessary. Just start an idea and see where it takes you. 

You are a sculptor in front of a block of marble. Start chipping away.

For some great examples of Flash Fiction (as well as a popular place to submit one) check out, http://dailysciencefiction.com

2. Six Word Stories

Six word stories: writer’s sleeping pill.

If you’re interested in becoming a word master, six word stories are an excellent exercise. Think of a concept and try to condense it to six words. TRY. Here are some of my favorites.

His flowers were my last goodbye.

Luckily for me, a vegetarian dragon.

This empty page: my only friend.

Temperature rises. Oceans flood. Death awaits.

Wanting to know all, I listen.

3. Backstory Blurbs

If you have a captivating idea for a novel that you can’t get out of your head, but you can’t seem to get it out of your head, try writing backstory blurbs.

Get a blank sheet of paper and write the letters A-Z down one column. Next to each letter, pick a topic relevant to your story. It’s okay to skip Q and Z and X if you like – there’s not going to be a grade. Each day, until you think of something else to do, pick one of those topics and expand it. Pretend you are writing an encyclopedia for your world. If you get all the way through, start over again. This stuff may be useful someday.

4. Narrative Outlines

Another trick for a gummed-up novel-writing pipe is to clear the way with a narrative outline. Pick an unlikely character in your story and tell the whole story from their point of view. Tell it quickly like a bored conversation or tell it slowly with a lot of detail. Make it their dying confession or their interview for the local paper. Anything to help you visualize the story in your head.

5. Bad Poetry

When all else fails, write bad poetry. It’s a required part of the writing process, so you might as well get it out of the way. I’ll close with one of my own bad poems, so you don’t feel embarrassed about yours.

::golem depart::

from earth he came
as strong as steel
but soft as sand
he learned to feel

taught to fight,
he fought to win.
then saw the right
and saw the sin

he saw the blood
that dyed the clay
the blameless girl
who died that day

with tears of mud
and moans of sod
he fell to earth
he flew to God

from earth he came,
no heart or soul,
but learned to feel
and paid the toll

broke bread with men
who broke his heart
to dust returned
Golem Depart

There you go. That was one of mine, written on a day when I had nothing else to write. Now it’s your turn. Go on, pick one of my crazy ideas and run with it. Better yet, make it a blog post and link it here for all of us to enjoy!

We Are Paper Tigers Full of Weird

With great talent comes great weirdness.

People like to imagine that weirdness is all manic pixie dream girl nonsense, or playing the banjo at two in the morning, or having an extensive collection of Transformers in your basement lined up so that they appear to be engaging in a combined car wreck/orgy.

But sometimes “weird” looks a lot more like “broken,” and it’s a kind of broken that you are confident that 0 percent of other people ever go through. The kind that makes you walk away from your art, your admirers, and your life and huddle in a corner and cry. Creation takes a certain amount of weirdness, but the same wild energy that creates fine steel from ore can dump a toxic slag into our lives. You wield strange forces when you populate your head with visitors who pull on your time, your attention, and maybe even your temper.

So above all else, this rule to writing must apply: Be good to one another.

I’m a guilty little shit when it comes to this. I try to make apologies when my big ogre fists pop some novice writer on the nose for no good reason, and I freely confess, I love a good fight now and then. But when it comes to someone else’s art? Be good to them. Encourage and do not destroy.

In the indie writing community, this rule applies times one thousand. We ought to all get secret writer tattoos on our asses together: “Be good to one another.” Because, let’s face it, what separates the indie artist community from top shelf sellers is that the top shelfers seem to have it locked down (more or less).

Consistent sellers are selected for their consistency and hard work that spans years and years, which is what it takes to crack the business and to stay in it. Or so I’m told. But for the indie guys? We are selected for the reverse. We are the quirky moon howlers and the ten-years-to-write-it obsessives and we ought to all be careful about following the advice of Stephen King too closely because, shit, that guy has it together in ways we never will.*

The truth is, we lack a crucial ingredient that makes for the sure-fire best seller, and for a lot of us, that ingredient is consistency. Or, well, sanity. Our Weird might make us wilt into a ball of compressed terror at the notion of a deadline; or it might leave our skin thin like sieves so that trolls can suck the blood out with a kiss; or maybe our lives are just a wreck of unpaid bills and overdue projects that overflow a wireframe waste paper basket until we live under its shadow.

Whatever the case, we are paper tigers. There is talent and potential here, but we break so, so easily.

So. Find your closest indie author friends and defend them, nourish them, love them for what they can do—and soak it up in return. Because who else will?

*Except for the part about not becoming addicts. Listen to him on that. For serious, be quirky, but don’t wreck the organ in your skull that makes the light and the thunder happen.

The Art of the Tell

A politician on television answers a question from a news reporter and raises and lowers only his right shoulder in a shrug. His chin is raised and the corners of his mouth are down-turned. He repeatedly touches the underside of his nose and then lets his hand fall to his side, where he makes a slight waving gesture.

Someone well-schooled in the art of the tell, or the study of body language, would tell you that this politician is a big lying-liar. That one-sided shoulder shrug says loudly that he has absolutely no confidence in what he's just said. The raised chin and down-turned mouth scream embarrassment. And the nose touching and hand waving? Yep, you guessed it—he's telling a whopper and trying to hide it.

Reading someone's body language is great if you're a reporter, a lawyer, a cop, or a parent. But how does knowledge of body language help you as a writer? We're often told to show and not tell, and there's nothing more showy than writing about your characters' body language. Here's a few gestures to get you started:

• Hand to forehead means shame
• Breaking eye contact during a recollection and looking to the right is an indication of lying
• Arms crossed over your chest means you're defensive and probably lying
• There are no wrinkles at the corner the eyes if the smile is not genuine
• Thrusting your chin out during a conversation means anger
• Lifted brows and a curled upper lip are signs of contempt
• Liars often make more eye contact. They need to see if their lies are believable
• Arms resting on hips establishes dominance
• Leaning away from someone during a conversation means disagreement or dislike for the other speaker
• Leaning toward someone during a conversation means respect, agreement, and interest in the topic and/or speaker
• If someone has their hands folded together and their thumbs are raised, it's a good indication of positive thoughts
• Touching one's neck says emotional discomfort, doubt, or even insincerity

The next time you write a scene with two character speaking, remember to use some non-verbal communication and show your character's emotions, instead of telling your readers about them. I wouldn't, however, suggest using your new knowledge of body language during a fight with your significant other or parents. It might get you into more trouble.

Don't Fear the Time-Eaters: How To Write with Children Around

I have two kids.

Not big kids. Littler ones. My son’s eight, and my daughter just turned five. They both have special needs—that is, my son’s autistic (though he feeds, toilets, dresses himself) and my daughter has some communication difficulties, whether as a result of influence (older brother) or because she has autism herself. We aren’t sure yet.

Anyway. People ask me all the time how I do it. How am I building a writing career with two kids? This is the simple answer: I want it enough. I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time, and I will make it a reality.

My kids don’t get as much Mom Time as they would if I were only a stay-at-home mom. That’s true. I work long hours, and sometimes I feel guilty, like I think every working mom does, but I have to believe it’s good for them to see their mother chase a goal.

People ask me how I get my kids to let me work. Part of it is that they’re used to my working. Another part of it is books, puzzles, tablets, even—gasp!—the television. They have plenty of things that they want to do on their own, or can do with minimal help, sitting next to me at the table where I type. I use a laptop on the dinner table so I’m available to them in a central location.

I also have a wonderful and supportive husband, who recognizes my need and helps me carve out time when he’s home from his own job.

My kids go to school during the day now, and I get to write. I have written until 3 AM when I had to be up the next morning. I have written before they get up, after they go to sleep, while they were awake. After a while you get used to the noise. I write in the waiting room while they have their therapy for the week, and I think about writing while I clean my house.

I am more than a little obsessed. But I’m not sure this is a career path for the casual in any case. I have stories I need to tell, and my sanity is pretty strongly tied to being able to do that. My kids need me sane, so I write. If you need to, you will. That’s flat.

Evil Flash Challenge (Part Two)

Here is part II of the Scriptorium’s ode to all that is evil:

~*~

First up, Matthew Green:

Firestarter

There were two dead men in the cafe.

Plenty of living ones too, but my binoculars were on the walking corpses.  Sitting, in this instance, but I wasn’t going to split hairs.  I could hear Val breathing heavy over the mic, psyching herself up.  It was just the two of us, now.  Those things and their buddies in the government had got the rest of us.  Casey and Anna were dead.  Really dead, I made sure.  Kristoff and Meg had gotten arrested, and I don’t know if that was any better.  Hell, maybe it was worse.  The news calls them terrorists.

I wonder what’s going to happen to them in prison.

So it’s just me and Val and a box of Molotovs.  I hear Val suck up all the air and my muscles get tight.  Showtime.

I see a small spark in the alley next to the cafe.  A second later it flares up and I hear the crash of glass over the mic.  There’s a bright light in the alley now.  Fire’s spreading in front of the exit.

Then there’s Val, screaming something I can’t hear and tossing another Molotov into the cafe windows.  When it shatters it’s just like, waves of fire smashing up against the building.  That’s when the real screaming starts, and I know it’s not going to be anything compared to the screams when they discover there’s no way out.

One of the dead men, the bald one with horn-rimmed spectacles, backs away from the curtain of fire, his face stiffening in fear.  I smile to see a bloodsucker scared of us.  I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing that.

The other man, a tall black guy, doesn’t look that concerned.  Hell, his ~arm~ is on fire and he just rips the sleeve of his suit off like it’s toilet paper.  Underneath I can see bones and the slimy remains of flesh.  His expression doesn’t even change as he just takes this big step through the window, through the fire, and now he’s just this huge fucking flaming skeleton and he’s grabbing Val by the neck and oh god, I can hear him through the mic.

I’m running down the fire escape, jumping blindly and I can hardly believe I make it to the ground and he starts talking.  “Oh, how clever.  A radio.  I suppose you can serve another purpose, then.”  Val screams and it’s not like any scream I’ve heard a human make, like an animal, like….

The next few days are a blur.  I ditched my phone, I ditched the mic, I burned my wallet.  I’m out here in Rock Creek Park living under a fucking ~rock~ and it’s almost a relief when they catch up to me.

“Federal Marshals, son.”

“Did I get it?  Just tell me, did I get any of those things?”

A sigh.  “You just pissed them off.  Killed a bunch of innocent folks, though.  Was it worth it?”

It was.

~*~

R.L. Wicke

When he closed his eyes, he could hear the survivors crying. Bribing. Lying. Opened them again to see wounds oozing, stomachs shrinking with hunger, pulses racing with desire and flattening out with boredom. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired; were any of them happy for longer than the time it took their orgasms to fade?

He hadn’t caused the plague that put the mass of humanity out of their misery. Not his style. He got off on happiness. Had been a junkie once, but smart enough to drop out of a losing game. Still did pot when he could get it but that was pretty rare on the east coast. Out west where he came from...

Where had he come from?

The past was pretty hazy. Mother and Father from somewhere north. There was a joke in there somewhere, but he’d forgotten the punchline. They’d put him on the road young. He had a mess of brothers, all turned out across the country, but all unsympathetic to his quest. He’d stayed with each one in turn. Gambled against one in Vegas, hitched a bike ride with another across Kansas plains. He’d met another in Memphis, and together they’d walked right through the brick wall that once kept the rabble out of Graceland. Messages of love scribbled in Sharpie on the crumbling bricks had faded nearly invisible.

Big fuck deal. Graffiti replaced by invasive vines. The Jungle Room was inhabited by real animals now. A decaying monument to another wasted life.

That brother, too, had been welcoming at first. Tried, with growing concern, to talk to him about rhythm and soul, then finally turned him away.

“The survivors,” his brother asked as they parted ways. “Why do you hate them?”

“Hate them? I, a survivor walking among them? I love them.”

“Then why this aim, brother, to chain and dominate them?”

He’d laughed. “You’re wrong about me, little bro. I love them better than all of you do. I won’t leave them hobbling in the snow on broken legs like cast out wolves. I will bind them together and teach them to fly.”

##

One of the survivors lay in his bed. Corn-silk hair. Nice hips. Eager to please. A pleasant, if empty-headed, companion before the jealousy had kicked in. But permanent? Hardly. His confidante, his consort, the mother of the king over men; she would understand how survivors thought, would feel how they felt, but also possess the grace and intelligence to rise above their weakness.

“I seek the Uber-wench,” he said. Chuckled. “Uber-wench. Get it?”

She didn’t laugh.

He threw the empty beer bottle at her head. It bounced off her mouth, twisting her lips crudely, landing on the quilted comforter. “Aw, don’t make a face, darling, it’ll freeze like that.”

She was beginning to stink. Leave her behind right now or toss her in the Olympic-sized algae farm under the hotel and keep the room another night?

Go. His gut said north, and the DARKNESS always listened to his gut.

~*~

Fiona Skye

When the phone rang at midnight, I knew it wouldn't be good news. Who phones at that hour, besides cops calling to say that there's been an accident and your loved one has been seriously hurt or even killed? The Publisher's Clearinghouse people never call you up at midnight to tell you that they're on your front porch with one of those ridiculously over-sized checks made out for millions of dollars and it's got your name on it. The man of your dreams doesn't ever stop by at oh-dark-hundred to say, "Hey, this is crazy, but I'm desperately in love with you. Would you like to go to Denny's for coffee and a Grand Slam?"

I reluctantly answered the phone, knowing that I should just let the call go to voice mail. "Huh-lo," I mumbled half-coherently into the receiver, hoping that at least I wasn't holding the phone upside down.

"Lindsay?" It wasn't a voice I recognized, but the male caller had at least gotten my name correct. I sat up and rubbed bleary eyes.

"Yes, this is Lindsay. Who's this?"

"You are in serious danger." The man's voice was completely free of accent, pleasant to listen to but there was nothing that stood out as particularly remarkable. If it was a color, it would be beige.

I was stunned into silence. Then I started to get mad. This guy had interrupted a really nice dream about George Clooney and I on a beach in the French Riviera. "Who is this? Did Darlene put you up to this? I'm gonna kill her! Do you realize that it's –"

"You must believe me," the guy interrupted. "Haven't you noticed the black van following you? Or the men in black suits who are always present?"

I stopped for a moment and listened. Oh, my God. He was right. I had noticed a big black windowless van in my rear view mirror more than once in the past couple of weeks. I had even made a comment about it to my mother, saying something about it being a pedophile's car. She encouraged me to call the police and report it but I'd just shrugged it off as paranoia. And there had been a table of three men all wearing black suits in two different restaurants I'd gone into in the past week. I'd just assumed they were Mormon missionaries.

I was scared now. "Who is this? Why are they following me? Who are they?"

"I am going to help you, but you have to trust me."

"Tell me who you are first." 

"My name is Norville. Go to your window and tell me if they are out there."

"Yeah, okay." I slid out of bed and peeked through the curtains on the window that faced the street in front of my house. Sure enough, there was a big black van parked two houses away. "Oh, my God. They're out there now!" I whispered into the phone, panic making my voice harsh. "What do I do?"

"Get dressed without turning on any lights. Go out your back door and into the alley behind your house."

"Okay," I said hesitantly. He hung up before I could say anything else. I stood stock still for a moment, deciding if I wanted to call the police. I heard a car door closing and it was all the motivation I needed. They were coming for me. I knew it.

I quickly got dressed, not even caring if my socks didn't match, and slipped out the back door. I kind of hunkered down a bit and quickly crossed my yard. God, this was insane! Who were those people in that van? Who was Norville?