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Daily Archives: November 23, 2012

Stalling on Start Line

I was planning to write a wry post today about everything that went wrong over Thanksgiving. I figured it’d be a shoo-in since, (a) it was Thanksgiving and (b) it was at my house. I hosted Thanksgiving at my house this year for the first time. Disappointingly, no disasters occurred to provide me writing fodder.  😉

However, I have small children, and they can always be counted on to say something worth writing down.

Normally at bedtime, I tell the kids a story, but last night, excited by the holiday, my four year old announced he wanted to tell the story. It went something like this…

SON: Once upon a time… This is the beginning of the story, Mommy, that’s why I said, ‘Once upon a time.

ME: Great beginning!

SON: Once upon a time there were three little bears… Mommy, actually this is a story from Real Life. It really happened. So I can’t say ‘Once upon a time.’

ME: You don’t have to use ‘Once upon a time.’ Just start the story without it.

SON: I don’t know how to. What’s the word for a Real Life Story?

ME: A Real Life Story.

SON: No, I mean what’s the word to start it?

ME: Ah, I see. You can just say, ‘Once there were three little bears…’

SON: I have to start my story over.

ME: Okay.

SON: Once upon a time…oops. Mommy, I messed it up!

ME: Just start over. ‘Once there were three bears…”

SON: Mommy, STOP! I’m telling the story.

ME: So tell it.

SON: Once there were three bears…. Mommy, let’s trick the people. Even though the story Really Happened, let’s pretend it’s a Pretend Story, and say, ‘Once upon a time.’ It will be such a funny trick.

ME: It sounds hilarious.

SON: Once upon a time, there were three bears… but you know it’s not REALLY ‘Once upon a time…’ Once upon a time there were three bears and um… umm…. I need to start over.

ME: Honey, it’s getting late and we need to go to bed. I think you should just keep going and finish your story.

SON: Mommy, I’m TRYING but you keep destructing me!

OLDER SON: Mom, do we have to listen to him tell the bedtime story? Your stories are way better.

SON: Once upon a time there were three bears….

We never did get to the end, even though my son already knew exactly how he wanted to end it (‘And they lived happily ever after.’) It was adorable (and at 10 o’clock at night also exhausting) but also instructive. I realized I have the exact same problem!

I will often obsess so much about beginning a story right that I have a hard time moving forward. Right now, for instance, I have two potential beginning chapters, and I’m not sure which to use. Now if this were a matter of deciding the direction for the rest of the entire story, then it would justify taking the time to think through the decision carefully. However, these scenes aren’t mutually incompatible. One occurs earlier than the other… basically, I am wondering how soon to start the story.

I’ve forced myself to move forward. It’s a question that will resolve itself by writing deeper into the story.

NaNoWriMo Tip #23: Writing Order

I usually add milk FIRST. I’m a rebel.

These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works.

You don’t have to write a book in the order it will be read.

There are good reasons to start at the beginning and write until you come to the end. Even with a detailed outline, things change as you write, and you may find that you need to adjust your end to changes you’ve made to the beginning. But if you have a story told essentially in reverse—a story which revolves around a great secret, like a police procedural or a trick-ending novel like The Story of Pi—you might find it makes more sense, for the exact same reason, to write the book backwards, Memento style, even though that’s not how it will be written. (Unless you ARE writing Memento, in which case you definitely will want to write it backwards, or in other words, forwards. Confused yet?)

Because body tatoos are the best way to leave yourself reminders.

There are other reasons you may want to write the book out of order. If you have substantial subplots or a large number of PoV characters, parallel story lines or flashback scenes, it’s often easier to write all the same PoV scenes in a row, to keep a consistent tone, and then drop them into the right slots in the book. This is my standard writing method for the PoV-rich Unfinished Song series. Within each PoV, I write in chronological order.

If you write out of order, the trick is to make sure that you don’t trip yourself up. You have to carefully coordinate each character’s storyline so they merge logically.

If you prefer these Tips as an ebook you can buy it here for $0.99:

 

Seeking the Write Life: How Good Writers Make You “Feel”

Some great advice on how to evoke rather than merely describe emotions from  Seeking the Write Life: How Good Writers Make You “Feel”:

It means, when the shocking reveal of critical information occurs, the writer gives most of their focus to the implications that cause the feelings, rather than the feelings themselves:

Rather than “John wasn’t in New York when Samantha was killed? He could be the murderer? My entire body trembled. I sucked in a breath, unable to believe it could be true. John had lied to me! John could be the killer?! No!…” you’ll find more of “John wasn’t in New York when Samantha was killed? I knew I should speak. Deny it. But all I could see was her bruised and twisted body, lying naked in the sand, cold and alone. The way her hair twisted around her ear and stuck to the raw skin on her neck. The numb vacancy her death had left in my gut. Was it possible he’d done that? Was John that monster?”

Check out the rest.