Writing Tips: No Plot? No Problem

Before I start today’s post I want to announce that I hope to upload Beauty and the Beast to Amazon tonight or tomorrow. Due to Amazon’s publishing system even if it is available tomorrow I might not be able to get the book lined up for a free promo day. Because of that I’m pushing back B&B‘s freebie days by one day. You can plan for it to be available for free on Friday–December 13–and Saturday–December 14.

Ok, on to the fun stuff! I know I just recently did a writing tips entry, but this weekend I checked out a marvelous book from the library and once B&B is launched I will be filling this blog with B&B news. Plus I’m dying to talk about it and if I tried to bring this kind of thing up among my social circle most people would eye me oddly.

The book is called No Plot No Problem, and I cannot recommend it highly enough for new writers. The book is written by the creator of NaNoWriMo–or National Novel Writing Month–and the book focuses on the purpose of NaNoWriMo–writing a novel (50,000 words) in a month. What makes this book so valuable is that single idea.

The author is very upfront in saying that you probably aren’t going to produce the next great American novel by writing a book in one month, but the experience is priceless. I don’t mean to sound discouraging, but the first novel you write is like a set of training wheels. It’s what you learn on, it’s not an example of your finest work. I wrote at least four full length, finished books before I produced anything of worth. I went back and rewrote the punctuation off my earlier stories so they are great products now, but I would rather take a vow to be a hermit than to let you, Champions, read the first drafts of Princess Ahira or Life Reader.

So if you know your first novel is going to be less than stellar, why not write it fast and get it over with? Instead of starting with that Epic Fantasy you’ve been dreaming about for the past five years, write a shorter book that will teach you through experience about the craft of writing. Your dream book will benefit greatly and your rewrites won’t be as painful.

That is not to say your first novel is going to be trash. Lots of people who participate in NaNoWriMo take time to clean up their novels and make them into great books, but no one can deny that your first draft of your first book is basically an experiment. Even if you know that it is still a lot of fun, and I promise you’ll feel accomplished when you finish it.

No Plot No Problem also gives you the tools to figure out how to squeeze writing time into your life, and it talks about the importance of deadlines. In a nutshell, most people don’t write a novel even if they want to because they never give themselves a sense of urgency/looming deadlines. Having a goal will help you make yourself write. I use this method myself. My goal isn’t necessarily to write a novel in a month, but I do try to come up with a word goal for every month. (For instance I’ll say my goal is to write 30,000 or 40,000 words. All of my King Arthur and Her Knights books are typically written in 30ish days.)

No Plot No Problem also has a lot of great advice from people who have participated in NaNoWritMo. They talk about the midway slump, how to keep slogging through, keeping yourself encouraged, and more.

The biggest ideas I want to endorse with this book are 1) write with a deadline and 2) write that  first novel FAST and don’t be ashamed about it. Given that NaNoWritMo is a fairly big phenomena I’m pretty confident you’ll be able to find a copy of this book in your local library system. Find it, read it, embrace it! Believe me, as a writer I want you to succeed. Most people want to write a book, but very few people ever do. No Plot No Problem is a great tool to help you get over that first hurdle, separating you from the want-tos.

Thanks for reading, Champions!

Writing Tips: Character Motivation

Greetings Champions. It’s been a while since I’ve had a writing tip entry, so today I want to talk about character motivation.

Whether you fly by the seat of your pants and just write or you tediously plot out your stories, one thing that you absolutely must decide on beforehand is character motivation. Your heroes must have motivation as a group and individually, and your villains must have a motive for doing what they do.

If we want to look at it from the villain’s viewpoint, Sauron from Lord of the Rings is an obvious example. His motivation? He wants to take over Middle Earth. He’s very upfront and predictable in his desire, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. An example of a less blunt villain would be Miss Bingley from Pride and Prejudice. Her motivation is that she wants to marry Mr. Darcey. This desire sets her up as Elizabeth’s enemy, and it eventually affects her friendship with Elizabeth’s sister, Jane, when she concludes that having anything to do with Elizabeth’s family is dangerous.

So Sauron, the dude with the spiky helmet? Yeah, this is him before he went through his gothic phase. He was actually named Mairon and was a good guy until–you guessed it–he was otherwise motivated. The image is NOT mine.

Heroes are much the same. Robin Hood steals from the rich and gives to the poor because he wants to provide for those in need. Pirates look for treasure because they are driven to find gold.

Motivated characters drive a plot forward. It’s what pushes them to reach, run, or pursue. This is true in any kind of genre. In horror books the characters are fighting for life, in romance they’re fighting for love. Typically the fate of the world is at risk in fantasy books, and the desire to stop a killer is what pushes the detective to solve a murder mystery. Unmotivated characters make for really boring books. When you craft your plot make sure your characters are motivated to see the story through. Give them personal reasons to, and raise the stakes.

You also must be sure to include personal motivations. In Princess Ahira Azmaveth creates Kohath because he is driven by his curiosity. He wasn’t romantically interested in Ahira at first, but his personal motivation came back and bit him on the rump to make that happen. The plot for Red Rope of Fate revolves around court intrigue, kidnapping, and blackmail. But the romance of Red Rope of Fate starts with Tari’s motivation to befriend Arion because she feels obliged to. Individual motivation will explain why the character does what he/she does.

A character can and should have more than one motivation. Sometimes the character’s motivations aren’t even discussed in the book, but you can see the way they affect the character. (Tari’s career as an Evening Star is a perfect example. I don’t come out and say “EVENING STARS PROTECT HUMANS” until 3/4 through the book, but you can see that mindset in Tari from the first page.) Sometimes books are even better if you don’t tell the readers what the character’s motivation is, but you still MUST give them a defined motivation because it will help you set a pattern for the character to react off.

Writing Tips: Let’s Talk Writing Dialog

Today I want to discuss writing dialog. We’re going to jump straight into it by looking over dialog’s punctuation format. If you you have a piece of dialog followed by he said/she said/a sentence that modifies the talking, AND you intend to use a period to end the talking, you must, instead, use a comma. (In example: “Right, I totally believe you,” Raven said, rolling her eyes.) If you’re using a question mark or an exclamation mark you insert them as usual without a comma of any sort. If the dialog is at the end of the paragraph and there’s nothing after it, you can still end it with a period. (In example: Morgan shoved Devin away. “I said to back away, not come closer.”) HOWEVER, if there is a sentence before the dialog that modifies it, then a comma goes after that modifier. (In example: Britt arched an eyebrow before adding, “It also helps that you’re handsome.”) Crack open the nearest fiction book and look at the dialog pieces for more examples.

Generally speaking, you want to use exclamation marks sparingly in dialog. If the character is shouting, exasperated, or excited the dialog and description should reveal that. Additionally, try to stick to she/he said. Asked is considered a safe dialog verb as well. Things like shrieked, shouted, yelled, sputtered, etc CAN be used as well, but as with exclamation marks they should be used sparingly.

The above rules may seem like killjoys, but it’s for the reader’s sake. Using different verbs for dialog really pulls readers out of the groove. As a society we have been trained to essentially ignore the he/she said tags. When reading a book you’re barely aware of them. The same cannot be said for more colorful verbs.

There is another alternative. If you’re having a conversation between two characters you can chop off the usage of he/she said altogether. In example….

Britt yawned. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I may be bored.” Merlin glanced up from his paper work. “This winter season has been quiet. You had best enjoy it while it lasts, lass.” “What do you mean?” “Spring is nearly here, and all the wretched warmongers will pop out of the ground with the pretty flowers you love so much.”

I never once used he/she said, but you knew who was speaking every time, first because the actions gave away who was talking, and then because of word usage and word order. Some authors use motions/action tags to let you know who is talking, and others use a character’s voice to let you know who is talking. (For instance, Merlin is the only person in King Arthur and Her Knights who calls Britt lass. If my readers see any dialog with the word lass in it they know it’s Merlin.)

OK, so now that you’ve got a basic overview of how dialog is set up, how do you write dialog itself? If you’re serious about writing good dialog you need to become a people watcher. Listen to the way your friends and family talk, then go out and listen to strangers and see what they talk about and how they say it. Each character needs to have a unique voice. An uncultured peasant isn’t going to talk like a King, just as you Great Aunt Ellie isn’t going to sound like the 15-year-old neighbor boy. A typical teenager uses slang, and people say things differently depending where they live and their economical standing. (Is it soda, pop, or coke? Is it a drinking fountain or a bubbler? How about a couch or a sofa?)

Also, your character’s personality should be reflected in what they say. Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice is prideful while his friend, Mr. Bingley, is easy going and amiable. The difference is obvious in the dialog as Mr. Bingley says he finds everything agreeable and Mr. Darcy is typically realistic with  a large dash of criticism. The personality difference should show from character to character, but also between the opposing forces in your story. Your villains must be strikingly different from your heroes. You will never find a group of truly evil villains complimenting each other, or wondering if they’ll find their one true love. Instead they would dwell on conquest and power, and the words they use will be darker.

I’ve barely scratched the surface with this crash course, but hopefully it pointed a few of you budding writers in the right direction. Sorry for the delay in uploading Friday’s post, but thanks for reading!