Killing Off Characters

It has always been a monumental part of plot. I've done this myself, quite a few times. Now, you should be growing used to my over-thinking and over-analyzing. So today while I was baking cookies I began to wonder, Do we kill off characters because it's realy essential to the plot? Because we hate this character we've created? To mess with the reader's mind? Or just because we love that we can? 

And then – again, a result of having too much time on my hands – I went over a big portion of the books I've read recently and made a tab. Least I can figure, there's a death in every one, or very close to it, anyway. Death is a big part of our lives, yes, so is this what makes us tip our all-powerful typing hands?

How many of you have killed off a character? Was it a character you loved? Why did you do it? Just curious. I've examined my own reasons and I come to this conclusion: I kill off beautiful men. Why? Because I'm all about the drama. Which seems odd, right, because I'm always hosting a campaign against drama? Maybe writing is my outlet. I stay away from drama in real life but when it comes to my stories, I let it all out.

Or maybe I'm just bitter against beautiful men! Eh. Too deep for me as of right now.

Have a great week, guys.

WEDNESDAY NEEDS ADVISING.

Hey, I have no idea what I'm doing! 

I thought I was editing SPY CHICK. I mean, I am. Or was. Or something. I plotted out the first third of the book and started rewriting and got through the first couple of chapters and...

here's the thing: I have no idea what I'm doing. There are huge gaps of things I DON'T KNOW about this book. In the first draft it was fine because I was all LALALA FIRST DRAFT WHO CARES IF IT SUCKS!!!??? and just went type-type-type even when I hated it and had no idea where I was going.

Except, now that draft is over. And it's different because this is the editing process and I'd like to know more than I do. In the past there've been a few book ideas I've had that I haven't been able to write for years (yes, years) because that's how long it took me to figure out how to tell the story and what the story really was. I'm starting to think this might be one of those books and I might be better of just putting it on the back burner because it's not as if I don't have a zillion other stories I could be working on.

So, I need your advice. Should I set SPY CHICK on the back burner and try to think through all the things I don't know (her past, who the love interest is, whether a main character is good or evil, etc etc etc) while I work on other things? Or should I just struggle through a second draft that might not be any better than the first draft? (Honestly, right now I'm leaning towards the first thing.) (And this isn't a case of me not knowing how to revise... it's this book in specific I'm having trouble with, not revising in general.)

SO HALP ME, PLEASE!!!??? What would you do in this situation? Have you encountered it before? Do you have words o wisdom??

Dialogue is awesome

Someone probably has mentioned dialogue already (if you did, sorry, guys!). I’ve been thinking about my writing style lately, though, and how my stories are incredibly character-driven. In Rain, the plot was pretty much secondary to the characters. In the story I’m writing with my friend Aud, the characters are absolutely the central focus. (However, in my newest story, they’re about equal. But anyway.)

In the aforementioned story-I’m-writing-with-Aud, there’s this exchange of dialogue...

“You should wear mascara,” I say, almost absentmindedly. I’ve said it before.
“I abstain for the greater good,” Nora returns. “The public just couldn’t handle it. Mascara and rectangle glasses, it’s a deadly combination.”

Just from this the reader has a sense of Nora’s character. There are some physical details that pop up; Nora wears rectangle glasses and probably has very pretty eyes, but light eyelashes. Also, Nora is witty and on the sarcastic side. In addition, there’s an idea of her relationship with the narrator—they’ve known each other for a while, probably are good friends, and are used to bantering.

That’s just one example of how awesome dialogue/dialogue tags/any conversation between characters can be. It’s generally showing-not-telling, giving a lot of information about characters--the best part!--and it’s more fun to read, anyway.

Kieryn
www.kierynnicolas.com

Harmony Switches to MG and Attempts to Write a Book in 5 Days

As I mentioned earlier, I write YA and my two WIPs are YA. But, neither of them have really been going anywhere lately, mostly because I haven't spent much time on them, but when a new idea that just happens to be MG (middle-grade) popped into my head last week, I said, why not?

One thing I've learned about my writing style is that when I start writing a book, I have to WRITE it. I can't start writing it and then get busy and not work on it for a few days or weeks because it'll never go anywhere.

So I've come up with a crazy plan. A crazy plan that I'm probably going to fail at. But that's okay.

I'm going to start and finish the book in 5 days. Aka Monday through Friday. Since it's MG, I'm going to aim for 25k by the end of the week. That's pretty much the lowest possible acceptable MG word count but I'm also one of those writers that adds a LOT in the rewrites so I figure it's a pretty good goal.

That ends up being about 5k a day. Crazy, yes. Possible, I hope so.

Keep in mind that I cyber-school, so I'm not in school for 8 hours a day and I have the ability to work ahead on my lessons, which I did. There are a few days where I'll have to put in an hour or two of school work in the morning and I do have a few hour-long classes during the week but for the most part, I'll be able to write from about 8:30 until 3:30. Of course, I'm going to schedule in a few breaks and lunch because it's impossible for me to sit still that long.

I'm a little anxious to get started (I'm writing this Sunday afternoon) so I'm going to spend some time today outlining and brainstorming so I hopefully don't get stuck. This is definitely going to be an adventure!

Harmony
(P.S. I'll be blogging about my process every evening at my review blog.)

Saturday Worries

Or: A glimpse into Saturday’s psyche

If there’s one thing we as writers do very well, it’s worry. Well, and procrastinate. (Facebook games, anyone?) But worrying is right up there, too.

I sometimes joke that I have a “list” of worries. While this isn’t quite true, there are a lot of things that I worry about in the back of my head. I worry that I won’t ever get an agent (even though I’m not even querying yet). I worry that if I do get an agent, I won’t get published.

I worry that if I get published, people won’t like or understand my characters, that they won’t buy the book, that (if it’s le WIP1 that gets out into the world) a certain character will be bashed, that my old high school/library will ask me to speak or something. (No, seriously, this terrifies me. I hated the high school I went to and I work at the library.)

I worry that people won’t like me.

Since I semi-like le WIP1 and I have friends who have told me they like it, I worry that WIP2 won’t be as good. I worry horribly that it’s not any good (even though I tell myself revising is a very good thing). I worry that my voice won't sound any different from project to project, that I'll just be writing the same voice over and over again.

I worry about all these things and many, many (many) more, but I don't believe I'll ever let myself stop writing, or stop trying to get my work out there in one way or another. I pretty much constantly have someone "talking" in my head, and I don't know how not to write.

So I don't let these worries get to me too much. (Some amount is good, I think, because it keeps you from getting a big head.) And I keep writing.

What are some of your biggest worries? What do you do to handle them?

Peace and cookies,
Laina

Description

When I was first starting to write, I would send some of my writing to one of my older friends, Megan, who I met through an online book club. I eventually called her my "writing teacher" because she'd always give me prompts and help me open my eyes to the bigger picture. Especially with descriptions.

When I think about a scene, I think about what the characters are doing. How they interact with each other, their vulnerabilities and their personalities and their wit or depth. That's usually always what springs to my mind first. I love characters.

But something else that's important - very, very important - are what the characters are doing. When you talk to a friend, you don't just stand there and talk. You bite your lip, take a sip of your drink, play with a pen, put your hair behind your ears, nod your head, smile, put a sweater on. People are animate. So it's important you not only know how your characters interact, but what they're doing and where they are.

One of the exercises Megan had me do was write a description about a room. Not just a general description, but include every facet of it. Obviously, a book with every facet of every room the characters are in would be very, very annoying. But take this picture for instance:

If I were to describe it, I could talk about the bed or the splotches of paint on the wall, looking like a kid on an acid trip blew a wad of paint bubbles. It looks like a kids' room definitely designed by an overzealous adult. This could be the room of a teenager who hasn't had the design changed since she was a toddler, right? I could just have my characters in a room sitting there talking, but I could bring that scene even more to life if I set a picture for the surroundings. If I plant them in this room - one playing with the

stuffed elephant, Ellie, on the bed; one drawing back the pink drapes and watching a thunderstorm while talking about her sister's sickness; the other sitting on the floor and flicking the abstract lamp on and off, absentmindedly listening - things get more interesting.

What I'm trying to say is, a setting needs characters and characters need a setting.

That room would just be a paint-spotted kid's room without characters to fill it with life. And those characters would just be people, not bringing their life into a setting that highlights their personality. Settings just making everything more...realistic. And making words seem like they're alive, with fictional characters becoming real, is one of the most beautiful things about writing.