Back from vacation

So, I take a week or so off from work, writing, the Net, and return to find things sadly changed in blogland. Miss Snark has signed off. I read her good-bye posts after she'd disabled commenting on the blog so I couldn't say a proper thank-you for all she's done for the world of wannabe writers. I'm not yet at the query stage, though I'm about to start revisions on my first project, but I've learned an immeasurable amount about the publishing industry, the query process, etc. that I will undoubtedly carry with me as I draft my first query letters.

She's done a great service to a huge number of people. She's given a generation's worth of author-hopefuls the tools we need to stand out from the crowd of nitwits around us. I'm sure she'll never read this but it's my thank-you to her for the time she invested in helping out the little people ;) Tis sad, but I wish her well.

Happy Mother's Day from the U.S. Army

My 20-year-old brother is a corporal with the U.S. Army based in Georgia. We've known for a while that he was going to ship out to Iraq sometime in May (for his second tour); they just didn't tell anyone exactly what date it was going to be.

Well, my mother and stepmother got a great Mother's Day gift. Saturday night my brother made the rounds via telephone to tell us all that he was shipping out on Sunday.

Yes, that's right. Mother's Day.

The Army felt the need to ship out troops on Mother's Day.

Now, maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion but I don't really think so. This is hard enough on families as it is, having our sons/daughters/brothers/sisters shipped overseas and wondering if we're ever going to see them again. They have to send them out on Mother's Day?

That's like a slap in the face to all the mothers watching their children go overseas. There are mothers whose kids left on Mother's Day who will not see them again; it's inevitable. We all pray that it won't be our loved ones but there will be kids who shipped out on Sunday who don't make it home. And that is what those mothers will have as their Mother's Day gift.

This isn't to say that those whose family members shipped out on any other day don't have it just as hard ... it's just the symbolism of the thing.

They had to ship them out on Mother's Day?

Crafting a character, part 2

So, going back to Friday's (I know I said I'd post this on Saturday... whoops) post for a second, the way I described those characters is what I meant by the narrative approach. It's the only way I can get anywhere with my characters, get an understanding of who they are and what's up with them, before I start writing the story. Those were lists in and of themselves, of course, but they were lists of the characters' experiences, the biggest events of their lives that made them who they came to be.

It's all well and good to say someone is quiet and reserved, or angry at the world, or very shy and jumps at his own shadow. To me, that's what that second method I mentioned, the sort of outline thing that I talked about, does. It lists attributes but it doesn't get into why they're like that. You certainly can take that approach with the list but it doesn't lend itself to it. You know?

Until we know why a character is quiet or angry or shy or easily frightened, we don't really know much about that character, do we? Maybe the quiet character was one of ten kids and just craved quiet as a child. Maybe she was yelled at every time she opened her mouth. Maybe the angry one lost both parents as a teenager. Maybe he poured everything he had into a business that just collapsed. Maybe the shy one was an acne-prone dork as a high-schooler. Maybe she... I dunno, but you get the picture. Writing a character description in terms of the character's life experiences is a great jump start, in my opinion, to get you thinking about the person your character has come to be.

I think character flaws are more likely to come out that way, too. We can see the places they haven't necessarily dealt with the events of their lives, the problems they've faced. We can see how they might have chosen to deal with those events in less than productive ways. What if Wedge, from my example the other day, had chosen to join his parents and put himself out of his misery? What if he'd chosen to drink away his problems? He'd be a very different character and the events that occurred surrounding him in Star Wars would have been very different as well. If they happened at all.

I really struggle with creating flaws for my characters but I've managed to come up with some very quickly for the book I'm plotting out right now (different than the one I've been writing for a few weeks) using this approach. Creating backgrounds for my characters amuses me and is, for me at least, a great tool. It doesn't mean I know everything there is to know about my characters before I type "-1-" at the top of my first chapter. But it gets me going, gets me thinking and gives me a direction to go.

What approach do the rest of you take? Has anyone else used the way I use?

Crafting a character, part 1

Okay, I've broken this up into two pieces because it was getting quite long.

There are a lot of different approaches to creating characters. There's the figure it out as you go along method, by which you more or less just write and the character unfolds and flourishes along with the story. There are the character sheets I've seen (in several different incarnations) with which you go through and give your character eye color, hair color, complexion, favorite book, most prized possession, education, profession, etc. Then there's a narrative approach, whereby you write as if doing a short bio of your character and see what you come up with. I'm sure there are more that I haven't heard of, other ways people use or combinations of the above. But for argument's sake ...

I've tried all three. I, personally, hate the first one because I like to have an understanding of my character before I jump in and this doesn't give me one. I feel lost, like I'm not developing my characters enough. Granted, by the time revision rolls around, I'm much more familiar and able to work in characterization better on the second time through. But still... it makes me feel lost.

The second one bores me. It's a good idea, in a way, because it gets you picturing your character, trying to come up with things about them to help you answer those questions. But usually when I'm doing that I don't have a clue what Mary's favorite book might be or what Chris's hobby is. And so I get bored and it's a sort of "green eyes--check. high cheekbones--check. skip that, skip that, I dunno, skip that too" list and then I give up and resume the seat-of-my-pants approach, so I'm back to step one.

I like the narrative bit. If you point to my favorite characters in a TV show or movie or book series, chances are that it won't take me long to tell you why I like them and chances are that it has to do with the fact that they are incredibly damaged. For instance:

Trent Malloy from Sons of Thunder and Walker, Texas Ranger. He's an ex-Army Special Forces hand-to-hand instructor. Dropped out of seminary to join the Army, fought with his father, never made up with his dad before his dad died, and then has to apply for a hardship discharge to help his mother pay the bills. Not only that, but when he was a kid, he was holding the gun that accidentally killed his younger brother/buddy (not quite clear). As a result, he refuses to touch a gun again, despite the fact that there's not a whole lot other than law enforcement that he's qualified to do. Becomes a PI but still will not arm himself and almost dies because of it.

Very interesting, very damaged, very lovable boy. And cute, too! Fangirlish moments aside... you can see throughout the series the ways in which is problems with his father impact him. And the unwillingness to carry a gun and all that goes along with that -- stubbornness, an almost death-wish mentality at times -- is ever-present and is just a huge part of the character.

Here's another.

Wedge Antilles from Star Wars. He was a family kid, really, helped his parents in their family-owned business. That was all he ever dreamed of. And then they were killed by space pirates. And this kid, this 15-year-old (I think he was 15; age escapes me at the moment), went off after the pirates and killed them. Cold-blooded revenge. And I wouldn't blame him a bit. He went on to become a galaxy-renowned hero but still a relatively simple man who wanted nothing more than to fly his fighter. He didn't want glory and recognition and public appearances. He wanted to make things right in the universe and if he stepped on a few toes on the way, so what. All owing to his roots.

Same thing. Wedge's case is particularly interesting to me because we have two very explicit characteristics almost juxtaposed against each other. Here is a man who will go out of his way, sacrifice everything he has to do the right thing. And yet he's a cold-blooded murderer. And you can see that his willingness to sacrifice everything comes from what he's experienced. He has a need for justice that drives him to the ends of the galaxy. It dictates everything he does and it paints his actions, for the reader (this is all explored more in the Star Wars books than in the movie) in a very different light. And it makes him a very, very 3-dimensional character.

Tomorrow's post will tell y'all where I was going with this...

The Giver

I just read that Lois Lowry has sold film rights to The Giver. This was pretty much my favorite book when I was a kid and I think it will make a fantastic movie. IMDB has it as in-production and slated for 2007, but no cast list or anything. So cool.

The value of an agent

The Rejecter responded to a question from someone looking for a way to publish without having an agent, and the comments sparked a couple remarks about the value of agents and why (and whether) they're worth their 15%. Yeah, I suppose it kind of sucks sometimes to think that if you're going to get $10,000 for your book, you're only going to see $8,500 of that--not counting taxes. But I have to say, even as an unpublished author, I think it's more than worth it.

I wouldn't want to try to get published on my own. I don't like the idea of trying to find my way around the industry alone. I wouldn't want to try to decipher a contract or look at a royalty statement or plan my career without the help of someone who actually knows what they're talking about. I want someone there who can answer my questions, give me feedback on an idea before I write the book, give me advice from the perspective of someone in the industry. I want someone there whose job it is to guide me through, to know what has to be done and to do it, because they know how to.

I want someone who's going to help me out. Who knows what to look for in a contract and knows the ways publishing companies try to gear the contracts toward their own interests more than the writers' interests. Because, let's face it, this is a business and people are in it to make the most for themselves--even those legit publishers, the big guys, want to get the best bang for their buck and that's not always in the writer's best interest. An agent knows that.

An agent has the contacts. Knows what the book might be worth. Knows how to play the game. And, though this is coming from someone who hasn't even dealt with an agent, I'd much prefer to have someone who knows who to talk to and how to get things done in my corner, even if it means paying 15%. Gladly.

Reading as a writer

I used to love to read. When I was in middle school I would take books out of the library in stacks of ten or fifteen. (I lived in a small town and our library had no limits on borrowing, not like some of the bigger ones in other places I've lived.) I read constantly. I made friends at my earliest jobs because I was always sitting in the breakroom or office with a book. I spent lunch, breaks between classes, all my free time at home reading. Then I kind of overdosed on all the assigned reading, books that didn't interest me, in high school and college and lost touch with why I loved to read to begin with. And it's only recently that I've rediscovered it.

Part of why I got back into reading was because I told myself that if I want to write, I need to read. Especially once I started writing young adult and realized I was completely out of touch with what was being published in young adult fiction. And lately I'm just craving a book to read. I've read four books in the last month -- which, given that I have a full-time day job and spend a lot of my time researching, reading blogs, looking at agents, and writing -- is an accomplishment for me.

I started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone a couple weeks ago. I've seen a couple of the movies but until I rediscovered why I love to read I had no interest in reading the books. Just didn't, for whatever reason. And it's not that I'm not into fantasy because I am. I grew up on Star Wars (call it what you want but I consider it a mix of sci fi and fantasy with a little bit of every other genre thrown in). I adore The Lord of the Rings films (though I have not yet read the books) and I love the thought of magic and witches and wizards and all that stuff. One of my dreams is to write an epic fantasy and I have all these ideas dancing in my head, though I don't feel I'm accomplished enough as a writer in general (and by accomplished I don't mean published; I just mean experienced enough with creating scenes and situations and characters of my own) to attempt it.

Okay, that was a massive tangent. The point I was heading towards was that, as I read the first few chapters of Sorcerer's Stone, I couldn't help but zone in on all the instances of passive voice, the list-like descriptions of characters, etc., in the book. Writing my own work has affected how I read. And even though, as a writer now, I feel like I'm much more forgiving of typos and little errors here and there (even though I'm still in the writing phase I feel like I have a fair grasp of what actually goes into getting a book on the shelves), I notice all these things more.

Not to say Rowling's writing is bad or anything. Her ability to tell a story, to create this world, astounds me. But the things that we, as novice writers, are told to avoid just jump off the page at me now. It makes me wonder what I'm going to notice when I sit down to edit my first draft. (Yikes!)

Enthusiasm

I was feeling kind of listless this weekend. I've missed three writing days this week, mainly due to the fact that I've been dragging myself out of bed at 5:20 a couple mornings (read: inhumanly early) to workout and promptly pass out on the couch by about 9 p.m. before I get my writing time in. I wasn't that inspired by my book for some reason and last night really struggled to make my daily goal. I'm still ahead of where I'd planned to be by this time but not by as much as I'd like to be. (Yes, currently, I measure my writing success by how far ahead of my goal I am. Writing to my goal? Bah. I may as well just extend my goal. But I don't. Why, I don't know.)

But this morning, for some reason, my enthusiasm has returned. Couldn't tell you why. Don't have a clue. But now I'm raring to go, just waiting to put my protagonist into deadly peril. Because it's fun to endanger fictional characters and see what they come up with to get themselves out of tough situations.

I wonder if all authors have those times where they don't feel like so much as looking at their text, never mind writing it, and then others where they can't get the story out of their head and just want to write, write, write. I bet they do.

Really, this is just a rambling post without much point to it, but it was just reassuring to me to see my enthusiasm for the story come back on its own. Had me a little worried there for a while ...

Also, random thought of the day: it's very cool to see animals with their natural maternal instinct. I got to see the kittens at my mom's place this weekend. Two weeks old. Momma cat watched us very closely to ensure we didn't hurt her babies. So cute!

Plotting

There seems to be an everlasting ... discourse on how people approach writing. Some fly completely by the seat of their pants with only the barest sketch of where the book is going to go -- or nothing but an idea. Some spend weeks writing a complete, detailed outline to guide them through the writing process. Some write linearly, everything in order, and some write whichever scenes their muses take them to in whichever order they happen to pop up.

I wonder if the people who swear by one particular approach have been doing it that way from day 1 or if they've grown into it over time. Because I don't have a particular method yet. Everything I write, I approach differently and my method is usually some mish-mash of everything.

There are times I start out with an outline. Then I get bored after I've reached chapter 4 (and mind you, my outline is the barest of bare: "opening scene is Sue being stalked through the cave by the mystery man. second scene is Greg in class.") and just start writing. With the book I just finished the rough draft of, I had no idea who the killer was or what their motivation might be until I was halfway through. And even once I had a killer, I changed it twice in the span of a week.

For my current book, though -- the one that was teasing me oh so much -- I had a pretty good idea of what was going on before I got started. I felt like I have an adequate grasp of the main character, at least. I knew the impetus for the novel and the underlying plot; I know what the protag is going to discover when she starts digging. I know who the supporting characters are -- bare-bones, at least -- and the basic roles they're going to play. I don't know the exact ending but I know where it's supposed to go. This is new for me.

I wonder if this will be my approach from now on. Perhaps limiting myself to planning a new book while I'm still writing a previous one will be good for my plotting and help me grasp my stories better before I start writing them.

So far, I'm sticking to the plan. But I'm only a couple chapters in and throwing all my plotting out the nearest window is definitely not outside the realm of possibility.

I'll keep you posted.

The new age of banned books

Maureen Johnson, a popular young adult author who I haven't read but now certainly will, has gone and gotten one of her books banned from a high school library. The book in question, The Bermudez Triangle, is an examination of how friendships change when friends begin to date. The apparently problem with the book is that the couple in question is a lesbian couple -- which, according to Maureen, is really not the focus of the book.

Don't people realize that banning a book, in any form, just drives interest in the book? God forbid we let kids think for themselves and learn to formulate their own opinions.

Maureen's blog post includes the comments made by a parent that got the book banned and how she plans to respond. I applaud her.

A blank slate

My blog name was stolen from the Hemingway quote I have at the top of the page. And I've adopted that quote because I think, ultimately, it's true for most writers. It's much easier, I think, to write when there's already something started on the page in front of you.

I forced myself to take a couple days off from writing after I wrapped up the Twins draft. But the whole time I just wanted to sit down and start writing this story that's been in my head for the last few weeks, beating me with whatever blunt objects it could get its little hands on.

I'm a few thousand words in but it's still, really, a new story. A blank slate, so to speak, even though it's got a few things scribbled on it. I'm getting to play with new friends, get a feel for who they are; only one of my major characters has been introduced so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to bring the next one center stage.

I haven't written myself into any corners yet; everything is going as planned (which, you know, means it's only a matter of time before something blows up in a big way). But I don't have a lot to work with anymore. Writing is about creating, that's true, but there's a big difference between being halfway through a story, having the characters and the groundwork and all that laid out before you, and being close to the beginning with everything still to unfold. It's intimidating, to start over with the new and unfamiliar.

But it's so much fun.