NaNo tips from O'Abby's archive

 As I mentioned last week, most of the questions O'Abby is receiving are about NaNo, and most have been answered in previous years.  So here's another from the archive to help you out if you're doing NaNo.  And if you are, let us know how you're getting on in the comments.  I'm not participating this year, but love cheering people on from the sidelines!

Dear O'Abby.

I'm behind on my word count for NaNo, and I'm not sure I have the time to catch up.  

Do you have any advice about how to do it? 

Have you ever managed to get there when you're way behind on the word count?

Yours,

Behind.

Dear Behind,

I'm with you.  I'm also behind on my word count.   At the pace I'm working, it's unlikely that I'll reach 50K by November 30.  So here are a few things to try if you want to pick up the word count and make it to the end.

The most important thing is to prioritize your writing.  If, like me, you have a demanding day job and a family, it's hard to make time for writing.  But this week, talk to your family and see if they can make a few concessions to your writing.  Maybe your partner can cook dinner a couple of nights so you can write for an extra hour.  Maybe your kids can.

If you have to take your kids to swimming lessons or ballet or any other activities, see if you can write while they participate.  Sit in the car and do it, if you have to.  Just make the most of that time.

And this weekend, see if on at least one of the days your partner or another relative could take the kids out for a few hours to give you space to write.  Or stay home with them so you can go somewhere quiet to write.

Or, if it's at all possible, see if you can take a day off work.  Two even.  Maybe you have a lot of leave days piling up or haven't taken any of your sick days yet this year.  Take one or two days and write during the hours you would normally be working.  You'll be amazed how much you can do in just two days.

That's what I'm doing this week.  Taking two days off to just write.  I'm hoping to get through 10K in those two days, which will get me back on track to finish by 30 November.

But that's not going to work for everyone.  So if you can't take time off, and you can't find anyone to watch the kids or take over any of the chores, you will have to find the time somewhere else.  If you put your mind to it, it's amazing what you can get done in an hour.  So maybe get up an hour early and write before everyone else gets up.  Or stay up an hour later at night if you're an evening person.

Use your lunch breaks if you need to.  Or your commute if you're not driving.  But I think I've talked about those pockets of time elsewhere.

The key thing to remember is, you can do this.  You can find time.  Any time you find yourself swiping idly through your phone, that's time you could be writing.  So use it and use it well.

Good luck!

X O'Abby

Crutch Words

Just yesterday, I finally finished what should be my last round of revision on my YA contemporary romance - hooray! Oddly enough, despite the fact that what I just sent to my agent is probably the tenth version of this manuscript, this revision was the hardest and probably the most comprehensive. I cut almost 5,000 words, but the thing is, it's not like I was deleting whole scenes or chapters, I was deleting individual words. Words that I now realize I was using as a crutch.

When it comes to writing, a crutch word or crutch phrase is something we writers stick into the manuscript to mimic our personal way of speaking, fill in a gap in a scene, or even to make the story flow because it "feels right." To the writer, those words barely register, but to the reader, they can stick out like a sore thumb. (For instance, I was reading some of my old Operation Awesome posts and realized how often I say "always." It's way too often.)

Crutch words are sneaky like that. They flow so well in a sentence that you barely notice them, and when it comes time to cut your word count, they can somehow dance around that axe blade. They remind me of that brain teaser where you have to count the number of times the letter F appears in a sentence. You overlook obvious answers simply because you've gotten used to seeing them in a certain way, and it's really hard to retrain your brain. Some words are inevitably going to pop up a lot in a manuscript - "the," "and," "or," "a," and other words like them are nearly unavoidable - but others can be avoided, or at the very least swapped out.

Here's a selection of my dirty little secret crutch words and what I ended up doing with them:

• Try to: 78 (deleted)
• Turn to: 49 (deleted)
• We all: 15 (became "we")
• Just: 205 (deleted)

To be honest, I was a wee bit embarrassed with myself when I finished my deleting spree. I've been revising this manuscript for months; how was it that between six drafts, two "final versions," and three revisions, I was still doing things like this? How did I miss the fact that I used the word "just" on more than half the pages? Eventually, I realized that, throughout my revision process, my focus was on long sentences and dialogues between characters, not individual words. Once I got over that block, I was able to look critically at every single word and question its place, its relevance. It was a difficult task, but in the end, I got my word count down to its target range.

What are your crutch words? What do you catch yourself writing more than you should? And just as importantly, what are you going to do about it?

Dealing with Burnout

So you finished NaNoWriMo! Now it’s time for revisions, finding CPs and beta readers, more revisions, potentially working with a sensitivity reader, even more revisions, query writing, looking for agents, writing a synopsis…

Blergh.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I finished NaNoWriMo, I was tired. Bone-tired, exhausted, no-I-will-not-go-to-school-today dead on my feet. Or in my writing chair. Whatever. It didn’t help that I’d just moved 500 miles and had to get our apartment put together while also starting a new job, all during NaNoWriMo. With 50,000 words written at the end of the month, I thought I’d be pumped to set my NaNoWriMo manuscript aside and start revisions on my other manuscript in December. I’m on my last round of revisions, after all, and the sooner I get them done, the sooner my agent can start sending my work out!

Well, days went by, and I wasn’t getting anything done. I really wanted to, but the thought of scrutinizing every word, sentence, and page got me worn out just thinking about it. So I finally realized that there was no other way around it: I am burned. out.

Burnout is hard in any profession. Getting tired of doing your usual tasks is rough, and it makes getting anything at all done difficult. When I go to my 9-to-5, I can at least force myself to get job done because I know I have to (and, honestly, because I’m getting paid to do it). I can’t just sit around and do nothing when I don’t want to do my work. When it comes to writing, though, there’s no urgent deadline. Every deadline I have is set by myself, and when I come home from my job, it’s really hard to be motivated.

I thought about setting hard deadlines. I thought about staying up late to smash through the revisions. I even thought about taking a day off from work. Unfortunately, though, there's no cure-all for burnout. You can't just have a cup of tea and be back to full charge, or rest for a day and *poof* you're all better. It takes time to overcome, and as painful as that is, the longer I let myself rest, the more ready I feel to get back to writing.

So I’m trying to take a break. I’m laying off my manuscripts and going on hiatus from Twitter. I was spending way too much time on those daily hashtag games, anyway. If you keep finding yourself procrastinating instead of writing, stop and think for a moment. Sure, maybe you’re just procrastinating for the sake of procrastinating. But maybe, after a really intense month of hammering out a few thousand or a few hundred or even a few dozen words a day, you need a break, too. Make a new year’s resolution to write. Give yourself the rest of the year off. You’d be in good company.

"Write a Solid First Draft, Get Feedback"

For a few months this year, I worked as a technical writer at a software company. I did things like write update notes and make decisions about what a particular button was going to say. When I first started there, though, I felt SO MUCH impostor syndrome. I had this nagging feeling that I'd somehow conned my way into this job - through three hiring exams, a phone interview, and an in-person interview - and that any second it would all come crashing down around me as it was revealed that I was, in fact, a giant fraud.

I'm easily stressed out, in case you can't tell. Hooray for CBD.

However, the higher-ups in my department had dealt with this sort of thing before. Tucked away on our server was a PowerPoint titled "Dealing with Impostor Syndrome." So of course, I downloaded it. (If nothing else, I can admit when I need help.) It was only four slides long, and three of them were company-specific, but there was one so helpful that I put it on a sticky note on my computer: "Write a solid first draft, get feedback."

Photo: sticky note with "Write a solid first draft, get feedback" on it.
This now lives in my writing notebook.

When I first saw this, I thought, ugh, OBVIOUSLY that's how writing works, thanks for the hot take. But I hadn't really internalized this fact or made an effort to understand it. I had been given a simple update note to write, and I kept finding myself staring blankly at a blinking cursor. I realized that I was putting off even starting because I was so caught up in the shining idea of this beautiful final version that would go out to customers. It took a lot of effort to refocus from what I knew I needed to produce to the simple fact that I needed to produce something and start somewhere. I wouldn't know if I was on the right track unless I wrote something and got some feedback on it.

So, I wrote something basic. I simply looked at the facts of what was different and what the customer needed to know, and got that down. Then, once I had some real content to work with, it was so much easier to make some simple revisions and duck into the office next door to get my coworker's take on what I'd written. When I got my first draft to my mentor, he was really impressed. He said most new people spent way too much time on their first draft by trying to make it a final draft right off the bat, but I was in a good position because I hadn't sunk too much time into it or made it too technical. I wish I could tell you I won employee of the month or something, but nah. I got some nice self-satisfaction, though.

So what should you take away from this week's anecdote? Well, when it comes to your writing - and to things like NaNoWriMo, for instance - something is better than nothing. You're never going to finish if you don't even start. You don't have to get it perfect on the first try, because that's what CPs and betas and revisions are there for. Instead, just write a solid first draft, and then get feedback. 

Let's Talk About Prologues

The Prologue. The thing that every J.R.R. Tolkien novel must have, and must be at least 50 pages long. The thing that you - yes, you - do not need in your manuscript.

I'm calling you out. You know who you are.

Prologues have come under fire on Writer Twitter in the past year or two. Increasingly, agents are saying that they don't want to see them as part of a query package, and a lot of agents seem to be advising writers to cut the prologue from their work. I found that this was best summed up in an #AskAgent thread from earlier this year:

Writer Question: When querying, is it true you should never send a prologue as part of your initial novel sample? Should you start with Ch 1 even if you have a prologue?

Agent Answer: If your prologue can be dropped that easily, it sounds like you don't need the prologue at all!

The agent here has a point. If you wouldn't show an agent the prologue, why would you show it to a reader? And if you wouldn't show it to a reader, does it really serve a purpose in your manuscript? Maybe it really is better to just give it the old highlight-delete. And here are a few reasons why that might be the case:

Problem: It's world-building. 

A lot of prologues I've seen as a beta reader and a CP fall into this category. This is especially true for fantasy, where the writer has a lot of setting up the world to do. Sure, sometimes it feels like a prologue is the place to stash that information. I mean, how else are you supposed to explain to the reader that magic is illegal now because of that one Big Bag Guy who used magic wrong without interrupting the story? Isn't that the whole point of show, don't tell?

The best way to get around this is to gradually weave that background into the opening chapters. Some writers do it by having the characters go to school where they study the history of the Big Bad Guy, or with a campfire tale, or a bedtime story. Sometimes it can be done by having the main character consider an artifact - a fountain, a statue, a book - and rehash the history to themselves. Sometimes it's best to let the history be a mystery for a while to build up intrigue and curiosity.

Problem: It's background about the character(s).

This is another common one. This usually involves a scene where the main character is very young, and it's often a tragic story about how their parents died. If your first chapter starts with "X years later..." you fall into this camp.

Like the previous type of prologue, weaving the character's backstory into the manuscript is the way to go. Make the reader wonder! Make them wait for that tragic sob story! Build mystery about your character so that you can reveal the truth at the opportune time! Giving up all the good stuff in the prologue is showing your hand way too early. Let the main character open up to someone and use that story to explain why they are the way they are.

Problem: It's only tangentially related to the plot or characters.

While this is less common, it does happen. The prologue of THE BOOK THIEF falls into this category (in my opinion). I even wrote a prologue like this for the first manuscript I queried, where two side characters had a meeting that would only influence the plot much, much later. It ended up spoiling part of the story for the reader and let them in on things too early.

When it comes to this type of prologue, the most likely course of action is just to let it go. If the link to the rest of the manuscript is tenuous, then what's written there doesn't need to be said. Is it really that important?

If you're on the fence, or even if you're sure that your manuscript needs a prologue, really consider your prologue. Does it advance the plot? Does it impact the characters? Does it tell the reader anything they desperately need to know? If the answer to these questions is no, it's time for the prologue to disappear.

What living abroad taught me about writing fantasy

For the past year, I’ve been living in the city of Mechelen in Belgium. It’s this gorgeous historical town halfway between Brussels and Antwerp, and I highly recommend visiting it if you’re planning a trip to Europe. It’s big enough that most people speak English, but small enough that it’s not “modernized” like a lot of major European cities I’ve visited. While the actual experience of living abroad wasn’t always amazing, my writer-brain was constantly active, soaking up the local culture and trying to relate it to writing fantasy. I mean, it was hard not to think about how much I love world-building while standing on the Grote Markt and staring up at a 700-year-old cathedral, listening to the carillonist playing songs so old nobody knows the lyrics anymore. I did find some things that I thought were relevant and helpful, so I hope y’all can learn a little something from what I figured out while I was there.

Languages

I know, I know, I’m constantly writing about languages and dialects, but they’re SO COOL. In Belgium, there are three main languages spoken – French, Flemish, and German – and a lot of people speak English as well, although it’s not an official language. That’s a lot of languages for a country that’s barely bigger than Maryland! Not to mention the fact that every city has its own dialect, and dialects are sometimes so different from “standard” Flemish that they’re completely unintelligible.

What this showed me is that, if I’m going to be writing a fantasy world that is Belgium-sized or bigger, there would probably be more than one language spoken. A lot of fantasy books I’ve read feature a variety of languages, often based on race (like Entish and Sindarin in Tolkien’s universe), and I do sometimes see languages based on geographical region. In these books, there’s usually a standardized language – I seem to remember several series calling it Common – and I always thought that was weird, but I now know that this makes sense. So I’d recommend taking that into consideration, especially if a character is a trader, nobleperson, or artisan.

Market Days

Market day was my favorite day of the week. Every Satuday – not just in Mechelen, I’ve also been to markets in Gouda, Dordrecht, Lier, and Haarlem – the entire city turns out to visit the market. The variety of vendors is incredible. Pretty much everyone turns out to go to the market. It’s not just for shopping, but also socializing. In Mechelen, there are stalls that sell mussels, with tall tables where people can stand around and drink and socialize. There are snack stands – things like pancakes and waffles – and vendors selling everything from raw meat and fish to live pet birds. People sell clothes, cheese, bread, vegetables, flowers, and plenty of other items. The city carillonneur (I’d explain but that would take way too long) plays the cathedral bells during market day as well, playing everything from pop music to songs from 500 years ago.

What I took away from this is that the market day is the central day of the week. People go to socialize, shop, observe other people, and get news. And speaking of which…

News

There’s this story about Mechelen where in the late 1600s, a drunk stumbled out of a bar in the wee hours and thought the cathedral was on fire. He roused the entire city, a bucket brigade was formed, and when they got to the top of the tower, they realized that the “fire” was just a red moon shining through a cloud, illuminating the cathedral tower from behind. This story spread across Flanders like actual fire, and before long, Mechelinians were being called “maneblussers,” or “moon extinguishers.” Most cities in Flanders have similar, slightly mocking names for the inhabitants of particular cities.

Anyway. My point is that news travelled fast, and led to some pretty funny nicknames. When writing fantasy, consider the spread of news and information. It might be faster than you think!

I hope you've learned something from all this. I mean, I moved across the ocean just to find this stuff out for you, so...ya know, I hope it was worth it!

Writing a Reverse Outline

Hello friends! I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems that every time I do NaNoWriMo, I burn out for a while afterwards. And this year/cycle/whatever you want to call it, I burned out for a solid two and a half months. I stopped querying my manuscript, I stopped reading for my critique partners even though I'd just taken on a new one, and in general I stayed in bed about 18 hours of the day and didn't really leave the house.

Yeah. It was bad.

Recently, though, my partner nagged me into being vertical for an extended period of time. I needed something to do, and I'd played way too many hours of video games. So I came to terms with the fact that it was Time.

It was Time to Revise My NaNoWriMo Manuscript.

Ughhhhh.

I started by dragging myself to my laptop rereading what I'd written. It wasn't terrible, and I was pretty pleased with some parts of it that I had thought were dumpster fires while I was writing them. But I just...didn't know where to go from there. I vented to one of my writing buddies that I knew what I wanted to change, but not how to change it. And, like the gorgeous font of amazing ideas and perfect advice that she is, she suggested I make a reverse outline.

A reverse outline?

What is this mysterious creature, you ask? Yeah, I hadn't heard of reverse outlines, either. The idea is that some people make outlines before they write their manuscripts with the major plot points or what needs to be revealed at what point, etc. With a reverse outline, you make an outline after the manuscript is completed. That way, you can get a better sense of where to insert the changes you want to make, and you don't have to be searching through the whole document for that one scene where I think the main character says this to her friend but then her friend is ambivalent, yeah, where'd that go?

Yes thank you I am very organized.

Anyway, if you're stuck in the revision trenches like I was, give this a shot. It might give you a better sense of the timing of your manuscript and just where you should be making edits. Make sure to get down not only the major plot points but also the things they influence, like character reactions that will be important later or information this plot point brings out. Then you can go through and note where you want to make revisions. It's also a good idea to note where you did a good job! It's like encouragement from your past self :)

And because I'd be remiss if I didn't include an example, here's an excerpt from my own reverse outline:

Excerpt from my reverse outline for my manuscript, tentatively titled GIRLS BREAK THINGS. The main bullet points are the major plot points, and the secondary ones are reactions to that plot point. I've also commented on the outline to make notes to myself about other things to consider that didn't appear in the manuscript.

Check out the Dear O'Abby post this Thursday for more information about revising!

NaNoWriMo Can Be Hard

We’re nearly a week into NaNoWriMo already! Don’t forget that it’s never too late to start; when it comes to words, pennies are money – each one counts. The only person you're writing for is yourself!

This year, I’m participating in a sort of “team challenge” for NaNoWriMo. In late October, people signed up to be on teams based on the age range and genre they’re writing for. Our collective word count is averaged every week, and at the end of November, the team who wrote the most will win some prizes. We have a group chat where we talk about problems we’re having and try to motivate each other. In this discussion, there seem to be some common themes, so I thought I’d address those in case any of you are having the same issues.

• I started in the wrong place and I’m getting to the inciting incident too quickly/not quickly enough! Okay first things first, what you’re writing is a very, very rough first draft. NaNoWriMo is about getting words on the page, not writing The Perfect Novel™ on the first pass. Just keep going. When NaNoWriMo is over, you can always go back and add more before the inciting incident or remove some material before it.* Don’t get too caught up going back and revising before you’re done, or you’ll never move forward.
• I’m writing too much, and revisions are going to take forever! Wow you must be writing a lot if you’re having this issue – that’s awesome! Someone on my team had a great suggestion for this: if you feel like you’re over-writing, let it happen. It’s going to stunt your work if you try to edit as you’re writing. So, rather than going back and deleting words during NaNoWriMo (thus losing precious word count pennies), instead put things you think may be too much in [brackets]. Then, at the end of the month, or whenever you finish this draft, you can go back and easily delete these if you need to with a simple “find” function.* Again, don't worry about revisions until it's time to revise.
• The scenes are out of order! I’ve already written two scenes that I know are in the wrong place in the manuscript, but I made the decision not to adjust them yet. Why? Because I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next three weeks. Right now, it feels like things are happening out of order, but maybe next week it’ll turn out that those scenes are exactly where they need to be. So unless that one scene being a few chapters early is throwing your manuscript completely off the rails in an Unstoppable-style train wreck, at the very least, you’ve written the scenes, and that’s something.
• I feel like I’m already running out of things to write! Say it with me: That’s okay. Fifty thousand words is the approximate length of I Know What You Did Last Summer, Speak, and The Notebook, among many other popular books. Think about the size of those books in your hands. It’s a lot. It’s more words than a lot of us write in a year, and we’re trying to squeeeeeze out all those words in thirty days. It’s hard work, and it’s okay to get tired. Even if you had a perfect outline and character sheets to rival the most hardcore Dungeons and Dragons players, nothing compares to actually sitting down to write 1,700 words every day for thirty days. It’s okay to get tired, it’s okay to take breaks, it’s okay to not hit fifty thousand words by the end of November. No matter how many words you wrote, you did something amazing.

*If you’re deleting scenes, remember to save them somewhere else in case you want them back later. I have a dedicated Word document just for tidbits of scenes and chapters I had to cut, and I highly recommend it.

I hope some of this has been helpful! Let us know if you have other NaNoWriMo successes or...un-successes. And don’t forget to back. that. draft. up.

Happy writing!

What it's Like to Be a Full-Time Writer

In August, my partner and I moved from Minnesota to Belgium. I looked for jobs, but I was struggling to find something I was qualified for that would also enable me to apply for a work permit (as it turns out, the law is very complicated – who knew). So I figured, hey, we have enough money for us to survive for a year if I don’t work; why not use this year to finally finish my manuscript and find an agent? Sounds like a breeze!

Narrator: It was not a breeze.

No it was not. By the time a month had passed, I’d barely done anything. It was infuriating. After years of wishing I had time to just sit at home and write, that was my reality – but the words refused to come. For weeks, I spent more time than I’d care to admit yelling “WHAT THE HELL” in my mind as I stared at blank pages or chapters that simply refused my revision efforts.

It seemed so backwards. Six years of college yielded countless notebooks that started out with the good intentions of taking relevant notes but devolved into mostly plot ideas and character descriptions with phrases like “lake turnover” and “anaerobic respiration” crammed into the margins. All the ideas that had come to me when I really should’ve been paying attention to my classes had completely fled my mind.

After struggling for several weeks, I talked to one of my critique partners about how lost I felt. I had tried setting daily goals for myself, like “write for two hours” or “write 2,000 words,” but neither had really worked. Could I count time spent staring at my computer as “writing time?” What if I deleted a couple thousand words, did that put me in the red for that day? I spent way more time thinking about the act of writing than I was spending on actual writing.

My CP gave me two great suggestions. She knew that I had previously been a competitive short story writer, and that I’d been a part of a free-association writing group in Minnesota. She tasked me with writing a short story every day for the remainder of my time in Belgium. At first, I thought there was no way I’d be able to do that – it seemed like so much work and I am, admittedly, very lazy. But then I realized that I’d able to do just that when I was thirteen when there were actual stakes, and there was no reason I couldn’t do it now.

So, every day, I find time to sit down for thirty minutes maximum and write a short story based on a writing prompt from Reddit. (If you’re interested in doing this, visit r/writingprompts for free writing prompts every day. You could even make an account and post your stories if you’re looking for feedback!) Amazingly, as of today I’ve written a short story every day for more than a month. They’re not all good – in fact, some of them are downright terrible – but about once a week or so I write something that I’m proud of, and that makes the bad stories worth it. I’ve even written a couple pieces that I’d like to expand into full manuscripts. I try to choose various genres to write and vary the length to push my creative boundaries. Sometimes I let myself write the full thirty minutes, and sometimes I force myself to only write six sentences. No point doing the same thing over and over expecting to learn something.

The second suggestion my CP gave me was to read THE 90-DAY NOVEL. (This is not an advertisement, this is just what happened.) If I was skeptical of my ability to write a short story every day, I was downright suspicious of a book that claimed to be able to teach me to write an entire novel in three months. I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo with varying success since 2014, but I usually cheat and use it as a way to force myself to work on existing manuscripts. I’m very much a planner – I want to know exactly who my characters are, what motivates them, what the conflict is, and I usually write an entire novel’s worth of worldbuilding material before I even get started writing the actual story. Doing all of that in a very compressed time frame seemed impossible.

As of this writing, I’m only on day twelve of the ninety days, but it’s going better than I anticipated. I started out with a vague idea for my manuscript – I wanted to write about an all-female combat robotics team – and I’ve already outlined the three acts; created a detailed background for my protagonist, antagonist, and love interest; and come up with a pretty solid opening and ending.

Even with all this planning, though, I’m still nervous for the point where I start writing the first draft (which doesn’t start until day twenty-seven; everything before that is brainstorming). I’ve already tried to write this story twice, and both times I crashed and burned after less than a week. Luckily, I started doing this just in time for NaNoWriMo, which will begin about a week after I start writing. I’m hoping that I’ll be motivated enough to finish this thing and I won’t fall off the word-count wagon.

For a long time, I thought that if what I wrote wasn’t good, there was no point writing it. My flash drive is a graveyard of abandoned manuscripts, and you wouldn’t believe the number of notebooks I have in a storage unit in Wisconsin littered with tidbits of stories I never even began writing. I thought this year would be a panacea – a chance to finally be a full-time writer and turn the frustration of not having enough time to write into an amazing manuscript that would go on to become a cultural phenomenon, or maybe just a thing a few people enjoyed reading, I don’t really know. So far it hasn’t quite lived up to the hype, but the year isn’t over yet. 

I think I can do this.

Tackling the Dreaded Synopsis - Part Two, and Call for Submissions!

Last week, we covered the basics of synopsis writing. This week, as promised, we're going to get into the mechanics, using an example from a book most of us are very familiar with. Now take a deep breath, limber up your typing fingers, and let's get synopsizing! And keep in mind, if you'd like your synopsis critiqued on this site, the submission instructions are below.

Where do I start? Do you use an outline? If so, start there! Flesh out each scene from your outline's descriptions, focusing on the main plot, into no more than a paragraph each. Many scenes will require only a sentence, some paragraphs will summarize more than one scene, and some scenes won't require summary at all (focused on a subplot, character description, etc.). Once you have all the relevant scenes fleshed out, start connecting the dots: make sure going from Scene A to Scene B, all the way to Scene Z, makes sense in the context of your central plot. Then revise the language until it flows well.

If you don't have an outline, make a list of scenes from your manuscript, in order. Summarize each scene (you don't have to do this in great detail, just enough so you can explain what happens in your central plot in each scene). Then connect the dots and revise the language.

Some pointers

• Use third person, present tense, active voice, regardless of what you used in the manuscript.

• This isn't required, but it helps orient the reader if you put each character name in ALL CAPS the first time you use it. This makes the name stand out to the reader.

• ... but no more than 4-5 named characters in the synopsis. For everyone else who isn't as integral to the main plot as those 4 or 5 characters, describe them by their relationship to the main character or the plot. For example, in a synopsis for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the book we'll be working with below), the only named main characters should be Harry, Ron, Hermione, Voldemort, and Quirrell. There are obviously many other important characters in these books, but for the purposes of this book, everyone else can be described rather than named (Harry's aunt, the headmaster of Hogwarts, etc.). 

• Start at the beginning. Weave in a brief description of the setting, the time period, and any other details necessary to orient the reader, and then get right into the main character and his/her 'ordinary world,' in order to lead into the inciting incident in the next paragraph.

• Lead right into the inciting incident. What happens to propel your main character into action? You should get into this as soon as possible after describing your main character's 'ordinary world.' What changes?

• Follow the Hero's Journey (explanations here) or Save the Cat (here) or any other plotting structure you used for your manuscript, and run through every important point that gets your hero from the ordinary world, to the inciting incident, to deciding to act, to trying and failing, to trying and succeeding, to ultimate victory/failure.

• Give away the ending and all plot twists!

An example

Here's the synopsis (by an anonymous poster) from the Wikipedia page for Harry Potter & Sorcerer's Stone. This summary wasn't written to accompany a manuscript submitted to an agent, but let's pretend it was. I'm going to include my comments in bold/brackets throughout. Then, I'm going to rewrite this synopsis so it conforms more closely to the guidelines we've discussed (focusing on the main plot, limiting the number of named characters, etc.):

Original Synopsis with Comments:

The most evil and powerful dark wizard in history, Lord Voldemort, murdered married couple James and Lily Potter but mysteriously disappeared after failing to kill their infant son, Harry. [THIS IS BACKSTORY. WEAVE THROUGHOUT THE SYNOPSIS, BUT DON'T LEAD WITH IT] While the wizarding world celebrates Voldemort's apparent downfall, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and half-giant Rubeus Hagrid place the one-year-old orphan in the care of his surly and cold Muggle uncle and aunt, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and their spoilt and bullying son, Dudley. [TOO MANY NAMES AND TOO MANY DETAILS ON BACKSTORY BEFORE GETTING INTO HARRY'S STORY. ]

For ten years, living at number Four Privet Drive, Harry is treated by the Dursleys more like a servant than a member of the family and is forced to live in a cupboard under the stairs. [THIS IS WHERE THE STORY REALLY STARTS. MAKE THIS THE FIRST PARAGRAPH, WITH SOME DETAILS FROM THE OPENING PARAGRAPH SPRINKLED IN] Shortly before his eleventh birthday, a series of letters addressed to Harry arrive, but Uncle Vernon Dursley destroys them before Harry can read them, leading to an influx of more and more letters. To evade the pursuit of these letters, Vernon first takes the family to a hotel, but when the letters arrive there too, he hires a boat out to a hut on a small island. [THIS IS TOO MUCH DETAIL FOR A SCENE THAT CAN BE OMITTED OR SUCCINCTLY SUMMARIZED TO GET TO THE INCITING INCIDENT, WHICH IS HARRY RECEIVING HIS HOGWART'S LETTER]

It is Harry's eleventh birthday and at midnight, Hagrid bursts through the door to deliver the letter and to tell Harry what the Dursleys have kept from him: Harry is a wizard and has been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. [THIS IS THE INCITING INCIDENT, AND SHOULD BE PRESENTED EARLIER] Hagrid takes Harry to a hidden London street called Diagon Alley, where he is surprised to discover how famous he is among the witches and wizards, who refer to him as "the boy who lived." He also finds that his parents' inheritance is waiting for him at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. [TOO MANY DETAILS, WE DON'T NEED ALL THESE NAMES. WE SHOULD BE ON OUR WAY TO HOGWARTS BY NOW] Guided by Hagrid, he buys the equipment he will need for his first year at Hogwarts and as a birthday gift Harry receives a pet owl from Hagrid (which he names "Hedwig").

A month later, Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station. There he meets the Weasley family, who show him how to pass through the magic wall to Platform 9¾ [LITTLE DETAILS LIKE THESE ADD A LOT OF COLOR. PLATFORM 9 3/4 GIVES THE READER AN INDICATION OF THE KIND OF MAGICAL WORLD WE'RE IN. KEEP DETAILS LIKE THESE, BUT KEEP THEM SMALL], where the train that will take them to Hogwarts is waiting. While on the train, Harry meets two fellow first years, Ron Weasley, who immediately becomes his friend, and Hermione Granger, with whom the ice is a bit slower to break. Harry also makes an enemy of yet another first-year, Draco Malfoy. Draco offers to advise Harry, but Harry dislikes Draco for his arrogance and prejudice and rejects his offer of "friendship". [DRACO ISN'T IMPORTANT ENOUGH IN THIS FIRST BOOK TO EVEN INTRODUCE]

At Hogwarts, the first-years are assigned by the magical Sorting Hat to houses that best suit their personalities. While Harry is being sorted, the Hat suggests that he be placed into Slytherin which is known to house potential dark witches and wizards, but when Harry objects, the Hat sends him to Gryffindor. Ron and Hermione are also sorted into Gryffindor. Draco is sorted into Slytherin, like his whole family before him. [KEEP THIS MORE VAGUE. IF ANYTHING SHOULD BE KEPT HERE, THE ONLY IMPORTANT DETAIL IS HARRY AND HIS FRIENDS ARE SORTED INTO THE SAME HOUSE, WHICH AIDS IN THEIR GROWING FRIENDSHIP AND LOYALTY TO EACH OTHER]

Harry starts classes at Hogwarts School, with lessons including Transfiguration with Head of Gryffindor, Minerva McGonagall, Herbology with Head of Hufflepuff, Pomona Sprout, Charms with Head of Ravenclaw Filius Flitwick, and Defence Against the Dark Arts with Quirinus Quirrell. [NONE OF THIS DETAIL IS NECESSARY, THOUGH QUIRRELL SHOULD BE INTRODUCED] Harry's least favourite class is Potions, taught by Severus Snape, the vindictive Head of Slytherin who seems to loathe Harry. Harry, Ron, and Hermione become far more interested by extracurricular matters within and outside of the school, particularly after they discover that a huge three-headed dog is standing guard over a trap door in a forbidden corridor. They also become suspicious of Snape's behaviour and become convinced that he is looking for ways to get past the trapdoor. [WAY TOO MUCH DETAIL. CUT DOWN TO ONE SENTENCE]

Harry discovers an innate talent for flying on broomsticks and is appointed as Seeker on his House’s Quidditch team, a wizards's sport played in the air. His first game goes well until his broomstick wobbles in mid-air and almost throws him off. [SUBPLOT. NOT DIRECTLY RELEVANT TO THE MAIN PLOT, EXCEPT FOR THE NEXT SENTENCE, BUT CAN BE CUT WAY DOWN] Ron and Hermione suspect foul play from Snape, whom they saw behaving oddly. For Christmas, Harry receives an invisibility cloak from an anonymous source and begins exploring the school at night and investigating the hidden object further. He discovers the Mirror of Erised, in which the viewer sees his deepest desires becoming true. [IRRELEVANT SUBPLOTS]

Thanks to an indiscretion from Hagrid, Harry and his friends work out that the object kept at the school is a Philosopher's Stone, made by an old friend of Dumbledore named Nicolas Flamel. Harry is also informed by a centaur he meets in the forest that a plot to steal the Philosopher’s Stone is being orchestrated by none other than Voldemort himself, who would use it to be restored to his body and come back to power. When Dumbledore is lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry and his friends fear that the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor themselves. [THIS IS A GOOD PARAGRAPH. PRESENTS THE STAKES WELL AND EXPLAINS WHY HARRY AND HIS FRIENDS WOULD PUT THEMSELVES IN DANGER]

They encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires unique skills possessed by one of the three, and one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a life-sized game of wizard's chess. In the final room, Harry, now alone, finds Quirrell, who admits that he had tried to kill Harry at his Quidditch match against Slytherin. He also admits that he let a troll into Hogwarts. Snape had been trying to protect Harry all along rather than to kill him, and his suspicious behaviour came from his own suspicions about Quirrell. [I WOULD LEAVE OUT THE SUBPLOT ABOUT SNAPE UNLESS YOU'RE WRITING A LONGER SYNOPSIS. FOR 1-2 PAGES, IT CAN GO]

Quirrell is one of Voldemort's followers, and is now partly possessed by him: Voldemort's face has sprouted on the back of his own head, hidden by his turban. Voldemort needs Harry's help to get past the final obstacle: the Mirror of Erised, but when Quirrell tries to grab the Stone from Harry his contact proves lethal for Quirrell. [A LITTLE MORE DESCRIPTION HERE SINCE THIS IS THE CLIMAX OF THE BOOK] Harry passes out and awakes in the school hospital, where Dumbledore explains to him that he survived because his mother sacrificed her life to protect him, and this left a powerful protective charm on him. Voldemort left Quirrell to die and is likely to return by some other means. The Stone has now been destroyed. The school year ends at the final feast, during which Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry returns to the Dursleys' for the summer holiday but does not tell them that under-age wizards are forbidden to use magic outside of Hogwarts. [THIS IS A CONFUSING ENDING. END WITH A SENTENCE THAT'S RELEVANT TO THE PLOT, NOT SOMETHING THAT LEADS INTO FUTURE BOOKS]

Rewritten Synopsis

Ten-year-old HARRY POTTER lives with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, who treat him more like a servant than a family member, and force him to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry can't remember his parents, who died when he was an infant. He mostly keeps to himself, avoiding his cousin's bullying and his uncle's unpredictable wrath. But when strange things start happening around Harry, including his sudden ability to converse with a snake, and an influx of letters addressed to him flood the house, Harry realizes he's part of something bigger than the only world he's known.

Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a huge, good-natured man shows up with another copy of the letter, despite Harry's uncle's attempts to destroy all of them. It's Harry's acceptance letter to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The man explains that Harry is a wizard, and in fact, his wizard parents were murdered by the most evil and powerful dark wizard in history, LORD VOLDEMORT, who disappeared after failing to also kill Harry as a baby. Harry is shocked to learn he is famous among the inhabitants of the wizarding world, who refer to him as 'the boy who lived.'

Soon afterward, Harry leaves his aunt and uncle's house to attend Hogwarts. On the train, he meets RON WEASLEY, the fun-loving youngest son of an established wizarding family, and HERMIONE GRANGER, a brainy know-it-all who is the only witch in her family. When they arrive at Hogwarts, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all sorted into Gryffindor House, the House associated with bravery and loyalty.

Soon after starting his lessons at Hogwarts, which include subjects such as Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry and his friends discover a huge, three-headed dog standing guard over a trap door in a forbidden corridor. None of their professors will tell them why the dog is there or what it's guarding, but that doesn't stop Harry and his friends from sneaking around the school at night, having a horrifying run-in with a troll, or using Harry's newly-acquired invisibility cloak to spy on their classmates and professors.

Eventually, Harry and his friends learn the hidden object is an ancient artifact called the Sorcerer's Stone, which gives the bearer eternal life, and in turn, near-limitless power. Harry soon realizes the plot to steal the Stone is being orchestrated by the disembodied Lord Voldemort himself, who plans to use it to return to his body and resume his evil reign. But Lord Voldemort must be using someone on the Hogwarts grounds to acquire the Stone for him. Harry and his friends initially suspect their dour Potions professor, who has a history of associating with Voldemort and despises Harry for unknown reasons, of being his helper.

Then, the headmaster is lured from Hogwarts under false pretenses. Left unprotected, Harry and his friends fear the theft of the Stone is imminent and descend through the trapdoor themselves to guard it. They encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires unique skills possessed by one of the three: Hermione must solve a difficult puzzle, Ron sacrifices himself in a life-sized game of Wizard's Chess, and Harry must use his newly-discovered flying talent to retrieve the key to the final door. 

Behind that door is not the Potions professor after all. It is PROFESSOR QUIRRELL, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. He admits he is one of Voldemort's followers and is now partly possessed by him. In fact, Voldemort's face has melded with the back of his own head, and has been hidden all year by Quirrell's omnipresent turban. Voldemort needs Harry to get through the final obstacle and retrieve the Stone for him. Harry is able to get the stone, but when Quirrell tries to grab it from Harry, the physical contact proves disastrous for both Voldemort and Quirrell. Because Harry's mother died to save Harry, she left a powerful protective charm on him and Voldemort cannot touch him, even through someone else's body. Voldemort vanishes, Quirrell is injured but no longer possessed, and the Stone is destroyed.

The school year ends with a feast, during which Harry and his friends are honored for their roles in saving the Sorcerer's Stone. Harry returns to his aunt and uncle's house for summer vacation. This time, though, Harry goes with the knowledge that he is a wizard and his real life is at Hogwarts with his friends. And no one, not even his awful family, can take that from him.

Here are some great resources on synopsis writing:

• PubCrawl blog (this is my go-to resource on this topic)
• Marissa Meyer's blog
• Jane Friedman's website
• The Miss Snark archive (includes dozens of synopsis critiques)

And now, here's your chance to have your synopsis critiqued on this website! Fill out the form here, or email your 1-2 page synopsis to me at operationawesome6@gmail.com, and I'll post one critique per week. Thanks for participating!

Resistance: Fight it!

What Steven Pressfield says in The War of Art about resistance is changing my life.

You can get a little glimpse of the idea from the front cover, that little flower growing out of a block of concrete. It reminds me of the opening image of one of my favorite cult classic movies, Joe vs. the Volcano. The human condition includes a whole heck of a lot of resistance, no matter what we do. But Steven Pressfield opines that resistance is greater when we're about to do something soul-enhancing for ourselves and others. In fact, the more good we're about to bring into the world, the greater the resistance comes pushing back against us.

There was one part of his section on resistance that especially resonated deep within my soul, and that was the impeccable ability of resistance to find true north and fight against it. In fact, he said, you can use the resistance you are feeling against your goals as a COMPASS. Look where you are feeling the most resistance in your life. Without a doubt, that is the area where pushing through persistently will bring the greatest growth to your soul and the greatest good to humanity.

Writers are artists and we understand resistance... or do we? We surely know about writer's block. We know about BIC (Butt-in-Chair) persistence. We know about treating it like a job and putting our noses to the grindstones of our typewriters, pens, and laptops. But I wonder if we truly understand what Steven Pressfield is trying to tell us about resistance.

When we give in to resistance, we are giving in to darkness and depriving the world of a great light! When we let it stop us from creating, we are limiting ourselves, yes, but we are making an impact on the world by our absence!

As writers, we may see the choice we make daily as two options: 1) to write and 2) not to write. But if writing is what you're feeling called by the muse to do, and you don't do it, the consequences are much greater than what this either/or suggests. Every person, Steven Pressfield reminds us, has unique life experiences, unique talents, a completely unique voice in the panorama, the vast puzzle of humanity. When a writer doesn't fill her mission, the world suffers for it. When an artist gives up on his art, humanity feels the lack.

Think of the last time you came across something beautiful created by another human being. Think of how it made you feel. That's what you have to offer someone else, maybe some dozen someone elses, or some million.

I wanted to pass on the inspiration I got from this author. Fight the resistance you feel, that nagging hopelessness that sometimes keeps you from sitting down at your desk. Fight it with productivity. Fight it with vision. Fight it with affirmations. Fight it with prayer. But fight it! It will be worth it.

Hush! What's that sound? Nothing...

Most people are uncomfortable with silence. This holds true both in life and in writing.

When having a conversation--especially a heated conversation--our first reaction is to fill it with something. There's a reason the phrase "comfortable silence" was coined. Most of the time, silence isn't comfortable for any of us.

While in college, I briefly thought about being a psychologist. I was fascinated with the human mind, especially with neurological disorders. I ended up graduating with a minor in psychology, which was unrelated to my science major. One of the classes I took was Introduction to Counseling, which taught tools and techniques for conducting a talk session. One of the tools they gave us was, merely, silence.

When you want to get someone to talk, you just... stop. It's difficult. Even now, after many years, my first reaction is to open my mouth and say something. But if you let the silence stretch on, if you hold out against the uncomfortable feeling bubbling inside of you, the other person will likely fill the void and reveal something about themselves in the process.

In writing, silence is also valuable. In critiquing others' work, I've noticed that we all have a tendency to do something like this to create silence between two characters:

"He waited for her to talk. The silence stretched on."

Rather than showing the reader, making them feel the silence and the wait--which is what we want to do in all aspects of our writing, right?--we're telling them something. And I don't need to tell you that telling is bad. Better to show.

I found this example in The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. It's a great example of how you can show "waiting." Adam has called his friend Blue from a parking lot. Her aunt picks up the phone. He asks to talk to Blue. Upon finding out who he is, the aunt answers:

"How wonderful. I'll go get Blue."

There was a brief, uncomfortable moment while voices murmured in the background of the telephone. Adam swatted at gnats; the parking lot needed to be mowed again. The asphalt was hard to see in some places.

"I didn't think you'd call," Blue said.

Rather than saying, "Adam stood there and waited for Blue to come to the phone," the author put us in Adam's shoes. We heard what was going on through the phone--and haven't we all been there, hearing muffled voices on the other end as the phone is passed from one hand to the other? We waited with him in the parking lot, looking around at our surroundings, seeing the weeds poking through the cracked asphalt.

And she never even used the word "wait."
***

S. L. Saboviec grew up in a small town in Iowa but became an expat for her Canadian husband, whom she met in the Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game Star Wars: Galaxies (before the NGE, of course). She holds a B.S. in Physics, which qualifies her to B.S. about physics and occasionally do some math for the sci-fi stories she concocts. Her dark, thought-provoking science fiction & fantasy contains flawed, relatable characters and themes that challenge the status quo.

Her short fiction ("I Am NOT Little Red Riding Hood") has appeared in the webzine Grievous Angel. Her debut novel, Guarding Angel, received an honorable mention in the 23rd Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards: "... A fascinating story of a particularly loving guardian angel. Overall, the writing is emotionally grounded, character-focused, and technically superior..." The sequel, Reaping Angel, is available now.

You can call her Samantha.

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Weaving a Colorful Tapestry of Page-Turning Story

Last week, I was struggling with a first chapter. O first chapters, how I loathe you when you're squishy and in progress, which seems like every revision of every book I've written, while I continue to poke and prod and slash and burn and cry and lament. I could write an entire post about why I dislike first chapters or even an entire post that's a running list of hundreds of links to "How To Write Good First Chapters" articles I've read, but that would end up being fourteen pages long, and no one wants that. However, if you want some solid advice about how and why you need a good beginning, I recommend Ann Remini's series.

While struggling with this particular first chapter, I recalled a writing technique I decided to apply. I tweeted about it and was surprised by the interest it generated, so I figured I'd expand.

I did not create this. I read an article describing this far enough back that it's lost in the annals of history. It's also unlikely that whomever wrote that article invented it. It probably goes back to pre-highlighter days, when people would have had to, I don't know, tint animal blood and rub it across cave drawings. But it's a snazzy little method that takes a lot of work but is extra-informative and can be applied to any section where you're struggling with pacing or back story--or even the whole book.

Here it is, in tweet form:

Too much blue (back story), not enough yellow (action). Problem: identified. #amrevising pic.twitter.com/REo9pDf8wU

— S. L. Saboviec (@Saboviec) September 4, 2015

Yellow = Action Orange = Dialogue Blue = Back story Pink = Setting Green = Exposition/explanation Purple = World-building #amrevising

— S. L. Saboviec (@Saboviec) September 4, 2015

Here's a look at my (old) first three pages:

My CP had noted I'd included too much back story. "But," I groused, "the reader needs to know this!" No, she doesn't, and I very well knew that, which is why I decided to visually see what she was telling me. There it was, all blue and chunky across my pages.

In my next step, I noted whose back story it was. I was surprised to find--as my CP had commented--I'd repeated information both within the same blue section and later on. I didn't feel I was doing that, but when I isolated it and stared at each "Ebena back story" or "Kwasi back story" section, I discovered she was (of course) right. This was a secondary effect I didn't realize would happen, and one that helped me tighten things up even more.

Here's a look at my Chapter 2, which is, in my humble opinion, a good mixture of action, setting, exposition, dialogue, and back story. (This book is the second in a series, so I didn't have a lot of world-building that I needed to tell the reader yet because it's been established in the first novel. But even if it hasn't, you want to use world-building sparingly by showing it at work, especially in earlier chapters.)

The purpose of this exercise is to see if you've got big sections of page with only one color. Are fifteen paragraphs solid pink? In today's market, in most genres, no one wants to read your scene-setting for that long. Is 75% of your book orange? You have a problem with filtering your action through talking heads.

Yellow action is the most important--move the story forward--but don't forget the other colors, too. You don't serve a slab of beef for three meals in a row; you add spices and complement it with baked potato and steamed vegetables.

Here's the thing: you can categorize and highlight however you want. I'm all about teaching a man to fish and giving you tools for your writer toolbox and all that. I'm not about dictating how you should be writing. Make it work for you.

"Exposition," to me, is the here-and-now explanation about how the character feels about something or someone, whereas "back story" is something that happened in the past. "Setting," I discovered, became both the world and character descriptions. You can play around with these and sub-categorize them if you like, but I didn't want to get too granular for this exercise.

When it came to dialogue tags, "he said" usually revealed a juicy tidbit of plot, so I highlighted it yellow for action. If you find your dialogue isn't moving the plot forward, you might want to assign a different color for those spots you know you have trouble.

If you're not sure how to fix your work, get a second copy of your favorite book and mark it all up with highlighter using this method. Watch how Super Awesome Bestselling Author weaves the gorgeous colors together to create a tapestry of page-turning story. You'll find, as you get deeper into the book, he gets away with big chunks of back story or dialogue--but he varies it. Rarely does he insert fourteen chapters of back story (and I can think of a book by a best-selling author I one-starred when she did this because come on with the plot already).

So, my dear readers, what do you think? Can you think of a sticky piece of writing you're struggling with that you can apply this to? I'd love to hear follow-up stories of what you discovered after you did this.

Guest Post: S.L. Saboviec on Growing Your Character Relationships to Grow Your Character!

 

Hello, everyone! This is S. L. Saboviec, and I’m pleased to be a guest today on Operation Awesome. I’m author of the Adult Paranormal novel Guarding Angel, and I’m here to talk a bit about my writing process.

When I first started writing, I knew very little about it. (I know, shocker!) I tried different things to flesh out my characters—character questionnaires, interviews, analyzing their personalities, taking online quizzes—but only when I evolved a character development method did I started to become comfortable. In addition to analyzing their personality traits, I examined their relationships with one another.

Let me explain.

Character Growth: Not Just For Characters

The books we most engage with are ones where characters grow as they overcome challenges. But the characters themselves don’t just grow—their relationships with everyone around them grow. Maybe they meet someone new and fall in love. Maybe they love someone but end up divorced. Maybe they have a strained relationship with their child and mend it, or have a great one and ruin it. These relationship changes are what make up good stories.

(I’m not saying you can’t have a character grow without other characters, but it’s much more interesting to see your character grow against their relationships.)

Not only that, but these growing relationships are the stuff of delicious sub-plots: the man who launches a friend’s rescue saves the world from evil aliens (Chronicles of Riddick) or the mother who struggles with her son’s heinous crime comes to terms with who she is as a person (We Need To Talk About Kevin). Chuck Wendig states it even stronger than I have: Character relationships are what makes your plot, not just your sub-plots.

How to Make Your Character Relationships Grow

When getting ready to write a first draft, I have a spreadsheet I call my “Book Map.” Yeah, I’m a plotter… But don’t run away if you’re not! Besides my plot outline, which is totally optional in this method, I keep detailed character information that I refer back to as I write.

In particular, I have a matrix of relationships. Along the top and the bottom, I have each character’s name. Where each character meets, I write about how their relationship grows:

·         How Character A sees Character B in the beginning of the novel

·         How Character A sees Character B at the end of the novel

·         Notes about their growth arc

An example of this would be one I would have done between Enael and Kaspen for Guarding Angel:

·         At the beginning, Enael sees Kaspen as: mysterious, intriguing, and more committed to his Wards’ development than any other Guardian she’s met.

·         At the end, Enael sees Kaspen as: worth fighting for, her soul mate, and strong for having struggled through so many hardships.

·         Growth arc: When Kaspen makes a poor decision because he wants to protect humans, Enael fights for him. (I’m being vague here so I don’t spoiler anything—in case you decide you’d like to read my novel—but when plotting, I would point to specific actions she takes and how it connects to my overall plot.)

I would do a similar one for how Kaspen sees Enael, which would explain why he falls in love with her. And so on, throughout all the major characters. One of my current works-in-progress has twelve major characters, so that’s 12 x 12 = 144 character opinions of other characters to consider. It was a time-consuming exercise, but I usually don’t do every single one, since not all the characters meet or have strong opinions about one another.

And it’s useful in more than one way:

·         It highlights possible sub-plots.

·         It allows me time inside the head of each character, which allows me to understand each one’s motivations more.

·         It highlights redundant or one-dimensional characters.

Hopefully this insight into a small part of my writing process has been useful. For me, the “hair color / eye color / mannerisms” character sheet lists don’t cut it. I need to get into my characters’ heads and really understand what they think of each other. Hopefully I gave you some things to think about and perhaps even strengthen your next revision.

About Me:

I’m a self-published author whose dark, thought-provoking science fiction & fantasy contains flawed, relatable characters and themes that challenge the status quo. Guarding Angel is on sale for $0.99 right now. You can find it at several major eBook retailers and on Amazon in paperback. The sequel, Reaping Angel, will be released in early 2016.

·         Kindle

·         Kobo

·         Nook

·         Google Play

·         Paperback (Amazon)

·         Goodreads

You can also follow me on social media, check out the other stops on this blog tour, or if you like my work, sign up for my newsletter:

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Thank you, Operation Awesome, for having me here today!

First Revision: Cooling Periods and Paper

First Revision

For July, we're talking about the dreaded first pass of revisions on your recently completed manuscript. Revision and I have a love/hate relationship. I love it when the fruits are immediate and beautiful; I hate it when I can't seem to get something right and I feel compelled to go back to the drawing board. After the celebration period (Yay! I finished another book!), I print out my manuscript and sit somewhere super comfy and far away from my computer. I put a pen on the table beside me, so it's accessible but not itching to be used.

My first pass is for finding overall structural problems or shallow characterizations or setting inconsistencies. I may find a grammatical or punctuation error, or a typo, in this process, but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the things that make that typo look like a tiny almost-pimple in comparison.

Printing out my manuscript is key. It helps me visualize my story as a real book. It is easier to see errors on paper than on the screen. And it is easier to get comfortable, which goes back to helping me visualize my story as a book. When I read for pleasure, I'm curled up on the couch, so that's how I read my own book during this first pass. I want to enjoy my book. That's the objective. And if something hitches me, takes me out of that enjoyment, that's a red flag. I pick up my pen and draw out a solution in the margins.

As tempting as it is to drop everything and fix that structural problem right then, I wait. I read through the rest of the book as if I have already made the change, and mark any other places where the new story element might clash with what is already there. In the margins, I mark the necessary changes.

After this read-through, I note on the last page my impressions:

• How does this story's ending leave me feeling?
• What do I think of the main character's behaviors? Are they relatable and believable, and do I approve of them?
• Does the ending feel natural or contrived? Did it take some work to arrive there or was it predictable and too easy?
• What major alterations must be made? What's my plan of attack for those problems?

I set it aside again and give myself time away from the manuscript, just to mull it over. It is rare for me to get a breakthrough while sitting at my desk. I get inspiration through living my daily life, so setting the manuscript aside and letting it cool, so to speak, is essential to my process.

After the cooling period, I pick it back up, and take it to the computer. I find the page numbers with the most red and start implementing my plan of attack. 

I always enjoy learning about other writers' processes, particularly revision. How do you tackle that first revision?