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NaNoWriMo Tip #4: 50 Brainstorming Questions

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

Fourteen questions to ask yourself about your book: 

1. What is the genre of this book? What is the subgenre?
2. Does this story take place in the “real” world (real except for certain elements, like a nuclear attack on Los Vegas that the hero has to stop in a thriller), in a “crossover” world (real but with vampires and werewolves, as in an urban fantasy), or a secondary world (as in fantasy or science fiction or magical realism). If it is a cross-over or secondary world, you’ll need to do more substantial world-building.
3. What is the plot template for your book? (McGuffin, Romance, Mystery?)
4. What is the subplot for your book (may be the same or different from main plot type).
5. What is the target age of readers (children, middle grade, YA, adult)?
6. What is the target word count, based on genre and target age?
7. Is this book part of a series, and if so, is it a continuous saga or an episodic series?
8. If it is part of a saga, where in the overall story arc is this novel?
9. If it is part of an episodic series, does the main character show up in earlier or later books?
10. What level of complexity does this book require, based on its length, target age and position in a series? (The longer the book, the larger the story arc, and the more sophisticated the audience, the greater complexity the story is likely to require).
11. How many main characters will this book have? (The greater complexity the story has the larger cast of characters it is likely to require).
12. What person and tense works best for this story? (First Person present tense, Third Person past tense, Omniscient?)
13. Does your book ever break the Fourth Wall or play with novel structure (as in a postmodern or experimental literary novel). 
14. What is the tone of your book? Humorous, serious, realistic, heroic?

Twelve Questions to ask yourself about your main characters (protagonist, antagonist): 

1. Who is your protagonist/antagonist? (Answer the questions for both.)
2. What does s/he want? What is the outer goal? (It should be concrete)
3. What does s/he need (the inner goal) and how does this conflict with the want?
4. What is his or her special talent?
5. What is his or her wound?
6. What is his or her relationship with mom and dad?
7. What is his or her relationship with authority? Friends? People in general?
8. What five minor problems does he or she have at the beginning that will be dealt with by the end?
9. How does your protagonist change from the beginning to the end of the book?
10. How does the antagonist and/or problem outmatch the protagonist at the beginning of the book, and how does this change by the end, or how does the protagonist prevail despite this?
11. How do the other supporting characters change their opinions of antagonist and protagonist by the end of the book?
12. How does the conflict and resolution between protagonist and antagonist illustrate the theme of the book?

Twelve questions to ask if you’re writing a fantasy (for sf, replace magic with the speculative technology): 

1. What is the price of magic? (Magic should always have some cost).
2. If magic were analogous to something prosaic, what would it be?
3. How many people have magic? What percentage of the population?
4. Is there more than one form of magic? 5. How does one acquire the ability to use magic? Heritage? Education? Possession of an object?
6. What constitutes mastery of magic?
7. How is the protagonist’s magic uniquely different or powerful (or absent)?
8. Are there rules for using magic? 9. If so, who enforces the rules? 10. If so, what how are transgressors punished?
11. Is the protagonist basically trying to follow the rules or defy them?
12. Does the story work just as well without magic? (If so, your magic is superfluous rather than embedded into the story.)

Twelve questions to ask if you’re writing a romance: 

1. What is the heroine’s goal that has nothing to do with winning the hero’s love?
2. What is the hero’s goal that has nothing to do with winning the heroine’s love?
3. How do the heroine and hero’s separate goals conflict with them finding love?
4. Why is the heroine afraid of (or mistaken about) love? 5. Why is the hero afraid of (or mistaken about) love?
6. What genuine conflict do they disagree about? (rather than just what misunderstanding or lack of communication keeps them apart)
7. Is the heroine hiding any secret from the hero?
8. If so, how could her secret destroy his love for her?
9. Is the hero hiding any secret from the heroine?
10. If so, how could his secret destroy his love for her?
11. What inner changes to the heroine and hero need to make to overcome the distrust and fears they have?
12. What concrete actions (proofs) will they each make to prove that they have achieved this inner transformation, making them each able to embrace love and each other?

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

 

About My NaNo Project, October Knight

For a writer who blogs, it’s always a riddle how to talk about what I’m writing without giving spoilers. For my NaNoWriMo project, October Knight, I’m considering writing about it “transparently.” That is, letting my blog readers in on what goes on behind the scenes. I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but I won’t be as concerned about that as I usually am, so…if you hate spoilers, be warned!

Where do you get your ideas? It’s a bit different for every project, isn’t it?

It’s no shocker that I stumbled over the idea for this story in October. Every night I tell bedtime stories to my three little boys. Sometimes I read them, but they prefer it if I make them up (that way they can contribute). I started telling them a goblin version of Cinderella, about a goblin who really wanted to go to a human Halloween party….

It was a simple story at that point, and I wrote it down, thinking it would be a children’s story. The more I thought about it, though, the more layers I added, the more I realized it needed to be a little more grown-up than that. Besides, there are tons of kid’s Halloween stories, and lots of Halloween Horror stories too, but not much in between. So I decided to make it Young Adult.

Here’s the thing. One idea, by itself, is never enough steam to create an engine for the story. I’ve found that I always need two — at least two. Before I even start brainstorming, at which point, I’ll find more. I always write down ideas when they strike me, even if they aren’t enough for a story on their own, because you never know when that idea will find it’s predestined soulmate, get hitched and start popping out plot babies.

In this case, the soulmate was an idea I had a few years ago for another holiday novel, a Christmas story about an elf. By itself, it wasn’t enough to go on, so I let it sit as an index card in my idea box until now. Actually it’s still there, since I’ve decided to do the Halloween story first. But I already know that they take place in the same universe, with the same rules for magic. The Christmas elf will be a supporting character in the Halloween story.

How did I know the Christmas story wasn’t ready to write, but the Halloween story was? It’s because I had a seed scene for the Halloween story. In fact, I had a few great scenes that I knew would be high points in the story. I still didn’t know much about my character or his goal, how or whether he would achieve it. I still didn’t know all the rules of my world or the details of the background. But I could see characters doing cool stuff. That meant this story was ready to become more.

NaNoWriMo: WEEK ONE – 5 Tips to Better Brainstorming

NaNoWriMo – WEEK 1 – Planning

3. Five Tips to Better Brainstorming

“What if the hitchhiker were wearing ballet slippers?”
These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works.

Yesterday, I jotted down a “seed scene.” It’s not going anywhere, though. It’s just a dead end… at the moment.

Traditional NaNo advice would be to just push ahead. Jot down another scene. Then another. Whatever jumps into your head.
I used to do this to myself all the time. I’d think of a scene and write it down as a Chapter 1, and sometimes even keep going all the way to Chapter 3 or 4…and then BAM. Inspiration flatlines, and the book dies on the operating table. Not fun. Especially if you do this six or seven times in a row. I’ve a large file of books that have never gotten past Chapter Three.

Rather than go down that road again, after I jot down my seed scene(s), I decided to pause and figure out where I’m going. Since the whole novel is a formless, gooey mass right now, that’s going to take the Power of Brainstorming. The difference between brainstorming and randomly writing down whatever pops into your head is that you aren’t trying to find out what you’re writing about it while also trying to write a scene. That’s the hardest way. Instead, you’re letting your imagination run wild in all the million directions it wants to before you write the scene. 
It’s a pretty critical difference. (Although, if you’re a newbie writer and winning NaNo is something you’re worried about, I hereby give you leave to include your brainstorming session in your wordcount. It won’t actually be necessary, you’ll find. But do it if it makes you feel better. Why? Because this is just as important a stage of writing a novel as the scenes themselves. Give yourself credit for it.)

Here’s five tips to Better Brainstorming:

1. Talk to yourself.

I picked up a free app for my phone which records my voice, and I have long conversations out loud about my story. Then I replay it and take notes.

2. Talk to someone else.

I also forced any unfortunate victim who entered my orbit to help me brainstorm my story. I had no mercy. It might have been better to bounce these ideas off my fellow writers than my 2 year old and the lady at the Bakery but we take what we can get.

3. Scribble in your notebook.

I also like to scribble down my ideas, with—you won’t believe this!—my actual hand. This is an ancient technology, called, in the Old Tongue, “writing by hand.” I learned it from a shaman in Brazil while high on tarantula poison. 

4. Ask Questions Like a Reporter.

Imagine you’re a reporter and ask all the Wh Questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why, How? And most important of all…what are the stakes?

 

5. Make a Decision Tree.

For every question, consider two or more possible answers. For instance, here’s some questions I am asking myself: What if the MC’s best friend is a ghost? What if she is almost a ghost but comes back alive? What if she is apparently (but not really) a ghost? Then I do branch questions out from each of those questions.

Orson Scott Card describes his brainstorming technique in How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. One of his best tips is to leery of the first idea that pops into your head: it’s usually a cliché. Push deeper. 

NaNoWriMo: WEEK ONE – Plant a Seed Scene

NaNoWriMo

WEEK ONE: Planning

1. Plant a Seed Scene

These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take what works, shove the rest off the table, roll up your sleeves and get to work.

A seed scene refers to that flash of inspiration you get when suddenly you see a place or an image or a person, and you know there’s a story ready to grow out of it. You have no idea how, but it’s all folded up inside, if you can just nourish it.

Maybe some people go into NaNoWriMo with absolutely no idea what to write, but I’m guessing a lot more people go in with some idea for a novel or twenty ideas for a novel. Having the seeds of twenty different novels and not knowing which to plant can be just as paralyzing as having no idea.

I’ve looked back over different stories I’ve written, and realized that often the spark that starts the story in my mind, which kindles my interest in the novel, is a single scene. Sometimes I have no idea who the characters are, or where, or why they are doing the things they are doing, but I have a strong, single scene.

I wasn’t sure I had a scene like that this time…and then I realized I did. I hadn’t written an outline yet, my characters didn’t even have names, but I had a cool scene!

I jotted it down. As soon as I finished it, I knew it wasn’t going to work as it was, but I don’t see it as wasted work. On the other hand, I don’t need to struggle to keep it going either, until I finally get so stuck that pulling myself out of the plot hole is like fighting quicksand. (A mistake I used to make all the time when trying to “pants” it.) Instead, I used that scene to get a feel for what I liked about this idea, what I wanted to pursue.

Find Me On NaNoWriMo

If you’re doing NaNoWriMo this year and want to buddy me, I’m taramaya88.

I’m working on a Young Adult holiday novel. This might be a stand-alone or part of an episodic series. That is to say that unlike The Unfinished Song, which is all one connected story, this book has a resolution at the end (a happy ending, of course). If there are other books in the series, they will also stand alone, although they may have some of the same characters and would be set in the same world. Each one would be about a different holiday.

The problem with holiday novels is that I’m only in a mood to write them at certain times of the year. I wonder why that is, hmmm….  Anyway, I decided to give it a try, and if it works, maybe I’ll have this out in time for the holiday in question next year.

Here’s the cover (for now). Guess the holiday:

Here’s the blurb:

Knights of the Year

Thousands of dimensions overlap our own–sharing the same physical but divergent psychic space. Some of these dimensions are closer to the Light than the human plane. Some are closer to the Void. Individuals with special sight can see across dimensions, but besides dying or being born, the only one way for an ordinary person to travel between dimensions is to use the magic of the Gates–what we call holidays. The Gates are guarded, on the earthly side, by the Knights of the Year. At least they were–until one Knight slaughtered all the rest and scattered their Keys.

October Knight

Brandon Kickabut attends a high school with teachers from hell, evades the cruel pranks of his stepbrothers and endures the abuse of his stepfather. You know, just your average high school sophomore goblin. Except for one thing: he knows humans and other creatures of legend are real. He can see across dimensions, and he’s been spying on the human plane, searching for his mother and father who disappeared when he was young.

Instead, he encounters Pam Stryker, a gorgeous human girl. Brandon convinces his friends to help him open the Gate to the human plane in time for Homecoming, even though the dance is held in early October, and goblins are not allowed to travel to the human plane any day except Halloween. And as long as he’s breaking the rules, why not use a little magic to ensure that he’s Homecoming King and Pam is his Queen? He knows it can’t last–she’s WAY out of his league–all he wants is one perfect night with his dream girl.

And it IS perfect…until his ogre stepbrothers steal his Gate to unleash an army of teen goblins onto the earth. Worse yet, Pam is not just Homecoming Queen, she’s a Ghulstryker, and her job is to rid the earth of monsters from other dimensions. Including Brandon. But he can’t leave yet. Not only does he have to help Pam fight off the other goblins, whether she wants it or not, but Pam is the only one who can tell him what happened to his parents. Brandon already knows he’s not going to like the news. For his father was the October Knight, and was either slaughtered along with all the other Knights or…as Pam believes… was the killer.

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