Sylvia's novel writing blog

Our brains--hardwired to enjoy stories?

One of the most useful books on writing that I've read in the past 10 years is Wired For Story by Lisa Cron. It merges art with science, deftly explaining how we are biologically wired to pinpoint those elements we as readers seek and hope to find while reading a story. 

To hear a summary of some of the most salint points in her book, I'm including the link Grammar Girl: Quick & Dirty Tips for Better Writing, where Lisa Cron's work is showcased in an article. You can also listen to the audio version (10-minutes), which is located just above the GG article.

My shiny new book trailer for my WIP

Check out my shiny new book trailer (a marketing tool) for my work-in-progress:

 

First, I used a Mac to make a Powerpoint presentation (sparse writing = good). After saving the PPT project, save the project "as pictures", so that each slide is saved as a jpg. Next, open iMovie, and insert each jpg into the story board. Once the jpgs (slides) are in place, choose a movie theme and adjust the length of each jpg (slide). Choose a song from iTunes (ask for permission from the musician first if you wish to broadcast it publicly) and lay it on the story board (this makes the background light up green). Finally, click on the Share tab to post it on YouTube. If you have a PC, you can use MovieMaker.

Write back. I'd like to hear about what other people are making.

My W-Storyboard for my novel

Here's a quick sketch of my W-storyboard I've been using, based on ideas I've gotten recently from screenwriter Michael Hague, writing teacher Mary Carroll Moore's W-storyboarding on YouTube, and MyFlik's (a superb screenwriting channel which could also help fiction writers) The Hero's Journey 15 plot points YouTube video. Hyperlink function isn't working well :(

Story structure is probably one of the most important elements in fiction writing a writer needs to study and understand in order to give his/her readers an enjoyable reading experience, and even more than that--RESONANCE. Did you know that George Lucas and JK Rowling, to name only two out of thousands of (screen)writers used the elements of the mythic hero's journey tale to tell their story? I've seen mythic hero journey sites that show step-by-step how each of  the Star Wars' characters resemble Harry Potters characters.

If this revelation makes you worried about your novel being too formulaic, don't fret. I've avoided learning story structure until recent months, and I've realized that we all have our own story to tell, our own characters and voice, and so on. You can make things feel fresh and yet leave your readers with a feeling that they've entered another world through your senses, and by using the mythic structure of your choice, help them feel as if they've touched the tip of eternity

Michael Hague: http://www.storymastery.com/articles/30-screenplay-structure

Mary Carroll Moore: Your Book Starts Here--Storyboarding for Writers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMhLvMJ_r0Y

MyFlik channel (a treasure box collection of insightful short videos on (screen)writing: How to Write a Script--Hero Journey Plot Points: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY_WYkbq7YM

My book pitch in 53 words

I may be jumping ahead of myself by working on my marketing tools rather than the story itself, but I'm finding it helpful to get to the heart of my story by focusing on the most basic elements of the novel before I let loose and begin typing full-speed through the 2nd major draft of my novel. Full-speed for me, by the way, means 400 words a year--something needs to change soon.

My genre is a mish-mash which I call a literary historical mystery action-adventure. It has two storylines, one in the present which takes place in California and northern Spain, and one in the past which takes place in 19th century northern Spain.

Here is a book pitch in 53 words for my novel-in-progress:

Esther Campos, a diligent World Lit grad student, travels to Celtic Spain to retrieve a forgotten novel by a famous 19th century author she bonds with through a letter. Esther struggles between bequeathing it to the literary canon and remaining dutiful to an egomaniacal professor whose career will be devastated by this revelation.

You want to be able to succinctly describe both the story arc and the character's emotional arc in as few words as possible and use this pithy description as a marketing tool.

As a result, the reader will know who, what (is happening and what is at stake), where, when, and why.

• who the protagonist is (timid salesman, a cock-sure investigator, a loyal priest). The adjective describing the hero should be his Achilles' heel. How will the hero grow emotionally by the end of the story?
• what is the story plot? What are the actions that take place in the story?
• where the story takes place (in Detroit, Australia, or another galaxy)
• when the story takes place (now, in the 14th century, in the year 2099)
• why should we care about the protagonist and her story? What are the stakes? What could she lose?

Setting up scene cards

I've come to realize that creating a good book takes master planning. Before, I tried outlining the novel according to ideas I visualized as being an integral part of the story, but when I tested some of those outlined segments against the litmus test of whether micro-tension occurs, or that definite things and countering obstacles are happening (beats and swings), they fizzled out by the time they got onto paper.

I decided scene cards are the way to go. I had already started cards, but they weren't helping me enough--they're were simply mini-synopses of each chapter. I'm methodical by nature, and after scouring for a way to get swiftly and effectively from point A to point B, I came across an email from an editor that attended my Chicago writing workshop last year. In this email, she provided a scene card template about the size of an index card that has the following information on it:

Scene synopsis:

Time / place:

Viewpoint character:

Inciting incident:

Goal:

Opposition:

Strategy:

Beats / Swings:

       1.

       2.

       3.

Outcome:

Images / Notes / Dialogue:

What makes this scene important / critical:

This new way of writing scene cards has been revolutionary for me; it really forces me to integrate my thoughts revolving around a number of fiction writing components  It was not only painless, but fun to write my first new scene card yesterday, and I came up with new and interesting ideas that I would not have come up with otherwise had I only wrote a mini-synopsis as before.

I tend to write a multi-sentence synopsis, so I wrote my synopsis on the back of the card. As for the beats, those are pieces of action with a goal in mind, whereas a swing is a change in strategy toward a goal, or denotes that the goal has changed. i've just started understanding this concept. I'll think about a good example in the coming days to add to this post, but if you have an example, would you post it in a comment? That would be really helpful.

As I've already said, I have about 70,000 words, many embedded in passages which need to be rearranged elsewhere in the form of flashbacks, or thrown out completely.

Still, I'm shooting for a total of 100,000 because it's a nice neat word count target. I'm going to divide the book into approximately 50 scenes, again because it's a nice neat way of dividing up a book since that equates to about 2,000 words per scene. About 20 scenes will be part of the historical storyline, and about 30 scenes will constitute the modern storyline. Since I'm going to start flat out writing on November 1st, for the next seven days until that date I'm going to write about 7 scenes a day in the format I've listed above.

Shortening my target date

It's the only way to make sure l get it done fast. 

I've decided to shorten the target date to the end of November. Just deciding that made me focus, really focus, for the first time in a long time on the historical storyline. I pitched a couple scenes, and added eight new and improved scenes. I threw out a daughter character and focused on the lifespan of a girl who becomes a woman writer. 

In the current storyline, I decided on the last three people the main character meets on her way to Santiago, and their 'life stories".

It's so hard to jump in again after laying it all to rest (pen-wise, anyway, but not brain-wise) for over a year.

I thought I had once posted a helpful book on plot and structure. Here's the image: 

Plot & Structure: (Techniques And Exercises For Crafting A Plot That Grips Readers From Start To Fin

James Scott Bell

This is James Scott Bell's Plot and Structure and it should be in every writer's bookshelf.

I've been reading a lot more this past year, to help me stay in touch with my likes and dislikes. Well, I just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife. Although I like aspects of it, especially the premise and a few of the situations, sadly I mostly felt frustrated because I didn't feel a strong romance between the two. They were sexual than romantic, and even in their sexual interaction it was a little brutish to me and kind of strange. The dialogue felt empty and many scenes seemed without purpose in that they didn't give insight to the characters or help to advance the plot. I hung on, and although I found myself becoming interested around page 300, I soon looked forward to reaching the final page.

Then I re-opened The Night Train to Lisbon, and found it to be more literary, but just as pretentious as TTW, and so I threw that aside for now. In its place, I've reopened an Agatha Christie book (my first mystery) titled And Then There Were None. It's written concisely, but the prose is nothing magnificent, and I hope to get through it quickly. 

Until I find the next reading novel, I'm going to revisit Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Rosalia de Castro's Galician collection of poems.

Cocking the pen

Whee! Here we go. It's been a little over a year since I've last written on my novel. The past year, I've been reading *closely* so that I can see what constitutes great novels. One book that has helped get me excited again about reading and writing is Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. It talks about reading closely for the sheer pleasure of it, rather than speedreading to tear through to the end. I can imagine this works best when the writing is eloquent. Here is what this wonderful book looks like:

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)

Francine Prose

Whether you love reading, or wish to write an eloquent novel, Reading Like a Writer is a gem. One underlying rule: pay close attention to details. We learn things by general rules, but remember things with details that stand out.

One book that made me want to lurch to the floor and vomit all over myself is The Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, set in England at the time of the plague. I'll post its image here because it deserves the attention: 

Year of Wonders

Geraldine Brooks

What a beautifully written book! It's the first time I've ever felt utterly jealous of another writer's writing style. Currently I'm reading a literary mystery titled Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, the latter of which I'm finding the characters to be flat, the dialogue forced, and the romance unconvincing.

I have 70K words of which I need to rip out the first few chapters like old linoleum and place them in the form of flashback snippets in their more proper place throughout the story. I need to write about 30K-40K more words. I must complete the historical storyline, which is going to take some heavy duty right brain revving, and create the remaining two characters my main modern storyline character meets on the pilgrimage route to Santiago.

See the cute countdown clock for finishing the novel at the bottom right column? New target date: June 21st, 2010 at high noon.

Novel writers are...(fill in the blank)

Sometimes it feels insane to pursue novel writing, and I know it sounds pretentious when I say there's no way around writing it. I still feel bound to finish it with a drive I haven't experienced before, except the time I had to get my son out of me when the OB-gyn wielded an epesiotomy knife at me.

This past year, I've read several fiction and nonfiction. Fiction includes The Shadow of the Wind; a rereading of The Steppenwolf; Girl With a Pearl Earring; Eat, Pray, Love; and poetry by Rosalia de Castro. Nonfiction includes The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I've also listened to a lot of Julia Cameron's The Artist Way, the audiotape version of her book that I had made copies from the library in Pacific Grove, CA years ago. I found them in a box here in Al-Ain started listening to them again and again. Now that I've created a little and have been wanting to return to my novel manuscript but know that I'm afraid of beginning the whole process again, I've learned so much about myself and my fears by listening to her wise words. Audio version is nice because she has a gentle yet stern voice to put you in your place while you make your commute to work every day. Anyone whose fear of making mistakes is preventing them from creating should read or listen to her book. Immediately. For your sake and ours. 

 The Artist's Way

Julia Cameron

No surrender in November

Maybe you thought I forgot about this blog? Or even the novel? Well, not entirely.

In May, I submitted my pages to the writing workshop, then decided to take a rest from writing and editing. In June, we took off for Mexico, and the beginning of a wonderful and fun-filled summer vacation began. Then July rolled around, and I attended Donald Maass' Intensive Writing Workshop. I haven't been the same since then (in a mostly good way, though:). I learned so much in his workshop, grew so much, came to realize my strengths and weaknesses. I have a lot of strengths in my writing, thank God, at least enough to make me want to continue writing. My main weakness was that I included too much backstory and did not start the action soon enough. Too chronological. Too linear. As I sat there day after day, getting wonderful feedback reports and strutting back to my hotel room, all glowing and self-content, it began to dawn on me how much more work was in front of me. I thought I was going to be finished by the end of this year. Now that I believe it will be two more years, maybe more, to ensure it's loaded with the kind of impact I want it to have.

Sigh.

That's okay. After the workshop, I got a little depressed about the idea of requiring many years to complete my novel. But now that I've had some time away from writing it, I'm looking forward to giving another crack at it. First I want to continue with the reading program I've imposed upon myself. I got the idea to do this from the writing guidebook Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. In it, he says to read 6 books similar to the type you want to write, whether genre, plot type, setting, or character. You're supposed to read each one once for pleasure, then reread each of them again with a set of index cards in front of you. This time, make notes on what's happening, scribble down what works for you as well as what you don't like in the story your reading. I will probably only do 3 because I have small children, but so far this idea seems to be helpful. I'm almost finished reading Eat, Pray, Love. I like a lot of things Elizabeth Gilbert does, and have already made some mental notes of things I would have done differently.

About to submit my manuscript

It's the end of May and in a couple days I'll send out the first 50 pages of my manuscript to the person coordinating an intensive writing workshop in Chicago in July. It's been a rough month. Three of the four weeks I've been sick with cold or flu. I'm so burned out from writing as well as frustration from lack of writing. It's also the end of the semester at the university where I teach. Exams are coming up, meaning hours of proctoring and exam marking coming up. Lovely.

Due to all the editing and cutting, I'm still hovering at 70K words. Once I get these so-called polished first fifty out, I'll begin concentrating on the rest. It's really getting scary how little time goes by before I look at a piece of writing that I once thought was good, and now think is horrid. Last year, it would take months for me to recognize a piece of my own crap.

I really need to start exercising again. My joints feel stiff when I stand up from my desk. Next week, after I send off those pages, I'll start the treadmill and yoga again. We're leaving for Mexico in less than 2 weeks to visit my mom and stepdad, so I need to be in shape for that. And then it's Pittsburgh for the rest of the summer.

I imagine my writing pace is going to slow down for a while. With that in mind, and knowing that I still need to write about 5-8 more good chapters, I won't be finished until the end of this year. I never would have guessed how much energy and effort writing requires!

In the next couple of days, I'll post my one-page synopsis here.

Feeling optimistic

I'm hovering at 70,000 words. This past month, I've written two new chapters: a historical storyline prologue, and a current day storyline prologue. I think they're turning out very nicely, especially since my three main proofreaders have made profound (as usual) editing suggestions. These prologues will in turn allow me to ease up on the exposition that was weighing down my dialogues and narration.

Once they are completed, I can sit down to write the five-page synopsis that's needed for the writing workshop I'm attending this summer. Once I get that going, I'm going to comb through my first 50 pages again (which the literary agent Mr. Maass will evaluate), then try to finish up my final 3 or 4 chapters that I've left hanging.

Today I feel optimistic about this novel. After brewing inside me for years, I feel that the story is just now beginning to match the mood and ideas I originally intended for it. But on some days, I just hate the whole thing, and wish that I had taken up painting or guitar lessons--at least the reward would be more certain and immediate. I guess I'm just super stubborn, but I've been obsessed with it for so long that I can't put it down now.