How To Use Free Mind, Part One: Creating A Simple Plot

It’s been a while since I blogged, and I thought I’d start blogging regularly again. The idea for this 3-part blog series came to me randomly while using the free mind map software called “Free Mind”, which you can download here (it lists the versions by operating system).

I’ve found mind mapping to be an effective way to just get an idea down on paper, without worrying about structure or character development or anything specific about the story. When you mind map a plot in particular, you just focus on the basics first and anything specific later.

The basic things you’d need for your mind map are:

·         Title

·         Main Character(s)

·         Conflict

·         Theme

·         Setting(s)

·         Genre(s)

 

For an example, I’ll show you the mind map process I’d use if I were to mind map an old story I wrote years ago, back when I had no clue what the rules of writing were. If I were to rewrite it now, it would need a major reworking of both the plot and the characters. But for the sake of the mind map example, it will also allow me to keep it simple.   

The story, at its core, was a coming-of-age fantasy (specifically, portal fantasy) novel, about a girl named Lucille who discovers a mystical doorway in a forest and a wolf chained by that door. The wolf—a shape shifter—explains that he has been waiting for years and years for someone to set him free and for that someone to journey back to the world beyond the door, and help him vanquish the evil. Now, we have our basic idea.

Opening Free Mind, you should get a blank mind map. If not, go to File> New to get a fresh mind map.

In the middle of the page you should get something like this:

 

 

 

       Click that circle and you should be able to edit the text inside the circle (called a “node”)

Here’s where we insert our title: SAPPHIRE PRINCESS. Depending on your novel, the title will be different. If you are still trying to figure out your title, put: WIP in the node bubble. To help figure out your novel’s title, I wrote a previous blog post on finding titles here.

Next, right-click that bubble and you should get a lot of options. Click the option with the light bulb, labeled ‘New Child Node’. A line should appear with a text box.

Label this text box: Main Characters.

 



Next, who are your main heroes? Do you have a name for them? If so, right-click the Main Characters node and click New Child Node (or press: Insert, on the keyboard) however many times to insert one or more main characters. In this case, I have at least four main characters: Lucille, who is the main heroine. Her mentors—the wolf-shifters—Akoto and Silver and, finally, the main villain, Resmiel.

Within each character’s text node, write as many attributes about them that you know. Age, gender, race, odd clothes or physical looks, favorite color or pet, anything specific to them within the story like powers, or their past, or their role within the story—anything that comes to mind.

If you can’t figure out something or if there is a reason for that trait important to the book, write the question or elaborated answer in a child node connected to that particular trait, like in the example below:

The next thing you should put in a node is: Conflict. Conflict could be as simple as your character missing the bus and having to get to their destination another way, or as complex as saving the world from alien invaders. A few questions to ask yourself when considering the different threads of conflict are:

·         What or who will your characters face in the story?

·         What will your hero have to face in regards to the villain?

·         What will he/she need to come to terms with?

·         What will tear her down, both physically and mentally?

·         What will be her goal/goals within the story?

·         What or who will stand in her way, in regards to succeeding those particular goals?

Create a child node from Conflict to include each main character. Then create nodes from their names, put a possible conflict or conflicts, and add additional details (in more nodes) if required. Some conflicts will involve each character or will be between two characters (such as the main hero and the villain). For this example, I’ve just done a few regarding the character Lucille.

 

Creating a new node from the title node, the next thing you will detail is: Theme. Theme is possibly the most challenging thing to boil down in a book. What are we trying to say, beyond all those perfectly constructed metaphors? What are we trying to tell the readers? What does this scene, this character, this idea, object or symbol contribute to the overall book, to the big picture—the theme of the book? Your theme could be anything from racism, to good vs evil to love conquers all…so long as the scenes and the plot reflect it.

Next would be Setting. Where does your story take place? What time period? What’s the name of your city or town or fictional world?  What details about the place(s) are important? Put them in nodes if needed.

 

 

Finally, the final node you can add is: Genre. What is your novel? Where would you put it on shelves? Would it be a paranormal romance? A fantasy? A historical? A science-fiction novel? As each genre has its rules and requirements regarding plot, it’s important you know what exactly you’re going to write. You can’t have novels straddling too many genres, otherwise it gets confusing for both readers and publishers to know exactly what group and to whom this book is marketed for.

 

Hopefully this process, while time-consuming, will be helpful in creating a sort of outline and a plot for your novel.

Stay tuned for part two of this series, How To Use Free Mind, Part Two: Figuring Out Character Conflict.

 

Thanks for reading!

- HC



Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing, as defined by Dictionary.com, means “to show or indicate beforehand; prefigure.”

Foreshadowing allows for the writer to turn rather innocuous or unimportant details into something that carries significance at the end of the work because of the way they move the story along and/or affect the characters. Two things are key: Atmosphere and symbolism. Atmosphere allows the reader to get a feel of the mood, what emotions they should feel for the character and what sort of importance this place or overall mood has on the character itself.

Foreshadowing often works hand-in-hand with the symbolic meanings of things, people or events according to that characters universe; or with the characters own desires and fears, as a way for the writer to “tell the future” of that event or character without spoiling the journey.

But in order to foreshadow future events, you must first have a plan. A set up. Like building a house, you must have a foundation before you can begin on anything else. With foreshadowing, your foundation is what you want to foreshadow. Do you want to foreshadow a death? A character having to face a fear? A character having to do something in order to reach his goal? Or maybe you want to foreshadow a big revelation that throws everything off track?

A good film that shows a form of simple foreshadowing and a character overcoming his obstacle to continue his journey, is Disney’s The Haunted Mansion. In it, the main character’s son is afraid of spiders and won’t squish one on his bedroom window with a rolled up magazine. Later on in the film, the main character and his daughter are trapped in the mausoleum where they had to search for a key to solve the mystery of the mansion. When the door closes, trapping them inside with zombies that have come alive, wanting the key back, the son must open the door. Only problem is, big spiders crawl out of the door and he doesn’t want to get near them. In order to save his father and sister from the zombies, he has to face his fear of spiders and open the door.

Whatever it is, you must scatter clues early in the manuscript in order for any future events concerning those clues to have any sort of impact. In her blog post about foreshadowing, blogger Debz Hobbs-Wyatt says: “…Don’t draw the reader’s attention to something, some aspect of a character’s personality, like a phobia of spiders, if you don’t draw on it later.”

It might take a few drafts, but, if done subtly, foreshadowing also allows you to reveal things about a character, using bits and pieces of backstory to foreshadow reactions and fears that may lead to certain decisions and actions later in the novel.

Foreshadowing can incite many emotions but there are three chief emotion “types” of foreshadowing:

1. Doubt/ Dread: The foreshadowing that incites doubt or dread, like any scene in the novel, should fit with the character and situation. This type should be foreboding, incite worry for the character.

An example of that type of foreshadowing is shown in Suzanne Collins’s YA dystopian fantasy, The Hunger Games, when Katniss tells her little sister, Primrose, that she won’t be picked for the Reaping and sent to die in the Hunger Games, where children are forced to kill each other for the entertainment of the public. The reader feels Katniss’s dread about Prim being chosen for the Games—but this foreshadows Prim’s name being chosen and Katniss’s choice to go in her place.

2. Excitement/Anticipation: This type is the kind of foreshadowing that makes people curious as to how things connect, how this symbol, event, or character, associates with the rest of the story. Most often, this foreshadowing is used to indirectly suggest an outcome for a character or event.

An example of this type of foreshadowing occurs early in Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy, The Wheel of Time, in book one The Eye of the World. In it, Moiraine, an Aes Sedai—a magician who can wield the One Power—tells Egwene, an innkeeper's daughter from the village of Emond`s Field who can wield the One Power, that she “…may go far. Perhaps even the Amyrlin Seat one day, if you study hard and work hard.” The Amyrlin Seat, while also being a chair where the head of the Aes Sedai sits, is also the title given to them, likened to a king or queen. Much later in the series, just as Moiraine said, Egwene does become leader of the Aes Sedai order.

3. Surprise/Shock: This type of foreshadowing often comes with a huge revelation or an event that the character didn’t expect. With a reader, the foreshadowing specifically for that moment will often come during the second time reading the novel as they see what led up to the climax, what clues they were given by the writer to try and piece together the character’s journey.

An example of this is in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third novel in the Harry Potter series. For this example, I’ll only be using the events from the film adaptation as it’s been a while since I’ve read the novel and do not currently have it on hand. In both the novel and the film, Hermione seems to be taking two classes at the same time and managing to be present for each. Ron and Harry can’t figure out how she can be in two places at one time. It’s revealed near the end of the film, that Hermione has been using a Time Turner—a device that allows the user to go back in time—in order to take two classes in the same time slot. Using the Time Turner, Harry and Hermione travel back to save a supposedly “dangerous” Hippogriff, named Buckbeak, from being slaughtered. Using Buckbeak’s ability to fly, the pair are also able to retrieve Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, from Azkaban.

Earlier in the film, the event that foreshadows the use of the Time Turner itself, is when Harry, Hermione and Ron visit Hagrid and, somehow, end up being hit with thrown snail shells. When the Time Turner is used, Harry uses these shells (in much the same manner as before) to get the attention of his “alternate timeline” self, thus changing the outcome of many events.

Have you noticed examples of foreshadowing in the books you’ve been reading? If so, what are some of the types you've seen?

- HC

Making Scenery Come Alive

Scenery is perhaps the hardest thing to make interesting on the page. Your characters need to travel, see the world—be it as simple as a room in their house or an exotic place across the globe or maybe another dimension entirely. FTLOW blogger, Raven Clark, did a post on weather openings and how to make them work. I thought I’d follow that up with another, similar topic that authors often use for openings: Scenery.

Now, don’t get me wrong—scenic openings can work, and many famous writers often use them—but there’s a difference to someone who’s been published before and someone who’s just started out. Novice writers often think setting the scene is the very first thing that the reader needs to know before they even meet your hero. They need to know where your character is, yes, but not every excruciating detail about the world.

Ask yourself this: How do we care about the setting and the predicament, if we don’t know who we’re supposed to be rooting for? With openings written by novice writers, I’ve noticed, they seem to separate character and scenery so much when they begin, that when the story begins, the opening lacks tension or is slow.

So, when thinking about scenery and scenic openings, don’t just write about the warm summer day, write about how the summer weather makes the character feel. Set a mood with the character as the mouthpiece. What makes this day, or this moment, different then any other day?  Whatever makes this day different then any other, then, is a sense of things changing. This change is often a good source of conflict or tension.    

In total, there are about four techniques—similar to weather openings—you need to make a scenic opening, and scenery itself, come alive.

1)      Make the scenery active.

2)      Create tension within the prose.

3)      Make the scenery as much a part of the plot as possible.

4)      Use the senses to make the scene real for readers.  

What do I mean when I say you have make scenic openings and scenery active? I mean, does the scenery appear to be doing anything? Does it appear to have a personality, almost as if it were alive? To give an example, I’ll use a part of the prologue from the first novel, The Eye of the World, of Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series Wheel of Time.  

The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory,
groaned as if it would deny what had happened. Bars of sunlight cast
through rents in the walls made motes of dust glitter where they yet
hung in the air. Scorch-marks marred the walls, the floors, the
ceilings. Broad black smears crossed the blistered paints and gilt of
once-bright murals, soot overlaying crumbling friezes of men and
animals which seemed to have attempted to walk before the madness grew
quiet. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children, struck
down in attempted flight by the lightnings that had flashed down every
corridor, or seized by the fires that had stalked them, or sunken into
stone of the palace, the stones that had flowed and sought, almost
alive, before stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colourful
tapestries and paintings, masterworks all, hung undisturbed, except
where bulging walls had pushed them awry. Finely carved furnishings,
inlaid with ivory and gold, stood untouched except where rippling
floors had toppled them. The mind-twisting had struck at the core,
ignoring peripheral things.

Did you notice how Jordan gave the destroyed castle almost a personality? How “The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened…” Or how the fires “seized” and “stalked” the palace occupants, or how the stones of the palace itself “…had flowed and sought, almost alive, before stillness came again.” It’s a building, yet, using similes and metaphors, he is able to give the reader a clear picture of how the scenery ‘reacted’ to the disaster.

Now, this opening is told in omniscient point of view (an all-seeing POV. Almost like a god.) and we are not introduced to a character until the next paragraph. Today, that isn’t a good idea as it seems like you’re head-hopping—jumping between POVs. The opening above could only work for an established author nowadays, as opposed to when this novel was published, back in 1990. The rules have changed regarding pace and tension and openings, so if you try to do this type of slightly slower opening today, you’d have a hard time selling your novel. So it’s better to tell the story through a character’s reactions and have your hero describe the scenery in his/her voice rather then using omniscient POV.

On the second point, creating tension within the prose, is based on a few factors:

A)    Word choice: Do the words you choose evoke an image? Do they evoke a mood? Does it incorporate the senses? (I’ll explain about that later in this post).

B)    Situation: What is happening to your character? Where is he or she? What is he/she doing? What is her goal for the scene?

C)    Stakes: What happens if your character fails? What or who does the character lose if she loses? What about if she succeeds? The higher and riskier the stakes, the more tense and powerful the scene will be.

For an example of tension within the prose, I’ll use a scene from my WIP novel, The Last Wyvern. In this scene (in the 3^rd chapter, so it’s not the opening of the novel), my heroine, Calias, has been captured by the main villain, King Sacriel, who is part of a race of bird-like creatures called the Queye. She must escape and is successful, with the help of the novel’s hero, Owen. In their attempt to escape, however, they must leave behind other prisoners of Calias’s order.

A rumble of thunder drowned out his next words as he gripped her wrist. He pulled her towards the door, and slowly eased it open, the cries of the Guild members like the shrill noise of gulls overhead, nearly drowned out by the thrashing waves and rain. Guilt forced its way into her chest, lodged like a stone within. We must make this sacrifice. It’s us he wants. Slipping through the shadows, Owen guided her to the lifeboats she’d seen earlier. As he set one up to be lowered, the possibility of being caught burned in her veins, the awareness of so many Queyen eyes watching the ship’s deck, patrolling it, setting her nerves dangling on a jagged edge. No time. She kept watch as the ship cut through the waves, her heartbeat louder than the storm.

“Climb in.” He hissed.

“Owen, I—” A clap of thunder overwhelmed her words. No time. Escape. She stumbled forward as he hoisted her up into his arms and set her in the lifeboat. “Owen!”

She glimpsed a smile as a flash of lightning cracked the sky. “Don’t worry, I’m coming too.”

“No—” She glanced down, feeling sick. Below, the black waves swelled, like quicksand, threatening to swallow her whole—looming closer and closer—as Owen began to lower the boat. One thought slammed into her, and she gripped the sides of the boat with white-knuckled hands. I can’t swim…

Glancing back up at Owen, the rain soaking through her clothing, blinding her, Calias cried out as guards swarmed upon Owen. Oh, no… Weaving out of the reach of gleaming swords, Owen pulled his own blade from its sheath and combat ensued. Battle cries and shouts of pain echoed through the night as Owen delivered blow after blow, a few lifeless bodies tumbling into the sea. A sword swing caught one of the ropes and Calias gripped the boat as it lurched to one side, hanging a few feet from the waves. Don’t cut the ropes…please don’t cut the ropes! She had a brief image of the boat capsizing, tossing her into the water and a sudden bout of panic threatened to choke her. Lower the boat. Don’t cut the ropes—this storm’s bad enough! As the boat jerked again, she watched—the breath frozen in her lungs—as one rope began to unravel.

Sacriel’s voice rose above the storm, a thunderous roar. “Find her, bring her aboard!” She could imagine the Queye king, his eyes blazing, one hand unconsciously rubbing his throat, as he marched across the deck, ordering his men. “I want that witch skinned alive!”

Owen spun, swinging to cut the second rope, and Calias felt her heart plummet to her stomach as the boat fell. Caught in the violent swell of the sea, its clutch determined to overturn the tiny lifeboat, Calias grabbed the oars and forced the boat through the water, determined to get away. And leave them? The weight of the Guild prisoners’ feeble cries for help echoed in her mind. She grit her teeth and forced herself to focus.

Looking up, watching the distance slowly grow, she saw Owen—his form briefly set aglow by a flash of lightning—as he dove off the ship and disappeared into the dark water. Sacriel’s guards set crossbows and fired, arrows hitting the water, just out of her reach and that strangling terror set in again. Scanning the waves, she couldn’t hear nor see Owen. Where is he? For a few moments, she stared at the water, imaging the pain of arrows stabbing into his back one by one, the dread threatening to make her sick.

The oars felt heavy in her hands, dragging like lead weights across the water, the water itself black as liquid night, viscous like honey. Where is he? Pools of crimson splashed across her vision, staining the ocean red. The white caps of waves became fins that cut through the storm like the curve of a sword. She blinked and they were gone. Muttering prayers under her breath, gripping the oars with sore hands, she stared as Sacriel’s boat drifted, the glow of lanterns growing smaller. She hunched her shoulders as the wind cut through her clothing, cold and ruthless as the sea. “I can’t do this alone…” Calias pried numb fingers from the oars, letting them fall limply to her sides. “I can’t.”

This is rough, and definitely needs improvement, but the tension is there. I’ve tried to use particular words or descriptions, like: “…the cries of the Guild members like the shrill noise of gulls overhead, nearly drowned out by the thrashing waves and rain” Or: “…the black waves swelled, like quicksand, threatening to swallow her whole…” Even using objects to describe the scene: “The oars felt heavy in her hands, dragging like lead weights across the water, the water itself black as liquid night, viscous like honey.”

So the word choice factor is done but the important thing is, I’ve let the character have to make necessary sacrifices in order to escape the villain and the fact she can’t swim only adds to the brutality of the storm and her situation—stakes are up and the situation is dire, which—if done well—should compel readers to continue.     

But how do you do that for your writing—especially if your novel isn’t all thrilling action? That’s OK, as long as you have what I like to call “subtle tension”.

Subtle tension in openings and in scenery itself is often used during the rising action moments—when the character thinks everything is fine for now, when both the reader and the character get a chance to breathe.

Subtle tension derives from the word choice, this time using mood and active scenery, rather then dire situations or high stakes (though they aren’t totally left out), to create the tension and bridge conflict to the next huge event. An example of subtle tension with scenery and openings, is the first chapter of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World:

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that
become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten
when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the
Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long passed, a wind rose
in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are
neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.
But it was a beginning.

Borne below the ever cloud-capped peaks that gave the mountains their
name, the wind blew east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of
a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World. Down it flailed into
the Two Rivers, into the tangled forest called the Westwood, and beat
at two men walking with a cart and horse down the rock-strewn track
called the Quarry Road. For all the spring should have come a good
month since, the wind carried an icy chill as if it would rather bear
snow.

Not much happens in this paragraph, and this, again, suffers from the use of an omniscient POV, but as an example of subtle tension, it works. The subtle tension is there if you look for it. It’s in the description of the weather itself, how it “…flailed and beat at two men…” And, as if the wind had a mind of its own, “carried an icy chill as if it would rather bear snow.” The weather is made into a personality, one that carries foreboding, as if the wind and chilly weather is an extension of the main villain of this series, a metaphysical being called the Dark One.

Another point with scenery and scenic openings is to make the scenery as much a part of the plot as possible. I’m not talking about how much detail you put in the world but how the scene reflects the tension. It’s perhaps the hardest to do without the scene coming off contrived. With this point, you have to mix active tone and tension, while increasing conflict within the story with the scenery itself. I’ll try and use another rough example from The Last Wyvern:

Owen allowed the question to hang in the air for a few moments and the silence stretched between them—shattered by the snapping of twigs and underbrush, like breaking bones. An impossible darkness shrouded the wood, the tangled branches above them closing them in, eclipsing the sun. Her heartbeat sounded, loud as a war drum in her ears, and she put a hand on her mount’s neck seeking comfort, holding the stone aloft. Owen still hadn't answered her questions, his expression once again hard. Unyielding. He walked ahead, maneuvering his mount around a fallen tree. She followed him and froze. What is that?

Something dangled from the branches above them, like thick silver umbilical cords. Fear latched onto her heart like the claws of a bear trap and Calias glanced around, peering into the darkness, but saw nothing but the never-ending paths—broken by fallen trees, some spreading into forked labyrinths.

“Owen...?” Her throat clenched around her words and she struggled to breathe, drowning in panic. “Owen!”

Owen spun, holding the torch high, anxiety tensing every muscle. “What is it?” His voice was barely a whisper. Then, he paled. “Calias...”

She looked at the Crystal Iris as it pulsed in her hand, a seizing heartbeat of violet light. Oh, gods. We’re close...

The noises of the forest seemed louder, every step and inhale of breath like the crash of thunder, the hiss of a twister. The trees closed in on them—dark, frail assassins moving in for the kill, to cage them within bark and moss. We can’t back down now. It’s just your imagination playing tricks! Remember what Kydren said: Focus on the mission! She took a deep breath and the trees stilled, the branches no longer looking like reaching hands.

“Easy, easy.” Owen yanked at the reins as his horse began to panic, its neck shining with perspiration, the whites of its eyes showing.

   

Her stomach twisted as a distant rumbling reached her ears. Too soft and consistent to be thunder, she looked at the shining, sticky film that coated the trunks of trees, dripping from the branches and cold sweat dampened her brow. Her ears strained to hear the sound, trying to judge where it came from, the rumbling echoing around them, coming from every direction. The shadows swam before her, lost amid Choketree Wood, and Calias suddenly felt very small. Insignificant.

 

Another point to make scenery and scenic openings, come alive is to use the senses. The basic senses: Sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch should paint a picture in the readers mind of what your scene looks like, what sort of mood the readers should feel. But there are four other senses that are often ignored: Temperature, kinetic sense (position of the body), pain, and the body’s sense of balance and gravity.

However you write your scenes and open your novels, the techniques above still apply regardless of genre, point of view, or setting. If you can make scenery engaging as an opening, try it but if not, it might be best to introduce the hero first and have him interact with the world, and create tension, compelling readers to continue.

- HC

Editing Blues

Due to technical difficulties, I'm posting this topic for Ree Vera.

- HC 

Ah, the internal editor. We try so hard to resist it. We fight it, smother it, and do our best to just plain ignore the urge to let it have its way. Until at last…our MS is ready for that final thing. (dun dun dun!)

Editing.

*cue horrified scream*

Every writer, at one point, must go through it. I mean—our goal is to one day publish our work, right? And you can’t do that without some sort of editing.

Well, you could….I guess.

So I’ve been going through some major editing blues. I’m not usually one to get defensive when it comes time for editing, but this go round really had me on the edge. So I thought I’d share what I’ve been going through…

WHY?!

The shock.

The: ‘You want me to do what?!’

The: ‘Pfft. You can’t perfect perfection.’

I mean come on. You’ve labored on this story for so long that I’s like….it’s your baby. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Don’t they know amazing when they see it?

Haha. Yeah.

There is no perfect first draft. No such thing.

I GOT THIS

Oh the blind confidence. You take a look at those suggested revisions and think it’s going to be a piece of cake. Cross a few t’s, dot a few i’s…no big deal. How bad can it be?

OMG!

Then you see it. The bleeding plot holes and loose threads. Dry dialogue.  Overused clichés. Wordy chapters , misspelled words, and all those damn commas you can’t seem to stop using cuz you’re a junkie and need help!! *breathes* Ahem. Sorry. Where were we?

IT’S GOING TO BE FINE

I loved being in denial. LOL. I really did. Those loose threads? Pish posh. Nobody will notice. They’ll be so amazed by my story that even that character I kinda forgot about won’t even be an issue. I’ll just make a few minor adjustments and…voila!

I QUIT!

So many corrections. You look at  your MS and it seems like once you find one thing wrong…a billion other things come into sight. It’s awful! Or so you think. So I thought. I even thought about just throwing in the towel. Giving up. It was a brief notion, but a notion just the same. I read, watched movies, skyped, and pretty much everything except think about writing. Or editing. I think I even cried.

Ok, yeah, I did.

*sad violin music*

I say this because I don’t want you to think you’re doing something wrong if you feel like this at some point. Being a writer doesn’t make you superman/superwoman. You’re still human. It’s okay to get a little desperate cuz it happens. Just don’t let it get the best of you. Pout. Cry. Scream if you have to.

Then move on.

ANGELS IN DISGUISE

Friends. Writing Peers. Loved Ones.

They help you when you’re feeling down. Whether it’s a shoulder to soak with your tears or the kick in the pants you need (but don’t really want)…they’re so important. As writers, it’s so easy to withdraw. To isolate ourselves. We think and see things differently. Get lost in our own world.

Don’t get so lost that you lose those ties with the ones who truly care. They’ll be your saving grace.

HOPE

I got that pep talk and felt inspired. So with renewed hope and confidence, I pulled out that MS and got down to business.

EEK!

All this dawdling had taken two weeks off my time limit. So I would have to get to business fast. Some long hours and a couple of red eyes later….the revisions were done. I hit send and leaned back, relaxed….

DAMN IT

Yeah….there are more revisions needed. It’s a process. But I’m not going to freak out.

Too much.

So are you at that stage yet? Editing? Have you experienced anything like this?

Or maybe I’m just crazy after all…who knows?

Happy Writing!!

~Minerva Ree Vera

Forked Roads and Man-eating Bears: Character Decisions

Decisions, decisions…

Characters have to make decisions—ones that set them on a journey at the start of the novel—otherwise there would be no story to tell. It’s usually a minor goal, something the character wants to do at first, before something—like an event or person—forces them on the overall focus, the overall goal for the novel itself.

For example, if a man—a reformed ex-con—decides to work as a janitor at a high school, he might come to work one day and find a body in one of the stalls. This spurs a whole new complication for your character: Is he guilty or innocent? Who really did it and why?

Connected to—or caused by—this minor goal, might be what’s called the inciting incident. The inciting incident is defined as the event that sends your protagonist out into the world, ruins or changes his current situation, and forces him to find answers—to answer the questions that this incident brought on, or to change things for the better. In our example with the ex-con janitor, finding the body in the stall is the inciting incident.

Likewise, character decisions must cause jeopardy and sacrifice or set in motion the inciting incident. For example, in Suzanne Collins’s dystopian fantasy trilogy The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen’s decision to go hunt illegally, to provide for her family, puts her at risk with the law. This decision (minor goal) helps when she is later put into the arena for the Hunger Games, to survive and fight others to the death—thus helping to save her family and world from poverty and oppression from the Capitol (overall goal).

In Christopher Paolini’s first high fantasy novel—book one of The Inheritance Cycle—Eragon, the elf Arya sends the dragon egg away via magic, from the main villain of the book (minor goal), but this event gets herself captured. The main hero, Eragon, finds the egg which begins his journey as a Dragonrider, to help bring down the tyrannical king, Galbatorix (overall goal).

Using yet another fantasy novel, in Tamora Pierce’s romantic fantasy series Song of the Lioness, the main heroine, Alanna of Trebond, decides to switch places with her twin brother, to dress as a boy, in order to allow him to go to the City of the Gods to train as a mage, and for her to travel to the castle to become a knight (minor goal). This decision puts her at risk, because she could be killed if her gender and disguise was ever found out. In the other novels of this series, Alanna’s knighthood allows her to protect the king and restore order to the world around her (overall goal).

Please note that this character decision-making can be applied to any genre—I was just using the ones off the top of my head—many of them being fantasy.

Most novels nowadays—regardless of genre—should have the character’s decision appear at the start or within the first chapter. Set your character on a journey and make them fight or suffer to reach their goal. Force them to change it, making a minor goal into something much larger, on a much larger scale—or force them to abandon that original goal entirely in order to fulfill this bigger, overall goal that should become the bulk of your novel’s focus.

Think of your character’s decision as a forked road metaphor. On one path, it’s rainy and cold but empty. On the other…maybe a huge man-eating bear lies somewhere on that path? Which path will he choose to reach his goal—to get home? The easy, raining one? Or the man-eating bear path?

Let’s say he decided to take the easy route—he’d get a little wet and cold, sure, but his path is clear, right?

Now, what if, on that easy path, you—the author—decided he needed a challenge to overcome? You don’t want your novel to be a simple, boring read do you? Let’s put the man-eating bear in his way—what is he going to do next? Run or fight?

Either way, this “easy” decision just shook this character’s world, changed his current situation, and forces him to face something much bigger them him—just as the inciting incident in your own novel must do.

When trying to decide your character’s decision that drives the novel’s plot, think of this metaphor. The minor goal in your novel—in this case, trying to get home—must be connected to, or cause, the inciting incident to appear. Pretty soon, that rainy route home should leave your protagonist confronting a giant, man-eating bear.

What happens to your hero next is up to you.

How To Create a Powerful Character Sacrifice

Sacrifice. For such a simple word, it carries a lot of power. And that’s what your own character’s sacrifice should do—be powerful, even if it’s simple; be memorable and resonate with readers long after they’ve closed the book.

But how do you do that?

A question you could ask yourself, while developing your novel, is: What is the character’s goal? Basically, what does she pride herself most in? What does he want most in the world?

A characters goal could be as simple as wanting a specific Christmas gift—like the protagonist of the classic movie A Christmas Story (1983) who, despite his family and his teacher’s claims that he’d shoot his eye out, wants a Red Ryder BB gun. Or the character’s goal could be as difficult and complex as destroying an object to save the entire world from destruction—such as Frodo’s quest to destroy the One Ring in J R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Once you’ve found your character’s goal, define what stands in their way. What obstacles deter her from her path? What delays him from reaching his goal? This is where the antagonist comes in. Now, the antagonist in this case could also be an object or event—not just the main villain in your novel. In a scene, the antagonist could be your car not starting on an important day, a bad snowstorm, or when a monster appears.

Now, it’s important to have the main villain cause most of the trouble but, sometimes, the hero and villain have to be apart for some time—whether it’s because they are in different areas of the world, have different hobbies, or it wouldn’t work in the novel for the hero and villain to be in the scene together. Whatever the reason, the hero and the villain must deter each other and make things worse for each other—thus making things worse for them both. Which can play a big part in raising the stakes.

You’re probably asking yourself what do stakes have to do with character sacrifice? A lot. Good questions to ask while figuring out your stakes are: How can this get worse? Or, what if?

To raise the stakes for your character, the character must make choices and those choices must have consequences. What if her marriage ended and he got custody of the kids? What if the bomb went off and killed innocent people? To continue raising the stakes, making your character’s story stronger, beliefs must be put into question—and the character has to act against those beliefs. What if your character believes war is wrong and yet must incite rebellion to stop the enemy? What if your character must lie to save someone yet thinks lying is wrong?   

To continue raising the stakes in your novel, the character’s internal conflict must be at odds with the external conflict. The internal conflict refers to to personal, mental, or psychological conflict, whereas external conflict deals with the surrounding world—such as a storm or a war. Success in one conflict may mean failure in the other.

Raising the stakes—making things worse and more difficult for your characters—makes the hero stand out. What your hero must do, what he has to risk, to reach his goal, makes your normal main character worthy of the title “hero.” So, another question you could ask for your character’s development, is: What must my character do—what must he risk—to reach his goal, to get what he wants?       

There’s a reason the most powerful kind of sacrifice is self-sacrifice. Everyone, at some point, is afraid of death or not reaching their goals and, when someone gives up everything—even their goals, it speaks volumes. To create a powerful sacrifice for your main hero, create anything significant for the character, a source of support or happiness—family, friends, a cause, or an attribute. Then let them make a choice: What is most important? What is worth dying for? Put them in a situation where they must give up everything, or at least give up their goal, for their cause or to save those most important. Even if they don’t die, the hero will be changed forever from this act, their sacrifices will be powerful, and thus the book will be—to your readers—memorable.

Thanks for reading!

- HC

Employing Effective Hooks

Hooks.

What do you think of when you hear that word?

Me? I think of fish and how, if you hook a fish by the lip, you're giving him an easy escape. But if you hook the sucker through the cheek—nice and deep— he's yours. The same concept applies to readers—if you have an ineffective hook, the reader isn’t going to stay with your hero/heroine through the journey.

Now, novel hooks are quite subjective things.  What can grab a reader’s attention, may not grab another. Believe me, I’ve gone through novels and—though they sounded really good—the beginning didn’t pull me in and make me want to read more. So, I’d put the book down and try again later.

That “try again later” view isn’t what you want from a reader. You want them to read your work ASAP—you want them to think about it even in the wee hours of the morning when they can’t be bothered to get up out of bed, yet cannot wait to see where you’ll take them next. You want to hook them through the cheek and never let go!

I can think of a few novelists who have made me feel this excited. You know, I can’t do a blog on hooks without mentioning the author who has kept me on my toes throughout every novel I’ve read. Mystery/thriller novelist, Harlan Coben, has really made me judge—for that particular genre— how a hook is effective, what makes a moment just…stop your breath, just as things couldn’t get any worse, and make me—the reader—hunger for more.

Now, thriller and mystery aren’t the only genres that can have heart-stopping hooks. Any novel can, really. 

What’s their big, beautiful, alluring secret?

Hooks—the first line in a novel that kicks it off, in particular, and the last line that finishes a chapter. For this blog, I’ll be focussing on the hook that starts your novel because it’s the hardest to get just right. For this type of hook, it’s all in the technique, how the writer employs the hook and if it’s at the right moment that the story begins—if a character’s life is about to change…or be threatened, if a revelation is about to be revealed…lots of things can become hooks if done right.

Before you start panicking (believe me, I’d be panicking right about now—hooks are hard things!) I’ll give you a few examples.

There are many ways to begin a novel—depending on your genre, audience and on your novel’s point of view. I’ll go through and explain, and give you an example of each. Keep in mind, readers, this is a subjective matter, so what would hook you in would not do the same for me.

Question

Now, this hook is one of the easiest ones to do: The novel opens with a question. The tricky part of this particular hook is that this question hook must then create more questions, a reason for the reader to wonder and thus—throughout the novel—find out the answer to the question.

Example:

Must it feel so surreal to fall?

Journal/Diary

This hook uses what we call an ‘epistolary element’—using a journal or a letter to tell the story. But with a hook, you don’t have the luxury of waiting for your narrator to mention that the weather was bad today or how his/her day was—you need to cut to the chase.

Example:

Saturday February 12^th/2011

Today it happened. It finally happened!

Someone kissed me.

Well, granted, they were preforming CPR, but it was a kiss. That ought to count for something right?

Fact

Pretty self-explanatory—the chapter begins with a fact that relates to the novel’s subject matter or to a scene.

Example:

A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s at seventy-eight beats per minute. But how much can the female heart stand? How many cracks and holes can be patched up and endured before those seventy-eight strong beats become muffled by a jaded shell, before she herself becomes like stone?

If you ask me, it doesn’t take much.

Looking into the Past

These novels generally begin with a prologue, or a short introduction, presenting the protagonist at a later age, looking back over their life and recounting it for the reader.

Example:

When I was eighteen, confused and jaded, I met the girl of my dreams. She stood across the road from me, her eyes shining, and her smile small and tentative. Curious and desperate, I stepped off the sidewalk corner to meet her.

And that was the moment I regret most.

Description

The most common method of opening a novel, and the most difficult to grab a reader with, description sets the scene—the setting, the time period, character description. However, if the description isn’t compelling, doesn’t stand out in some way then there’s not going to be much of a hook to grab the reader.

Example:

I stared around at my son’s room, feeling the walls close in on me. He was here—in his pictures, in his posters and even in his dirty laundry. I picked up a shirt off the floor and breathed in the scent. Tears choked me as I imagined bars on the window. How could you? He was my son…

Dialogue

Another self-explanatory hook: Dialogue hooks your reader—be it be a single line or part of a conversation. For this hook, a short, cut-to-the-chase line is best to hook your reader and keep them guessing as to what the hell your character’s saying and why.

Example:

“Don’t you get it, Dad? You can’t fix this!”

“Just give me a second chance—”

“It’s too late for that.”

That phone call haunted me. Became like a specter in the house, a specter with my child’s voice—screaming at me, strangled with tears.

Those were the last words we exchanged.

Action

The hook that most often grabs a reader, but if done poorly, can often be taken as a ‘cheap hook’—a hook simply used to grab a reader and has no other purpose, doesn’t add to the story or to a character. Action hooks however can be effective tools to bring us right into the action, if it’s possible to deliver both character development and to keep from confusing the reader—while, at the same time, keeping the momentum.

Example:

Wasting no time, I sunk my fangs into the woman’s jugular. My hold on her throat tightened as she fought and I felt lightheaded as hot blood poured down my throat. It had a spicy flavor, the flavor of fire and of ice—burning in my veins. Like a vintage wine, I drank it in, thirsty for the rare taste of vampire blood. She was a young vampire, only a couple centuries old. Young and gullible. I took it all in, watching the light leave her eyes.

Which hooks do you guys like using? Which ones out of the examples above caught your eye? Why do you think that was?

- M