5 Tips for Writing Descriptions

Today I got a question from a student in one of my writing classes about her characters. It wasn't about how to build them or how to make them unique. It was about how to describe them.  She had no idea where to start and it got me to thinking about how we place our characters into our stories.

How can you go about showing who they are without starting out with a long laundry list? You know that list -- you've seen it in book after book: he had brown hair, blue eyes, and a stocky build or she had blonde hair, bright green eyes and a body to kill for. One of my favorite authors (I won't mention who because she writes books that are bestsellers) but in every book the character description is the same starting with "she was a tall woman with....fill in the blanks, but it is always the same structure. Or you've seen that book where the author has the character stop in front of a mirror and examine her looks. That was the norm several years ago and writers used it so much it became a cliche.

Those options are there, but there have to be other ways too.

1. Try having another character describe your hero or heroine. Maybe the best friend admires your heroine's courage or maybe they discuss that attribute, plus others, in a conversation. This is a simple way to set the stage for what might be coming a little later. Or maybe the hero takes one look at the heroine and is drawn by her vibrant blue eyes--that tells the reader something about him and her at the same time.
 
2.  Have the character describe her/himself.  This works fine in a first person narrative.  I was always amused by how mystery author Sue Grafton would let Kinsey Milhone describe her carefree lifestyle and her lack of stylish concern.

3.  Compare characters. This can come from the character himself, comparing his strength on the football field or battle field to his chief rival, or having the heroine compare her physical strength with her sister who wouldn't be caught dead in a gym or on a soccer field.

4.  Try having the character lament the habits or looks they don't have. At the same time they can bring in the physique, looks or attributes they lack.  This can be very useful and fun if you are writing a lighthearted romance or your character is self deprecating at times.

5. Just do it! There are times when you have no choice but to be straight forward and just give the basic details. At times like that, just get it in there and get it completed so that you can move on. It might be in some of the small details as you start bringing your character to life in the first chapter or you might sneak it in as part of the opening action.

But remember, we do want to know what those look like. We want to know if she is taller than those around her and she is self conscious about it or if he is shorter than a the basketball players who tower around him as he takes them to task as their coach.

5 Tips to Vacation Writing

Earlier this summer I gave tips on summer writing and I've done some tips on writing when you're out of town or distracted, but now is the height of summer vacation. How can you keep your writing groove on when faced with trips, tours or just sitting on the beach or up in the mountains and relaxing. Who wants to put your nose to the grindstone when you can be playing or visiting with friends or relatives? Well, yes, you can put those trips to good use, very good use.

1. Make your trip count. Take that trip to some place you've always wanted to write about or some place you've read about that you've always wanted to visit. Visiting a new place always can foster new story ideas or new places to set your book.  Take that trip to Hawaii or Europe and use the location, but summer vacation can be a great time to get in some writing while you are sitting at the beach and soaking in the sun. Take a trip to the beach at sunset and enjoy the last rays of the day, or sit in an outdoor cafe and observe the people and listen to the special sounds of that particular place. Because let's face it, whenever your are on the road, you should....

2. Observe your particular location. When I say observe, think about how you would describe it as

you are writing a story. Or better yet, write a travel story about it. Whenever I go to a new place I immediately go through all the information at the hotel to see any local tourist destinations, but I also look for those different little places. Ask around in the hotel coffee shop or the cab or Uber driver about any interesting but not tourist-y place that you might visit. I also like to learn about local sports stars, historical figures or heroes,  to get a feel for the people from there and to get more ideas for characters.

3. Try those little dining spots that are not necessarily in the tourist guide books. Look for the local coffee shops in the neighborhoods or the small diners or ethnic food places. Try them out. It not only will enhance the vacation, but can also be good food for thought next time you are writing a book.

4.  Talk to the local people. Pick up on any local accents, the way people dress,  even the items on the local menus. When I was travelling across the country with my family we made it a rule that we were going to eat whatever the local delicacies were. From Texas to Maine we enjoyed Mexican food and steak in Dallas, then Cajun in Louisiana, all the way up to crab in Baltimore and lobster in Maine.  We even had to stop by in Hershey, Pa and buy chocolate.

5. Keep a travel notebook and make good notes. And keep taking them, and updating and updating. When we went across country my mother started taking notes the minute we left Colorado and crossed over into Kansas. She had great notes on the farms of Kansas and even listed all the foods we had those first days. By the time we reached the East coast she had lots of blank pages and was trying to remember instead of instantly writing as she witnessed things.

So enjoy your summer vacation, but keep notes and pictures, and if you aren't a photographer, buy postcards. I began collecting postcards the minute I left home for college. I have cards from all 45 states I've visited -- from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the beaches of Hawaii and the glaciers of Alaska.

Enjoy your summer trip, and if you find yourself sitting and waiting at an airport or on a long plane ride, try some writing to fill the time. Or pick up a book by a new author or try reading in a new genre.

There's always lots you can do before getting back to work on your next book.

5 Tips for Getting Organized

Every time I need to take a break from writing I seem to find myself wanting to get organized. I find myself thinking that next time I'll do a better job of being organized and that will be the answer to everything. I'll get organized, I'll be able to think better. I'll be able to write better, and everything will just all into place.

Well, unfortunately there is no easy answer to getting the muse to work, but I do find that sometimes it pays to do some re-organizing. It can help.  So how do you re-organize yourself?

1. Start with your notes.  Do you keep story ideas written down on small slips of paper? Do you put them into notes on your phone? Do you tuck away story ideas for a later date?  Well, sometimes just organizing those notes and putting them all into one place can bring back an old idea or get you started on a  new project. Put them all into one place and then separate them every so often. You might find several that go together and can send you off in a certain direction.

2. Organize your work space.  I don't know about you but I find myself constantly losing just about everything I need. When you need that information on a certain time period or need to check a certain piece of grammar in your editing, you suddenly can't find the book that might have the answer.  My solution to that is to keep several editing and grammar books right on the desk next to my computer. When I was working in a newsroom, I always had a dictionary handy (in those old days we didn't have handy references built into our typewriters. I still like having the book to look things up.

3. Keep a notepad or notebook to write down things for later.  I keep things in a daily calendar notebook so I can not only see what I need to do today schedule wise but so I can also have it handy to refer back to it later.

4. Use your phone to take pictures. My sister keeps all her notes and projects on her phone.  If she needs to remember an article or even a recipe, she takes a picture of it so she can refer back to it later. I'm not sure that works for me because I would forget I have it, but that can work. Even in your writing it can work well.  For instance, if you're doing research in  a museum take pictures of the displays or even the reference material.

5. Take the time to organize.  Again, whenever things get too crazy,I know I need to just spend a day putting everything back in its place. Next month, things may go crazy again, but for a while I have them in place and know where to find them.  I regularly teach classes and often find myself suddenly needing certain writing books. I may keep them around me for the month of the class, but when it's over they go back on the shelf so they don't clutter things up too badly.

The key to all this is not to let the clutter get so out of hand that the job becomes overly time consuming. When I was working, I often had to share a desk with another news producer. It paid off because at the end of the day I had to clear out all my clutter so I could start fresh the next day. I still often do that at the end of the day or the end of a project.  Keep the clutter in line and you can succeed!

5 Tips to Increasing Your Word Count

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starts next week and that means a whole month of writing and trying to hit the magic count of 50,000 words.  I've signed up (as usual) and hope to again make that magic number and end up on November 30th with a new book.


Every year as NaNo rolls around I find myself trying to think of new ways to get myself in gear to make it happen. How can you get prepared for writing every day or at least every other day for a whole month? Well, here are five tips to think about or to try:


1. Just write. Don't worry about the word count or start checking back to see how many words you have written in the last hour. Be ready to just start writing. If you even have the semblance of a plot this is the week to start thinking about it.  Don't wait until the morning of November first to start considering what you are going to say. Be prepared to sit down at the keyboard and start hacking out the words.  How do you do that?


2. List plot points in advance. That is why I start thinking this week. I will make my list of scenes that I know will happen in the book. Sometimes they are out of order, but that can always be fixed in editing. Sometimes I simply list any scene that I know will go into the book so I have something to start with on the first day.


3.  Don't wait to get motivated. Again, on that morning of November first, don't expect your head to necessarily be ready.  You can hope it will be, but even if it isn't, just sit down and write.  Write whatever comes into your head. That's why it is critical to begin thinking in advance. At least have some sort of idea what you might want to say.


4.  Write about your character. If you don't have something preplanned then write a scene having your character do something that you know will have to happen in the story. Whether it is meeting the villain or the love of his or her life, write that scene and get yourself starter.


5.  Don't worry about order. Simply start writing.  Things can always be fixed, but you won't achieve your word count if you are checking every little detail. The words can be fixed. The scene can be changed, or added to. But it won't get done if there is nothing there.  As Nora Roberts says, "you can't edit a blank page.


So start thinking this week and get ready to go.  I'll be taking time from my own NaNo word count for the next month to bring you new ideas for making NaNoWriMo work for you.

5 Tips for Knowing When to Re-write

We all have to do it, even if we hate the thought of it--rewriting. Sometimes there is no way around it. Even the best plotted story can run into a roadblock, or the story written into the mist can hit a hall before you even know what is happening. Suddenly you  can't move forward. Suddenly the characters are not cooperating. We'll look at how to rewrite the story in coming weeks but for today let's look at how to figure out when you've hit a roadblock and there is no other way around it but to re-write.

1. The characters are not cooperating.  I listed that above, but that is a big way to realize that you are heading in the wrong direction. If they don't seem to work in the scenes you are writing, you may be taking them in the wrong direction. Look over what you wrote earlier, look over your character profiles, and look over the characters themselves.  If they aren't working, then you need to re-think where the plot is headed for these people. You may need to do a little re-writing that will send those characters back in the right direction.

2.  You just don't want to write. Sure, there can be many, many reasons for not being able to just sit at the keyboard and having the words flow. But often the problem is that you've hit a point in the plot where the story is going nowhere. You may need to read over your plot again to make certain that it is going where you want it. This might be a good time to re-evaluate your plot and whether it can work in the way you originally planned. It might be time to consider re-writing some of the earlier pages or planning changes in the plot.

3. The story is going in some totally foreign direction and you aren't sure why. Again, this may be

that your plot is not working. This is a good time to try re-writing a few pages and perhaps trying a new direction to see whether you like the re-write better than the original. If you do, then keep heading in that direction.

4. The villain is getting more important than the hero. This might be a function of not having the write characters in the right roles. Again, it might be time to make that hero stronger, or to change the direction of the villain. And if you're going to have a super-villain, great!  Just make certain you are setting up the story that way. That might mean a re-write of some of the earlier pages, but they might also be fun to write with this new bad guy.

5.  The motives are not coming through. Perhaps what you have your characters doing doesn't ring true. They wouldn't take those sort of risks for no reason. Perhaps you need to re-write those motives to make them stronger, or to make those changes in your characters to make them want something more. Motivation is a big factor for your characters' actions. You need to make them strong enough.

If you do find you have to do a re-write, don't despair. Next week, we'll look at how to make those re-writes work for you to come up with a stronger story.

5 Tips to Setting a Good Writing Habit

This past weekend I attended a workshop on setting habits, specifically how to set new writing habits.  Since I always seem to find ways to stray away from what I need to do when writing, listening to someone else’s ideas is always a good way to pull myself back into the chair and get busy.

Let’s face it – these days the computer can be our downfall even as it has made writing so much easier.  I recall sitting down with my manual typewriter – yes, an actual manual typewriter – and  working until my wrists grew tired. Then I rented an electric (Selectric) and before long that was my favorite. As soon as I could afford one, I bought it.  That lasted until I got my first computer.  And my first computer game.  Writing changed forever. Those games sucked away so much time. Later I got the internet and even more time was consumed.  I still spent every day at my desk, just not writing as much.

So now I find I need to return to the old things that worked.

1.       Write first thing in the morning.  This was one of the ideas we discussed at our habit session. If you make a habit of getting up and getting busy at your computer with writing for at least half an hour or an hour before you allow yourself to get online, you will get some work done.

2.      Use a timer.  If you are so anxious to get to that online news, or latest game, or facebook page, then set a timer. Try writing for half an hour with a clock ticking away. That can ease the anxiety, but also help you rack up some pages in the meantime.

3.      Don’t use a computer to write. Try writing in a notebook.  Our speaker, Harlequin author, Rogenna Brewer, told us some writers have returned to their old Alpha Smarts as a writing method. That way you are working directly into a writing program, but you don’t have the temptation of an internet icon tempting you.  She also mentioned that some people still use notebooks to write. Sometimes that can work.

4.      Get out of the office. Sometimes you get so used to writing in the same place that you still can’t break the bad habit of getting online. You stop to get coffee and the internet is sitting there tempting you. Take your laptop and go to a library or coffee shop.

5.      Do one of these things until regular writing becomes a habit again.  Check how much you want to write every day to get a full story written and then set that mark as your daily goal. Then start following whichever pattern works best for until your writing habits are set. No matter whether you write by the seat of your pants or with a carefully constructed outline, the key is to keep writing with whatever method works best for you.

She noted that many of us are working on several things as we write a book – besides the writing. We are also working on editing another book perhaps, while promoting a third. But take the time to set a good habit for writing the next one. That can not only keep you going, but can help you set up your career for the future.

 

  

5 Tips to Finish up the Old Writing Year

At the beginning of every new year I like to make a list of the things I hope to achieve in the new year in my writing journey. It only makes sense then, that at the end of every year I like to check back on the progress I've made or didn't make. Sometimes I like to look back at goals I set in prior years to make certain I am moving in the right direction.


So let's quickly look back: I did get at least one book published in the last year, Blues at 11, though I knew that was coming because it had been contracted, edited and proofed earlier. But two very good things also happened that allowed me to get two more works published. I participated in an anthology offered by The Heart of Denver Romance Writers, so I had yet another fiction work published. I also worked with my non-fiction writing collaborator Sue Viders on a new project, and as a result I am now also an independent published author as we started the "Let's Write a Story" series. The first book -- Seven Ways to Plot is now available at Amazon. It came out in November and that is a wonderful way to end the year.


So how do you check back on how you did this past year? What can you look to get done with just a few days left in the old year? Here are five tips to looking back at your past successes that can help you get ready to enjoy new success in the next year.


1. Don't shortchange yourself. Just as I celebrated the success of my publication on a book that I did know was coming out, don't pass up the chance give yourself a pat on the back for accomplishments that came in this past year that you had been working for or completed earlier.  That new work is now out there. Whether it's starting a new blog or finishing a short story that had been started earlier, enjoy the completion of that project.


2. Enjoy and celebrate the success you did achieve.  This past year when I hear about the Heart of Denver Writers working on a new anthology, I immediately remembered an old story idea I had wanted to write but never completed. All I really had was a germ of a thought and a first line. After that I was off and running and put my name up for consideration with my story idea. Don't overlook what you did accomplish this past year, no matter how small or large.


3.  Look for the little things or steps that you have taken. This past year I promised myself to get more written and that includes writing almost every day.  I have set up a chart similar to the one used in NaNoWriMo that shows how much I write every day. I also include editing time so I can see how much time I actually spend in the writing process. And yes, that includes blogging time!


4.  Look for new opportunities.  One thing I did this past year that really re-energized my writing was to volunteer.  While I have volunteered to work with my writing groups in the past this time around I volunteered to work with a group of women on a historical project.  The whole experience was invigorating to my writing. I had been bogged down on a story I'd started the previous year and what I found as I conducted research for this project was new enthusiasm for that old project. I'm ready to really get into finishing this year. I have new places to research that I had not thought of in the past and new ideas for the story itself born of the research I did for that volunteer project. I have already volunteered for their next big project!


5.  Look forward as well as looking back.  What were the things you wanted to get done last year that didn't get done? Maybe it's time to put them into the forefront or let them go for a new project.  Look for new ways to work on your story, whether it be a new way to research or a new story idea.


There are so many things to be done in preparation for the new year and next week I'll look at what you can do to set realistic goals for the new year.


Happy Writing!