How To Create Strong Characters

Let's talk about how to create strong characters. Today, I'm going to focus on creating extreme characters.

In "Making Your Characters Extreme" by Marjorie Reynolds (a guest post over at StoryFix.com), she writes: 

"If you want to write a novel that readers will remember decades or even centuries later, learn from the masters and populate it with one or more extreme characters. You’ll find they’ll not only linger in a reader’s mind, but they’ll give your story energy and heighten your own interest in writing it.

Sounds great! But how do we create extreme characters?

1. Your protagonist should have a "deformity, affliction or peculiarity" that is the "driving force in your story".

For example, 

"In The Phantom of the Opera, the phantom’s disfigurement dominates the story. His fear that he will frighten off people, especially the woman he loves, causes him to hide in the bowels of the Paris Opera House and wear a mask." 

2. Use your characters flaw(s) to reveal the kind of person they are

Marjorie Reynolds writes:

"A hero is not a perfect person who conquers all. He makes mistakes. He usually possesses a tragic flaw (hubris or stubbornness, for example) that makes him vulnerable to his enemies. A hero is someone with all the faults of an ordinary person but with the strength of character to struggle to the point of death. He won’t give up.

....

"To win at the end, he must struggle and push himself beyond what he believes he can do.  He must go beyond the point where we would stop. You don’t have to tell us he’s a hero. We can see he is."

Characters must have faults and they must struggle to overcome them, even if this--especially at first--doesn't seem possible.

3. Show your characters strengths and weaknesses through action. Don't describe them to the reader.

4. Give your character a backstory that explains his/her extreme behavior.

5. Make your character admirable.

Someone once said--I remembered it because it made a lot of sense to me--that your character doesn't have to be nice but they do have to pursue justice.

I think that's what makes anti-hero's possible. An anti-hero isn't a good person; sure, maybe they are underneath it all, but if so we're talking about way underneath. What makes an anti-hero the good guy/gal is his/her cause, his/her goal. He/she is writing a wrong, fighting the good fight.

(Note: I've adapted the checklist, below, from Marjorie Reynolds's article.)

Five ways to gauge whether your character is extreme:

a. Does your character do something--fight vampires, find relics, break out of prison after digging a tunnel with a spoon--that no ordinary person could or would?

b. Does your character have extreme/strong emotions to go along with their extreme behavior?

In order for readers to believe someone would spend years digging a hole with a spoon (Shawshank Redemption), they need a context. They need to understand the character's emotional motivation through that character's actions.

c. Does your character have an extreme goal?

In Lord of the Rings, Frodo--a hobbit who knows nothing of the larger world, or fighting, or the evil machinations of wizards, and certainly nothing of the evil of the ring--ventures out to do what no one else has: destroy the One Ring.

Let me give you a real life example: Jerry Gretzinger and his map. 50 years ago Jerry Gretzinger created a map. The map, and his idea of it, evolved over time and--due to the nature of the map-- there is no clearly defined end state.  In Jerry's words:

“The map began as just a doodle. I just made little rectangles and crosshatched them. Carefully. And I just kept adding rectangles and I put a river in....and some railroad stations. But there was this moment when I came to the edge of that sheet of paper…Got out another sheet of paper and put the two together…and I think I taped them together. That’s when I realized that it kind of had a life of its own.” (Mapping “The Void”)

However, Jerry says his goal is to work on his map till he dies. That's his goal. When the end comes, he wants to expire in his studio, mixing his paints. To work on some one thing for 50 years and to want to keep on for another 20 or 30 ... wow. That's extreme. Also, it's compelling. After I read about Jerry's map I couldn't get it out of my head.

(Perhaps the example of Jerry and his map should be under (a), above, but I think it fits here as well.)

d. Is your character's backstory extreme?

Extreme emotions, extreme goals, extreme behavior all needs a good explanation. Something outstanding, something unusual must have happened to account for, to explain, why your protagonist is how he/she is.

Superheroes often have interesting and extreme backstories to explain the character's behavior. Superman for example.

e. Does your character, at any point, stand alone?

Extraordinary characters will go where ordinary characters won't. Think of Mitch McDeere in The Firm. He has a lot of help from his friends and family, but in the end he stands alone.

Those are just a few of the qualities extreme characters can have. I encourage you to head over to StoryFix.com and read Marjorie Reynolds's article for yourself.

Okay, that's it! Good writing.

Photo credit: "Ralfs" by Rolands Lakis under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Find The Truth Inside The Lie: Stephen King on Writing

I've been binging on Stephen King.

I'm reading Under the Dome (my ereader tells me that after completing ~500 pages I'm 52% through) and watching the TV series. This is entertainment at its best and, as a writer, it's fascinating to see what changed between the book and the TV show (especially given that Stephen King is a writer on the show).

But that's not what I want to talk about.

Yesterday I came across this interview with Stephen King, The Art of Fiction No. 189 on The Paris Review.

The interview is from (as near as I can tell) 2008 and King is remarkably candid about both writing in general and his in particular. For example:

Book ideas, creativity, and connecting unrelated subjects

"When I wrote Cujo—about a rabid dog—I was having trouble with my motorcycle, and I heard about a place I could get it fixed. ... The mechanic had a farmhouse and an auto shop across the road. So I took my motorcycle up there, and when I got it into the yard, it quit entirely. And the biggest Saint Bernard I ever saw in my life came out of that garage, and it came toward me.

"Those dogs look horrible anyway, particularly in summer. They’ve got the dewlaps, and they’ve got the runny eyes. They don’t look like they’re well. He started growling at me, way down in his throat: arrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh. ... The mechanic came out of the garage and said to me, Oh, that’s Bowser, ... Don’t worry about him. He does that to everybody. So I put my hand out to the dog, and the dog went for my hand.

"I remember how scared I was because there was no place to hide. I was on my bike but it was dead, and I couldn’t outrun him. ... But that was not a story, it was just a piece of something. A couple of weeks later I was thinking about this Ford Pinto that my wife and I had. ... I was worried about my wife getting stuck in that Pinto, and I thought, What if she took that car to get fixed like I did my motorcycle and the needle valve stuck and she couldn’t get it going—but instead of the dog just being a mean dog, what if the dog was really crazy?

"Then I thought, Maybe it’s rabid. That’s when something really fired over in my mind. Once you’ve got that much, you start to see all the ramifications of the story."

King on his kind of book

"... I can remember thinking that I wanted the book [Cujo] to feel like a brick that was heaved through your window at you. I’ve always thought that the sort of book that I do—and I’ve got enough ego to think that every novelist should do this—should be a kind of personal assault. It ought to be somebody lunging right across the table and grabbing you and messing you up. It should get in your face. It should upset you, disturb you. And not just because you get grossed out. I mean, if I get a letter from somebody saying, I couldn’t eat my dinner, my attitude is, Terrific! [emphasis mine]"

Interviewer: "What do you think it is that we’re afraid of?"

King:

I don’t think there’s anything that I’m not afraid of, on some level. But if you mean, What are we afraid of, as humans? Chaos. The outsider. We’re afraid of change. We’re afraid of disruption, and that is what I’m interested in. I mean, there are a lot of people whose writing I really love—one of them is the American poet Philip Booth—who write about ordinary life straight up, but I just can’t do that.

I once wrote a short novel called “The Mist.” It’s about this mist that rolls in and covers a town, and the story follows a number of people who are trapped in a supermarket. There’s a woman in the checkout line who’s got this box of mushrooms. When she walks to the window to see the mist coming in, the manager takes them from her. And she tells him, “Give me back my mushies.”

We’re terrified of disruption. We’re afraid that somebody’s going to steal our mushrooms in the checkout line.

King's stories are about "... an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it."

I’d say that what I do is like a crack in the mirror. ... In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that’s inexplicable to you, whether it’s the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we’re still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts.

On Planning A Book Out--Or Not

King: "Every book is different each time you revise it. Because when you finish the book, you say to yourself, This isn’t what I meant to write at all. At some point, when you’re actually writing the book, you realize that. But if you try to steer it, you’re like a pitcher trying to steer a fastball, and you screw everything up. As the science-fiction writer Alfred Bester used to say, The book is the boss. You’ve got to let the book go where it wants to go, and you just follow along. If it doesn’t do that, it’s a bad book."

It is a wonderful interview and, if you like Stephen King's work and want a peek behind the curtain, I encourage you to read it.

Stephen King's Acceptance Speech for the National Book Award

Stephen King won the National Book Award For Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2003 but I had not read his speech. I did yesterday (as I said, I've been binging) and it is truly wonderful.

Here is one of my favorite parts:

"But the storyteller cannot afford to forget and must always be ready to hold himself or herself to account. He or she needs to remember that the truth lends verisimilitude to the lies that surround it./ ... I've tried to improve myself with every book and find the truth inside the lie. Sometimes I have succeeded." 

That advice was like a tall cool drink of water, "Find the truth inside the lie." Simple, but far from easy.

I'd like to leave you with something disconnected--though not completely so--from the current topic.  A 1968 memo written by Gene Roddenberry to the writers of Star Trek was discovered recently, it details what the creator of Kirk, Bones, and Spock thought were their essential characteristics. Fascinating read.

Photo credit: "SK-4" by Tabitha King, copyright stephenking.com.

10 Ways To Overcome Procrastination

The following tips are from C.S. Lakin's article, 10 Tips to Help You Avoid Procrastination, over at Live, Write, Thrive.

10 Ways To Overcome Procrastination

• Make a writing schedule. Actually write it down and post it where it can stare you in the face. Let your family know you plan to follow it and ask for their support (to leave you alone so you can write). You can even ask them to nag and remind you to use that willpower.


• Write for short periods of time. So you can feel that sense of discipline and accomplishment. If you try to set aside a whole day or a big block of hours, life may encroach.


• Reward yourself when you meet your goal. Cookies! Literal or figurative. Or bake a cake. Take a bubble bath. Whatever works.


• Work somewhere that won’t be distracting! Okay, that’s a hard one. Some people find the coffee shop noise helpful background ambiance. I drive to my local library four days a week to get away from my dog. Really. He drives me nuts with the ball and Frisbee. He’s a lab. He can’t help it. So I leave.


• Get the other stuff out of the way. I can’t start work until I go through my e-mail and feel I’ve taken care of some stuff that I know will bother me if I don’t take care of it first. You know what stuff that is for you.


• Close your e-mail programs and social networks, and turn off your phone. Yes, you really won’t die if you “unplug” for an hour or three.


• Write at your best time. It’s way harder to push through to write if you’re sleepy or unfocused. I turn off my brain around 5 p.m


• Get an accountability partner. If you want to set tough goals to reach a deadline, set up someone you have to report to or send your chapters to by a specific date and time. I know of one author who agreed to pay $100 every time he was late sending his required pages to his accountability partner. Sometimes he got them sent one minute before deadline, but it was great incentive for him.


• Remind yourself you love to write. I hear from some writers how they’ve come to hate writing. If so, why bother? Write because you love it. It’s fun! Yes, it’s hard work, but so are a lot of things, like scrubbing grungy toilets and digging trenches. Personally, I think writing is a whole lot more fun to work at than a lot of other things. Writing is a privilege; a lot of people struggle each day just to find food and water to survive. Count your blessings. Change your attitude.


• Think of yourself as a writer, that this is your job. Adjust your attitude to view your writing as a profession. Be professional. Treat your writing as a business and be responsible about it, just as you would any other job you are hired to do.

Great tips. Especially the one about distractions.

I love my cats. LOVE. But, gah! They can drive me nuts at times. One is a snuggle bunny, which is terrific, but he wants to snuggle when I want to write.

Writing with a cat draped over one shoulder is not easy. Doable, but not easy.

That said, I hope he never changes.

Time Scheduling Programs

I thought I'd add something to C.S. Lakin's list: keeping track of how much you write.

Currently I'm using Hours Keeper for the iPad and it's made a world of difference. It helps me stick with the task at hand rather than going off to do other things.

I admit that it's often difficult to remember to record what I'm doing but (of course) there's an app for that.

For those who DON'T like to clock in before you do something there are programs that record your activities automatically:

RescueTime
ManicTime

Here's an article from LifeHacker: Five Best Time-Tracking Applications.

It's an older article, but the apps are still around. Good info.

If procrastination is a problem for you--it is for me--try different things. Experiment. Perhaps you'll fine a pearl of wisdom that will resonate with you, perhaps keeping track of your time will help. Perhaps the key will be something completely different.

I think that, as is true with so much in life, the key is to experiment and find what works for you.

Whatever you try, good luck and good writing!

Photo credit: "His Royal Highness King Zawadi Mungu" by Ian Sane under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Robert A. Heinlein: On The Writing of Speculative Fiction

There are nine-and-sixty ways
Of constructing tribal lays
And every single one of them is right
--RUDYARD KIPLING

How did great writers structure their stories? And, beyond that, how did they think of story structure? 

Today, by a lucky accident, I came across a mention of Robert A. Heinlein's thoughts on structuring stories. I rooted around in my bookshelf to see what I could come up with and found an article entitled, "On The Writing Of Speculative Fiction," by Robert A. Heinlein. It is the edited transcript of a talk he gave

In On The Writing Heinlein discusses a number of ways of structuring science fiction stories with special emphasis (of course) on how he did things. His talk is fascinating and ends with what became his famous 5 rules of writing.

Five Ways To Write Speculative Fiction, by Robert A. Heinlein

1. The gadget story

This isn't the sort of story Heinlein wrote, but he said he enjoyed reading them.

"I have nothing against the gadget story--I read it and enjoy it--it's just not my pidgin. I am told that this is a how-to-do-it symposium; I'll stick to what I know how to do."

2. The human-interest story

This was the kind of story Heinlein wrote. He said:

"There are at least two principal ways to write speculative fiction--write about people, or write about gadgets. ... Most science fiction stories are a mixture of the two types, but we will speak as if they were distinct--at which point I will chuck the gadget story aside, dust off my hands, and confine myself to the human-interest story, that being the sort of story I myself write.

What follows are sub-types of the human interest story. Heinlein said:

"There are three main plots for the human-interest story: boy-meets-girl, the Little Tailor, and the man-who-learned-better. Credit the last category to L. Ron Hubbard; I had thought for years that there were but two plots--he pointed out to me the third type."

3. Boy meets girl.

Or some combination thereof. 

Heinlein writes that although there is often romance in SF stories that, in his day at least, it was less often the case that the romance was "the compelling and necessary element that creates and then solves the problem [emphasis mine]".

There's quite a number of ways to go with this structure, Heinlein listed a few:

- boy-fails-to-meet-girl,
- boy-meets-girl-too-late,
- boy-meets-too-many-girls,
- boy-loses-girl,
- boy-and-girl-renounce-love-for-higher-purpose.

And, of course, those are just the start of the variations! Today's stories have boy-girl, girl-boy, boy-boy and girl-girl.

Heinlein even gave those in the audience the basis for a "boy-meets-girl" plot:

"Here is a throw-away plot; you can have it free: elderly man meets very young girl; they discover that they are perfectly adapted to each other, perfectly in love, "soul mates." (Don't ask me how. It's up to you to make the thesis credible, If I'm going to have to write this story, I want to be paid for it.)

"Now to make it a science fiction story. Time travel? Okay, what time theory--probable-times, classic theory, or what? Rejuvenation? Is this mating necessary to some greater end? Or vice versa? Or will you transcend the circumstances, as C. L. Moore did in that tragic masterpiece "Bright Illusion"?

I've used it twice as tragedy and shall probably use it again. Go ahead and use it yourself. I did not invent it; it is a great story that has been kicking around for centuries."

4. The little Tailor.

This is about a nobody who becomes Mr. or Ms. Big or, flipping that on its head, about a character who is at the zenith, the apex, of his/her career and then plummets to the bottom. Heinlein writes:

"... this is an omnibus to all stories about the little guy who becomes a big shot, or vice versa."

 As examples Heinlein lists:

- "Dick Whittington,"
- all of the Alger books,
- Little Caesar,
- Galactic Patrol (but not Grey Lensrnan),
- Mein Kampf,
- David in the Old Testament.

Heinlein notes: "It is the success story or, in reverse, the story of tragic failure."

5. The man-who-learned-better.

Heinlein writes:

"The man-who-learned-better; just what it sounds like--the story of a man who has one opinion, point of view, or evaluation at the beginning of the story, then acquires a new opinion or evaluation as a result of having his nose rubbed in some harsh facts. I had been writing this story for years before Hubbard pointed out to me the structure of it."

Examples:

- Heinline's own "Universe" and "Logic of Empire"
- Jack London's "South of the Slot,"
- Dickens's, "A Christmas Carol."

Heinlein On Story

Recall that, at the beginning of the article, Heinlein defined a story as

"something interesting-but-not-necessarily-true"

That's a general statement, broad enough to cover any story. Well, at least the interesting ones! (And we could say, well, interesting to who? Interesting to how many? To the writer? To readers yet-to-be born? In any case, moving on.)

However, Heinlein's own stories conformed to this structure:

"... a man finds himself in circumstances that create a problem for him. In coping with this problem, the man is changed in some fashion inside himself. The story is over when the inner change is complete--the external incidents may go on indefinitely."

Here are a few of his examples:

A lonely rich man learns comradeship in a hobo jungle.
A strong man is crippled and has to adjust to it.
A gossip learns to hold her tongue.
A hard-boiled materialist gets acquainted with a ghost.

Heinlein goes on to stress that he's interested in stories about inner as opposed to outer change:

"This is the story of character, rather than incident. It's not everybody's dish, but for me it has more interest than the most overwhelming pure adventure story. It need not be unadventurous; the stress that produces the change in character can be wildly adventurous, and often is."

Robert A. Heinlein's definition of the pure science fiction story

First, let's break down Heinlein's own structure for his stories:

a. The protagonist finds himself/herself in circumstances that create a problem for him/her.

b. In coping with the problem the protagonist is changed in some fashion inside himself/herself.

c. The story is over when the inner change is complete.

Here's what Heinlein thought were the essential bits:

i. The new conditions (the change in the protagonist's circumstances) must be an essential part of the story.

ii. "The problem itself--the "plot"--must be a human problem. The human problem must be one that is created by, or indispensably affected by, the new conditions."

iii. "And lastly, no established fact shall be violated."

Good advice. That said, Heinlein added:

"But don't write to me to point out how I have violated my own rules in this story or that; I've violated all of them and I would much rather try a new story than defend an old one."

In closing Heinlein gave encouragement to other writers:

"I've limited myself to my notions about science fiction, but don't forget Mr. Kipling's comment. In any case it isn't necessary to know how--just go ahead and do it. Write what you like to read. If you have a yen for it, if you get a kick out of "just imagine--," if you love to think up new worlds, then come on in, the water's fine and there is plenty of room."

Heinlein's 5 Rules

It is in this speech that Heinlein gives his famous 5 rules. Although I've come to the end of what I wanted to tell you about Heinlein and his comments on story I'm going to include the rest of his talk, below, because I got such a kick out of reading the original. Maybe you will too.

"I'm told that these articles are supposed to be some use to the reader. I have a guilty feeling that all of the above may have been more for my amusement than for your edification. Therefore I shall chuck in as a bonus a group of practical, tested rules which, if followed meticulously, will prove rewarding to any writer.

"I shall assume that you can type, that you know the accepted commercial format or can be trusted to look it up and follow it, and that you always use new ribbons and clean type. Also, that you can spell and punctuate and can use grammar well enough to get by. These things are merely the word-carpenter's sharp tools. He must add to them these business habits:

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you start.
3. You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.
4. You must put it on the market.
5. You must keep it on the market until sold.

"The above five rules really have more to do with how to write speculative fiction than anything said above them. But they are amazingly hard to follow--which is why there are so few professional writers and so many aspirants, and which is why I am not afraid to give away the racket! But, if you will follow them, it matters not how you write, you will find some editor somewhere, sometime, so unwary or so desperate for copy as to buy the worst old dog you, or I, or anybody else, can throw at him."

Yes ladies and gentlemen, write, and you may one day find "some editor somewhere, sometime, so unwary or so desperate for copy as to buy the worst old dog you, or I, or anybody else, can throw at him." (grin)

Good writing!

Photo credit: "Wee Westie Backlit on the Beach" by Randy Robertson under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Roy Peter Clark Tells Us How To Write Better Prose

Sometimes I make the most wonderful discoveries.

Case in point, two days ago, as I wove my way through the jungle of the Internet I came upon Roy Peter Clark and his book Writing Tools. That would have been wonderful all by itself, but it got better!

Next I discovered Mr. Clark had narrated 50 podcasts, one for each chapter in his book ... and that each chapter's narration was only about 2 minutes each! And it's free! If you'd like to take a look, here's the link: Roy's Writing Tools.

So far I've listened to the first 10 podcasts. At that time I'd been putting the finishing touches on a story and I think it helped polish up my prose.

By the way, I had no idea who Roy Peter Clark was so here's a short bio:

"Roy Peter Clark (born 1948) is an American writer, editor, and teacher of writing who has become a writing coach to an international community of students, journalists, and writers of many sorts. He is also senior scholar and vice president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a journalism think-tank in St. Petersburg, Florida, and is the founder of the National Writers Workshop. Clark has appeared on several radio and television talk shows, speaking about ethics in journalism and other writing issues." (Roy Peter Clark, Wikipedia)

Enough background, let's jump in.

10 ways to make your prose stronger

 

1. Begin sentences with subjects and verbs.

This is called a right-branching sentence which is one that has the main clause on the far right. If it were on the far left then--you guessed it!--we'd call it a left-branching sentence.

Here's an example of a right-branching sentence:

"The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years—if it ever did end—began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain." (Stephen King, It)

That's the opening line from Stephen King's It. The core sentence reads: The terror began with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

Beautiful! We're oriented immediately. What is King going to be talking about? The terror. What about the terror? How it began. Then he goes on to talk about a boat made of newspaper. My reaction: That is a mighty odd way for something referred to as "the terror" to begin. Instantly, I'm interested.

But anyway, that was a digression. A right-branching sentence gives us the subject--the doer--and the verb--the action--right up front so that when we pile on qualifiers there's less of a chance readers will become confused.

Clarity is king! (Yes, that was a little punny.)

2. Order words for emphasis. Place strong words at the beginning of a sentence or at the end.

It's the same with paragraphs. The first word of a paragraph, as well as the last, should pack a punch. Here's an example from Shakespeare:

"The Queen, my Lord, is dead."

There we have the emphasis at the end. Pow!

3.  Use strong verbs.

We've heard this advice before but it is so very true. Strong verbs help create interesting, engaging, stories.

Strong verbs:
- Create action
- Save words
- Reveal the players

Ian Flemming, creator of James Bond, was particularly skilled at using strong verbs. Here's the key: we want our characters to preform the action of the verb. For example:

"Bond climbed the stairs."
"Sunlight filtered through the curtains."

Simple. Uncluttered. Clear.

Mr. Clark quotes George Orwell as saying: Never use the passive where you can use the active.

4. Use passive verbs to showcase the victim of the action.

It used to be that when folks stressed the importance of strong verbs I'd wonder: Is there really no place for weak verbs? There is!

Mr. Clark uses this sentence to demonstrate this point, it's from Steinbeck:

"The night was loaded with omens."

Steinbeck could have written, "Omens loaded the night," but Mr. Clark writes that this would have been unfair to both the night, the omens and the music of the sentence. I agree.

5. Use adverbs to change the meaning of a sentence.

When I first heard the advice to forgo using adverbs I was boggled. Why the hate for adverbs? How else should we say something like, "I was not able to go"?

Of course it's not adverbs, all adverbs, so much as it is "-ly" adverbs, adverbs such as justly, enthusiastically, dismally, loudly, and so on.

For instance,

"Turn down the music," she screamed loudly.

Typing that hurt! Why? Well, how else would one scream other than loudly? "Loudly" doesn't add anything to that sentence and so works counter to our over-riding goal: clarity.

But what about,

"Turn down the music," Jan screamed weakly.

That gives us something new. "Angrily" or "desperately" wouldn't have worked as well because often--though not always--when people scream they're angry or even desperate. However weakness isn't part of the concept of screaming so it's adding something new, perhaps even something unexpected. Why is she weak?

Perhaps it would be better if we wrote something like:

"Turn down the music," Jan screamed, or tried to. What came out was an unintelligible sound, a dry rasping, nearly drowned out by the pounding of her heart. She couldn't catch her breath. There was someone in the house, someone else, someone who shouldn't be there, but who could hear anything above the discordant jangling of the music? Clinging to the banister, she gasped for breath and with a trembling hand reached for her asthma inhaler.

Or something like that.

In the last example I used words to try and paint a picture. I wanted to show the reader that Jan was desperate and give him or her a peek behind the curtain, give him or her an idea why Jan was desperate.

Rule of thumb: Use "-ly" adverbs only if they change the meaning of the verb. For example, "She smiled sadly."

6. Take it easy on the INGs.

Minimize ING endings, use "s" or "ed" instead. Why?

a. Adding ING adds a syllable to the word.
b. ING words tend to resemble each other.

Which sentence do you prefer?

i. My friend Kelly likes to walk, run, cycle and swim.
ii. My friend Kelly likes walking, running, cycling and swimming.

7. Don't be afraid to use long sentences.

Mr. Clark writes that length will make a bad sentence worse but it will make a good sentence better.

Here are some tips on making long sentences work:

a. Have the subject and main verb come early in the main clause of the sentence.
b. Use the long sentence to describe something long. For example, a long elevator ride, trip, walk, etc.
c. Let form follow function.
d. Write the action of the sentence in chronological order.
e. Use long sentences alongside sentences of short and medium length.

8. Establish a pattern and then give it a twist.

Mr. Clark tells us to build parallel constructions but cut across the grain. For example:

Parallel: Faith, hope and love. (Each noun has equal impact.)

Parallel with a twist: Faith, hope and being kind and nice to your neighbors even though they're terrible to you.

Pure parallel structure: boom, boom, boom.

Parallel with a twist: boom, boom, bang.

Mr. Clark points out that Superman doesn't stand for truth, justice and patriotism, he stands for truth, justice and the American way. Two parallel nouns with a twist.

9. Let punctuation control pace and space.

We punctuate for two reasons:
a. To set the pace of the reading.
b. To divide words, phrases and ideas into convenient groupings.

A sentence with no punctuation but a period is a straight road with a stop sign at the end.

A paragraph with a lot of periods in it will have a lot of stop signs and therefore a slower pace. This is good for providing clarity, for conveying emotion and for creating suspense.

Comma: Speed bump
Semi-colon: A rolling stop
Parenthetical expression: A detour.
Colon: Flashing yellow light that announces something important is up ahead.
Dash: Tree branch in the road.

10. Prune the big limps then shake out the dead leaves.

Simply put: Cut big then small. Mr. Clark holds that creativity must be moderated by cold-hearted judgement.

Brevity comes from selection not compression. Lift entire blocks from the work.

- Cut any passage that does not support your focus.
- Cut the weakest quotations, anecdotes and scenes to give greater power to the strongest.
- Cut any passage you have written to satisfy a tough teacher or editor rather than the common reader.
- Mark optional trims, then decide whether they should be actual cuts.
- Murder your darlings.

That's it! I hope you found something that could help put a little extra zing in your writing.

Once again, these points have come from Roy Peter Clark's series of podcasts entitled Roy's Writing Tools.

Photo credit: "STHLM #17" by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How Not To Begin A Story

There are many blogs that give good advice on the art and craft of writing. They have wonderful articles on story structure, finding your voice, sentence construction, admonishments to eschew weak verbs in favor of strong ones, as well as dire warnings against the ever-present danger of giving in to adverb use.

In my opinion, one of the best blogs is Jane Friedman: writing, reading and publishing in the digital age. (Of course Jane Friedman's blog is about a great many things.)

Anyway, enough of that. Let's talk about what's gotten me so darn excited!

K.M. Weiland wrote a post for Jane Friedman and it's one of the best posts on story openings I've read, so I wanted to both share it with you and encourage you to head on over to Jane Friedman's blog and read it for yourself. The title is: 4 Big Pitfalls in Story Openings.

Also, K.M. Weiland has come out with a book on story structure: Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story. I bought it right after I finished the article, I'm sure it'll be worth the $2.99. I'd spend more than that on a coffee!

4 Ways Not To Start A Story

When I was a kid, I think I was five, I decided I'd tell my father a story. I think it went something like this:

I got up this morning and I dressed myself but my shoes weren't right so mommy helped me and then I walked to school and then I saw Michele in the playground and we talked and then the bell rang and then ...

It was horrible.

One thing that was missing was ...

1. Suspense: Raise a question with your very first sentence.

I've talked about this before, but the first sentence--the very first sentence!--of your story should raise a question in the readers mind.

Humans are suckers for wanting a question answered. This is used against us in dozens of ways every day.

You've probably seen those TV commercials where a huckster asks: "How much do you think you'd have to pay for this mop in the store? Well, I'm going to throw in another mop. That's right. How much would you'd pay for this now? I'll give it to you for the low, low, price of ..."

Humans can be manipulated in a number of ways. As Lee Child mentioned, sports shows try to retain viewer attention across commercial breaks by asking a sports question before the break. The idea is that viewers, even if they don't care about the question or answer, will be more likely to stick around.

Raising a question in the readers mind in that very first sentence is vitally important. (Also, answering it at the end of the book is equally important. If you don't, there will be howls of protest.)

K.M. Weiland points out that the strength of this technique can be diluted in a number of ways:

a. Don't withhold the protagonist's name.

K.M. Weiland writes:

Award-winning author Linda Yezak explains, “[N]ameless, faceless characters don’t usually draw readers into the story. In other words, get your readers to bond with your characters early … [by letting] the reader know who they are.”

b. Don't make readers guess about the age of the protagonist.

You don't have to be precise, but readers want to have a ballpark idea of the protagonist's age.

c. Give your readers at least one peek into your protagonist's personality early on.

K.M. Weiland writes that this could be his:

- occupation
- a prominent personality trait
- a defining action

d. Don't make your readers guess about where the scene is taking place.

K.M. Weiland writes:

"Don’t leave your characters exploring a white room. Readers need to know if the scene is taking place in a café, a forest, a bedroom, or an airplane."

e. Make it clear who the other characters in the scene are.

When you introduce a character at least give the name of the character. I'm talking about major characters here, not characters that appear for a few sentences and then disappear. Some readers expect a character to stay around if you give them a name.


K.M. Weiland has three more points, but I think this post is long enough! I'll continue on Monday.

Fabulous Writing Resource: Roy Peter Clark on iTunes (FREE!)

I've included this link in my Twitter feed, but I wanted to share it with you here as well. Roy Peter Clark has put up a number of short audio files with fabulous tips on how to strengthen your writing.

This is the kind of thing I wish I'd listened to when it was just starting out.

Roy Peter Clark on iTunes: Roy's Writing Tools.

PS: My apologies. I pressed a mysterious key combo--I have no idea what it was!--and inadvertently published a draft of this post. I'm sorry for any confusion that caused.

Photo credit: "untitled" by martinak15 under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

A Writer's Voice: What It Is And How To Develop Yours

A few days ago Elizabeth Craig--a writer I admire not only for her prose but also for her writing on writing--posted an article, Telling a Story in Our Own Voice, about how to develop your voice. That's what I'd like to talk about today.

First of all, what the heck is a writer's voice? What do we mean when we use that term?

What is a writer's voice?

One of the best, and most profane, discussions of a writer's voice comes from Chuck Wendig's blog, Terribleminds (adult language -->): 25 Things Writers Should Know About Finding Their Voice. Interestingly, Chuck Wendig's writing is a wonderful demonstration of voice in action.

No one writes like Chuck Wendig.

Why? He has a unique voice. I know that "unique" doesn't admit of qualification--something is unique or it isn't--but I really want to say that Chuck is amazingly, extravagantly, unique. And that's part of his voice, part of his (if I may put it like this) identity as a writer.

Once someone tried to fake a blurb from Chuck Wendig. It didn't go over. Anyone who read Chuck Wendig could tell he hadn't written it. Why? It didn't have his voice. Similarly, that's how Stephen King was identified with Richard Bachman. They had the same voice and a writer's voice is unique.

This is how Chuck Wendig puts it in his blog post 25 Things:

"A writer’s voice is an incomprehensible and largely indefinable combo-pack of — well, of just about anything. Style, dialogue, tropes, themes, genres, sub-genres, ideas, characters, stereotypes, archetypes, word choice, grammatical violations, and so forth. Anybody who tells you that David Foster Wallace’s voice does not include his obsession with footnotes should be shoved into a cannon and fired into the mouth of a great white shark. Voice is not one thing. It is, in fact, the summation of a writer."

How Does A Writer Find Her Voice?

I know I've been talking a lot about Chuck Wendig, but I want to share one last thing from him since he gives one of the best pieces of advice on how to find one's voice I've read:

“Every author decides to go on a grand adventure one day, and that grand adventure is to find her voice. She leaves the comfort of her own wordsmithy and she traipses through many fictional worlds written by many writers and along the way she pokes through their writings to see if her voice is in there somewhere. She takes what she reads and she mimics their voices, taking little pieces of other authors with her in her mind and on the page.

Is her voice cynical? Optimistic? Short and curt, or long and breezy? She doesn’t know and so she reads and she writes and she lives life in an effort to find out.

This adventure takes as long as it takes, but one day the author tires of it and she comes home, empty-handed, still uncertain what her voice looks like or sounds like.

And there, at home, she discovers her voice is waiting. In fact, it’s been there all along.

Your voice is how you write when you’re not trying to find your voice. Your voice is the way you write, the way you talk. Your voice is who you are, what you believe, what themes you knowingly and unknowingly embrace.

Your voice is you. Search for it and you won’t find it. Stop looking and it’ll find you.”

That's from The Grand Adventure To Find Your Voice.

I think, though, that there are some things you can do, writing exercises, that can help one find their voice and that's what I'd like to talk about in this section.

Here are a few things you can do to help develop your voice:

1. Write

Yes, I know, that one is obvious.

Or is it?

Sometimes I think we feel there's no point in writing until we've found our voice; what would be the point? But writing, in the end, and writing a lot, is the only way to find the bloody thing.

I know, it can seem like a catch 22 but it's really not. There are many ways to practice writing, many ways to fill up your one million words.

- Blog
- Write short stories (I love short stories because they give you the thrill, the feel, the high, of finishing a story, of holding it in your sweaty sleep-deprived hands and knowing you did that.)
- Blog
- Write reviews
- Write letters to the editor
- Blog
- Write a book or a novella
- Write guest blogs

You get the idea.

2. Mimic other writers

Sounds crazy, I know. How could mimicking the voice of other writers help you find your own?

But one thing musicians do, when they're learning, is play the songs of other musicians over and over until they get a feel for the song. Or so I'm told.

Here's an exercise:

Day One

a. Pick a book. It should be written by someone whose writing you admire, and it should be one you've already read.

b. From the book you've chosen, select a scene. It should be a scene you thought was especially well written, a scene that made your heart twinge and you to think: I want to write like that. If it's a long scene, just select two or three pages from it.

c. Write out those two or three pages. If you normally write your first draft longhand, then write this out longhand, if you normally type your first draft, then type the pages.

Note: This is only for your edification so don't worry about copying out the pages. You can cross them out or delete them when you're finished. The important thing is the act of writing them out. As I wrote in another article (3 Steps To Better Prose), copying out the words gives you a feel for the writer's timing, their rhythm.

d. Write a few paragraphs that mimic the style of the writing you've just copied. For example, if the scene you wrote out was a love scene then write a love scene. If the scene took place on a boat crossing the Atlantic Ocean then yours should too. The idea is to write the scene again, mimicking the authors style.

Day Two

e. The next day, select another scene from the book you chose and repeat steps (b), (c) and (d), above.

Day Three

f. The next day, select another scene from the book you chose and repeat steps (b), (c) and (d), above. (No, this isn't a stutter.)

Day Four

g. Pick a new book and repeat the process from (a), above.

Repeat the above for about three months and you will have not only gone a step further in finding your own voice but you will have improved your prose in the process!

3. Use an exemplar

Elizabeth Spann Craig writes:

"One tip that I found:  once you’ve written a passage of your book in the voice you’re shooting for, print that portion out and keep it near you.  When you feel you’re sounding stilted again, reread the passage that you wrote. It can help to reorient you. (Telling a Story in Our Own Voice)"

4. Study your past work

In her article, Telling a Story in Our Own Voice, Elizabeth Craig gave links to other (truly wonderful) articles on finding your voice, one of which is Janice Hardy's post Can You Hear Me Now? Developing Your Voice.

Janice Hardy writes:

"If you're uncertain about your own voice, try studying your work, past and present. Look for common elements, pieces that feel like you, things you like about how you put together words. Study your word choice, how you arrange paragraphs, how you control pacing and flow. Find the parts that are you, and then develop those aspects."

By the way, both Janice Hardy (@janice_hardy) and Elizabeth Craig (@elizabethscraig) have wonderful twitter feeds. They regularly tweet links to helpful writing resources.

I'd like to leave you with two pieces of advice from Janice Hardy (this is still from her article, Can You Hear Me Now?):

Don't edit your voice out
We do terrible things to sentences to make them "correct." Writing isn't about grammatically correct sentences or having every period in exactly the same place. Sentence fragments, not using whom vs who properly, bad grammar -- all of these things bring our work to life. While you can't ignore the rules all the time, breaking them to achieve an effect is acceptable.

Don't edit out the terms you naturally use
Regions have a voice all their own. If I say someone has a Southern accent, you know what I mean. They're from New Jersey? You hear it. If you have ways of saying things and those ways fit with your characters, use them.  

That's all for now, good writing!

Photo credit: "..." by seyed mostafa zamani under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writing Advice From Joyce Carol Oats & Stephen King

I love reading writing advice from authors I admire, authors like Joyce Carol Oates, professionals who have been writing for years and who kindly share their hard won wisdom with the rest of us.

For those of you who are a bit foggy on who Joyce Carol Oates is, here is a brief bio courtesy of Wikipedia:

Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over forty novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, and the National Humanities Medal. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

The following quotations are from: 10 Tips on Writing from Joyce Carol Oates. Ms. Oates recently tweeted the following writing advice.

"The first sentence can be written only after the last sentence has been written. FIRST DRAFTS ARE HELL. FINAL DRAFTS, PARADISE."

What do you think? Personally I love writing first drafts--well, most of the time--what I loathe with a fiery passion is revising. But I do revise. For me, that's the work part.

"When in doubt how to end a chapter, bring in a man with a gun. (This is Raymond Chandler’s advice, not mine. I would not try this.)"

"Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!"

I would add: But never on the first draft! I think of my first drafts as zero drafts where anything goes.

I can't resist sneaking in a quote from another of my literary heroes, Stephen King:

"Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as ‘good’ and other sorts as ‘bad,’ is fearful behavior. (On Writing)"

The above quotation was taken from The Adverb Is Not Your Friend: Stephen King on Simplicity of Style. A great article. If you are a new writer and haven't read Stephen King's On Writing you're missing out.

These quotations come from Brain Pickings, a gruesome name but a terrific blog. 

Good writing!

Photo credit: "Dream" by seyed mostafa zamani under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Lee Child On How To Write A Book Your Readers Can't Put Down

Keeping in mind that rules are made to be broken, here are 3 tips from various pros on how to keep readers from putting your book down:

1. Lee Child: Ask a question and make people wait for the answer.

According to Zackary Petit's Writer's Digest article, Lee Child Debunks the Biggest Writing Myths, bestselling author Lee Child holds that suspense boils down to "asking a question and making people wait for the answer."

At ThrillerFest 2012, Lee Child said he believes that:

"[H]umans are hard-wired to want the answer to a question. When the remote control was invented, it threw the TV business through a loop. How would you keep people around during a commercial? So TV producers started posing a question at the start of the commercial break, and answering it when the program returned. (Think sports—Who has the most career grand slams?) Even if you don’t care about the answer, Child said, you stick around because you’re intrigued."

.  .  .  .

“The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end,” he said.

"When he’s crafting his books, Child doesn’t know the answer to his question, and he writes scene by scene—he’s just trying to answer the question as he goes through, and he keeps throwing different complications in that he’ll figure out later. And that very well may be the key to his sharp, bestselling prose.

“For me the end of a book is just as exciting as it is for a reader,” he said."

Lee Child expands on this method of building suspense in his New York Times article, A Simple Way To Build Suspense. Also, here is an engrossing read about how and why Lee Child became a writer. It's a short and well written biography: The Curious Case of Lee Child.

2.  David Farland: Front-load the conflict

David Farland, in his article Opening Strategies, suggests there are two main ways to create conflict.

One, which we've just read about, is to "create a mystery in the opening pages, taking perhaps a dozen chapters to reveal the main conflict".

The other is "to front-load the book, giving the reader a massive conflict on the opening page".

Great! But how do we do that?

3. Eileen Cook: Increase your conflict by turning conflict resolution techniques on their head

Eileen Cook, a fabulous writer and all around lovely person, wrote an article entitled, helpfully: 5 Ways To Increase Conflict. Here are a few of her tips:

a. Atmosphere: Pick a place that's uncomfortable for your characters

Eileen writes:

"In real life you want to choose the right environment to have a difficult conversation. You want to choose a place where the individual can focus on what you are saying and not instantly feel defensive or uncomfortable.  In fiction, try and have the conflict happen in the most uncomfortable place possible for your characters.

"Imagine a man telling his fiancé that he doesn’t think he can go through with the wedding. Now imagine him telling her in the back of the church just before the wedding, or worse yet, right after the ceremony, or as the flight takes off for their honeymoon."

b. The more the merrier: causing characters to clash

Add characters who will make an already conflict-ridden situation worse. Eileen gives us these questions:

- "Who does your character want on their side in an argument?"
- "Who is the person your character least wants to oppose?"
- "In the wedding example above it’s bad if the groom is in love with someone else, it’s worse if it’s the maid of honor, or her sister, or his best man."

c. Rather than focusing on what is said, focus on who said it and what they may have meant by it

In other words, just do the opposite of whatever a good conflict resolution manual tells you! Eileen gives this example:

"For example, there are two teen girls.  One finds out that the other went to a party with another group and didn’t tell her. What might she accuse her of? You don’t want to be my friend. You’re embarrassed by me."

How this applies to your manuscript: "Look at your manuscript, what meaning does your character put onto what is said/done? What can they accuse the person of?"

d. Push your character's triggers

What are your characters "hot buttons"? What will set her/him off? Get your characters to fight dirty, that's sure to increase conflict!

Eileen's exercise: "Look at your manuscript and make notes where the characters can have an “oh no you didn’t” moment."

Rather than focus on what your characters have in common, focus on what makes them different. Eileen writes: "If your character perceives giving ground means they lose something, they will fight to win rather than compromise."

Eileen's pointers:

- "What does your character stand to lose if they lose this conflict? What is at risk?"
- "Can you set up two characters with opposing goals?"
- "Do you have a character that wants two opposing things at the same time? I want the big promotion at work and I want to spend more time with my family."

Here's her parting advice:

"When in doubt, go big.  Drop a plane wing, add a zombie, have them realize that the two things they want most in the world can’t both be had at the same time.  Your characters may hate you for it, but readers will love it."

I've attended several of Eileen Cook's writing workshops and they are fabulous. If you ever have the opportunity to hear her speak, think twice before you pass it up.

As Bugs Bunny says, "That's all folks!" Happy writing.

Photo credit: "STHLM #8" by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Copyright 2.0.

10 Tips On How To Write A Book

A few days ago Delilah S. Dawson wrote a post on Chuck Wendig's blog, Terribleminds, about how she writes a book. It's awesome! I wish I'd read something like it when I was starting out.

Delilah concentrates on writing for traditional publishers but a large part of her post is applicable to indie's as well. Here's a few of the points that resonated with me.

 

How To Write A Book

What follows is loosely based on Delilah S. Dawson's excellent post 25 Steps to Being a Traditionally Published Author: Lazy Bastard Edition.

 

1. Writers write

This is less a 'how you do it' point than it is what to expect. Chances are, putting your posterior in a chair every day for several hours is not what you'll want to do. (Not to mention the back pain.)

There will usually be something more appealing to work on than writing. Even housework will begin to seem fun by comparison (at least, this has been my experience, and I loathe housework).

It helps to be disciplined, to make a schedule and stick to it. Neil Gaiman writes:

"If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not.

"You have to write when you’re not inspired. And you have to write the scenes that don’t inspire you. And the weird thing is that six months later, a year later, you’ll look back at them and you can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you just wrote because they had to be written next.

"The process of writing can be magical. … Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another." (Neil Gaiman on How Writers Learn and Why First Drafts Don’t Matter)

Whether you write when you first get up in the morning, after you get your first jolt of caffeine (my preferred time when I'm writing a first draft), or sometime else, the important thing is to set up a routine and stick to it.

(See: 6 Ways To Write Every Day)

2. Don't give up.

Even if it seems you're writing crap, keep writing.

When you come back and look at your work the next day, it won't be as bad as you thought. In fact, as Chuck Wendig recently said, it might be good (see his post (adult language -->): Yes, Virginia, You Can Totally Force Art).

Conversely, you'll have days where you think everything you write is brilliant. Unfortunately, chances are, the next day when you look at what you did you'll think it's simply average.

If you've never written a book before, the important thing is simply to finish the manuscript even if you know its destined to be lovingly interred under your bed. After all, it counts toward your 1,000,000 words.

Incidentally, if you haven't come across the idea that every writer has to write 1,000,000 words before they can produce a truly good book, here's a quotation from that master of the writers' craft, Ray Bradbury:

"The Muse must have shape. You will write a thousand words a day for ten or twenty years in order to try to give it shape, to learn enough about grammar and story construction so that these become part of the Subconscious, without restraining or distorting the Muse." (Zen in the Art of Writing)

In order to write well we must first write. If that means we write badly then so be it. After all, one must write to have something to edit!

As I searched for the Ray Bradbury quotation, above, I came across a couple more:

"Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed." (Ray Bradbury) 

"The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way you would never do anything." (John Irving)

3. To write you must read

I can say from personal experience both that it's tempting to stop reading when you're writing--I've become a miser with time and try to squeeze minutes and seconds from my day any which way I can--and that eliminating your reading time is one of the worst things you could do.

Reading feeds you. When you write it's like your muse is running a marathon. She needs to be fed and one of the main ways that happens is through reading.

Also, though, one needs to take walks, meet people and enjoy the creative efforts of others. 

Another important function of reading is that it helps us learn to become better writers. Often I'll sense that something is lacking from a particular scene and, when I read, I'll have a revelation and understand what's missing from my own work. Delilah writes:

"It [reading] helps keep your mind nimble and constantly growing new neural connections. What the author did right, what they did wrong--your brain just soaks it up like Kraken rum in a sponge cake. Read other genres, read the popular books that you think probably suck just to see what makes them so appealing. Read nonfiction. Read writing books. When you’re getting ready to revise or query, read books similar to your own to finesse what makes yours special. But always be reading ..."

4. Finish what you start

I guarantee you that at some point when you're writing your book--this will probably happen more than once--you'll have an almost irresistible desire to start writing another story. You'll have a grand idea, a compelling concept will pop into your noggin, and it'll be so beautiful and wonderful that you'll want to abandon the plodding piece of so-and-so your current manuscript has morphed into and work on it.

Don't!

As Admiral Ackbar said: It's a trap!

Yes, absolutely, write down the idea--I have an idea book where I write down story concepts--but then go back to your work in progress. Delilah writes:

"You’ll never learn anything if you don’t finish a book. At first, you might not know what your process is. Are you a plotter? Do you ride by the seat of your pants? Do you like Scrivener or longhand or writing on your bathtub wall in pig blood? You’ll never know what works until you’ve written one complete book. Your process might change later. But for now, focus on writing a really crappy first draft in whatever way appeals and don’t stop until the ride is over." 

5. First drafts are vomited up rather than written down 

I don't let anyone see my first drafts. They aren't pretty. 

I've begun to think of my first drafts as zero drafts. They give me a chance to wallow in an idea, seeing where it's going to lead. It gives me a starting place, a structure.

Delilah writes, and I agree 100%:

"Looking for a leg up on improving your writing at any point of this writing thing? Go read ON WRITING by Stephen King, which is a game changer and, for me, a life changer. Then read BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott. Then read SAVE THE CAT by Blake Snyder."

6. When you finish your first book celebrate but don't send it out, not yet

Finishing your first book is a big deal. Treat yourself. Tell your friends. Go out and celebrate.

But all you have at this point is a first draft that needs a lot of polish. But, before you start editing, you need distance from your manuscript. You need to be able to read it with new eyes, and that'll take time.

How much time? Well, that depends on who you talk to. If I remember correctly, Stephen King says to give it 6 weeks. I'd say, if you can, give it at least a month. In the meantime, though, don't stop writing. Start on a short story or begin work on your next book.

7. Revise

You've set your manuscript aside for a few weeks, now you're starting on your first revision, your second draft.

Everyone's different, but I find it usually takes me (at least) twice as long to do my first revision as it does to write the first draft. Why? I'll let Delilah explain:

"Don’t read it like it’s your precious perfect baby darling. Read it like it’s your worst enemy’s magnum opus and your job is to expose its every tragic flaw. Are the characters flat? Does the dialog pop, or is the dialog just you using the characters’ mouths for your own assplaining? Is there purple prose? Does the action compel you to keep reading? Is there a satisfying story arc? Do you switch POV or tense? Because, honestly, I do that all the damn time. If you get bored reading it, so will your audience."

The first draft is just the beginning. The first draft is the easy part.

The first draft is where you get to pluck ideas out of your imagination and write them down, creating connections, dreaming up people and places and adventures. The second draft, on the other hand, is where things get real and you have to straighten hems and make sure everything is presentable and ready for company.

8. Polish

Don't stop with revision. Once you've got the big things figured out go through your manuscript again looking for anything that weakens it. (Here's a terrific article on the subject: Self-Editing for Everyone Part 4: The Weakeners.) Look for words you don't need, words that don't add anything to the meaning of your prose.

Although there's nothing wrong with adverbs in and of themselves, often adverbs are used in ways that bloat and weaken sentences. Stephen King has an excellent discussion of this in On Writing.

Also, I would suggest that you not only read the manuscript aloud to yourself but that you run it through a text-to-speech program that will read it back to you. When I hear my words read back to me I find a host of typos.

9. As other people for input 

Who you ask, how many people you ask, is up to you but you definitely need to give your manuscript to someone else to read.

Dean Wesley Smith, a professional writer with many years experience, gives his manuscripts to a first reader and then sends them off. Other people like running their manuscripts past their writing group.

Try out different things and find out what works for you. 

Also, if you can afford it, there are many excellent professional developmental editors who can help you make your manuscript stronger.

Here are some links to previous articles of mine on the editing and critiquing process:

Editing & Critiquing

How To Get Over A Destructive Critique

The Dark Art Of Critiquing, Part 1: What Makes A Story Good?

The Dark Art of Critiquing, Part 2: Formulating A Critique

10. Start writing your next story

After you've polished your story and have sent it out--whether you've published it yourself or sent it to traditional publishers--start on your next story!

Delilah S. Dawson's article, 25 Steps To Being A Traditionally Published Author, goes on to list the steps she took in her adventure to becoming a traditionally published author. It's a great article.

Happy writing!

Photo credit: "At Lands End" by Sharon Mollerus under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.