Developing a Mean Spirit

One of the hardest things for most writers to develop is a mean spirit. It doesn't matter if you write grizzly horror stories, intense thrillers, cozy mysteries, romances or any other genre, you have to be willing to make your protagonist's life far worse than you could initially imagine.

If every problem is solvable, how interesting is your story?

• What is your protagonist's external problem? How can you make it bigger? 

• What is your protagonist's internal problem? How can you make it worse?

• Can you make the effects of these problems worse for other people in your protagonist's life as well? Repercussions are lovely bits to build on.

• Do these problems make people behave in ways they wouldn't normally? Are more problems created? A bigger one? More dangerous?

• How can you make it more difficult for your protagonist to solve these problems? How can you raise the stakes to an entirely new level? What more can you put at risk?

There must be a gorilla in the phone booth, even if the reader is the only one who knows he's there—and that might even be better.

A safe, well-adjusted protagonist might be the kind of guy you'd like to live next door, but he isn't the kind of guy you want to spend hours reading about in your spare time.

As a reader, have you ever experienced this kind of boredom?

As a writer, how do you harness your mean genes?



It's all better with friends.

An Interview with Bharti Kirchner — William Kenower

I saw this and really liked it. This woman has gone from cookbooks to articles on running to writing a few novels to finallly writing her first mystery novel.

Check it out:








It's all better with friends.

Where Did the Words Go?

I have a theory.

Writers who are new to the game—who haven't yet been thrown back on their haunches with the sheer enormity of the learning curve before them—can lay down an enormous amount of words in a single setting.

They're free, and if their feet don't touch the ground, so what? They are creating the greatest work of verbal imagery since . . . well, since forever. They are basking under a rare and unimaginable (to all of those non-artistic folk, anyway) light. They are the newest, as yet undiscovered, treasures of the publishing world.

I know this, how? Because that new writer's name was Peg.

Let's go back . . .

At some point, my eyes begin to get adjusted to this strange new light. This writerly light that had placed me atop pedestals (for a few days at least) is now shifting, at least to me. It's betraying my birthright with something called Craft. The daunting spectacle of POV and backstory, MRUs and GMCs, hooks and sagging middles, scene structure and that pesky thing called grammar, all begin to rain their tentacles down on my fresh, green, Spirit. And my Spirit becomes paralyzed. Belief has been sucked out and replaced with mind-numbing, creativity-breaking, Need for Education. Aaargh.

Somewhere along in here, word count drops about 90%. And if it moves at all, it goes down.

Sound familiar, anyone?

But then, after some fitful starts and stops, something begins to happen. The butterfly begins to emerge from the cocoon of Writing 101. There's a pattern to her wings, a purpose to her day. She knows ever so much more than she did as a caterpillar. She can step out—or fly out—with the confidence that now the words of her warped mind (she's a Suspense Butterfly) will meet their intended target without fail.

And word count increases.

CR: Dead On by Robert W. Walker. This book puts a fully-realized character in your lap from the beginning. So far, so good. It will hit the stands mid-July.

It's all better with friends.

Do What You Are

I received an incorrect email yesterday. Can you believe it? Has that ever happened to you? It wasn't blatantly incorrect. Just enough to send my radar all acquiver.

Urged to dig a little further, I put on my hardhat. Nothing showed up under Snopes, but Google led me to a wonderful list of lessons. Regina Brett is a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She made a list of 45 Life Lessons and 5 to Grow On. I'm going to study them a bit more, and probably add one or two of my own.

But. Number 18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

This is a Great Truth. One I have heard before, and one proven out via tweets from writers in the last few days. I love Great Truths.

A WRITER WRITES.

If you're a teacher, you teach. A painter, you paint. An accountant, you account. Er . . . or something. But you do it.

If all you have is five minutes during a demanding day to do what you are, then do it for five minutes. If you don't, you're cheating yourself.

If you have hours to do what you are, and don't have to think about dinner or chores or other responsibilities, stifle your giggles and get on with it.

DO WHAT YOU ARE.

If you're a writer, write.

I know what you're doing now. The question is, what are you doing next?

CR: Still reading the Stephen White. (I've told you I'm a slow reader.)

It's all better with friends.

Definition of Discipline . . . Aargh!

From Merriam-Webster's (emphasis mine) discipline 1: Punishment 2: Instruction 3: a field of study 4: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character 5a: control gained by enforcing obedience or order b: orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior.

My keyword when I wrote my goals for this year? Discipline. I want a keyword for next year that means the same thing, but doesn't include punishment in its definition. Any suggestions?

Some things I've learned about writing every day: I get better; uncertainty doesn't have a chance to settle in; it's easier to see where my story needs to go; when people ask if I've been writing, my answer doesn't require justification.

One reason I've learned recently why I stop writing every day: I'm in the middle of some intense learning curve. Did I mention I have a mentor? Colleen Coble. A little bit of learning doesn't seem to phase me. But an intense amount? It needs to flow into me and coalesce. Get that skimmy stuff on top that real hot chocolate gets. Then, I need to stir it up a bit, sip it slow, and digest it. And finally, it needs to seep out my pores and into real life application. I guess that's how you teach this old dog new tricks, but as long as chocolate is involved . . . love it!

I heard a business coach say one time that if he scheduled something on his daily calendar, it didn't guarantee it would get done, but odds were against it ever happening if he didn't. Whether you're an SOTP (seat-of-the-pants) writer, a detailed plotter--or something in between--plotting your day can at least make you feel you've accomplished something when it's over.

Today I found myself behind before I started. I'll have to rely on that old stand-by skill called prioritization if I'm to get to those rewrites. And I will.

After I find some chocolate.

It's all better with friends.

The Breakout Premise - Part 1

Before I begin, I want to let you know how much encouragement your comments bring. Thank you.

...............

I'm told that if you want to bump your craft up a level, there's no better book then Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass.

So let's talk.

(Just so you know . . . I don't yet have the workbook, so we'll be reading through the book instead.)

The Breakout Premise - Part 1

What are your three all-time favorite novels? Maass says they're the dog-eared ones you've read over and over and can quote lines from. Make a list or pull them directly off your shelves. Mind you, only three. No more.

{sigh}

Between you and me, I thought I'd failed before I'd even begun. I don't have any novels I've read over and over. No time? Fear of disappointment? Pick one.

And lines? I can't remember the ending of the movie I saw last night, let alone a line from a novel I read years ago and didn't re-read. Sheesh. But I wanted to try and play. I wandered by my bookshelves, and if a book made me smile, I pulled it out. And had to make myself stop at three. Phew!

The next surprise was that although suspense is the genre that has given me the most satisfaction over the years (and wonderful sleepless nights), not one of the three books I chose is suspense. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells, A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe, and Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.

Think about what your three choices have in common. It's more than genre or style. Maass says to "consider more the experience it gives you as a reader."

Complete transport into another world is probably one commonality each of your favorites share. A different time, a different place. You open the pages and you're no longer in this reality. A complete fictional world that whisks you in and holds you captive. Make sense?

What are your first three choices?

It's all better with friends.