So recently I found out that Neil Gaiman is going to be at the Clarion Workshop this year! I'm a wee bit of a fangirl, so I am really excited to hear about this! (Oh and if you've never read Neil's journal, for shame on you! For shame!) I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to go to the workshop, though. The application deadline is March 1. That poses a bit of a chronology issue for me.

Part of the application requirements are two short stories. I have several shorts laying around, but all are still in their first draft form. It's going to require me to revise. And we all know how well I revise! :p Anyway, what it really comes down to is whether or not I'll be able to get two shorts revised in time for the deadline or not, since I have to have my novel completely revised by April 10. How much money do I have to pay to get about 5 more useable hours out of each day?

Moreover, I think I'm a little bit intimidated. My understanding is that there's a lot of spontaneous writing expected. I can't recall if it's Clarion  or Odyssey which requires a new story every day (I think it's Odyssey). But either way, I don't do that sort of writing very well. Given ten minutes in a writing class to write a few paragraphs about whatever--my brain freezes up and I just look at the page. I've never been good at that sort of writing.

I'm still going to see if I can get a couple stories polished, even though that aspect does scare the writerly doodoo out of me. I'm already in debt up to my eyeballs from grad school. What's another $4k, right?

I'm a little snarky about the cost, I know, but Clarion is one of the best short story workshops out there for genre writers. A few of my fellow students at SHU are former Clarion students and they can't say enough about it. So I'm intrigued about going. I really do believe in the usefulness of programs like these. I know the writers in my master's program who've gone through Clarion are already phenomenal writers, even before SHU gets to them!

Any other graduates of Clarion or Odyssey out there? What was your experience?

This has to be the coolest home ever built! It's got to be like living in Hobbitown.

Low Impact Woodland Home

So, I'm currently on the first revision of my novel, Soul Cavern. I'm plodding through, really unsure of myself. Revisions are not something I do much of. That's not to say my writing is so phenomenal that I don't need revisions. I do need revisions. I'm just not used to doing them.

My mentor, Mike Arnzen, tells me that I should take this time and really make my story shine. To show the world all the neat creativity I have. To surprise them, maybe scare them, impress them.

Revisions are difficult for me because I've never really done any. So I'm flying by the seat of my pants, fiddling with things in a marginal way, tweaking some wordage. Am I really revising? I have no idea.

Some of my classmates at SHU can take their manuscripts and completely rearrange the chapters, taking chapters from the middle, putting them at the front, etc. How do they do that? Maybe I'm just a linear thinker (so should I even be writing?), but my ms needs to be mostly in the order I've written it in. As it is, I've got a chapter that I have to find a way to fit in, so I'm going to need to hack two different chapters in half in order to get the chronology right. And that's freaking me out, in itself.

Something I discovered about myself while writing this book: once it's on paper, I think it's holy. Okay, not really holy, but I've found that if I put something down on paper, it's very, very difficult to make major changes to it. Psychologically speaking.

I made this realization about a year ago, when I was coming into the mid-point of my novel. I'd had to write a synopsis several months prior, before I really knew where the story was going. I just made something up for the second half, figuring I could change the synopsis once I figured out where the story was really going.

My muse, however, wasn't privy to that plan.

When I came to the point in the story where I was supposed to write about my main character and her father hopping a plane to Europe to save her best friend from fiendish kidnappers, my muse decided to vacation for awhile. Maybe in Tahiti, maybe Barbados, maybe skiing in the Alps.

I couldn't write it. Not one word. I was so frustrated with the writing process that, after weeks of wrestling, I decided to scrap my novel and start on a different project. I'd already written over 50,000 words. And I was going to dump it.

What I eventually realized was that because I'd put that BS on the paper, for the second half of the novel, my muse thought that it had to be that way. And I froze. Somehow, once something's put on paper, that is The Way It Must Be. Isn't that crazy?

So revisions are a challenge for me both in polishing the prose, but in also forcing myself to tear off the chunks of the story that have been written but need to be cut. Or moved. Or merged with something else. I guess for me, the paper is sacrosanct.

 

Oh, by the way, I ended up not even using any part of the second half of that synopsis. My poor main character ended up in a hedge maze being hunted by baddies. And it's a much more interesting novel for that!

I'm going to do a blog series on story elements beginning today with Character. Please feel free to comment, add anything you think I may have missed and make any suggestions you think might be worthwhile for others to hear!

Character

In today's modern novel, it's not farfetched to say that character is king. Readers want to connect with characters, sympathize with them, especially your protagonist. To catch your reader and, more importantly, keep her, you must make her care about your characters. If we don't care, we won't read on.

Characters provide a moral compass for your story. Your protagonist (the character whom your story is about) is the anchor which keeps your tale on track, the lens through which you're showing the reader your story. Your reader wants to see all sorts of terrible things happen to him but, in most cases (but not all), wants him to prevail in the end. So how do you make your readers care? Make your characters believable and sympathetic.

Making characters believable

Know thy character. The more you know about your character, the easier it is to make him believable. Of course, you need to know the basics about him: body type, hair color, eye color, occupation, family, etc. But don't stop there! What hobbies does he have? What does he do when he gets angry? Does he stop for directions when he's lost? What charities does he donate money to? What's his dream car/job/vacation? What's his biggest regret in life? His biggest joy? What were the circumstances of his first kiss? Does he wish he had a brother/sister/none at all? Know your character's strengths and weaknesses, know what he wants and know what's preventing him from getting it (this goes a wee bit more to plot, but it's applicable here as well). Know what motivates him and know which character traits he has which will keep him from his goal. Give him a secret.

As you're fleshing out your character, you should understand that most of what you figure out about him, your reader will never know. But your reader will know that you know, because you will understand your character enough to know how he will react in each situation he enters. And it will be believable.

Making characters sympathetic

First, I should say, characters don't always have to be sympathetic. There are certainly genres which have unsympathetic characters as main characters. However, in order for your reader to connect with your character, to want to root for him, to care about what happens to him, she has to be able to relate to him in some way.

There are universal situations in life that most of us go through at some point: the awkwardness of adolescence, dating, loss of a loved one, learning how to drive, good relationships, bad relationships, our first traffic ticket or car accident, moving out on our own, college life, work promotions, getting fired/laid off, renting an apartment or buying a house. While you don't have to include these situations in your story (unless they are important to the plot), they flesh out your character and they can be alluded to in your manuscript. They make your character more real, more human. And that, in turn, makes readers more sympathetic.

Before closing, I also want to point out that your protagonist--the character your reader is rooting for--does not have to be your point of view character. Probably one of the more famous examples is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Tales of Sherlock Holmes. The point of view character is Dr. Watson, while the protagonist is, of course, Sherlock Holmes. Don't be afraid to play with point of view this way. Sometimes an outside voice can make the reader appreciate and care for the protagonist more. Please let me know if you found this post useful. The next Story Elements installment will be Situation. Best of luck with the writing!

 

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Watch this space for the first of my new ongoing series, What I've Learned. Our first installments will be on Story Elements. Look for the first one, on Character, later today or tomorrow morning.

Too exhausted to blog. Spent most the day in the hospital with a friend. Going to bed.

I'm cheap. There, I admitted it. In my little circle of friends, I'm know as the deal-finder. I like travelling cheap (though I don't stay at cheap motels -- my back's too old for bad mattresses!). I like finding computer stuff cheap. I love finding great deals on gadgets. Better than cheap, though, is free. Loooove free! So in checking out the blogosphere recently, I ran across an offer for a free blogging course. The catch? I have to link to it in my blog. So, here it is: I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog. It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free. ~~~~~~ So there's the plug. My understanding is that it's a pretty long course, but I'll definitely post about it once I see what's what. I'm hoping it will be worthwhile, since I'm still somewhat new to active blogging. And moving on... if you haven't checked out Wowio, I definitely recommend that you do! They provide PDF formatted eBooks at no charge. Sponsors pick up the tab. They have a lot of classics, graphic novels and various other books. You can also find some writing books there as well. Also, have a look at Giveaway of the Day, a website which offers free-for-a-day licensed software. The range of software they provide is vast. I've gotten useful note-taking software, some good organizational software and even a couple writing-specific types of software. You must download and activate the software on the day it is offered, but you can use it forever (as long as your computer doesn't crash!). It's a site I check every day. So there's some free stuff. Enjoy!

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SHU's very own Chun Lee has made the first cut in the ABNA contest! Having heard a small portion of Chun's novel at his thesis reading prior to graduation, I can say with confidence that Chun has what it takes.

An angel crashes into the paved asphalt of an LA street. He hates coming to Earth, he hates being near humans, and it hurts to be away from the presence of God, but he's come down for a reason, to kill a demon.

Have a look at his entry, Angel's Reflection and see what you think! I should mention that this is not your goody-goody angel story. This is dark urban fantasy/horror, so please keep that in mind when reading. So, I had a pretty fun weekend. I bought a new motorcycle! My old one got flooded out, so I bought a 2002 Honda Shadow ACE 750, fully dressed with the exception of floorboards. It's beautiful! Mine is a metallic blue with a patterned design on the sides of the gas tank and the fenders. It's just gorgeous. I haven't been riding very long and my previous bike was a 500cc, so this is significantly bigger. It's still too cold out to really ride, so I'll have to wait to practice. But I'm really excited! :) Okay, there's today's randomness!

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This isn't a How-To post. Not yet anyway. Next term, as part of the graduation requirement at SHU I have to teach a short module on the topic of my choice. I've got a few kicking around in my noggin; one is How to Write Action Scenes.

I've been told by more than one fellow writer/author that I write action scenes very well. I find that really flattering. So when the time came to brainstorm about what I might want to teach, action scenes popped into my head. Here's my problem though: I have no idea how I write them well. I just write the scenes. I never realized they were done particularly well. So I don't really know how I do it. And if I don't know how I do it, how do I teach someone else to do it well?

In thinking about possible reasons why this is a strength in my writing, I've come to the conclusion that it must have been all the MUSHes I played. Back in the early days of the net (man, am I dating myself or what?), there were online games called MUSHes (short for Multi User Shared Hallucination). All your Evercrack, World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies games had their origins in the early MUDs (Multi User Dungeons) and MUSHes.

I MUSHed.A lot.

In a MUSH, you made a character (complete with stats, for all the gamers out there) and you logged in and roleplayed. In text. No flashy spells, no pretty graphics. Just words. And you roleplayed with other people. You typed out your dialogue and your actions, so that other people understood what you were saying and doing. I think that's where my ability to write action came from. MUSHing. Perhaps that's an idea I can use to teach how to write action. Hmmm. That might be worthwhile. It could make for a fun class activity. Heehee. Okay, my mind is working now! Bwahahahaha! Any suggestions for other ways to teach writing action scenes?

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Slashdot | Ford Claims Ownership Of Your Pictures Okay, I'm all for copyright and trademark enforcement, but this is ridiculous! By this logic, I can't take a photo of anything I have purchased and sell the photo. If this ends up going to court, an awful lot of photogs are going to have to get a lot more waivers signed. A model won't be able to pose in front of a building, a car, even a park bench, without there being a question of rights infringement. I can't be the only one who sees this as tossing the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Anyone?

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