So a friend of mine asked me the other day how I learned my characters without using an outline or doing those character sheets. I was puzzled. I really don't forget my characters eye colors, quirks, likes and dislikes. But they come up while I'm writing, so are stuck in my head well.

"Yes, but what about voice? Or how do you know how a character will react to certain things?"

Ha! And the answer found me. I write by what I call a dot-to-dot method. Usually my first scenes in a new WIP are scenes that contain conflict and are the major turning points in the book.

Put any person in a stressful situation and their true colors will shine through. You learn them well. Are they a coward? Strong willed, a fighter, determined. Do they give up easily? Can they keep their sense of humor under stress, or do they turn rabid?

I use the snowflake method to plan my books, but only use the first step which creates a short blurb. In this sense, I can create an entire book from one sentence. If you've never used it, I must say his method is amazing. Having the ability to tailor it to your own creativity is such a blessing.

But for me, turning points are written first and then all I have to do is work my way to each goal point.

We all know combining techniques is sometimes the best way to get things done. So, how do you learn your characters?

I used to worry that I'd never be able to love my new characters like I did the ones I was working on. I've since learned this is exactly like adding new kids to your family, or new friends to your life. There's always room for more and you love each one differently, but just as much.

I used to wonder how I'd ever write another book. My first book took me hours and hours to get the sentences just right, the descriptions so perfect. If I wrote another book, then I'd have to find a new way to describe these things. I've since learned different settings and plotlines have different things to look at, different smells, different sounds. And with a different character describing everything, then of course, they focus on what's important to them. Everyday, I find myself collecting and storing those millions of sights, sounds, and smells out there. It's turned out to be no problem.

I used to think that if I didn't spend forever on a sentence then it couldn't be good. I've since learned the best sentences and descriptions are usually the simplest ones.

I've traveled to the darkest corners of my memories and found it wasn't so bad after all.

I'll repeat once again what I've said so many times before. Writing isn't rocket science. It's when you let the world shroud you with those doubts that it gets hard.

Everybody has his or her own way of getting it done, and when you find yours, don't you dare let anybody tell you it's wrong.

Write from the middle, write from the end, start at the beginning, or simply jump all over. Write it all in dialogue before you add in the action and narration, write a perfect first draft, take three years to find the perfect opening. Write it in First, write it in Third, use present tense, or past. Take a page from Burger King and have it your way.

The only thing you can do wrong is give up.

My word of the day is ostentatious:
Pronunciation: -shs
Function: adjective
Date: 1673
: marked by or fond of conspicuous or vainglorious and sometimes pretentious display
synonym see SHOWY

My, but don't I know a few folks I could use this word for. lol

Definition from Merriam-Webster Unabridged Collegiate

This week as we work on our WIPs how many bits of stage action can we turn into good character driven internals?

Examples:

Any character with the normal narrative stage action: He narrowed his eyes.

Shannon character driven: If he narrowed his eyes at me one more time I was going to smack him upside his head.

Logan character driven: Now she was doing that squinty eye thing again.

Asku character driven: Were the narrowed eyes supposed to get her point across better?

Sarah character driven: It's hard to read a person's eyes when they narrow them like that. Likely though, he wasn't pleased with her.

Any character with normal narrative stage action: She stamped her foot.

Shannon character driven: Well, good God, if I hadn't seen her stamp her foot I'd have thought there was an earthquake.

Logan character driven: Not that he was looking for a flash of ankle or anything, but her skirt did jerk. She'd probably stamped her foot.

Asku character driven: Last time she stamped her foot like that, she kicked him afterwards. He'd best move back a pace.

Sarah character driven: Foot stamping was not at all lady like, but what did she care? She did it anyway.

Hmmm…how much more life can we bring to the page??

American vocabulary and some sometimes confused words:

Blond/Blonde— If she is blonde and he is blond then what are they? Blond and blonde are variant spellings according to Webster's. Loftily, some folks will inform you that blonde is to be used when referring to a female and if you don't do this you are plainly of the more stupid variety. Here's a bit of help. Use blond on everything if that's your preference. It's America and it's a free country. How do I do it? I use blond as an adjective and blonde as a noun. She is a blonde. She has blond hair.

Adapt, adopt: When you adapt something, you change it to suit a purpose, such as adapting a novel for a screenplay. When you adopt something, you take it as it is and make it your own.

Adverse, averse: Adverse means unfavorable. Adverse conditions cancelled our flight. Averse means reluctant. The students are averse to accepting the new dress code.

Aid, aide: To aid someone is to help them. The person who does the helping is called an aide.

Allude, refer: To allude to something is to speak of it without specifically mentioning it. To refer to something is to mention it directly.

Allusion, illusion, delusion: An allusion is an indirect reference, the past participle of the Latin alludere. To play with or jest. It's in the same family as allude. Her comments about the nasty incident were an allusion to the man's infidelity. Her comments about the nasty incident alluded to the man's infidelity. An illusion is a false idea or unreal image. Safety in numbers is an illusion. A delusion is a false belief, usually pathological. Suffering from the delusion that he would never cheat, she left him alone with the woman.

Complement, compliment: As a noun, complement means something which completes or perfects something else and as a verb to accompany or complete something else. The necklace was the perfect complement to the outfit. The gravy complemented the mashed potatoes. Compliment as a noun means something said in praise. Her compliment about his eyes pleased him. His compliment about her eyes embarrassed her.

Compose, comprise: Compose means to make up. The five teachers composed (made up) the faculty of the school . Comprise means to include. The school's faculty comprised(included) five teaches.

Nauseous, nauseated: If you are sick to your stomach then you're nauseated. What made you sick is nauseous. The rotten meat was nauseous. The rotten meat made me nauseated.

Got a headache. Will do more later. 

A good pacing for your entire book is so important. You want to make sure you have plenty of plot moving action, but of course, you need reader breathers too. If you use too much of both techniques you've overloaded your reader. Use too much fast paced action, bam, bam, bam, and you've left your readers feeling well sorta beat up, empty. Use too much slow-paced non-action and you've prolly made them nod off.

An easy way to check your pacing in a finished draft is to use highlighters in two separate colors.

With your yellow highlighter, highlight all of your action narrative and dialogue. Don't highlight any dialogue you've used as disguise info inserts. *g*

Next, use a light blue, or heck whatever color you want and highlight your non-action narrative and descriptions. How's your pacing overall?

Have you got it paced like you want it? Does it need a bit more work? Can you cut some of the narration or do you need to add more to the flow? Peaks and valleys, how does your range look?

What is fast paced?

Short sentences and short paragraphs.
Active voice sentences for action scenes.
Dialogue with a snappy quick exchange. (not info dump stuff)
Avoiding jerking back and forth between subplots that aren't pushing the story anywhere.
Action scenes with sharp verbs. (do the ed everywhere you can for your verbs.)

What is slow paced?
Non-action narrative—self reflection for the MC—and descriptions
Passive voice used in sentence construction.
Long sentences and long paragraphs.
Jumping from one subplot to another.

First this morning, please forgive me if I offended anyone on my last craft post. I was on a bit of a rant anyway, but not meaning to come across in any bad way. I should have tagged it as craft/rant.

Today's our first day back at school. The sun's not even out yet and I'm up and on my second cup of coffee! I haven't done that in a long time. I guess I was so exited I couldn't sleep. Truthfully, I forgot to turn my ceiling fan on the night before and woke up at 5a.m. hot, stuffy, and wide awake. I had to get up at six anyway.

My friend and I have been working on a section in her book. While I was reading over it, I felt something wasn't right, but wanted to think about what was wrong for a day or so. We discussed things again yesterday and finally figured out what it was.

Then on my way to the store yesterday, I was reminded of a roller coaster we went on this summer. The coaster was underground and with these eerie, but funny scenes here and there. Then everything went black. You dropped. You didn't see the drop coming, but there it was. And after the dip, you hung a quick right and before your heartbeat could slow, you dipped again. At the bottom of this dip was a gaping hole surrounded by fire. (fake fire, of course)

I thought how very much like what I'd suggested for her book this roller coaster was. We'd went down one dip in the book and began to level off for just a bit, giving us time to catch our breaths, slow our heartbeats. But this was a bit of her roller coaster I felt needed a double dip. No time to slow your heart rate. And since we hadn't seen the first dip coming then we only needed to hang a quick right and dip again. Funny thing is there's a hole of fire at the end of that dip too.

I've read so many books like this. I write my own this way. Not what is called a story arc, with an upward climb then a quick avalanche down the other side, but more like I build my own roller coaster, with dips, and turns along the way. Then I sit back and look over my little bit of entertainment, checking to see if I've provided the best thrills where they need to be.

Pronouns 1 in fiction writing:

I swear to you I have encountered these things in my writing.

Sometime during your writing career, you have heard or you will hear the next bit of advice. Any pronoun you use will reflect back to the last person or object spoken about. I'm gonna leave off on the object for now and talk about the person. This is simply not true in fiction writing. I'm sorry, but it's not. You can open your books you have at home and find this is not true yourself. Writing fiction stories is not and will never be like writing a formal report for work, college, or highschool. The rules change, they're flexed, and there are bigger needs involved. It's a bit more relaxed, actually.

Before I go further I just want to say that if you are riding that literal high horse today, you can slide on down at this moment. If you don't feel like doing this, then please pass us by.

Fiction is not literal. Not good fiction that is. One should stumble a bit; the characters should misunderstand each other a few times. This is what's called real people. (Btw, in the past two paragraphs, I've written one sentence fragment, and one passive sentence. I should be shot. Good thing fiction writing is not so formal.)

Pronouns have all these different uses and names. We have the subjective pronoun, which is the pronoun we use for the subject of the sentence. We then have the objective pronoun, which is used as the object of the sentence or the prepositional phrase. Then one must decide whether what you have is an indirect object or a direct object.

Next, we have possessive pronouns and those relative ones too. And at this moment if you're like me, your eyes just glazed over, a mental block went up, and you're groaning with a panic-stricken air about you…

If we were going to write us a fine, fat report or essay for Professor Gripes-a-Lot, then sure panic is allowed. We're not though, so we should be fine.

In fiction writing, we have this thing called context (aka: common sense). This means the word literal is gone from our vocabulary and what we need worry about is clarity. I know, just plug your ears to the ones still on their literal horse. If they pull out their pitchforks, let me know.

Why the heck should you care about the pronoun use? Well, because we saw Spot run and Dick chased after Spot and Jane fell on top of Dick. Then Spot slobbered all over Jane's toes and Dick thought Spot's slobber on Jane's toes was very funny. But Jane didn't so Jane slapped Dick and Dick fell onto Spot and squashed Spot's tongue. Jane hit Dick again. Dick said, "Stop that, Jane. That is not funny."

And that was in first grade. Now, we have common sense.

Objective pronouns within context:

Here's a place where we would be doing the Jane, Spot, Dick thing: Bill passed the plate to Bob. In this sentence we could use an objective pronoun and no one is going to be confused. Bill passed the plate to him.

If in the context of the story, we have two men talking and eating common sense would tell us to whom the plate was passed. It's doubtful Bill would pass a plate to himself. Ah, but what is that? That is called a reflexive pronoun and would be the correct pronoun to use if Bill passed a plate to himself. It would be incorrect to use the objective pronoun of him if Bill is passing the plate to himself. Therefore, it's apparent the rule of the pronoun taking the place of the last person mentioned is entirely wrong. Life does not work that way. Likewise, I would very much like to know how that action is accomplished. Does he pick up a plate, then hold it out from him, then pass it to his other hand? If he was going to do all this then wouldn't it be easier to just grab the plate?

Subjective pronouns in context:

Animals and the pronouns used for them. Oh, gah. There are things animals can't do. Like grab things, unless it's a monkey. They can't talk. Animals can't gently slide a finger down the girl's arm either. So if your male MC just slid off the back end of his donkey, then " he" can very well be used when he takes hold of your female MC's hand.

John slid off the back end of his donkey. He frowned, looking around him, then took hold of her hand. "Do you think they're in there?"

Context and common sense says the donkey can't do this. All will be clear on who is doing the hand grabbing, frowning, and talking. But for those that aren't clear on this and perhaps think the donkey used his teeth to grab hold of the female MC's hand, well, what a surprise they will have when the female MC doesn't scream out in pain. I'm quite sure they were holding their breaths over it too. Now they can relax. It wasn't the donkey. Come to think on it, did we even mention whether the donkey was a female or male? I also wonder whether anyone was wondering if the subjective use of the pronoun, "they" up there in those sentences was confusing and maybe the people wondering thought perhaps I was referring to the donkey, male MC, and female MC holding their breaths.

Here is a list of subjective pronouns in singular form: he, she, I, you, it. Here is a list of subjective pronouns in the plural form: we, you, they.

Most everyone I'm sure wasn't confused over the 'they'. This is because in context I'd defaulted they to anyone wondering. I had not established the male MC, female MC, or donkey as a group, nor had I referred to them as a "they" anytime before. The group established in that paragraph was anyone wondering. Your very intelligent mind will automatically tell you this.

Possessive pronoun usage and clarity:

Annabelle handed her red dress to Lisa. She slipped the red dress over her head.

These two sentences are pretty clear, but are they? If we go by the old rule of the pronoun picking up the last person mentioned then we know Lisa is the one slipping the dress over her head. Yet, sentence structure plays a big role in smoothness of reading. If in context, we knew Lisa had been standing around waiting for a dress then we could know for sure that's who is slipping the dress over her head. The answer is in the action…

Lisa snatched the dress from Annabelle's hand and slipped it over her head.

Who is doing the action? Lisa. In this sentence, all of the action is in Lisa's court. Lisa is our subject, snatching is our verb, from Annabelle's hand is a prepositional phrase, slipped is a whole new action verb, and over her head is another prepositional phrase. But if the sentence stands on its own, we can't be really sure whose head Lisa is slipping the dress over. To whom does that possessive pronoun belong?

Context:

Shivering, Lisa stood in her bra and panties. Annabelle said it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to grab a dress and make it back in here. It had been more than five already. (Through the context we have figured out Annabelle is nowhere around and we are gallivanting along in Lisa's head. Also, Lisa doesn't have any clothes on and she's cold.)

The doorknob turned and Annabelle strolled into the room. "Here it is! Sorry it took so long. I ran into Phillip in the hallway and he asked about you."

Lisa snatched the dress from Annabelle's hand and slipped it over her head. "I can't believe he dumped that whole bowl on me."

Ok, we had no need to resort to that very flat, Jane, Dick, and Spot routine in those first sentences> Annabelle handed her red dress to Lisa. She slipped the red dress over her head.

Common sense/context says Lisa will put the dress on her own head.

And pronouns have overstayed their welcome my head today. I will come back to this later.

This turned out a bit long. I've done a LJ cut.

Misplaced modifiers are nasty, sneaky little buggers. Find them, move them. If you're not sure what a misplaced modifier is or not sure if your sentence has one, google misplaced modifier. Help is out there.

An ing is a continuing verb. It is not passive writing. Passive is this: The beach was destroyed by the hurricane that blew through last night.

Active> The hurricane that blew through last night destroyed the beach.

Do add a bit of sophistication to your writing. Watch those sentences that begin with an ing or as and see if you might be able to reform them, make them sharper. Do not start out your sentences with an ing or as unless you are sure your characters can continue to do whatever while doing the rest. It's physically impossible to do this: Entering the room she chose a red t-shirt from her closet, a pair of khaki shorts from her dresser, and slipped both on. Technically you are saying she did all of this while at the same time taking that one step that landed her in the room. This is technical stuff and she can't do it all at one time. An ing is a continuing verb. If you have separate actions then separate them. She entered the room, chose a red t'shirt from her closet, a pair of khaki shorts from her dresser, and slipped them both on. I do know it's tempting to do the ing thing in order to get away from starting another sentence with she, he, or I. Writing takes lots of work and practice.

If you must use an ing or as, place these in the middle of the sentence. It just gives you a bit more sophistication to your writing. This added bit helps an editor who is looking over your manuscript see that you know what you're doing.

More sophistication:

Ly adverbs are a pain. They are so easy to write, so simple to come up with. You can do better.

Consider,

Angrily, she set the pot of beans and basket of bread on the table. (In this sentence I have used a weak verb and an adverb to convey my meaning. I can get this done with one strong verb.)

More vivid, better image:

She slammed the pot of beans and basket of bread on the table.

Check out your italics. Did you really need to go to first/present or could you have stayed in third/past for the internal? Too many jumps from third to first can jar your reader and make them start to think they are reading about a character that has multiple personalities. This same thing goes for those that write in all first. Watch your italics. They are annoying after a while.

How many thought attributes do you have? Dump as many as you can. She thought, he thought, I thought. I wondered, she wondered, he wondered. Considered, contemplated.

Get rid of "there was" "there is". Such as: There was a basket of vegetables sitting on the side of the road.

Instead, consider: A basket of vegetables sat on the side of the road.

If your character has just tossed their head, your first question should be, "How far?"

Have you tried to punch up weak verbs such as had or was with italics? See if you can find a stronger verb to use instead.
Do you have a catching rhythm to your writing? Long sentences, short sentences all equally balanced?

Find the words you are in love with and make sure you've not overwhelmed your reader with them.

Remember, an agent is nice; an editor and book deal is lovely. It will never go further if you can't make those sales and sales are made on the depth of your story telling abilities. Make sure your plot is tight. When you've done all you can and think it's just right, gather up some beta readers and send your MS out to them. Give them instructions on what you're looking for and take in everything they say as a whole. Fix what needs fixed, go back over it yet again with a fine toothed comb. Send that sucker out there and share your story with the world.

You may have written a character bio. You might even know in what state each of your characters was born. But how do you bring this to the page and make them live? Fully developed characters are the foundation to the show/tell theory.

Fluff is never good, but a scene that unfolds a bit of your character and makes them more real is just the ticket. The more you write, the better you will get at finding fluff and recognizing good character development.

If you write in limited third(this is without the head hopping) each POV character will need to have their own agenda in life. They _will_ think this story is about them. When you're in that character's head for a scene or chapter, remember this.

Do you exist to be the wife or husband? Or, to make sure your husband gets that promotion? To make sure you get your son out of jail? To make sure your daughter doesn't marry that loser? Decide what this secondary, or other main character's goals are and give their reasons for these. If they are working toward that goal, then let them work toward it. If you can bring an internal conflict to the table for each of your characters you will give them more life.

I know that we are told each and every day to only write what will push the story forward. I think like all other suggestions this gets construed, confused, and abused. If a scene develops a character more fully, fleshes them out more, then it needs to be there. Above all you want your readers to sympathize and understand your characters. You are the one writing the book. Don't let someone who has read one scene tell you what needs to be there and what doesn't. If you have a crit partner who is right along with you then yes, discuss this. Otherwise, let your heart guide you. The stronger you become as a writer and the further you develop your plot and characters the better a judge you will be.

You should have one main goal for the book. Each of your characters should have their own goals that work toward this main goal. Each character will have their own way of getting there.

Example: Let's say the daughter brings home a loser and says they'll marry. Mom is upset and determined to thwart this marriage. Mom's goal: Do not let marriage take place.

What will Dad's goal be? Does he want the marriage? Does he not really care, but will help Mom out? Does he not want the marriage as badly as Mom doesn't want it? The answer to these questions will determine how strongly you can write and portray him.

If he wants the marriage he will be an added conflict for Mom to overcome. If he really doesn't care, but will help Mom out to make her happy then his mindset will be, throughout the book, centered on Mom's wants. If he doesn't want the marriage anymore than Mom does then his goals and wants will be for himself. There is a difference here. Either he's all about Mom or he's all about himself. When you are in his head it will be about his goal. But add a side goal or life problem in there too (an internal conflict)--like trying to get a promotion, getting over being passed by in a promotion. Don't make it big, but it will give him more life, make him more real. Of course we all know this isn't something that should take over the entire book, we have goals and we know where we are going here. What we are working toward here is giving our character a more real feel.

The same can be given to Mom. (Internal conflicts are the key here. Keep them real, but keep them downsized too. It's all about balance.)

I remember reading once, on one of the writing groups I am a member of, that you should never write with a thesaurus. I thought that odd--raised one of my eyebrows it did.

This was only a couple months ago too. Now, mind ya, I didn't say this advice giver was an idjit, and I didn't say she had no idea what she was talking about. I just thought it was odd advice.

What I did do was keep this in my head and this advice settled and stayed along the back edges of my brain. Now, I know what she meant by such comments.

When writing a first draft or even cleaning up and redrafting, we sometimes get that-- this is not beautiful writing feeling. We want our words to flow, to show what beauty we see. We want the world to know what we can do. We are word masters and we have to show this.

Yes, unfortunately, there is a small issue with such wants. It's all about us as the writer and not about our characters. It's that nasty word called author intrusion. This is an old word, common to any writer. It's one of the hardest mistakes to weed out of your writing. A bigger issue is it's hard on editors and critters to weed out too.

Why is this? Well, if you write and if you critique, edit, you know what it feels like to read. It's a brain challenge in itself. You nitpick at everything and the back of your brain is niggling away about how you would write this. If you are just now learning all those lovely rules of good writing, then you have this urge to strip everything down, yank out all ings and adverbs. The easiest way to do this is to strikethrough those ly's and ings. To tell the writer they are not needed. But when you do pull it out in every sentence what you have is a first grade primer.

Some people prefer a stripped down prose as a reader and writer. This is one of the categories I fall into. But having found that I don't like the dry effect of such prose, I had to find a way to overcome this.

When I find a ly in my work, I don't just cut it out. I look really hard at it. I think long about why I felt I needed that ly. I open my dictionary and look at the definition of that word and eventually I get a better sentence, sharper, more in depth than what I had. This is how I edit out too many ings and ly's. I rewrite the entire sentence, sometimes ending up with two. On the days that I can't rework it, nine times out of ten, I cut the whole sentence. I've never cut a sentence in this fashion that I missed later.

What does any of this have to do with author intrusion? A lot to me, perhaps nothing to you. But when I'm redrafting I always get the urge to grab that thesaurus and use the most unique word I can find. This cannot convey my story if the reader can't get what I want to say.

If my character is in a rush, having a bad morning, then opens the door, and I describe the sun as a beautiful gift from Heaven with the bright warmth pouring upon her it's not going to fit. If my character is in a rush, she is not going to stop to describe everything in sight from the first dew drenched flower to the lone piece of trash flitting down the road.

I tell everyone and often how much I hate writing descriptions. I am a feeling writer. I would rather spend the day describing feelings as a landscape any day. That's just me though.

Because I get things better from example than by having someone preach at me I'm going to post a snippet and let you see what you want with it. I also always do my craft posts in third and I write both in third and first depending on what book I'm writing. I'm going to do this snip in first.


By the time the third snooze went off on my alarm, my head had a constant replay going: that obnoxious beep, beep, beep. I slammed my hand on the top row of buttons; the daily performance of get that heart a pumping stopped.

Every morning I told myself to pick up one of those radio clocks next time I was at the store. Surely, a pleasant melody would be easier on my poor heart.

I cracked an eyelid open then bolted upright. I had to be at the office by 8:00 and right now it was 7:05. That was not the third time the snooze had gone off.

The shower was cold and wouldn't warm up. No time for hair washing, and thank goodness for those little hair clippies. One shoe on, one shoe in flight to my foot I hopped through the house.

A clip of my arm through my purse handle and I flung open the door. The day was bright with the warmth of sunlight dappled like a patchwork quilt across the red top of my car. I tripped over Eddie's dump truck and sent the toy rolling away with a nudge of my foot.

I was about tired of telling him to put his toys up every evening. His daddy had shown up early again last night, too soon to do the normal evening clean up. I was about tired of that too. Pick him up early then drop him off late, as if I had no life but to answer to my ex-husband's whims.

The roses had opened already this morning, and a lady bug crawled along the dew sparkled blush of the petals. The air was crisp and sweet, spring enveloping me in the wonder of the newly born. Birds chirped and flitted along the greens of the lawn, beaks jabbing away in the moist earth. I bet those little winged mothers didn't set their schedules to a no good, two timing, I love you so much, would never hurt you, mate.

After about two minutes I gave up on the every day ritual of purse digging and upended the bag on the spidery cracks of my driveway. Little surprise, my keys weren't there. But, as some sort of thing was looking over me, I did find my cell phone underneath a pile of Kleenex debris. Lovely, now I could call Harold and tell him I'd be late once again. After he got done yelling, I could then call Chris, who of course still had a key, and have him come let me in our once happy home. I hoped I gave Denise a splitting headache with the ringing of the phone.


My question today is: Can you find where I intruded into my character's narrative? Can you fix it? Crit it? Give it more attitude, more voice? Make it sing? Can you describe what's going on better than I did? I'm going to work on this and post my new snippet of it in the next few days. I know already a few places I butted into my character's head. Feel free to see what you can do with this piece. Don't worry it's not one of my books. It's just a scene I wrote for this post.

Do whatever you do your way. 

If you'd like to read more on voice with descriptions then check out Fandoria's LJ.

So you say you have no voice?

This is common. Characters will often remain silent for some time. I didn't find Sarah's voice in TWD until ¾ of the way through the book. Logan was there from the beginning, but his first chapter isn't until chapter nine, so I'd had time to settle in and get comfortable with my plot before he came along.

And well now, how would one go about looking for and claiming this character voice thing?

I'm going to get myself in trouble here again, but that's all right. I live to give people reasons to gasp, and run about shouting of my idiosyncrasies.

So y'all come on over here, take a peek around the corner and make sure we're all alone. Here is what you do: You forget yourself and those grammar lessons you've been drilling into your head. Say what?

Oh yes, I said it, that I did. Why do this? Well, because normal folk don't go around speaking in complete sentences, thinking in complete sentences and making sure they use something different each time they say or think the word door. A door is a door.

But, what about repetitive no no's?

But, be creative! It's what you do. How many times have you used the word it because you couldn't repeat that noun again? For shame! Here is the perfect chance to insert some character voice.

Eh? Eh, back. Look at what can be done here.

He threw open the door, slamming it shut on his way out.

Obviously we have an angry person here. But whose POV are we in?

Let's not be in the angry person's for a bit. We'll look at this through someone else's eyes. So how would you see this? If you are in an argument with someone and they slam the door shut in your face, what do you think? What occurs when the door slams shut?

Hinges rattle, perhaps pictures fall? Hey, if you want to add even more humor to the scene just for the heck of it, the door finally comes off the hinges and falls to the ground. And through all of this action our character is thinking something, right?

So let's play with this voice thingie,

He stormed from the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Fine, rattle the hinges, shake the whole darn house, she didn't care. Let him stay mad, she still wasn't—

The doorknob clunked to the floor. See and didn't she tell him, how many times? How many times did she say, "That doorknob's loose on the bedroom door."

Well and now he'd done it. She snatched her purse from the dresser. She was to going to help out at the booth. They weren't using her, really they weren't.

Hmm…so what happens now? What have we done? We've used character voice in deep POV while all the time showing what happened. The door was slammed shut and the doorknob rattled off. But we incorporated it all through our POV character's eyes, ears, and emotions. Only thing is when she gets to the door she's going to realize she can't get out. More fun for the day, huh?

But, and here is the ticker, we used her mood. To stay in character voice, you must be able to describe scenes through mood. Her thoughts will be jumbled and jumping and so I did this. Yes, it makes little to no sense, but in a sense it makes perfect sense. It's real.

And some day soon, I'll do a post on descriptions through mood. Ain't we all just so 'cited!

Now, in case you may have missed this lesson done in voice, I will post it once more with no voice.

Finding voice is a very difficult thing to do.

This is common. Characters will often remain silent for some time. I didn't find Sarah's voice in TWD until ¾ of the way through the book. Logan was there from the beginning, but his first chapter isn't until chapter nine, so I'd had time to settle in and get comfortable with my plot before he came along.

I would like to show you a few ways to find and use character voice.

I know that many will not be happy with my next few words and I apologize in advance.

Some times one must forget the grammar lessons because real, live people don't talk or think with perfect grammar.

This can run into problems. Repetitive use of nouns is one problem. But most real people don't take the time to think of new words to describe everything they see.

A lot of writers tend to use the pronoun it to avoid repetition. This can be fixed with a bit of work and adding character voice.

He threw the door open, slamming it shut on his way out.

In this sentence one person is very angry. I would like to look at this through the observer's eyes for the rewrite.

First off, we need to consider what goes on when a door slams shut. Hinges may rattle, or pictures may fall to the floor. Humor could be added into the scene by having the door fall off the hinges and crash to the floor. Yet, we need to remember that through all of this action our POV character is thinking and reacting too.

Let's see what can be done with this sentence.

He stormed from the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Fine, rattle the hinges, shake the whole darn house, she didn't care. Let him stay mad, she still wasn't—

The doorknob clunked to the floor. See and didn't she tell him, how many times? How many times did she say, "That doorknob's loose on the bedroom door."

Well and now he'd done it. She snatched her purse from the dresser. She was to going to help out at the booth. They weren't using her, really they weren't.

Note that I have used character voice through mood to write this small scene. Because the POV character is angry her thoughts will jump around and I have made sure to use this in my Deep POV.

Also, I have opened up more room for humor as she nears the door and realizes it can't be opened.

And this concludes my mindless blathering for the day! Thank you much for reading.

If you would like to read more on Deep POV. Leisa talks about this on her own journal here at Fandoria.  

For the past few months I've been very iffy on posting my work anywhere. I've had several reasons for this. One is that I turned into a big chicken when it came to my work. I reached a point that I couldn't handle all the nit picking and write at the same time. I would just sit at the computer afraid to write, tons of "what you're doing wrong's" bouncing along in my head. I am slowly getting over this. Most of the praise for this accomplishment goes to my family, friends, and crit partners who have supported me throughout. Without them I would have quit a long time ago.

There are other reasons too, but I'm not getting into them at this point. There are those out there that know why and I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, since Logan, for some reason, is one of my reader's favorites I'm going to post the whole of Chapter Thirty Eight. It's one of my chapters that his POV carries the entire thing, so I do hope everyone enjoys. In this chapter we meet a legend when still a boy, a drunk cat,  and a few of Logan's lumberjacks. We also climb a tree, listen to Logan lust after Sarah, *g*, and find out how much damage one boy can do to a lumber camp. 

But, the chapter will be posted under friends only, as it's a whole chapter and the web, so you'll need be on my list to read it.

When I began writing I knew squat about craft. I've spoken of this before. I told of the work I put into learning what I could and I'm still learning. I will never know all there is to know on the craft of writing. The very day I decide I know all, will be the very day I plunge myself into that slush pile.

But I do know certain areas and even knowing those I do realize improvements can always be made.

The levels of POV are just that—levels. How deep you go depends on your choice per scene. But how do you know just how deep you have gone? And how do you know if you can go deeper? As the creator, this causes no end of confusion--which is why most days you need a crit partner that writes in the same manner as you.

Not just like you, but if you write in limited third and you have a crit partner that only knows omniscient then you are in trouble. There are crit groups out there that can be very useful, but make sure the group is on the same level of skill as you are. If they aren't then you have trouble, so shop carefully for that right crit group. The best ones I have found are the ones that have a published author or another such "knows what they are doing" person in charge.

I'm not claiming to know all there is to know on this post. I will share what knowledge I have and hopefully it will help someone.

A deep POV sentence or scene has several indicators of being correct: voice, vision, feeling, and smell, straight forward and through the POV character's emotions.

The problem is in understanding how to get there. Point of fact: you won't do it first time around. You simply can't.
How do you get there then? Slow down for one. For another, let yourself have some freedom.

Here is a work through from first draft to full, deep POV.

She looked at his untied shoe. (This sentence is simple but not to the point. What it does is tell the reader to picture the POV character looking at a man's untied shoe. We really don't need to see the POV character. But as always there are times you may choose to make it a point to do this.)

Now our first change will be adding voice to this sentence.

She looked at the dimwit's untied shoe. (Now we have voice. We have her opinion of this person and we know his shoe is untied. We don't know we have a he, but that's ok because we're working out of the middle of the scene.)

This next step let's dump the telling tag of what our POV is doing and just put what she sees.

The dimwit's shoe was untied. (Now we have deep POV. We have her thoughts on the person, and we no longer have to picture her first, we simple see the untied shoe. Now can this be cleaned up some? Well yes it can be. See that pesky" was" up there? That to be verb can be removed in this sentence and we still can keep our character voice. This is not always going to happen and if it doesn't that's alright.)

Next we tighten.

The dimwit needed to tie his shoe.

Or,

Did the dimwit plan to tie that shoe?

(Both of these are direct thoughts that show what our POV sees and what she thinks of the sight and character. I used the word direct thoughts, and this does not mean you need to underline this for italics. Notice I didn't put a she thought tag either. It's not needed when this deep. All it will do is remind the reader that they aren't seeing this or thinking this, but that they are being told what is going on.)

As you can see this takes time and effort, but the end result is so much richer and better for the trouble it took.

Today I am going to talk about descriptions in your writing. There is a time when such a thing is too much. I have opened manuscripts on occasion and the sheer overload of descriptives was enough to knock me flat.

There is a happy medium here and as a writer one must find it. If you are having trouble with this, let me offer some help.

As a reader, when I reach a part full of paragraph along paragraph of what a room looks like, I'll be honest—I skip it. Why? Because I really don't remember anyway. I could read it, but my mind is going to picture the room it wants to picture.

So how do you avoid such a thing? A writer has a very full bag of magic tricks—use them. Sketch a rough outline and fill in as needed. So say you have this room full of dark paneling, ok, you have a room full of dark paneling. This is simple. I can picture this and it will stick with me.

What I don't need to know as I will forget, is that six chairs sit along one side and a huge bookshelf with over 300 volumes lines one wall and before that sits a huge cherry desk with a lamp, a paper weight, three pencil holders, and one pencil sharpener.

Also, the floor is covered in a thick burgundy rug, but has a bare patch near one of the five floor to ceiling windows on the right wall, which is trimmed in rich shades of deep green. Portraits of ancestors line the far wall, each in varying ages and one looks to appear to be as old as the eighteenth century. The paint is peeling.

Then we move on to how the light spilling from the windows affects everything in this dark room.

Quite simply, what I care about when reading is the characters. So if I have to muddle through all that to get to the dialogue, well, I'm not gonna muddle through it. I simply skip it.

How to avoid this is—you walk your character through the room. If they notice it then put it in there. So perhaps the man who sits behind the huge cherry desk plucks a pencil from the holder and when he sharpens it to a fine point your MC can think how strange it is that the sound was muffled by all those books lined along the wall behind him.

Perhaps the light spilling from the window highlights the bare patch of carpet as your MC sits in the designated chair. What a strange clash of colors here with the burgundy carpet and then deep green trim?

The man behind the desk asks a question and as your MC doesn't answer right off, he clicks on the lamp. The bright glare off the silver paperweight pierces your MC's pupils, making him/her squint.

The point to all this? Each detail is added as needed not overloaded at the beginning. It's filtered through your MC's head and feelings and by the time the scene is finished I have a very good picture of the room, dribbled to me slowly, but most important, I feel for everything in the room because I have felt it along with your MC. I will remember it now.

So if you've liked the way this is done, open your manuscript and see if you have spots you can use this. Perhaps though, you prefer to get it all up front… I don't know, but these are some thoughts and if you'd like them used in your work, well here they are.

These days fear drives most of my life.

I am afraid of writing a bad sentence. For if I do then someone, somewhere, will read it and say I suck at what I love the most. And that someone may decide they never want to read my work again even after it becomes more than a first random thought. My first impression will remain and like that girl who got drunk and made that fateful mistake, I will forever be doomed to failure.

I am afraid of other writers. For I may not write like them. I may tell it in a different tone. Perhaps, I don't see things in the same light. I don't know where I'm going when I start my stories and maybe this will make me seem unworthy in their eyes. My characters come alive as I write, not before I form their first words.

I'm petrified of being published. Because if my book publishes, I will be forced to meet with others and they will see that I talk with the worst southern accent, my grammar is relaxed and easy and I live fifty percent of my life in my mind. Will I be expected to act witty and engaging when all I want is to write my next book?

I am afraid to finish my book. For if I end my story, it will be done. I will have climbed that mountain and I fear when I reach the top, it will only crumble beneath my feet. Each hope shattered, the leftover shards piercing me with its aftershocks.

A child who greets Christmas morning, eyes aglow with eagerness, by night falls in bed, the magic gone. Will I too gleefully dance and celebrate only to realize all too late the excitement has waned into emptiness. And in the aftermath, will I collapse to the ground and, there, know like all other things in life, never again will there be another first time.

I am afraid of who I am. Because if I embrace that I am a writer then I must let go of all these fears and write.

I am not afraid of my fears, though. Fear has accomplished more than any small bit of self-pride ever could.

What can fear do? What does fear do? It feeds into courage. If you're never afraid to do it then you never need the courage to try. And without courage, you are weak.

So look into your mirror and feel relief in knowing you can say I am afraid, because if you can find your fears, you can overcome them.

There is never any shame in courage. Ask any knight, ask any soldier. And when they have answered, ask them, "Were you afraid?"