Openers

I've spent a huge number of hours reading openings, and critiquing some of them, at the now infamous Nathan Bransford's Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge.  (The contest is closed to submissions and they're sorting through the entries now.)  I've read various rules and suggestions for how to open a novel, but I have to say at this point that reading about it and/or thinking about it is no substitute for reading about a gizillion openings and picking apart as many as you can stand to critique.  

Go forth and read the entries.  Find the flaws in the best ones.  May your eyes be opened.  And then read Shock and Awe.   Although we always hear that a novel should open with a hook, in the middle of it all, preferably with action, that doesn't mean that the action has to be physical.  Suddenly I'm okay with how Masks opens again.  Yay!

Researching the Market

I picked up the current issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. I've been wanting to read short stories in my preferred genre and I know this magazine leans toward noir. Not that I've been writing noir, but I'd like to. Hence the research.

I'm enjoying the magazine immensely. I'm foreseeing a subscription in my future. Having a Hammett short in it was just icing. I haven't read a story I didn't like.

I've also realized that maybe I'm not a noir writer. But that isn't going to stop me from giving it a try. I'm picking up some of the nuances of the genre and as soon as I can figure up a good plot, I'll see what I can come up with.

Next on my researching list: a fantasy magazine (might go with Realms on that one) and a romance magazine (Romantic Times might help me find one). And I'll pick up a copy of Glimmer Train to check out the literary market.

Anyone have other suggestions?

Almost Everything I Needed to Know about Writing I Learned by Daily Writing

Writing daily has its perks. There's a feeling of continuity, and a flow that comes with daily writing that turns the creative process into a kind of perpetual motion machine. The writing goes faster when it's daily too, and the habit of daily writing shortens or eliminates a lot of the chronic "now I'm sitting down to write" problems.

Writer's block: I haven't had as much trouble with writer's block as I used to back in the day, whenever the day was--it's been a long time. Sometimes I get dragged down by a scene, or I get bored, or a storyline fizzles. When that's happened a few gizillion times it's no longer a big deal. You go back and figure out where the story became predictable, or where you lost the thread, or where the action stopped and you fix it, or you let that project rest for a while and work on another one.

Staring at the blank screen: A blank screen isn't as intimidating as it used to be. A few seconds, sometimes minutes if I'm having to dig deep, and away we go. I'll probably change the beginning after the first draft anyway. A blank screen is an opportunity to finger paint before you get down to the actual process of creating art.

What-to-do-itis: Related to writer's block. Sometimes when the story runs out of steam, people get stressed. They start taking polls from their readers (if they're serializing it or workshopping it) asking what to do next. They fret that the story is horrible anyway and not worth pursuing. They try to work out logically what would be the next plot step, or hope that their characters will bail them out. When you've done enough daily writing, you learn what works for you, and it's probably none of the above strategies which involve popular opinion or muses or characters with their own will. Me? I do the worst possible thing to the character. Sometimes it's the thing they dread the most. Sometimes it's worse than the thing they dread the most, beyond their imagination. Doing the worst thing takes guts and thinking, and sometimes a little plot reworking. Yeah, I sweat, but you know, there's this magical thing called reverting to the original document if it doesn't work out. The point being, when the story stops working, it's time for the writer to get to work and stir things up a bit.

No time to write: Uh huh. The thinking is, if I don't have three hours, or an hour or whatever time frame, it's not worth sitting down to write. I have to have X amount of time to 'get in the mood' or 'find the flow,' etc. EH! Daily writing shortens this artificial time frame until eventually you sit down at the computer to check email, glance at the clock, and think hey, I've got five minutes before I have to start getting ready for work. And then you push that five minutes to fifteen and grab a Slimfast instead of making a bologna sandwich. Works for me.

These constant interruptions!: The situation is that when you sit down to write, there are distractions. Currently I'm tired, the cat is meowing for attention, I have dishes to do, I have a fresh sunburn that makes my shoulders do the heat emanation thing and makes my shirt feel scratchy. Some days you have to get up to deal with something every thirty seconds, or you contend with loud and obnoxious music or a couple fighting next door, dogs barking, or people come in and want to ask you this or want you to find them that, and you want to nail the door shut (if you have a door) to the office and hang up a "Do Not Disturb" sign next to a biohazard placard in the hopes that you'll have two frickin' minutes to rub together. With enough daily writing, two consecutive minutes aren't necessary, although they're very much appreciated. Fifteen seconds is enough to complete a sentence and/or thought between putting out fires and stoppage of arterial bleeding. (Looks like the kitty has food, and the dishes really can wait until morning. We're good to go for some writing, with or without further interruptions.)

Can't ... find ... right ... word: I used to use the thesaurus a lot. I also used to stop writing entirely until I found a fact I needed. I kept 3x5 cards (hard to imagine that I used to be organized) of various world building and character facts so that I could, at a glance, learn what the capitol city of Arrak el Eslahm was, count to fourteen using base 12 number systems and know exactly how long it takes to travel from Earth to Alpha Centauri traveling at 1.4 light speed. I kept careful timelines and took travel distances into account even on a first draft. If I had to look something up in the library, all writing would stop until I could convince my mom to take me or until I had enough cash to hop a bus there and back again. Ironic that I learned to just type XXXXXX or parenthetical comments like (and here Kami inserts a brilliant passage about Beggar Smith cleaning her black powder firearm with all kinds of juicy details supplied by Jacob) before Google and Wikipedia. Then again, relying too much on those 'fast' sources still slows down the writing process more than is strictly necessary. If researching facts, going back through your work to find the color of a character's horse or paging through a thesaurus inspires, fine. If it's an excuse to stop writing, boo! XXXXX rules!

I'm sure I learned more from daily writing, but I forgot. Oh well! Time to write some more!

Gender Genie.

Recently I discovered a great, fun little tool online called the Gender Genie. It guesses the gender of the author who has typed or pasted in some of their text. 500 words is better than just a sentence or two and it only takes a minute or less for results (depending on your connection). Plus it shows the keywords more often than not used by female and male authors.

Periodically, I enter some of my "Enthusiast" text and only once have I come up with "female." As you know, I want that body of work to sound as if written by a male and had previously asked a published author at the San Diego Writer's Conference for his thoughts (he said definitely male-written).

I hope you have fun with Gender Genie!

(For fun, I submitted this blog entry into Gender Genie and it said it was written by a female.)

Ah, Sweet Research

Rather suddenly I recalled that I actually own several books on ancient Egypt. And considering that my newest novel endeavor relies heavily on the history of the Old Kingdom, I pulled a couple of those books from the shelves and sat down to page through them.

I had forgotten how sweet it is to be nose deep in book research. There is nothing quite like the feel of the pages under my fingertips, to smell the binding and the dust, to page through an index until I find my search subject and flip through the book to the indicated pages. Eyes scan the page with a practiced ease until it leaps from the page. I read over the paragraph. I might read the next several or page backwards to the beginning of the chapter. I delight in reading words that have been written, rewritten, edited, revised, cited, sources, and printed in a manner the internet could never afford.

And, unlike internet research, I find more leads to new information and a wealth of details I'd only hoped to uncover. Pages of them within my grasp, books of them within the bibliography.

How I long to be buried at some library cubicle behind a wall of books, pages exposed to reveal their secrets. How I long to be tapping my pencil against my notepad while my gaze scans across a page. There! A bit of detail, a date, a phrase . . . I copy it quickly in my crooked short-hand cursive. Time warps past me until I've exhausted the books before me and then the agonizing decision of staying to add to the pile or taking my off with the treasures I've gleaned from each book.

I could lose myself in the research. Which is one reason I now wait until after the first draft is finished to really fling myself headlong into it. There is no more hallowed hall for me than the dark recesses of a well-booked library.

Research

I picked up a story yesterday that I'd started a month ago. It's a fun idea, eventually mixing it up with some pirates, but it is also a historical piece, which means . . . research.

I don't go all out with my research for a rough draft, though. Too much about the story is unclear at that point and researching too deeply would only be a waste of time at that point. I research the relevant time period as much as I need to. Having a couple of degrees grounded in the study of History at least means I have working knowledge of my favorite historical eras and how to do a basic brush-up on the period in question without going overboard, but you don't have to have contributed vasts amount of money that will take you to next 30 years to pay off in student loans to be able to do basic research. All you need is a computer and an online connection. And know the secret word.

Wikipedia.

The trick to researching with Wikipedia is to understanding the source. Actually, that's the trick to any research. Know your source! Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone, and that means you, too, can add to, edit, and change. Which means there is a lot of information from knowledgeable sources, and there is a lot that, well, isn't so good.

But just like a paper encyclopedia, it can get you started. Names and dates are usually trustworthy enough. Chronological events that might be listed in any survey text are usually safe, too. And when you get into the details, you just have to use your gut and a little detection. Is the passage cited? (that's a good sign, but check the citation) Are there quotes that read like a movie script? (not a good sign, and I've seen some of these) Are there links at the bottom of the entry? Those links will help you round out your research, especially if they link to a museum or .edu website. Those are trustworthy enough sites for initial research. But if you get Bob's homepage on all things Elizabethan, beware. Not a credible source to use, unless Bob happens to be Dr. Soandso of Oxford with a focus on the Elizabethan era.

Know your sources!

But since this is just beginning research, I'm not diving that deep, yet. I just want the basic facts of the era, some names and dates and places, some chronology of events. From that, I'll start getting a sense of where my character is amid it all, and sometimes, find an event, usually a small, lesser known event, that the character might become involved in. Say, like FDR's signing of the first 100 days of the New Deal. Or the assassination of William the Silent. Or the death of Marc Antony. All of these are plot points in stories I'm working on. (not all the same story, though. I don't know time travel.)

The other trick to researching for first drafts is not to research everything at once. Because usually, I don't know what I need. I do a search for just the year the story is set, first, then go about about ten years to see what sort of events have shaped my character's world. Then, when I need more info, I look it up. Like, say, an officer's rank in Rome's legion. Or the name of an earldom in Elizabethan England.

After the first draft is finished and I have a sense of where the story is going to go and what all is involved, then I hit the books. Because no amount of internet research can make up for real book-learning. And those sources are THE sources.

So say it with me now: Know your sources! And add to that: The library is your friend.

But Wikipedia is a good buddy to know, too. Just don't trust everything he says.