Getting to Know You

One of the biggest things I noticed while going through my current manuscript was how flat some of my characters seemed to be. I’d written up character sheets for the few major characters I had, but since the others were only small appearances I didn’t bother since I was sure I could write them without the need. But then I thought why. Why does my MC deserve a character sheet any more than the small bit part characters she meets along the way? It’s especially important, or so I’m discovering, that if you plan to write a series it’s imperative you know who’s who other wise you’ll be stuck when that bit part turns into a lead.

So I started again and from the top. My MC has a new profile and even a few more added traits. I’ve got reasons why she’s liked and why she’s disliked. Her talents and failings, her strengths and weaknesses. She’s not just 3D, she’s animated 3D. And now I have something I can refer to as I venture into the other books as well. Whatever situation I decide to throw at her I know I can come up with a solution for it because I’ll know how she’s going to react.

I have to say that it’s been quite fun with the other characters too in that I’m able to dream up whatever likes and dislikes I want them to have. What habits they might have, not to mention a bit about their own family. I can choose who loves to play football and who doesn’t, who should sing and who shouldn’t. Who fills their school book margins with tiny doodles and who bites their nails to the quick. It’s amazing the different attributes of people. It’s always a good reason as a writer to simply sit and observe. You never know when someone performs a perfect character trait.

A New Approach

I have to come clean. Writing on the train has not worked and it will not. It was really uncomfortable (and I mean physically, not from the point of a person sitting next to me, wondering what I’m doing) and I was all hunched up with my notebook in a cramped space that did nothing for my back, let alone my handwriting. It took me ages to get into it and by the time I’d really started I had to stop. In fact, I only gave it the one trip before I knew how useless writing on the train was going to be. All is not lost since I now spend the time reading. I’m back into my YA fiction and I’m finding it a much more satisfactory use of my time since I can get into a book in the blink of an eye. And since I believe you can never do enough research this will suit me just fine.

As far as The Secret Diary goes, I’ve been feeling really inhibited by it. The main reason for this has been where to begin. Since I made the decision to change it I’ve been dancing around it without really sinnking my teeth in. I realise I need a brand new outline, a new plan that I can focus on and stop trying to beat the old one into shape. It won’t mean a total rewrite, most of what I already have is going in but it needs a new approach so I can get the thing sorted and back on track. Time will always be a problem, but that hasn’t been the full extent of why my writing has stalled. The biggest issue is getting over this hurdle, then I know I’ll find the time as I’ll have it under control and will actually want to continue on with it.

Besides, I’ve got a ton of other ideas that have been tapping my shoulder for attention and I won’t be able to address any of them until I’ve got this current project finished and submitted.

My Writing Kit

I’m about to become one of the thousands of migrating Victorian country folk as I start the rather new routine of catching a train to work. Aside from the fact that I’m only slightly terrified, it’s a situation I’m actually happy to comply with since it’s the perfect opportunity to get on with some serious writing. I’ve been muddling over the dilemma of working on The Secret Diary without the ability to save to computer for some time. Although the solution may seem blatantly obvious it’s been more or less a problem of aquisition rather than execution.

I’ve finally assembled my writing kit. It isn’t anything elaborate but it will enable me to get a few words down in the time I have trundling along to the city (my trip is comparatively short to that of one of my fellow writers). I’ve bought an exercise book with a hard cover for sturdiness (this also helps as it’s something to lean on), a new pen (and that alone can be enough to get me writing, just for the feel of it) and a highlighter. I’ll add a small thesaurus somewhere along the line, but it’s certainly not essential.

As the materials suggest, I’ll be writing long hand with the intent of transposing to my home computer later. Not a new concept for me since it’s how I started out writing, but I take pride in knowing it’s a leaf out of Philip Pullman’s book – no pun intended. Once happy, because I tend to edit during that phase, I will print out copies to edit even more. As much as I would dearly love to get my hands on a Notebook, for the moment this is the best way for me to at least get on with writing.

I also see this as good reading time and although it can be tempting to use it for just that purpose exclusively I feel it’s essential that I get stuck into the writing. It’s been three months since I started my new job and my writing has suffered substantially. I’m going to have to get back into books aimed at my target audience since the plot has changed and the result of that is an older age level for my novel. Even so, I enjoy YA fiction so it won’t be any great sacrifice.

Write! said Fred

Several weeks ago I started a new job which has taken a good deal of writing time away. When I worked from home I was able to slip in a few hours here and there but now that I work elsewhere, my home time is spent catching up on everything I was able to do whenever I felt like it – washing, cleaning etc.

However, due to the funny hours I work – I start at 4.30am three mornings a week – I find I have a few spare moments where I can write rather than stare out into space. So although I haven’t completely abandoned The Secret Diary it’s just too big a project to even contemplate tackling at work. Instead I’m satisfying my hunger for writing by indulging my other writing fetish – short stories.

I adore short stories. Short, sharp, precise. Perfect. So I’ve got one going that is shaping up into quite a fun little project. I don’t have a title yet, nor a real plan. The idea was simply to get myself writing again and that’s what it’s achieved. I’m being excruciatingly careful about when I write and where it’s written, but a writer must write and that is what I intend to do.

The Horror of History

The Secret Diary has evolved with a rather sharp and unexpected twist. The idea occurred to me as I was mulling over the editing and wondering how to give it a little more punch.

Of course, this has lead to more research and the things I am discovering have definitely touched a nerve. I find it incredible that society dragged everyday people through all manner of traumatic experiences just to save face. Whose face I ask you?! Everyone worried about what everyone else thought and so those caught in the middle were made to feel isolated, alone and ashamed and in most cases literally were. The governing factors of this were doctors, churches and in most cases the victim’s actual family. I can not imagine how a mother can turn her back on her own daughter when she is most in need of her support. The very idea abhors me and yet it was done. Of course, I do understand that said mother, might not have had a choice but to shun her own flesh and blood due to the pressures placed on herself.

I realise ideals were very different back then – mind you, we’re talking only a few decades ago – but I would think a parent’s love for their child is no different to the love a parent has these days.

The historical side for my story is not a big part but it is a crucial one and one I hope to write as authentically as possible. There’s still a lot I’ve yet to find out, but I can honestly say that this part of Australian history is one we can definitely not be proud of.

Finding the Voice

My MC is a fifteen year old city girl who has moved to the country. Not unbelieveable, hardly original, but down right difficult when you consider they way a fifteen year old girl talks nowadays. Very different from fifteen or so years ago. At the moment she’s caught between several decades of cliches, expressions and extremely out of date sayings. Poor love. I partially did this so that I knew what I wanted to say but would later find a more appropriate, ie. modern, way to say it.

At one point I have her starting to say the expression ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’. Although I’m sure there are more than enough teens out there who know or may have even heard the expression, I could almost guarantee that none of them would ever actually use it. My entire story is riddled with them but they will have served their purpose when I go through and change them all.

So I find myself having to find out how today’s teens talk. I’m sure I could eavesdrop but I want to make it to my next birthday. Needless to say, I’ll have to venture forth into cyber space (Am I showing my age?) and find sites that are loaded with teens so I can get an idea of how they sound.

Can anyone recommend some sites for this old fogey to visit?

Making the Change

My original story was in the format of a diary. I now know that I can’t write a story in this way as it didn’t come naturally. I don’t care if this is not the format for me, I’m not going to make myself learn, it’s something I know I’m not comfortable doing so why stress myself trying to do it? I’m going back to good old regular narrative, but my MC will remain in the first person.

I had thirty one entries as a diary. I’ve listed these in a spread sheet and I now have roughly twenty one chapters. This too, may or may not change since I have new scenes to implement and a new climax to also figure out. Instead of the ‘aha’ moment I’ll have more of a ‘dun, nun, nun, nah’ scene.

In Microsoft Word I started a list of these chapters with a bullet point summary of each scene – a basic idea of what’s to happen. This will help me figure out where the new scenes need to go as well as keep tabs on where everything happens during the story. Then, when all my chapters are in place and eveything that’s to happen in them is sorted, I’ll go back to my last draft and start changing over the narrative and dialogue to reflect my new format. As I mentioned in a previous post, most of my story is already in a narrative style so hopefully this won’t take too long.

Once I’m happy with this latest draft I’ll enlist beta reader/s to go over and see how it flows from there.

Research, a Writer’s Foundations

Having The Secret Diary back from assessment, along with all its invaluable comments, it has become abundantly clear that it requires more research. I’m dealing with issues that happened decades ago so it comes with the territory that I need to find out certain aspects to make my story realistic. Something I took for granted but have otherwise found to not be a very good idea. I also need to do a lot more reading in the ways of today’s teenager.

I’m happy to leave out my indecision – the quirk – since it doesn’t appear to be required. That in itself is a good thing in that I don’t have to stress about putting in details after the fact. I do still need to do a complete rewrite as it’s not reading the way I intended. That’s ok too, because I had in fact been writing it – unknowingly, mind – the way I’m planning on changing it, so it won’t cause a great upheaval.

I’ve been researching a great deal for Devil’s Advocate and I’ve found that even the smallest detail – a single sentence – needs to be thoroughly investigated to maintain authenticity. This story is also dealing with past events and I don’t want the story to fall down simply because I failed to find out an actual fact. Thank heavens for the internet. Mind you, I will also be turning to books since not everything is available online, as I’ve frustratingly found out.

Devil’s Advocate

I have just seconds ago sent The Secret Diary to receive a much needed assessment. This will give it the guidance I require to see it through to final completion. It will also affect the direction that furture stories under this series takes. The word count for it stands at 46355, which is still a bit off the mark, but I’m happy nonetheless.

With The Secret Diary on its way I can now turn to the planning and writing of the next book, Devil’s Advocate. I’m quite excited about this one as it sees characters previously introduced coming into their own and there’s one I’m champing at the bit to write about. She’ll take a fair bit of research but I know it’ll be a fun and quite rewarding process.

So I’ll whip out my trusty exercise book – I’ve got a new green one – and start on the journey that will hopefully see another manuscript finished in the coming months. I’m going to start with an outline and make sure the story line is sound. I’ll then begin on my spreadsheet with the list of events. I might even spoil myself with a passage of writing or two.

Even though The Secret Diary is far from finished I feel confident to start the next one as it’ll be either complete rewrite or just a tidy up when it returns and I don’t want my keyboard to cool just yet.

The Prospect of Starting Over

I know this is a situation that has effected a lot of writers and authors as they’ve perfected their craft and worked on their stories, but it’s a situation I’m now facing and I have to say that even though I know I’ve got a long road a head of me, the disappointment only lasted the briefest of moments.

I started my original draft of The Secret Diary in November and tomorrow would see me three months and four drafts into the project. I suppose the obvious question is, am I comfortable with having spent all that time on something I have to start over? Well, in a word, yes. Without all that work I wouldn’t be here, in fact I’d probably still be fluffing about; not having a serious project to concentrate on.

I could, perhaps, blame my daughter, who at the humble age of ten, sparked an idea that would see my story change in its entirety and more than likely for the better. But then too, it was I who asked her the innocent enough question. As I’ve said in previous posts, I felt the need for a quirk in my story. Something different, obscure perhaps, but something to make it stand out from the crowd a little more.

And I think this new idea has the potential to do just that. Of course I gave my daughter a bit of a fright when I went all crazy with excitement over it, but her smile was a mile wide when she realised how happy she’d made Mummy.

So although the prospect of starting over is a little daunting, not everything I have so far will go to waste and I can get stuck into one of my favourites parts about writing – reading.