First, here’s a link to an interview with me: http://www.bookshoptalk.com/2011/09/interview-with-one-and-only-gail-carson.html. On the site you’ll find interviews with other authors and lots more for us bookish types.
And I heard something horrifying (in a writerly sense) on the radio in an interview with Patricia T. O’Conner, whose books Woe Is I and Woe Is I Jr. I keep recommending. She said that a question came in on her blog, http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/, a fascinating site, about the meaning of head nodding and head shaking. The questioner wrote that she’d (I think it was a she) had always thought a nod meant yes and a shake meant no, but lately she’d come across instances of the reverse. Pat looked into it and discovered that the meaning had shifted somewhat and the questioner was correct; sometimes a nod means no and a shake means yes. Aaa! Talk about shaking. My world is shook, rattled, and rolled. I’ve always used head nods for yes and shakes for no. Have I confused my readers? Have these neat, quick, formerly unambiguous gestures been taken away from me? And from you, too?
I don’t know what I’m going to do from now on, maybe ignore this bulletin from the front-lines of English usage and assume that most readers will understand my meaning. Or maybe make each nod and shake so clear no one can be mistaken, but, ugh, that will require extra words I didn’t need before. Anyway, I wanted to share the news with you because confusion loves company.
The interview moved on to naming places where a nod always means no and a shake always means yes, like Bulgaria and India, which is interesting, but not particularly worrisome.
Now on to this weeks question. On June 24, 2011, maybeawriter wrote, What's driving me nutty is that I barely have any scenes for my main story, and the one or two I have are no longer completely relevant to my story. I think my problem is that my storyline keeps changing in notes, conversations and deep thoughts. Not that a changing storyline is a problem, but it’s almost changing too fast. And now I had this new, completely story-changing idea. And now my story is shattered and I have no idea how to put it back together and make something from it, something that makes sense and somehow involves my oldest ideas. Maybe I just have trouble letting go of my old storyline. And maybe I fear the blank nothingness of the unknown, of the ever-changing story where nothing is sure, nothing set in stone, nothing to keep this story, well, this story. If I change too much, is it still the same story, or something new and unfamiliar?
I love to get together with writer friends and talk about current projects because the discussion is almost always reassuring. I’m making up names here, not using real friends: Annabelle says she’s trashing her novel and starting over; she had to write the wrong book so now she can write the right one; this has happened to her before. Randy says he hadn’t been able to write anything for two months but he wrote three pages last week and hopes he can keep going. Inga says she doesn’t know what her book is about fundamentally, which is making the going rough for her. I say I’ve started my novel over five times, once after writing 260 pages.
Nobody I know ever ever ever says, I sit down at the computer every morning without fail and pop out seven glorious pages. Isn’t writing the merriest occupation going?
No, writing is strange and inexplicably hard. It all comes out of our heads. Our materials are ideas, so why can’t we shape them easily? Why don’t they just chink into place?
They don’t, and that’s why it’s delightful to be with other writers, the only people who really understand. Maybeawriter, I don’t have a solution for you. What you’re going through is, in my experience, the writer’s lot. But I have a suggestion, which you may do already: when you’re most miserable, talk to other writers or read writers’ blogs or books about writing. I love the name you’ve given yourself: maybeawriter. That uncertainty is wonderfully honest about the writer’s state.
I glean two questions from you, one about scenes and the other about story direction. Scenes first.
Suppose we have a character, Mallory, who is starting a new school, say it’s magic sculpture school. Graduates create manikins that assist people in subtle ways, physically and emotionally. Mallory’s problems are that she’s brutally honest and has trouble taking criticism. Her strengths are her creativity and her sympathy. The major conflict in this story will revolve around these traits.
We need scenes to show Mallory in action. Where to set them? With which characters? Do we start by getting her in trouble in a small way and build or do we make it bad right away?
This is where I would begin to wander if I were taking this on, because I don’t know how to answer my own questions. Maybe I’ll write a scene with Mallory and her mother. Mallory has insulted her cousin, and her mother is taking her to task for it, and Mallory isn’t responding well.
But the action isn’t going to take place at home, so that scene won't advance the plot. Probably I won't use it. Still, I’ve seen Mallory in her home environment, which is informative. Now let me try one at the new school. In this scene we'll see her creativity and her touchiness and we'll introduce a character or two who may be important later on.
With luck this second scene moves us into the story and suggests scenes that can follow. Mallory antagonizes one of her teachers but interests another. A fellow student hates her; another falls in love with her. How will the teacher she antagonized react? How will the others? We temporarily forget our thematic ideas in the excitement of the detailed moment-to-moment writing.
Then we stop writing for the day. We walk the dog and ruminate about plot direction. Ideally our ideas support the direction we’ve started in, and sometimes this actually happens to me. But sometimes I anticipate problems based on what I’ve written. I think I need to go back to establish a new path ahead or I see a different route entirely, and I know that’s the way I have to go.
In an earlier version of Beloved Elodie, which finally is moving along, I had madness descend on Elodie’s island of Lahnt. Elodie’s mother is possessed by greed. She imagines herself as King Midas and has no regrets about turning her daughter to gold. It’s a disturbing and powerful scene, and I still love it for its power. I mourn giving it up, which I had to do to take my story in a viable direction. My tale isn’t what I started with, but now it’s one I can write. Maybe someday I can use the ideas in the mother-Midas scene and maybe not.
We have to go with what we can do. I’ve said before that I’m an unconscious writer. This is the way I see it: Our selves below the surface guide what we write. There are layers to that hidden self, which is why we veer this way and that, why the road through a story takes many detours. Although I’m often not happy about how long I need to meander to follow my story thread, I believe the added complexity serves our art. Maybeawriter, “the blank nothingness of the unknown” is where writers operate and where we shape our magic sculptures.
Here are three prompts about Mallory:
∙ Mallory is assigned to create a sculpture that will help a depressed eight-year-old boy. Write the scene in which she meets the boy for the first time.
∙ Write the scene I mentioned above in which Mallory alienates one teacher and interests another, causes a student to hate her and another to fall in love with her.
∙ Write a scene in which Mallory begins to create the sculpture for the boy.
Have fun and save what you write!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Speech!
Starting off with a reminder that I’ll be at the children’s book festival in Tarrytown, New York, on Sunday. The event is held at historic Sunnyside, Washington Irving’s home, a literary destination in its own right.
On June 20, 2011, Jen wrote, ....I am a very introverted person. But I've read in a lot of places that self-promotion is just as much a part of being a successful author as good writing is. Do you agree with that perspective? Is there any hope for someone like me that would rather not be in front of people?
I would never ever ever agree that anything is as important for an author as good writing. Success is a separate matter, hinging on many things, including luck and timing. And yes, self-promotion is useful. You, all of you reading the blog, should do some when you get published. If you already are published, you know.
And if you’re already published, I hope you’ll chime in with what worked and what disappointed you.
Self-promotion doesn’t necessarily mean public speaking. There are more ways today to promote your book than ever before, and new ones keep springing up. I’m not an authority on the subject, but there are lots of books that may help. Your library may have some, or your local bookstore may suggest some titles.
I googled “self-promotion for authors” and lots of links popped up. One of them, a fascinating and funny New York Times article, goes over author self-promotion from a historical perspective. To my amazement the practice goes way, way, way back. Many of the examples do not involve speech at all. The article’s tone is adult and may not be right for elementary schoolers. Here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/books/review/how-writers-build-the-brand.html.
Luck is luck, and you can’t do much about that, and timing is hard to control too. Your first picture book comes out when the market is down for picture books. Your paranormal novel is released just when the trend is fading, or your historical novel about the San Francisco earthquake hits the bookstores just after an earthquake strikes... somewhere, and interest is high.
The internet is the self-promoting author’s good buddy. You can create a website, a blog; you can tweet, use Facebook and, I suppose, LinkedIn for publicity. You can link to other sites that may link to yours as well. Some literary blogs interview authors, and these interviews are written, no speaking necessary. You can shoot something for YouTube about your book. Some authors develop online book trailers, not cheap, but not a fortune either. A friend has created an e-newsletter for teachers and librarians. She promotes her own work but also offers articles of more general interest.
I have a website and a blog (as you know!). The website is mostly for people who are interested in my books. The blog, obviously, is about writing, and it offers value even if you never read a word inside one of my books. But I do often mention a title or two to illustrate a point and to remind you that I’ve written this book or that one. I don’t do it so frequently that the blog is all about me, but the self-promotion is there, subtly. And of course I want to encourage you to come to appearances, where it will be hard to resist buying a book.
However, the results of promotion are hard to measure unless you score a huge coup, like an interview that is sure to result in thousands of sales. I have no idea how many books have been bought as a result of this blog, but I like writing my posts, so I continue to do it. It’s not worthwhile to promote in a way that makes you unhappy.
I don’t tweet, and I keep meaning to set up a fan Facebook page, but I haven’t gotten around to it, so I could do more. Everyone can do more. We have to choose between promotion and writing or hiking or talking to friends or flossing our teeth.
Off the internet, you can have postcards made and send them to everyone you know and leave them at local libraries and stores, especially bookstores. Your editor will almost certainly give you a PDF of the book cover to use. Heck, the publisher may even go halvsies with you on the cost or may pay for the whole thing. I always do a postcard mailing for my books. If nothing else, the postcards keep me in touch with cousins and friends I rarely see.
Friends can host book parties for you, although I’ve heard that doesn’t do much for sales. Still, a book is an achievement worth celebrating. You can write a press release and send it to local newspapers. If an editor wants to interview you, that will be one-on-one, most likely by phone, and your shyness may not be activated.
You can arrange a signing at a local bookstore and pressure your friends and family to come to hear you talk about your book. You may not sell many, but your supportive audience will give you experience in discussing your work.
Kids’ book writers can visit schools, which I’ve talked about before on the blog. School visits are a direct source of income as well as promotion, because we get honoraria for our visits. Some people who are shy with adults are comfortable with people half their size.
If you’re willing to give speeches or run workshops and if you have a particular expertise that relates to your writing, which might be in writing gothic mysteries for teens, for example, you can develop presentations for conferences and apply to showcase them. Often you’ll get an honorarium for this too.
I like to speak publicly, but it wasn’t always so. I got nervous. I feared that my nervousness showed, and my audience was suffering for me, miserable in the face of my misery. This was years before I started writing. Luckily, management at my job at the time brought in a public speaking consultant to work with me and a bunch of other newbies. He videotaped us (or whatever the technology was at the time) so we could see how we did. My big discovery was that I didn’t look afraid. No one but me knew how scared I was, which put me at ease. Now I regard nervousness as a boon for my energy level, and I never begin a speech as some do by confessing my fear.
If you can get training in public speaking, I suggest you go for it. It’s comforting to know you can handle yourself in from of a crowd. After all, if success does come your way, you may need to make acceptance speeches.
I remember a lot of the public speaking advice the consultant gave us, which I’m happy to share. He was opposed to written speeches and even speeches from notes. He said if you don’t know your topic well enough to talk from memory, you shouldn’t give a speech about it. I’ve taken some of that advice. I use notes to make sure I get to everything, but never a written speech. However, I do practice my speeches in the privacy of my office until I have what I want to say down solid, even to the cadence of my clauses, the expressions I’ll use, a particular wording. Then, except for an occasional glance at my notes, I’m looking at my audience the whole time.
The consultant was against podiums too. He wanted to be able to walk in the aisles and lock eyes with anyone on the verge of falling asleep. An assertive fellow, he refused ever to speak after his audience had had a meal, when they’d be drowsy. I don’t love podiums either, but I speak from behind them when I have to, and I certainly speak after a meal. And I have observed people fall asleep, which throws me off my game a little, but I soldier on.
I don’t remember if these are his techniques or if I’ve come upon them myself: I never use a power-point presentation, although I do project images on a screen when I need them. Power point, in my opinion, like a written speech, lacks spontaneity. If the room isn’t full, I urge my audience to move up to the front rows. I ask for the lighting to be as bright as it can be and still have people able to see the images on the screen. The most distressing speech (distressing for me) I’ve ever given was in a darkened auditorium with lights only on me. Afterwards, I was told it went well, but I couldn’t judge audience reaction and I felt boring and foolish. I know I would have been better if I could have seen a few people nodding or smiling.
The point of the consultant’s advice and my own strategies is to shrink the distance between audience and speaker. It’s that distance that causes the horror, but when you close it, the experience becomes more intimate even when hundreds of people are listening. Intimate is familiar. We often do intimate.
Here are three prompts:
∙ If you belong to a writing group, my guess is that sometimes talk wanders to publishing and even self-promotion. Take turns with group members in giving a chat about your story. Listen to the others. What worked? What didn’t? What can you incorporate into your own presentation?
∙ Write a variant of (part of) Cyrano de Bergerac. Your main character, Bethany, has published her first book. The publisher has set up a local signing, but she’s terrified. So she enlists a friend, Wanda, to speak for her. Wanda, however, isn’t much of a reader. She’s told Bethany that she read her book and loved it, but in truth she got only as far as the first chapter. Write the scene.
∙ Every year the empress of the Ocean Islands judges a poetry competition among her islands. The winning island hosts the empress until the next contest, and her presence brings the people of that island both esteem and wealth. On Parrot Island the judges have chosen Alti’s poem as the one to represent them this year. Alti will have to read the poem to the empress, and his delivery will be part of her evaluation. Trouble is, he suffers from awful stage fright. His teacher, Yora, has been charged with helping him prepare, but she preferred a different poem by another student, and she’s decided to sabotage Alti rather than help him. Write what happens.
Have fun, and save what you write!
On June 20, 2011, Jen wrote, ....I am a very introverted person. But I've read in a lot of places that self-promotion is just as much a part of being a successful author as good writing is. Do you agree with that perspective? Is there any hope for someone like me that would rather not be in front of people?
I would never ever ever agree that anything is as important for an author as good writing. Success is a separate matter, hinging on many things, including luck and timing. And yes, self-promotion is useful. You, all of you reading the blog, should do some when you get published. If you already are published, you know.
And if you’re already published, I hope you’ll chime in with what worked and what disappointed you.
Self-promotion doesn’t necessarily mean public speaking. There are more ways today to promote your book than ever before, and new ones keep springing up. I’m not an authority on the subject, but there are lots of books that may help. Your library may have some, or your local bookstore may suggest some titles.
I googled “self-promotion for authors” and lots of links popped up. One of them, a fascinating and funny New York Times article, goes over author self-promotion from a historical perspective. To my amazement the practice goes way, way, way back. Many of the examples do not involve speech at all. The article’s tone is adult and may not be right for elementary schoolers. Here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/books/review/how-writers-build-the-brand.html.
Luck is luck, and you can’t do much about that, and timing is hard to control too. Your first picture book comes out when the market is down for picture books. Your paranormal novel is released just when the trend is fading, or your historical novel about the San Francisco earthquake hits the bookstores just after an earthquake strikes... somewhere, and interest is high.
The internet is the self-promoting author’s good buddy. You can create a website, a blog; you can tweet, use Facebook and, I suppose, LinkedIn for publicity. You can link to other sites that may link to yours as well. Some literary blogs interview authors, and these interviews are written, no speaking necessary. You can shoot something for YouTube about your book. Some authors develop online book trailers, not cheap, but not a fortune either. A friend has created an e-newsletter for teachers and librarians. She promotes her own work but also offers articles of more general interest.
I have a website and a blog (as you know!). The website is mostly for people who are interested in my books. The blog, obviously, is about writing, and it offers value even if you never read a word inside one of my books. But I do often mention a title or two to illustrate a point and to remind you that I’ve written this book or that one. I don’t do it so frequently that the blog is all about me, but the self-promotion is there, subtly. And of course I want to encourage you to come to appearances, where it will be hard to resist buying a book.
However, the results of promotion are hard to measure unless you score a huge coup, like an interview that is sure to result in thousands of sales. I have no idea how many books have been bought as a result of this blog, but I like writing my posts, so I continue to do it. It’s not worthwhile to promote in a way that makes you unhappy.
I don’t tweet, and I keep meaning to set up a fan Facebook page, but I haven’t gotten around to it, so I could do more. Everyone can do more. We have to choose between promotion and writing or hiking or talking to friends or flossing our teeth.
Off the internet, you can have postcards made and send them to everyone you know and leave them at local libraries and stores, especially bookstores. Your editor will almost certainly give you a PDF of the book cover to use. Heck, the publisher may even go halvsies with you on the cost or may pay for the whole thing. I always do a postcard mailing for my books. If nothing else, the postcards keep me in touch with cousins and friends I rarely see.
Friends can host book parties for you, although I’ve heard that doesn’t do much for sales. Still, a book is an achievement worth celebrating. You can write a press release and send it to local newspapers. If an editor wants to interview you, that will be one-on-one, most likely by phone, and your shyness may not be activated.
You can arrange a signing at a local bookstore and pressure your friends and family to come to hear you talk about your book. You may not sell many, but your supportive audience will give you experience in discussing your work.
Kids’ book writers can visit schools, which I’ve talked about before on the blog. School visits are a direct source of income as well as promotion, because we get honoraria for our visits. Some people who are shy with adults are comfortable with people half their size.
If you’re willing to give speeches or run workshops and if you have a particular expertise that relates to your writing, which might be in writing gothic mysteries for teens, for example, you can develop presentations for conferences and apply to showcase them. Often you’ll get an honorarium for this too.
I like to speak publicly, but it wasn’t always so. I got nervous. I feared that my nervousness showed, and my audience was suffering for me, miserable in the face of my misery. This was years before I started writing. Luckily, management at my job at the time brought in a public speaking consultant to work with me and a bunch of other newbies. He videotaped us (or whatever the technology was at the time) so we could see how we did. My big discovery was that I didn’t look afraid. No one but me knew how scared I was, which put me at ease. Now I regard nervousness as a boon for my energy level, and I never begin a speech as some do by confessing my fear.
If you can get training in public speaking, I suggest you go for it. It’s comforting to know you can handle yourself in from of a crowd. After all, if success does come your way, you may need to make acceptance speeches.
I remember a lot of the public speaking advice the consultant gave us, which I’m happy to share. He was opposed to written speeches and even speeches from notes. He said if you don’t know your topic well enough to talk from memory, you shouldn’t give a speech about it. I’ve taken some of that advice. I use notes to make sure I get to everything, but never a written speech. However, I do practice my speeches in the privacy of my office until I have what I want to say down solid, even to the cadence of my clauses, the expressions I’ll use, a particular wording. Then, except for an occasional glance at my notes, I’m looking at my audience the whole time.
The consultant was against podiums too. He wanted to be able to walk in the aisles and lock eyes with anyone on the verge of falling asleep. An assertive fellow, he refused ever to speak after his audience had had a meal, when they’d be drowsy. I don’t love podiums either, but I speak from behind them when I have to, and I certainly speak after a meal. And I have observed people fall asleep, which throws me off my game a little, but I soldier on.
I don’t remember if these are his techniques or if I’ve come upon them myself: I never use a power-point presentation, although I do project images on a screen when I need them. Power point, in my opinion, like a written speech, lacks spontaneity. If the room isn’t full, I urge my audience to move up to the front rows. I ask for the lighting to be as bright as it can be and still have people able to see the images on the screen. The most distressing speech (distressing for me) I’ve ever given was in a darkened auditorium with lights only on me. Afterwards, I was told it went well, but I couldn’t judge audience reaction and I felt boring and foolish. I know I would have been better if I could have seen a few people nodding or smiling.
The point of the consultant’s advice and my own strategies is to shrink the distance between audience and speaker. It’s that distance that causes the horror, but when you close it, the experience becomes more intimate even when hundreds of people are listening. Intimate is familiar. We often do intimate.
Here are three prompts:
∙ If you belong to a writing group, my guess is that sometimes talk wanders to publishing and even self-promotion. Take turns with group members in giving a chat about your story. Listen to the others. What worked? What didn’t? What can you incorporate into your own presentation?
∙ Write a variant of (part of) Cyrano de Bergerac. Your main character, Bethany, has published her first book. The publisher has set up a local signing, but she’s terrified. So she enlists a friend, Wanda, to speak for her. Wanda, however, isn’t much of a reader. She’s told Bethany that she read her book and loved it, but in truth she got only as far as the first chapter. Write the scene.
∙ Every year the empress of the Ocean Islands judges a poetry competition among her islands. The winning island hosts the empress until the next contest, and her presence brings the people of that island both esteem and wealth. On Parrot Island the judges have chosen Alti’s poem as the one to represent them this year. Alti will have to read the poem to the empress, and his delivery will be part of her evaluation. Trouble is, he suffers from awful stage fright. His teacher, Yora, has been charged with helping him prepare, but she preferred a different poem by another student, and she’s decided to sabotage Alti rather than help him. Write what happens.
Have fun, and save what you write!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Mysterious
First off, for those of you who may live a little north of New York City, I’ll be signing books at a children’s book festival a week from Sunday, on September 25th, in Tarrytown. I’ll just be signing, not speaking, but I’ll be there for two-and-a-half hours, and unless a miracle happens, I’ll have time to chat. This is a wonderful event, with many terrific kids’ book writers. Details are on the website. Hope some of you can come!
On June 16, 2011 AngieBelle wrote, ...I have read many mysteries and am always fascinated by how the author ties everything together- even in seemingly simple children's mysteries, which are usually what I'm reading. How does one come up with all the details that lead to solving the mystery?
I’ve written two other posts about writing mysteries, one on May 27th, 2009, and one on January 6th, 2010, which you may want to look at too. These are additional thoughts. I said in the earlier posts that I’m a newbie mystery writer, and I still am. In fact, I would welcome tips from other mystery writers who read the blog.
In my first mystery, A Tale of Two Castles, I didn’t know who the villain was until I’d written two-thirds of the book, and this worried me, as you can imagine. But then this character did something revealing, and I knew. The advantage of this is that the bad guy’s identity may come as more of a surprise to the reader if it was also a surprise to the writer. I’m not saying that careful plotters and outliners can’t create mysteries that feel unpredictable, only that this is the approach that worked for me, on a single book.
I’m trying it again in the new book, Beloved Elodie (tentative title). I’m making several characters potential villains, and I’ve invented back stories for each that could give them a motive for the crime, the theft of a flask, which, if not recovered, will cause hundreds of lives to be lost.
These back stories can supply the details that pile up in a reader’s mind. In A Tale of Two Castles again, two of my characters were spies, which I didn’t reveal until near the end of the book. Their undercover activity caused them to act suspiciously. I knew why but the reader didn’t, and I could sort the details out because of my secret knowledge.
The back story technique goes something like this: Madame Peppercorn is knifed to death at midnight. Mr. Marjoram is found with a knife. Congresswoman Thyme was seen loitering near the scene of the crime. Professor Basil was overheard arguing with Madame Peppercorn the day before the murder. Madame Peppercorn’s daughter, Miss Allspice, has been corresponding with a lawyer about declaring her mother incompetent. Doctor Nutmeg was prescribing sedatives to Madame Peppercorn for her anxiety. Detective Tarragon finds clues galore, details galore. The reader goes to sleep at night counting spices.
But the author knows the following: Mr. Marjoram had the knife to protect himself from a colleague who threatened him; Congresswoman Thyme lost her engagement ring somewhere near Madame Peppercorn’s estate; Madame Peppercorn demanded an acknowledgment from Professor Basil in his forthcoming book about rich old ladies; Miss Allspice is worried about her mother’s recent memory lapses; Doctor Nutmeg murdered Madame Peppercorn because she threatened him with a malpractice suit, which he knows would cost him his license. He visited her, ostensibly to explain his prescriptions, knocked her out with something that leaves the digestive system quickly (Is there such a thing?), and stabbed her to death.
The author can keep it all straight because he knows who’s doing what for which reasons.
I’m not as organized as the above herbal mystery suggests. I toss in clues and details willy-nilly, hoping they’ll come in handy later, but I do make up the back stories - usually. In A Tale of Two Castles I had a mild-mannered character speak harshly at one point. I didn’t really have a reason, simply that it was late at night and he was alone. My editor asked me to tie up that loose thread and fondly told me she was sure I knew the character’s motivation. I didn’t, but at that point the book was written. All the elements were in place, and I found the character’s reason, and it fit.
It fit because writing is magical or the human mind is magical, which I’ve said before on the blog. We plunk in details to enrich our stories, to flesh out our characters, hoping the details will come do double duty and be useful for the plot, but when we write them in we have no idea how that will happen. We keep writing and find, often enough to be remarkable, that this little thing, for example a character’s fascination with a certain painting by Toulouse-Lautrec, turns out to be the key to the entire story.
Some of what I throw in turns out not to belong, and I waste time on plot points that don’t take me the right way, but these come out in revision, and some points were interesting to explore even if ultimately not right. Writing isn’t efficient, at least not when I do it.
A few months ago I bought a book on writing mysteries, then read only part of it because most of the advice offered didn’t apply to fantasy. But I do remember one rule: neither too many suspects or too few. The author suggested at least three and no more than six, a good rule, I think.
In A Tale of Two Castles, suspects abounded because my victim was despised and feared by many. I narrowed the field simply by authorial spotlight. The people I shined my beam on were implicated; the hundreds of others never entered the picture. The mayor, for example, was present when the crime was committed, but I paid no attention to him, so he didn’t become a suspect.
Is this fair? I’m not sure, but without this technique many stories couldn’t be told.
The crime in Beloved Elodie takes place in an isolated spot, so the number of suspects is limited. Still, a few more characters are present than I can use, so these extras’ time on the story stage will be short.
As readers, we anticipate future events, even in a non-mystery. The writer gives us clues that the story characters can’t pick up on. Watch out! we want to scream to the main. This friend is treacherous!
Mystery readers tend to be extra vigilant about clues. I don’t read mysteries with a pencil and paper, taking notes, trying to figure everything out logically, but I do keep an eye out for the likely villain. This habit as a reader is worrying me as a writer. If, for example, I make Ms. Clove an unpleasant character, the reader may think, It will be too obvious if Ms. Clove does it. She can’t be the thief. Then if I make Mr. Turmeric nice, the reader may think, He’s too sweet to endanger all these people; he can’t be the one. But maybe the author will think I won’t suspect Mr. Turmeric, and he really did do it.
If it turns out that Mr. Turmeric is the villain, the reader will think that’s predictable and be disappointed. If Ms. Clove did it, the ending may feel too easy. The solution has to be layered, surprising characters. I’m working on that, but the predictability factor is on my mind.
Here are three prompts:
• In the mystery of Madame Peppercorn’s murder, write interviews between Detective Tarragon and the suspects. Have the detective discover the meaning behind some of the statements and misunderstand others. (You can pick a different villain if you like.)
• In 1967 silk magnate Jim Thompson disappeared while visiting a friend in Malaysia and was never seen again. Here’s a link to Jim Thompson on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thompson_%28designer%29. The entry goes into the disappearance in some detail, and you need to read that part in order to do the prompt. Your challenge is to solve the disappearance. If you like, you can turn the circumstances into fantasy.
• Now for a children’s mystery. You may know the nursery game, “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?” It’s just an accusation and denial. Turn it into a story and solve the mystery. The trouble, of course, is that the most important evidence gets eaten.
Have fun, and save what you write!
On June 16, 2011 AngieBelle wrote, ...I have read many mysteries and am always fascinated by how the author ties everything together- even in seemingly simple children's mysteries, which are usually what I'm reading. How does one come up with all the details that lead to solving the mystery?
I’ve written two other posts about writing mysteries, one on May 27th, 2009, and one on January 6th, 2010, which you may want to look at too. These are additional thoughts. I said in the earlier posts that I’m a newbie mystery writer, and I still am. In fact, I would welcome tips from other mystery writers who read the blog.
In my first mystery, A Tale of Two Castles, I didn’t know who the villain was until I’d written two-thirds of the book, and this worried me, as you can imagine. But then this character did something revealing, and I knew. The advantage of this is that the bad guy’s identity may come as more of a surprise to the reader if it was also a surprise to the writer. I’m not saying that careful plotters and outliners can’t create mysteries that feel unpredictable, only that this is the approach that worked for me, on a single book.
I’m trying it again in the new book, Beloved Elodie (tentative title). I’m making several characters potential villains, and I’ve invented back stories for each that could give them a motive for the crime, the theft of a flask, which, if not recovered, will cause hundreds of lives to be lost.
These back stories can supply the details that pile up in a reader’s mind. In A Tale of Two Castles again, two of my characters were spies, which I didn’t reveal until near the end of the book. Their undercover activity caused them to act suspiciously. I knew why but the reader didn’t, and I could sort the details out because of my secret knowledge.
The back story technique goes something like this: Madame Peppercorn is knifed to death at midnight. Mr. Marjoram is found with a knife. Congresswoman Thyme was seen loitering near the scene of the crime. Professor Basil was overheard arguing with Madame Peppercorn the day before the murder. Madame Peppercorn’s daughter, Miss Allspice, has been corresponding with a lawyer about declaring her mother incompetent. Doctor Nutmeg was prescribing sedatives to Madame Peppercorn for her anxiety. Detective Tarragon finds clues galore, details galore. The reader goes to sleep at night counting spices.
But the author knows the following: Mr. Marjoram had the knife to protect himself from a colleague who threatened him; Congresswoman Thyme lost her engagement ring somewhere near Madame Peppercorn’s estate; Madame Peppercorn demanded an acknowledgment from Professor Basil in his forthcoming book about rich old ladies; Miss Allspice is worried about her mother’s recent memory lapses; Doctor Nutmeg murdered Madame Peppercorn because she threatened him with a malpractice suit, which he knows would cost him his license. He visited her, ostensibly to explain his prescriptions, knocked her out with something that leaves the digestive system quickly (Is there such a thing?), and stabbed her to death.
The author can keep it all straight because he knows who’s doing what for which reasons.
I’m not as organized as the above herbal mystery suggests. I toss in clues and details willy-nilly, hoping they’ll come in handy later, but I do make up the back stories - usually. In A Tale of Two Castles I had a mild-mannered character speak harshly at one point. I didn’t really have a reason, simply that it was late at night and he was alone. My editor asked me to tie up that loose thread and fondly told me she was sure I knew the character’s motivation. I didn’t, but at that point the book was written. All the elements were in place, and I found the character’s reason, and it fit.
It fit because writing is magical or the human mind is magical, which I’ve said before on the blog. We plunk in details to enrich our stories, to flesh out our characters, hoping the details will come do double duty and be useful for the plot, but when we write them in we have no idea how that will happen. We keep writing and find, often enough to be remarkable, that this little thing, for example a character’s fascination with a certain painting by Toulouse-Lautrec, turns out to be the key to the entire story.
Some of what I throw in turns out not to belong, and I waste time on plot points that don’t take me the right way, but these come out in revision, and some points were interesting to explore even if ultimately not right. Writing isn’t efficient, at least not when I do it.
A few months ago I bought a book on writing mysteries, then read only part of it because most of the advice offered didn’t apply to fantasy. But I do remember one rule: neither too many suspects or too few. The author suggested at least three and no more than six, a good rule, I think.
In A Tale of Two Castles, suspects abounded because my victim was despised and feared by many. I narrowed the field simply by authorial spotlight. The people I shined my beam on were implicated; the hundreds of others never entered the picture. The mayor, for example, was present when the crime was committed, but I paid no attention to him, so he didn’t become a suspect.
Is this fair? I’m not sure, but without this technique many stories couldn’t be told.
The crime in Beloved Elodie takes place in an isolated spot, so the number of suspects is limited. Still, a few more characters are present than I can use, so these extras’ time on the story stage will be short.
As readers, we anticipate future events, even in a non-mystery. The writer gives us clues that the story characters can’t pick up on. Watch out! we want to scream to the main. This friend is treacherous!
Mystery readers tend to be extra vigilant about clues. I don’t read mysteries with a pencil and paper, taking notes, trying to figure everything out logically, but I do keep an eye out for the likely villain. This habit as a reader is worrying me as a writer. If, for example, I make Ms. Clove an unpleasant character, the reader may think, It will be too obvious if Ms. Clove does it. She can’t be the thief. Then if I make Mr. Turmeric nice, the reader may think, He’s too sweet to endanger all these people; he can’t be the one. But maybe the author will think I won’t suspect Mr. Turmeric, and he really did do it.
If it turns out that Mr. Turmeric is the villain, the reader will think that’s predictable and be disappointed. If Ms. Clove did it, the ending may feel too easy. The solution has to be layered, surprising characters. I’m working on that, but the predictability factor is on my mind.
Here are three prompts:
• In the mystery of Madame Peppercorn’s murder, write interviews between Detective Tarragon and the suspects. Have the detective discover the meaning behind some of the statements and misunderstand others. (You can pick a different villain if you like.)
• In 1967 silk magnate Jim Thompson disappeared while visiting a friend in Malaysia and was never seen again. Here’s a link to Jim Thompson on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thompson_%28designer%29. The entry goes into the disappearance in some detail, and you need to read that part in order to do the prompt. Your challenge is to solve the disappearance. If you like, you can turn the circumstances into fantasy.
• Now for a children’s mystery. You may know the nursery game, “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?” It’s just an accusation and denial. Turn it into a story and solve the mystery. The trouble, of course, is that the most important evidence gets eaten.
Have fun, and save what you write!
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Start-stop, start-stop
On June 10, 2011, Limegreen wrote, I find that most of the stories I don't finish are because I just start writing. I jot down some random beginning to a story and get a random idea for the story. However, when I do that, I have no idea where the story is going and the plot putters out after a few pages or so. But I also can't seem to find a good way to outline my stories. I either over plot it and have no fun with the story, or I under-plot and my story putters out too. Any advice on how to fix that?
I’m not an outliner either, as I’ve said many times on the blog. Sometimes I attempt outlining, but when I start to write, I realize problems that didn’t occur to me earlier, and the outline doesn’t accommodate them. I suspect serious outliners spend as much time, or almost as much, outlining as actually writing. They anticipate the issues and also manage not to over-plot. Wish I knew how to do it.
Even without outlining, however, you might restrain yourself from starting your story until your idea gels a little. Write notes instead of actual story. Write what ideas interest you in the beginning you have in mind. Consider where you might go with them, loosely, and put your thoughts on paper. Think (in writing) about a few characters who might fit. I also like to think of real people I know whose personalities fascinate me. Can you put any of your fascinating people in, in a fictionalized fashion?
Then ruminate over how the story might end. Write a few alternate endings. You can commit to one if it strikes you as perfect or you can leave them all hanging out there as possibilities. As you write, keep them in mind. One may become more probable as you move along.
I hope you’ve been saving your petered-out beginnings. Go through them and pick one. Tentatively decide that you just didn’t stick with it long enough. Stare at it. See if you can coax a new paragraph out of the void and then another. What do you make of your main character? Ask yourself questions about him. Who are his friends? His family? What’s easy for him? What’s hard? What tempts him into trouble? Can you move the story toward that trouble? Did you start in the right place? Is it possible that your beginning is really the end, and what you have to do is write toward it?
Ask yourself these questions and any others you can dream up. Then go back to your beginning and see if you can make more progress.
Look over your false starts again. Do any belong together? If you combine them, do they move you deeper into your story? If yes, keep going.
You describe your beginnings and ideas as random, but I believe nothing in writing is random. I say in Writing Magic, and I think I’ve said on the blog that writing comes from a very deep place. Even the simplest, lightest stories do. Let’s take "Little Bo Peep" for example. Here we go:
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
and doesn’t know where to find them.
Leave them alone
and they’ll come home,
wagging their tails behind them.
I may not have broken the lines correctly. Sorry. But there’s profundity to spare here. We’ve all felt the desperation of losing something important, could be homework, money, even trust. And we’ve all (I think) had the experience of letting the lost thing go, and the relief of that. Sometimes the loss is never recovered, but sometimes we get whatever it was back, and it seems that the letting go made the return possible. All that out of a nursery rhyme!
Themes repeat, not just story lines. Look at your beginnings once more. Is there something that unites them? If you can’t find a thread, ask your friends or family to read them and suggest a theme. They may see more than one, which is great.
A frequent story thread I see in kids’ stories is a main character being kidnapped. So what might be going on underneath? You may think of more possibilities, but here are two of mine: the victim, Eloise, is wanted, needed, so desired for some quality (her mind, her lovableness, her beautiful voice, her paranormal power) that the kidnappers put themselves at risk to capture her; or Eloise is in danger of being taken over, of losing her will, even her self, to her captors. Or both. So where can the writer take these themes? How can he play them out? Who are her captors? What are their personalities, flaws, virtues?
In both these examples, Bo Peep and the kidnapping, what chokes off the writing may be the underlying depth. It may be scary to explore, in the kidnapping case for instance, what it means for a main character, the one both reader and writer most identify with, to be so valuable. It reminds me of the sequence in the old movie It's a Wonderful Life when the angel shows George Bailey what his town would have been like without him. I love that part, but it also embarrasses me - kind of like imagining your own funeral and how much everyone loved you.
Now I don’t mean that we’re aware in the slightest of feeling frightened when we write our failed beginnings. The idea simply peters out. But if we look at our themes, bring them out in the open, that lurking uneasiness may melt away. What we have turns into mere story and we see where we can go with it.
Contrariwise, ordinarily I resist examining my underlying motifs because I suspect that their subterranean natures give my stories power. But these cut-off beginnings are a special case and make the exploration worthwhile.
Here are some prompts:
• If you too have trouble staying with your beginnings, review your false starts. Seek out your themes. Ask friends for help. When you have a few ideas, see where they take you. If a particular thread makes your heart race a little, keep going. If your heart persists in beating according to its ordinary rhythm, keep going anyway.
• Expand Little Bo Peep’s situation, showing her story rather than telling it. How did she lose the sheep? Where does she search? What will the consequences be if the sheep stay lost? Who will be angry? How will Bo Peep suffer? If you like, turn the nursery rhyme into a novel or a series, The Bo Peep Chronicles.
• Look up nursery rhymes, like "Little Bo Peep." Pick one or two or more and speculate about their deeper meanings. Write down what you think.
• This familiar lullaby is totally crazy (and creepy), in my opinion:
Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
Have fun, and save what you write!
I’m not an outliner either, as I’ve said many times on the blog. Sometimes I attempt outlining, but when I start to write, I realize problems that didn’t occur to me earlier, and the outline doesn’t accommodate them. I suspect serious outliners spend as much time, or almost as much, outlining as actually writing. They anticipate the issues and also manage not to over-plot. Wish I knew how to do it.
Even without outlining, however, you might restrain yourself from starting your story until your idea gels a little. Write notes instead of actual story. Write what ideas interest you in the beginning you have in mind. Consider where you might go with them, loosely, and put your thoughts on paper. Think (in writing) about a few characters who might fit. I also like to think of real people I know whose personalities fascinate me. Can you put any of your fascinating people in, in a fictionalized fashion?
Then ruminate over how the story might end. Write a few alternate endings. You can commit to one if it strikes you as perfect or you can leave them all hanging out there as possibilities. As you write, keep them in mind. One may become more probable as you move along.
I hope you’ve been saving your petered-out beginnings. Go through them and pick one. Tentatively decide that you just didn’t stick with it long enough. Stare at it. See if you can coax a new paragraph out of the void and then another. What do you make of your main character? Ask yourself questions about him. Who are his friends? His family? What’s easy for him? What’s hard? What tempts him into trouble? Can you move the story toward that trouble? Did you start in the right place? Is it possible that your beginning is really the end, and what you have to do is write toward it?
Ask yourself these questions and any others you can dream up. Then go back to your beginning and see if you can make more progress.
Look over your false starts again. Do any belong together? If you combine them, do they move you deeper into your story? If yes, keep going.
You describe your beginnings and ideas as random, but I believe nothing in writing is random. I say in Writing Magic, and I think I’ve said on the blog that writing comes from a very deep place. Even the simplest, lightest stories do. Let’s take "Little Bo Peep" for example. Here we go:
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
and doesn’t know where to find them.
Leave them alone
and they’ll come home,
wagging their tails behind them.
I may not have broken the lines correctly. Sorry. But there’s profundity to spare here. We’ve all felt the desperation of losing something important, could be homework, money, even trust. And we’ve all (I think) had the experience of letting the lost thing go, and the relief of that. Sometimes the loss is never recovered, but sometimes we get whatever it was back, and it seems that the letting go made the return possible. All that out of a nursery rhyme!
Themes repeat, not just story lines. Look at your beginnings once more. Is there something that unites them? If you can’t find a thread, ask your friends or family to read them and suggest a theme. They may see more than one, which is great.
A frequent story thread I see in kids’ stories is a main character being kidnapped. So what might be going on underneath? You may think of more possibilities, but here are two of mine: the victim, Eloise, is wanted, needed, so desired for some quality (her mind, her lovableness, her beautiful voice, her paranormal power) that the kidnappers put themselves at risk to capture her; or Eloise is in danger of being taken over, of losing her will, even her self, to her captors. Or both. So where can the writer take these themes? How can he play them out? Who are her captors? What are their personalities, flaws, virtues?
In both these examples, Bo Peep and the kidnapping, what chokes off the writing may be the underlying depth. It may be scary to explore, in the kidnapping case for instance, what it means for a main character, the one both reader and writer most identify with, to be so valuable. It reminds me of the sequence in the old movie It's a Wonderful Life when the angel shows George Bailey what his town would have been like without him. I love that part, but it also embarrasses me - kind of like imagining your own funeral and how much everyone loved you.
Now I don’t mean that we’re aware in the slightest of feeling frightened when we write our failed beginnings. The idea simply peters out. But if we look at our themes, bring them out in the open, that lurking uneasiness may melt away. What we have turns into mere story and we see where we can go with it.
Contrariwise, ordinarily I resist examining my underlying motifs because I suspect that their subterranean natures give my stories power. But these cut-off beginnings are a special case and make the exploration worthwhile.
Here are some prompts:
• If you too have trouble staying with your beginnings, review your false starts. Seek out your themes. Ask friends for help. When you have a few ideas, see where they take you. If a particular thread makes your heart race a little, keep going. If your heart persists in beating according to its ordinary rhythm, keep going anyway.
• Expand Little Bo Peep’s situation, showing her story rather than telling it. How did she lose the sheep? Where does she search? What will the consequences be if the sheep stay lost? Who will be angry? How will Bo Peep suffer? If you like, turn the nursery rhyme into a novel or a series, The Bo Peep Chronicles.
• Look up nursery rhymes, like "Little Bo Peep." Pick one or two or more and speculate about their deeper meanings. Write down what you think.
• This familiar lullaby is totally crazy (and creepy), in my opinion:
Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
Who put Baby up there? Does somebody want to kill him? Turn this one into a story or a novel. If you want to see my silly interpretation, look for it in my book of mean poems, Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It, coming out next March.
Have fun, and save what you write!
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