For those of you who are unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. This is an amazing phenomena that occurs once and year and, for me at least, cannot be replicated at any other time.
The goal of NaNo is to write a 50,000 word novel (approximately 175 pages) during the 30 days of November. Anyone can sign up and it’s absolutely free. You start writing on November 1st and must upload your finished product to the verification page by midnight, November 30th. You can read all about it in depth HERE.
The first NaNoWriMo took place in San Francisco, in July, 1999. There were 21 participants. The next year it was moved to November, given a website, and the participants swelled to 140. The third year the participant numbers topped 3,000 and the organizers were forced to start asking for donations to help offset the costs of keeping it going. By 2010 there were over 200,000 writers participating.
To succeed at NaNo you have to be able to write a minimum of 1,667 words a day. The pressure is intense. You have to push forward without looking back. The only thing that matters in NaNo is the quantity of words, not the quality.
I have a friend who doesn’t understand why anyone would participate. What do you get for your trouble? Well, my friend, you get a finished draft, a downloadable certificate, and best of all, a feeling of accomplishment. You get to call yourself a novelist, because you just finished your novel.
I first tried NaNo in 2006. My story topped out at 34,000 words and I didn’t win the challenge but I did end up with a complete draft. I’ve participated seven more times since then and have seven more drafts to show for it, all more than 50,000 words. I also have a partial draft from the year I started with one idea then switched to a new one after the first week (and 10,000 words), winning the challenge with over 60,000 words total. And despite my whining and complaining and lack of social life, I’ve loved every minute of it.
There’s a sense of community about NaNo that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t given it a try. Thousands of writers, all over the world, churning out words as fast as they can: there are write-ins and forums and your own page on the NaNoWriMo site.
Due to an unfortunate series of circumstances, I was unable to participate in NaNo last year, and honestly, I really missed it. So I have every expectation that I'll be back at it this year.
If you’ve never participated in NaNo, I strongly urge you to mark your calendar and sign up. I’m always looking for writing buddies and you can find me on the NaNo site as Lady Cat. See you in November.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Friday, April 15, 2016
M is for Managing Your Time
I was going to start by stating that there are 168 hours in a week, and we use X number for sleeping, X number for working, X number for entertainment, yada, yada, yada. But we know all that. And we know how hard it can be to carve writing time out of our day. And that’s not what this post is about, it’s about managing your time, not finding time.
I’m going to start with a confession. I’m terrible at time management. I have a lot of free time to write in but I get very little writing done sometimes. That’s because I allow myself to be distracted. A friend phones and I answer, knowing she just wants to chat. She goes on about work and the kids and bake sales and before you know it I’m thinking about home made chocolate chip cookies and when I get off the phone I go to the kitchen and start baking instead of going back to my writing.
So the first thing you need to do is take yourself seriously so that others will too. Get rid of the distractions. Turn off that television and unplug the phone. Put a sign on your door (or on the back of your chair if you don’t have a room of your own) that says you are not to be disturbed.
Set yourself goals and make yourself a writing schedule. You can use scheduling software or even just a day planner to do this in. If you record what you want to accomplish in your writing time you are much more likely to use that time constructively. Also, you’ll get to check off goals from your list which is motivating in its own right.
Deal with distractions by making notes of them. Keep a notepad nearby so you can keep track of who called, or other distracting thoughts and issues. This removes the distraction from your mind to be dealt with later.
Get organized. Whether you have an hour or eight hours you’ll get a lot more accomplished if you don’t have to go looking for notes or research.
Be realistic and don’t set yourself up to fail when managing your time to write. You know how much you’re capable of doing. Don’t tell yourself you’re going to write for four hours when you know your attention starts to flag after two. You’ll only become disappointed with yourself when you fail to reach your goal and that in turn will make you feel less motivated.
Don’t let e-mails and social networking suck up your writing time. Establish a time of day for checking e-mail and use social networking as a reward for getting your writing done.
Schedule yourself a break or two. When you schedule yourself a break you’re giving yourself permission to stop writing, so you won’t be filled with guilt over it. Just make sure to get back to work when your break is over.
If the schedule you set up for yourself in the beginning is not as productive as you thought it would be, remember that it’s not carved in stone. Perhaps you’ve scheduled your writing time for the afternoon but find the morning works better for you. If this is the case then by all means change it. You’re the boss, after all.
I’m going to start with a confession. I’m terrible at time management. I have a lot of free time to write in but I get very little writing done sometimes. That’s because I allow myself to be distracted. A friend phones and I answer, knowing she just wants to chat. She goes on about work and the kids and bake sales and before you know it I’m thinking about home made chocolate chip cookies and when I get off the phone I go to the kitchen and start baking instead of going back to my writing.
So the first thing you need to do is take yourself seriously so that others will too. Get rid of the distractions. Turn off that television and unplug the phone. Put a sign on your door (or on the back of your chair if you don’t have a room of your own) that says you are not to be disturbed.
Set yourself goals and make yourself a writing schedule. You can use scheduling software or even just a day planner to do this in. If you record what you want to accomplish in your writing time you are much more likely to use that time constructively. Also, you’ll get to check off goals from your list which is motivating in its own right.
Deal with distractions by making notes of them. Keep a notepad nearby so you can keep track of who called, or other distracting thoughts and issues. This removes the distraction from your mind to be dealt with later.
Get organized. Whether you have an hour or eight hours you’ll get a lot more accomplished if you don’t have to go looking for notes or research.
Be realistic and don’t set yourself up to fail when managing your time to write. You know how much you’re capable of doing. Don’t tell yourself you’re going to write for four hours when you know your attention starts to flag after two. You’ll only become disappointed with yourself when you fail to reach your goal and that in turn will make you feel less motivated.
Don’t let e-mails and social networking suck up your writing time. Establish a time of day for checking e-mail and use social networking as a reward for getting your writing done.
Schedule yourself a break or two. When you schedule yourself a break you’re giving yourself permission to stop writing, so you won’t be filled with guilt over it. Just make sure to get back to work when your break is over.
If the schedule you set up for yourself in the beginning is not as productive as you thought it would be, remember that it’s not carved in stone. Perhaps you’ve scheduled your writing time for the afternoon but find the morning works better for you. If this is the case then by all means change it. You’re the boss, after all.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
L is for Language and Dialect
If your story is set in a foreign land, or your characters visit another country, the inhabitants of that country will probably be speaking another language. To provide authenticity, authors often sprinkle dialogue with a foreign word or phrase, or attempt to use the local dialect. And when it comes to writing fantasy or science fiction, or sometimes paranormal or urban fantasy, you may even wish to invent your own language.
An invented language can be a good tool for exposing the traits of a culture. Different languages not only sound different, but they feel different. They shape ideas differently. They are also shaped by their environments. The way a language works can help illustrate the thought processes of the people who speak it.
Keep a list of invented words. It’s all too easy to forget how you spelled something you made up. If you keep this list in alphabetical order, you can use it as a glossary later. When you add a word to your list, don’t forget to add it to your word-processing program’s dictionary. This will ensure your spell check keeps you on track.
When using an invented language, a word or two here and there is far more effective than whole paragraphs. An entire sentence will need translating; a word or two can be put in context so that the reader can quickly figure out the meaning.
Dialects can also be effective, but you need to be careful, if dialect is used incorrectly it can ruin the story.
Here are a few tips when using dialects:
Try not to stereotype. Not everyone from the South uses “Y’all”, not every Canadian says “eh?”, and not every teenager uses slang.
Make sure when you use regional speech patterns and accents that you’re accurate and consistent. Don’t have your cowboy suddenly sound like he’s from England.
If possible, try to listen to people with the accents and speech patterns you wish to use so you can learn what sounds authentic and what doesn’t. It would be even better if you can actually have a conversation with them.
Try to make sure you’re using the right terminology for the dialect you’re using. There are many regions and subcultures, all with their own slang. To Americans, chips are a snack food that comes in bags and a boot is something to wear on your foot. But in England, chips are julienned, deep fried potatoes and a boot is the part of the car to put your luggage in.
Dialects for historical and foreign characters can be even trickier. A few writers will use a complete sentence in a foreign language followed by a translation, but that can seem a little unwieldy. Smaller words or phrases, such as “Ach!” “Mon ami,” “Cara mia,” etc. can be just as effective when scattered through the dialogue and don’t need translating.
If you're thinking of using a made up language of your own and don't know how to get started, I recommend checking out some of these made up languages:
Learn Klingon at the Klingon Language Institute
The language from the movie Avatar is Na'vi
If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you can learn to speak Elvish
Star Wars fans can learn to speak Ewokese
Game of Thrones fans can learn to speak Dothraki
An invented language can be a good tool for exposing the traits of a culture. Different languages not only sound different, but they feel different. They shape ideas differently. They are also shaped by their environments. The way a language works can help illustrate the thought processes of the people who speak it.
Keep a list of invented words. It’s all too easy to forget how you spelled something you made up. If you keep this list in alphabetical order, you can use it as a glossary later. When you add a word to your list, don’t forget to add it to your word-processing program’s dictionary. This will ensure your spell check keeps you on track.
When using an invented language, a word or two here and there is far more effective than whole paragraphs. An entire sentence will need translating; a word or two can be put in context so that the reader can quickly figure out the meaning.
Dialects can also be effective, but you need to be careful, if dialect is used incorrectly it can ruin the story.
Here are a few tips when using dialects:
Try not to stereotype. Not everyone from the South uses “Y’all”, not every Canadian says “eh?”, and not every teenager uses slang.
Make sure when you use regional speech patterns and accents that you’re accurate and consistent. Don’t have your cowboy suddenly sound like he’s from England.
If possible, try to listen to people with the accents and speech patterns you wish to use so you can learn what sounds authentic and what doesn’t. It would be even better if you can actually have a conversation with them.
Try to make sure you’re using the right terminology for the dialect you’re using. There are many regions and subcultures, all with their own slang. To Americans, chips are a snack food that comes in bags and a boot is something to wear on your foot. But in England, chips are julienned, deep fried potatoes and a boot is the part of the car to put your luggage in.
Dialects for historical and foreign characters can be even trickier. A few writers will use a complete sentence in a foreign language followed by a translation, but that can seem a little unwieldy. Smaller words or phrases, such as “Ach!” “Mon ami,” “Cara mia,” etc. can be just as effective when scattered through the dialogue and don’t need translating.
If you're thinking of using a made up language of your own and don't know how to get started, I recommend checking out some of these made up languages:
Learn Klingon at the Klingon Language Institute
The language from the movie Avatar is Na'vi
If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you can learn to speak Elvish
Star Wars fans can learn to speak Ewokese
Game of Thrones fans can learn to speak Dothraki
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
K is for Kissing
Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.
~ traditional nursery rhyme
When I first started writing fiction, I wrote pretty much exclusively fantasy and swords and sorcery. My characters fought and worked magic and found themselves trying to survive in all kinds of weird situations. But the one thing they did not do was kiss. Not even a peck on the cheek. In fact, my characters hardly ever even touched each other, unless it was a punch to the jaw or a sword through the midsection.
It took a long time before I felt comfortable allowing physical contact between my characters. After years of honing my craft, I finally allowed my characters to kiss. These days they not only kiss they . . . um . . . do a lot more than kiss. ;-)
The amount of heat in your novel is up to you, as the writer, and what your story calls for, but it all starts with that first kiss.
You can’t just have your characters going around willy nilly kissing other characters, there needs to be a reason for the kiss. Imagine if someone you’d never seen before, and to whom you were not attracted, came up and laid a big, fat kiss on you. Would it turn you on, or would it disgust you? My guess is the latter. There has to be some kind of pull between your characters. This can be a slow build up or love at first sight, but they must be attracted to each other on some level before their kiss will be believable.
There are many kinds of kisses; you need to choose the right one for both your characters and your scene. A kiss may be shy, or hesitant. It could be stolen, or confident, or demanding. Or it could very well be the height of passion. Keep this in mind and write the actions that go along with this kiss.
A kiss in a dark alleyway is completely different to a kiss on the top of a Ferris wheel or a kiss in front of a fireplace. Write the scene with as much detail as it takes for the reader to easily picture it. The setting and scene of the kiss can be as important as the kiss itself.
The age and experience of the two kissing need to be taken into consideration as well. The first kiss between two inexperienced teenagers will be much different than the first kiss between two experienced adults who hooked up at a bar. Or perhaps one character is experienced and the other not.
Engage all the senses when writing the scene. A reader is more involved when his or her senses are stimulated. Let them feel the heat of bodies pressed together, hear the quickening of the breath, smell the cologne he used or the perfume she did. If tongues are involved then taste will be involved as well - a hint of coffee or wine, the stronger taste of beer or garlic bread.
And don't forget to let the reader know what your characters are feeling. Maybe your characters were fighting and it's a hard, angry kiss. The kiss could take one character by surprise, or maybe both. Maybe it was much anticipated. It can turn the legs to jelly and be completely overwhelming. Or maybe, despite the anticipation, it could be a complete disappointment.
Remember that writing a kissing scene isn’t much different than writing any other scene. It’s full of dialogue and description, people moving around, making decisions, and carrying out actions. But above all, the kissing scene should move the story forward.
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.
~ traditional nursery rhyme
When I first started writing fiction, I wrote pretty much exclusively fantasy and swords and sorcery. My characters fought and worked magic and found themselves trying to survive in all kinds of weird situations. But the one thing they did not do was kiss. Not even a peck on the cheek. In fact, my characters hardly ever even touched each other, unless it was a punch to the jaw or a sword through the midsection.
It took a long time before I felt comfortable allowing physical contact between my characters. After years of honing my craft, I finally allowed my characters to kiss. These days they not only kiss they . . . um . . . do a lot more than kiss. ;-)
The amount of heat in your novel is up to you, as the writer, and what your story calls for, but it all starts with that first kiss.
You can’t just have your characters going around willy nilly kissing other characters, there needs to be a reason for the kiss. Imagine if someone you’d never seen before, and to whom you were not attracted, came up and laid a big, fat kiss on you. Would it turn you on, or would it disgust you? My guess is the latter. There has to be some kind of pull between your characters. This can be a slow build up or love at first sight, but they must be attracted to each other on some level before their kiss will be believable.
There are many kinds of kisses; you need to choose the right one for both your characters and your scene. A kiss may be shy, or hesitant. It could be stolen, or confident, or demanding. Or it could very well be the height of passion. Keep this in mind and write the actions that go along with this kiss.
A kiss in a dark alleyway is completely different to a kiss on the top of a Ferris wheel or a kiss in front of a fireplace. Write the scene with as much detail as it takes for the reader to easily picture it. The setting and scene of the kiss can be as important as the kiss itself.
The age and experience of the two kissing need to be taken into consideration as well. The first kiss between two inexperienced teenagers will be much different than the first kiss between two experienced adults who hooked up at a bar. Or perhaps one character is experienced and the other not.
Engage all the senses when writing the scene. A reader is more involved when his or her senses are stimulated. Let them feel the heat of bodies pressed together, hear the quickening of the breath, smell the cologne he used or the perfume she did. If tongues are involved then taste will be involved as well - a hint of coffee or wine, the stronger taste of beer or garlic bread.
And don't forget to let the reader know what your characters are feeling. Maybe your characters were fighting and it's a hard, angry kiss. The kiss could take one character by surprise, or maybe both. Maybe it was much anticipated. It can turn the legs to jelly and be completely overwhelming. Or maybe, despite the anticipation, it could be a complete disappointment.
Remember that writing a kissing scene isn’t much different than writing any other scene. It’s full of dialogue and description, people moving around, making decisions, and carrying out actions. But above all, the kissing scene should move the story forward.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
J is For Just A Dreamer
Some men see things as they are and ask, “Why?” I dream things that never were and ask, “Why not?”
~ George Bernard Shaw
A long time ago (and we’re talking a very long time ago), someone I was very close to told me I was nothing but a dreamer. At the time, the comment hurt. It was a careless comment made to a teenager, and yet it stuck with me for years.
But is being “just a dreamer” really such a bad thing?
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was inspired by a dream.
In the summer of 1816, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (who was 19 at the time) and her soon to be husband poet Percy Shelley visited the poet Lord Byron at his villa beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Stormy weather frequently forced them indoors, where they and Byron's other guests sometimes read from a volume of ghost stories. One evening, Byron challenged his guests to each write a ghost story. Mary's story, inspired by a dream, became Frankenstein.
When I placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think... I saw -- with shut eyes, but acute mental vision -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous Creator of the world. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, from her introduction to Frankenstein
The Robert Louis Stevenson described dreams as occurring in "that small theater of the brain which we keep brightly lighted all night long." He wrote extensively about how his passion for writing interacted with his dreams and said that, from an early age, his dreams were so vivid and moving that they were more entertaining to him personally than any literature. He learned early in his life that he could dream complete stories and that he could even go back to the same dreams on succeeding nights to give them a different ending. Later he trained himself to remember his dreams and to dream plots for his books.
His wife related how one night Louis cried out horror-stricken, but when she woke him up he protested saying, "Why did you waken me? I was dreaming a fine bogy-tale!" The next morning when he arose he exclaimed excitedly, "I have got my schilling-shocker -- I have got my schilling-shocker!"
He described his novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as having been "conceived, written, re-written, re-re-written, and printed inside ten weeks" in 1886. "For two days I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two, in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers."
Stephen King had this to say about his novel Misery: "Like the ideas for some of my other novels, that came to me in a dream. In fact, it happened when I was on Concord, flying over here, to Brown's. I fell asleep on the plane, and dreamt about a woman who held a writer prisoner and killed him, skinned him, fed the remains to her pig and bound his novel in human skin. His skin, the writer's skin. I said to myself, 'I have to write this story.' Of course, the plot changed quite a bit in the telling. But I wrote the first forty or fifty pages right on the landing here, between the ground floor and the first floor of the hotel."
So there you have it. Yes, I confess. I am a dreamer. And proud of it!
~ George Bernard Shaw
A long time ago (and we’re talking a very long time ago), someone I was very close to told me I was nothing but a dreamer. At the time, the comment hurt. It was a careless comment made to a teenager, and yet it stuck with me for years.
But is being “just a dreamer” really such a bad thing?
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was inspired by a dream.
In the summer of 1816, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (who was 19 at the time) and her soon to be husband poet Percy Shelley visited the poet Lord Byron at his villa beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Stormy weather frequently forced them indoors, where they and Byron's other guests sometimes read from a volume of ghost stories. One evening, Byron challenged his guests to each write a ghost story. Mary's story, inspired by a dream, became Frankenstein.
When I placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think... I saw -- with shut eyes, but acute mental vision -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous Creator of the world. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, from her introduction to Frankenstein
The Robert Louis Stevenson described dreams as occurring in "that small theater of the brain which we keep brightly lighted all night long." He wrote extensively about how his passion for writing interacted with his dreams and said that, from an early age, his dreams were so vivid and moving that they were more entertaining to him personally than any literature. He learned early in his life that he could dream complete stories and that he could even go back to the same dreams on succeeding nights to give them a different ending. Later he trained himself to remember his dreams and to dream plots for his books.
His wife related how one night Louis cried out horror-stricken, but when she woke him up he protested saying, "Why did you waken me? I was dreaming a fine bogy-tale!" The next morning when he arose he exclaimed excitedly, "I have got my schilling-shocker -- I have got my schilling-shocker!"
He described his novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as having been "conceived, written, re-written, re-re-written, and printed inside ten weeks" in 1886. "For two days I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two, in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers."
Stephen King had this to say about his novel Misery: "Like the ideas for some of my other novels, that came to me in a dream. In fact, it happened when I was on Concord, flying over here, to Brown's. I fell asleep on the plane, and dreamt about a woman who held a writer prisoner and killed him, skinned him, fed the remains to her pig and bound his novel in human skin. His skin, the writer's skin. I said to myself, 'I have to write this story.' Of course, the plot changed quite a bit in the telling. But I wrote the first forty or fifty pages right on the landing here, between the ground floor and the first floor of the hotel."
So there you have it. Yes, I confess. I am a dreamer. And proud of it!
Monday, April 11, 2016
I is For Ideas
I was talking to my aunt last night, who was writing her obituary (don't ask - but no, she's not dying), and in the course of our conversation she asked me where I got my ideas. Where indeed?
I used to believe that if you had to ask where to get ideas from, then you weren't cut out to be a writer. But then I did a series on different forms of poetry and when it came time to come up with examples for these forms I suddenly found myself sympathizing with anyone who’s ever wanted to write but didn’t know what to write about.
So where do you get an idea? While ideas in general are all around you, they can also be triggered by many different things:
Magazine Photographs:
Sometimes the most unique ideas can be triggered by a picture from a magazine. I have an extensive collection of pictures I’ve cut from magazines – people, places, gardens, dishes – anything that catches my eye.
Freewrite:
Write for 10 minutes without stopping. Don't worry about grammar or spelling, just write. If you're using a computer, darken the screen so you can't read what you're writing until you're done. This technique will help you access those creative ideas hiding in your subconscious.
Look at a Book:
Take a book you have nearby and write down the first 10 words you see. Choose words that you don't normally use. Then, freewrite a paragraph or two using the 10 words. It might take a couple of tries, but before you know it you'll feel the urge to keep going.
Newspaper Articles:
Real life is a great starting point for fiction. I once used an article from a newspaper as the basis for a poem, which led to a short story as well. Tabloids are especially good for generating ideas.
Contests:
Most contests have a specific subject or theme. This gets not only gets you started on an idea, it gives you a deadline to finish your story. Even if you don’t win the contest, you’ll still have a finished story you can try selling elsewhere.
People Watch:
Go to a busy mall or other public place and watch the people as they pass by. Pick out a person, imagine yourself in his shoes and start from there.
My personal favourite is playing "What if". Even a mundane task in your daily life can turn into a story with what if. Say you have to run to the store to pick up some bread – what if you arrive just in time to witness a robbery? What if that bone the dog came home with is from a corpse buried in the woods? What if that weird looking bug is the beginning of a plague of insects?
Ideas are all around you.
You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it. ~ Neil Gaiman
I used to believe that if you had to ask where to get ideas from, then you weren't cut out to be a writer. But then I did a series on different forms of poetry and when it came time to come up with examples for these forms I suddenly found myself sympathizing with anyone who’s ever wanted to write but didn’t know what to write about.
So where do you get an idea? While ideas in general are all around you, they can also be triggered by many different things:
Magazine Photographs:
Sometimes the most unique ideas can be triggered by a picture from a magazine. I have an extensive collection of pictures I’ve cut from magazines – people, places, gardens, dishes – anything that catches my eye.
Freewrite:
Write for 10 minutes without stopping. Don't worry about grammar or spelling, just write. If you're using a computer, darken the screen so you can't read what you're writing until you're done. This technique will help you access those creative ideas hiding in your subconscious.
Look at a Book:
Take a book you have nearby and write down the first 10 words you see. Choose words that you don't normally use. Then, freewrite a paragraph or two using the 10 words. It might take a couple of tries, but before you know it you'll feel the urge to keep going.
Newspaper Articles:
Real life is a great starting point for fiction. I once used an article from a newspaper as the basis for a poem, which led to a short story as well. Tabloids are especially good for generating ideas.
Contests:
Most contests have a specific subject or theme. This gets not only gets you started on an idea, it gives you a deadline to finish your story. Even if you don’t win the contest, you’ll still have a finished story you can try selling elsewhere.
People Watch:
Go to a busy mall or other public place and watch the people as they pass by. Pick out a person, imagine yourself in his shoes and start from there.
My personal favourite is playing "What if". Even a mundane task in your daily life can turn into a story with what if. Say you have to run to the store to pick up some bread – what if you arrive just in time to witness a robbery? What if that bone the dog came home with is from a corpse buried in the woods? What if that weird looking bug is the beginning of a plague of insects?
Ideas are all around you.
You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it. ~ Neil Gaiman
Saturday, April 9, 2016
H is For Horror
The three types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it’s when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it’s when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there …
— Stephen King
Although my longer fiction is usually science fiction or fantasy with a hint of romance, my flash fiction often dips into the darker side of life. It’s not something I plan, it just happens that way. Maybe one of these days I’ll try something longer in horror, but until then I'm happy to stay short and scary. For the letter H, I'd like to share a some of the helpful advice I've been given over the years.
While many horror writers like to start with bang, making their readers sweat immediately, I like to be a little more subtle. Personally, I like to lull my readers into a false sense of security. I start with something every day - a couple on vacation, some kids having a party on the beach, a reporter in search of a story - and then, before they realize what's happening, things take a dark turn.
Like all fiction, you need to start with a strong character, more than one if you're writing a novel. But make your character(s) likeable, flesh them out. Give them a goal and then start throwing obstacles at them. The more you can get your readers to care about these characters, the more shocking it will be when bad things start happening to them.
Limit your point of view. Write your story from the viewpoint of the main characters and remain faithful to those points of view. Let readers experience everything through those characters’ eyes, memories and feelings.
Atmosphere is equally important. Use all the senses to make the reader picture everything. Make your world come alive. If your character is fleeing from some flesh eating zombie, you must imagine the terrified thoughts racing through his or her mind – the sounds, muted by terror, even the way the air smells and tastes.
Once, at a prompt from a writing forum I'm on, I wrote a flash piece where my character only had one sense. In a nutshell, there had to be a preternatural evil involved and your character could only have one sense – sound, touch, taste, or smell. They were not allowed to have sight. It was a great exercise.
Let your characters do the doubting. Their disbelief, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence, makes us accept the whole premise you’ve come up with. Letting your characters disbelieve, question, doubt, every incredible thing that happens puts readers on the side of the supernatural – just where you want them.
If you're having trouble coming up with an idea, try to pick a subject that scares you personally. The more emotional power you pack into your story, the more readers will become terrified with you. They will feel your horror as they read each terrifying word, and become scared with you.
Sometimes writing horror can be a great escape from everyday life. If you're thinking about it, here are some sites to check out that have far more comprehensive advice than I have to offer:
25 Things You Should Know About Writing Horror
Five tips from H.P. Lovecraft
17 Ways to Write a Terrifyingly Good Horror Story
And if you are thinking about giving horror a try, then all I can say is, welcome to the dark side. ;-)
— Stephen King
Although my longer fiction is usually science fiction or fantasy with a hint of romance, my flash fiction often dips into the darker side of life. It’s not something I plan, it just happens that way. Maybe one of these days I’ll try something longer in horror, but until then I'm happy to stay short and scary. For the letter H, I'd like to share a some of the helpful advice I've been given over the years.
While many horror writers like to start with bang, making their readers sweat immediately, I like to be a little more subtle. Personally, I like to lull my readers into a false sense of security. I start with something every day - a couple on vacation, some kids having a party on the beach, a reporter in search of a story - and then, before they realize what's happening, things take a dark turn.
Like all fiction, you need to start with a strong character, more than one if you're writing a novel. But make your character(s) likeable, flesh them out. Give them a goal and then start throwing obstacles at them. The more you can get your readers to care about these characters, the more shocking it will be when bad things start happening to them.
Limit your point of view. Write your story from the viewpoint of the main characters and remain faithful to those points of view. Let readers experience everything through those characters’ eyes, memories and feelings.
Atmosphere is equally important. Use all the senses to make the reader picture everything. Make your world come alive. If your character is fleeing from some flesh eating zombie, you must imagine the terrified thoughts racing through his or her mind – the sounds, muted by terror, even the way the air smells and tastes.
Once, at a prompt from a writing forum I'm on, I wrote a flash piece where my character only had one sense. In a nutshell, there had to be a preternatural evil involved and your character could only have one sense – sound, touch, taste, or smell. They were not allowed to have sight. It was a great exercise.
Let your characters do the doubting. Their disbelief, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence, makes us accept the whole premise you’ve come up with. Letting your characters disbelieve, question, doubt, every incredible thing that happens puts readers on the side of the supernatural – just where you want them.
If you're having trouble coming up with an idea, try to pick a subject that scares you personally. The more emotional power you pack into your story, the more readers will become terrified with you. They will feel your horror as they read each terrifying word, and become scared with you.
Sometimes writing horror can be a great escape from everyday life. If you're thinking about it, here are some sites to check out that have far more comprehensive advice than I have to offer:
25 Things You Should Know About Writing Horror
Five tips from H.P. Lovecraft
17 Ways to Write a Terrifyingly Good Horror Story
And if you are thinking about giving horror a try, then all I can say is, welcome to the dark side. ;-)
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