Simple Editing Tip

Don't you just love these?

I may or may not be the only person

 who uses this 

(typically) superfluous word 

but, 

JUST in case I'm not,

keep your eyes open

and your Find and Replace ready 

for

SEEMS or SEEMED

Example:

She looked at Marie who seemed to be breathing harder.

Well, was she or wasn’t she?

Instead try-

She looked at Marie who was breathing harder.

(side note: In most cases you could also take off the She looked and just make it: Marie was breathing hard.)

Of course there are some cases where the POV character can't decide what they are seeing and then perhaps seem/seemed would be appropriate but look at each one carefully.

A few more examples:

When they reached the end of the tunnel they seemed to have to pry their way out

When they reached the end of the tunnel they pried their way out.

He stood which seemed harder than he anticipated

He stood which was harder than he anticipated.

You all know how to use Find and Replace, right? 

Well search out your seems and get your word count down, your sentences tighter, 

and just have a fun ol' time!

Editing.

Jolly good fun!

Story Basics from a Pixar Pro

A Pixar story artist named Emma Coats shared some amazing tips on Twitter recently that I found to be fabulous stuff. So without further ado, Emma's words of wisdom:

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won't see what the story is actually about til you're at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it's not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you've got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you'll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it's poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What's the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That's the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don't succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it's not working, let go and move on - it'll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d'you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can't just write ‘cool'. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What's the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Really great thought provoking stuff. 

She shares a lot of interesting things on Twitter.

Do you have a favorite tip? Why?

Teach & Talk T-day: Randy Lindsay

Guest Post by Randy Lindsay. You can catch him on his blog or twitter.

Film Based Plot and Character Development

by Randy Lindsay

            Hold on a sec. This doesn’t look like my blog.

            Oh, that’s right! I’m guest blogging for the delightsome duo of Shelly and Chad. Whew, I thought I walked into the wrong place. How embarrassing would that have been?

            < Randy looks around the blog and nods his head in approval. >

            I really love how they . . . use plenty of pictures to keep the page vibrant. It sort of figures that Shelly and Chad would each have their own side of the blog. Isn’t that nice that they have “Awesome Stuff” that links to other blogs.

            < Randy looks in the direction of the readers and stops dead. >

            Riiiiight. The guest blogger thing.

            I’m here to discuss movies. If you’ve had a chance to check out my blog you probably noticed that I do movie reviews and frequently post about film related topics. There are some excellent lessons that novel writers can learn from Hollywood about plot and character development.

            Or in other words, this is what I learned about writing from eating popcorn in the dark and watching movies.

            When done correctly, movies are a marvelous platform for storytelling. By necessity, plot and characterization have to be compact because of the limited amount of time that can be devoted to them. This requires a tighter writing discipline than many novel writers have had a chance to develop.

            “Opening Image” is a concept that I have borrowed from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat. His book is intended to help people craft screenplays, but I believe that most writers can benefit from it. The opening image gives us a quick flash of the hero and the world while setting the tone for the film. This is often done during the credits.

            When applied to novel writing it means that you have a page, or two, to give the reader a glimpse of the overall story. The audience is treated to a visual blast of what the hero normally does, how he normally acts, and the way that people respond to him. You are creating a snapshot of the story.

            Think visually. Picture your protagonist. Then cram the essence of what he does on an average day into a few paragraphs. Once you do this, go back and tighten it up. Make sure the protagonist’s personality shines through. Then tighten it up some more.

            Here are a few examples of successful opening images:

            The Warriors – opens with a view of the neon lights of Coney Island’s Wonder Wheel. The cinematography and the carnival music give an other-worldy feel to the scene. Credits are then interspersed with shots of the members of the Warriors gang on a subway train to Queens. A quick consultation of a subway map on the train shows us that it will be a long way home for these travelers if something goes wrong. A quick bit of dialogue between the Warriors not only reveal their character to the audience but informs us that they will be attending a huge meeting that has been setup by the leader of the biggest gang in New York. Shots of other gangs boarding similar subway trains established the gang-filled landscape of the story and the dark camera work sets the mood.

            By the time the credits have ended the viewer knows exactly what is going on in the story and is ready for the inciting incident. 

(This is one of the snapshots of a rival gang that is displayed during the opening image.)

            Major League 3 – opens with Gus Cantrell pitching a game in a minor league park. He struggles with his pitches and is ejected from the game for cheating.

            That’s it. This is a story about a baseball player at the end of a long career in the minor leagues. The audience is immediately thrown into the casual setting of a minor league ball park where the majority of the story takes place. Bob Uecher provides the sports commentary during the game that tips us off that this will be a comedic look at the topic. And when Gus resorts to the use of a “frozen ball” to strike-out a batter we glimpse the unconventional nature of the hero.

            Once again, in a very short period of time we are ready for the inciting incident.

           

(This is actually a photo from a scene at the turning point of the story-arc.)

            If you can picture the scene you’re writing the chances are it will come out more vividly to the reader. Once you have an opening image in your head the description, lighting, sounds, and body motions should all translate nicely to the written page and your story will be richer because of it.

            Next time you sit down to watch a movie pay special attention to the first couple of minutes. Watch how Hollywood develops the base story in an incredibly short amount of time. Then take a look at your work-in-progress and see how you can do the same thing for it.

Teach & Talk T-day: Betsy Schow

Guest Post by Betsy Schow

 I recently, lost 75 pounds of fat and about 1000 pounds of self loathing and feelings of failure. I ventured off the couch and accidentally ran a marathon, climbed a mountain, and wrote a book. Now I'm trying to take on the biggest challenge of all, using online media. You can be my Facebook friend- Author Betsy Schow. Or follow my twitter feed that I haven't figured out yet- @betsyschow http://betsyschow.blogspot.com/ http://finishedbeingfat.blogspot.com/ http://mormonmommywriters.blogspot.com   

Premeditated Murder: Killing the voice of doubt

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Except for the time I wanted to a princess. Or an astronaut. Or a princess astronaut in a pretty pink and purple space suit with a tutu. While that would have been awesome, mostly I longed to be a storyteller.

I had big plans. I was going to write the best book that nobody ever read, and there was only one thing stopping me. No, it wasn’t the kids or the fact that I actually needed to go to work to pay the rent. The obstacle in my path was me. Or more precisely the little voice in the back of my head that scoffed at the idea that I could ever be a writer.

The past fifteen years or so repeated a vicious cycle. Brilliant ideas would pop into my brain, and before I knew it there were 15000 words on the page. I would read it over the first time and little visions of best-seller lists danced in my head. I would re-read it a second time and start picking out my rotten grammar. By the third and fourth read through, the process had devolved into one big bag of horse pucky. That little voice in the back of my head would snark, scream, and snort.

Why would anyone pay good money to read anything you wrote? What’s the point, you could never actually finish a book anyway. You are a waste of time, space, and good vocabulary. Give up, if no one ever reads it, they can’t tell you it sucks.

I would avoid the keyboard until I found the courage to try again, but the little voice remained. Finally, I decided this could not continue. Swiping a page from Hamlet, it was time for a murder most foul. I needed to kill off the voice of doubt.

Putting ink to paper, I crafted the most elaborate and devious murder scene ever to see the light of day. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it involved acid, acupuncture needles, and a goose (geese are vile and foul feathered creatures). I think I scared the bejeezus out of that little voice because it stopped bugging me after that. Now it knew that I meant business.

Maybe the voice in your head is the kind that yells “Get the heck out of my way”, in which case you are probably a best selling author already and good for you. But if you too have a little demon that keeps you from your goals, it’s time to make it sleep with the fishes. Plan it out. You’re a writer for goodness sake, be creative. Knives, explosives, paper cutting it death… the sky’s the limit. Show that voice that you can write and that you are the boss.

Four months after my premeditated crime, the cops still haven’t caught up with me. A publisher did though, and my first book will be on the shelves in January 2013: Finished Being Fat: An accidental adventure in losing weight and learning to finish. The second book, a fiction cozy, is scheduled to be released in April 2013. Amazing the things we can accomplish when we get out of our own way.

Sometimes, I can still hear a faint echo saying, You suck, give up. Concentrating, I’ll picture the red eyed goose with fangs and the voice disappears again.

Teach & Talk T-day: Jeigh Meredith

Guest Post by Jeigh Meredith. She lives in a fantasy world most of the time. In order to appear "normal", she decided to make her world into a "story" and tell people she was a "writer". When she's not visiting the depths of her mind, she spends her time trying not to talk to herself in public, bathing her children once a week, and reading freakishly fast.
Her blog: www.writerbrained.blogspot.com and Twitter @jeighmeredith

How to Train Your Story

I’ve changed the beginning of my story, oh, pshhhh, let’s see…a lot of times now. I think it’s pretty close to where I want it to be, but it took a long time to get here. (And lots of weeping, and slaughtering of sacred cows, and writerly re-stitching [and I’m not so hot on sewing.])

I thought, in my first draft, that my beginning was great. So great. And then, it turned out it was not great. Not even good. I was confused. I’d read that the beginning should have an inciting incident, something to propel the protagonist into the story. At first, it was too weak. In later drafts, I just started with a bunch of explosions, because explosions=action and action=propellage. It was too explody.

After a lot of angsty pondering/sulking, I watched “How to Train Your Dragon”. My story-starting-incident-inducing-action-protag-propelling lightbulb blazed to life. It made sense to me. Now, I realize HtTYD does, in fact, start with explosions. But beyond that, what it has is a good pace, excellent description, and world-building that draws you in naturally. I love it. Here are some of my favorite lines:

“[The village] has been here for seven generations but every building is new.”

“That’s Stoic the Vast, chief of the tribe. They say that when he was a baby, he popped a dragon’s head clean off its shoulders. Do I believe it? Yes I do.”

“Astrid.”

I love these parts because they move the story forward. Why are the buildings new? Oh, because of the dragon raids. He’s intimidated by the Chief, who happens to be his dad, which gives insight into their relationship. He is totally gone on Astrid. And she is totally out of his league.

What it made me realize is that many little parts can lead up to the inciting incident. I don’t have to start my protag on the top of a cliff and throw her off in the first paragraph. All of these parts of Hiccup’s world—the dragon raid, his tense father/son relationship, his unrequited love for Astrid—were established parts of his world. All this ordinary but engaging Viking scene needed was a wrench thrown in the mix to start off the story.

Now, the explosions in my story don’t start until chapter three, where they belong. I feel good about my beginning because I’ve allowed the wrench to be thrown in naturally, alongside the everyday stuff, where it belongs.

And whenever I get stuck, I just jump on my Night Fury and clear my head out in the open air. Try it, guys. It really works.

The Fives!

I want to teach you something cool I learned at LTUE.

I'm sure it has a name but I don't take that great of notes.

Pathetic? Maybe.

Gonna stop me? NEVER!



So here's what I'm going to call The Fives.

When you are trying to come up with a strong goal for your protagonist try this out. Make a list of five possible strong goals. Pick what you feel is the strongest. (Conquer the land)

Take this new goal you just decided on and ask yourself, why? Why this goal? (He tries to conquer them as revenge for lost love)

Then keep doing that, asking why again and again. Five times is the idea. But the more you do it the more specific and strong your goal would get.



Clear as mud? I should be a teacher, I know it. ;)

Friend Friday: Jenn, Just Jenn

Guest Post by Jenn at Just Say Jenn. She's a writer with work in Yahoo!, Buzz Magazine, Stack Magazine, and Gather Entertainment and writes screenplays in her spare time.

The Importance of Passion and Persepective

Guest posting is hard, yo! I had to rack my brainspace and figure out what a nonsense TV writer such as myself could possibly have to contribute to this blog. So after a few boxes of wine, I decided to write about one of the biggest struggles a writer faces... taking the gigs, or following your passion?

I've been doing this for a while, and it's something I still struggle with daily. When you're first starting out in writing, you're just such an eager beaver you'll work morning, noon and night for nickels or less, just to have your name on something and your work published. I can remember days of writing about completely foolish things like “10 Ways to Tell He's In To You,” and now I have an empire firmly rooted in the “Real Housewives” franchise, I'll let you debate within yourself on whether that's actually a step up anywhere.

No writer is going to tell you they live, breathe, and die for the gigs or beat writing that is out there. We all have passions somewhere. Mine happens to be screenwriting and fiction, not “Five Things You Think Kim Kardashian is Thinking” and I wasn't getting much work done in the things I wanted to be doing. I was logging long hours writing about things I could care less about, and it was taking it's toll. A toll of the bourbon in the coffee kind...well, not really, but you know what I mean.

So that's when you have to have that hard conversation with yourself. Is it the money or the art you're in this for? Weren't we all about the art when we wrote our first story? Didn't the excitement of creating something you're in love with get you out of bed in the morning? I know at some point I was actually dreading writing. I had pictures of all of my editors on a dartboard and I was not a fun person to be around. I chose to be a writer so I wouldn't have that 9-5 feeling...

But money makes the world go 'round...a girl's gotta eat, pay her kids' soccer tuition and get her nails done, right? At what price, though? To live with a screaming banshee woman swinging from the rafters at 5pm on her third edit of, “Guess What George Clooney Had to Eat Today?” Nope. Nobody wants that life.

It's all about balance. You have to keep your mojo firing on all cylinders with the passion, while keeping your name out there and the nickels coming in. You also need to keep your perspective, too. What do you want to be known for in the end? That great novel or investigative piece or a thousand pieces of disposable content? I don't know about you, but I'm winning the 2014 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Stop laughing, I totally am.

So as you go about your writing, remember that. You should always wake up jazzed to crate something. That's what separates that from the cannibals. If you're not, take a break and find it again. It changes everything.  

Distractions

One of the best tools I have against distractions is self control. Actually that should have been capitalized; Self Control.

Self Control is free software for Macs that locks you out of whatever you decided to tell it to lock you out of. Just put it on your blacklist and you can't get into it even if you turn on and off your computer.

Anyone feel more productive before some agent/editor/author told you to get a 'platform'? These are the things that I lock myself out of. And when I say lock, you really are locked out of whatever you tell it to lock you out of. (Say, three hours without Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger.)

It is a life saver and it's FREE!

But I should remind people to donate to kind folks who share their talents for free. Call it Karma.

Anyone have a good suggestion for Window's users?

HELP ME!

Sometimes as writing bloggers we are so quick to hand out advice

but this time I need your advice.

I have a confession...

(This is me contemplating confession but I think the priest only speaks French or Arabic)

I am TOO nice!

I need your help with being ruthless.

I need to create more obstacles.

I need conflict to run through my veins.

Any good tips?

Have you done a good post on conflict or do you know of one?

Do you have a favorite craft book that addresses nice people and how to transform them into heartless-push-you-off-a-cliffers?

HELP!

SNAPPED TREES, MY TRAMPOLINE ON THE GOLF COURSE, AND I'M FEELING ALRIGHT

By Chad Morris

Trees bowed in the wind. The air whipped passed the fences and trailers, and rushed over rooftops. I have been in strong wind before. I have felt impressed with the rushing air’s power—being practically pushed down the street, feeling lighter with the wind behind me, or leaning against it, letting the wind’s force keep me from falling. I have flown kites as high as they can go. I even remember waking up in the night as a kid hearing the strong winds and thinking they would shatter my window, but it never did.

A few days ago, my experience changed. The winds howled louder, long gusts blasting against my house—over a hundred miles an hour I’m told. Fences swayed, shingles rippled, and the trees bowed lower . . until . . . CRACK. Hundreds of pounds leaned and then crashed to the ground. That is some powerful stuff. 

Fences flapped over like cardboard.

Vinyl siding rippled in the wind like streamers, until they pulled free from my house and flew into the golf course behind my yard. 

Shingles pulled lose, and my trampoline fulfilled its long-time dream of standing on the back nine.

(My kids thought that was the greatest tragedy. They don't care about things like fences, siding, and a roof.)

It was an anxiety-filled, nerve-racking experience. My insides all felt like they twisted around each other. The wind was so powerful, and there was very little I could do about it. I could actually feel the house tremble in the wind if I hung out on the second story. Maybe the wind was about to rip it from its foundation and hurl it into OZ—hopefully we’d at least land on a wicked witch, a couple of creepy flying monkeys, or bare minimum an especially annoying munchkin.

And after . . . I felt relieved and somehow better. I didn’t care about some of the things I used to worry about. I was glad to have power in my house, not to have anywhere near any of the nineteen semi trucks that blew over, and to have my family and friends all safe. (As I'm typing this, the winds are back. We'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.)

It’s the difficult experiences that help us grow. That goes for characters in a story, or us real-life people. We love the stories where the characters go through something horrendous, face apparently insurmountable odds and conquer. And we love it after we’ve survived something hard. In fact, sometimes we even voluntarily challenge ourselves with it (NaNoWriMo).

Just my random thoughts. When writing, don’t ever be afraid to put character into trouble. In fact, make sure it’s a LOT of trouble. It will heighten the relief and lessons learned at the end. And on a similar note, don’t be afraid to challenge yourself. And if you’re in the middle of something hard, whether you chose it or not, hang in there. There is a great resolution coming.

Don't forget to enter the Book Lovers Giveaway Hop HERE (Amazon and The Book Depository!)

NoMo Tuesdays: TENSION!

Tension can sell a book to a reader.

Tension in the cover art.

Tension in the blurb or back cover copy.

Tension on the first page.

Tension in the first chapter.

Tension keeps a reader fipping pages and jumping to the next chapter.

Tension that carries you all the way to the end of the story.

This tension can be in many forms

Like this

Or these

Or this

Or this

Or this

Or this

Correct me if I'm wrong but most fiction contains mounting tension.

So try a couple of these techniques:

1. The ticking time bomb- We think of the obvious time bombs when we think of this topic (like bombs, work deadlines, the wedding 'I Do's, etc), but there are many time bombs to consider. 

Or the reverse time bomb. If they can make it through this hard part there is an end.... In war stories you know that if they can make it through this battle alive, then we get a breather. If they can make it through the war alive, we cry for joy. Can they survive to the end? Survivor the TV show is an example.

2. Relationship tension- romantic tension is the first thing most people think of when they hear this topic, but there are many types of relationships. Thelma and Louise. Potter and Snape. The Baudalaire Orphans and Olaf. 

One of the tips when writing relationship tension is to create characters with traits that are opposite of each other. And while you are at it, throw in opposite goals or have them fight for the same goal. Create some real problems between the people and make it hard for them to reconcile.

3. Dialogue tension- this is a way to SHOW tension where the others were forms of tension.

You can show rapid fire (discordant) dialogue. Naturally when we see people talking like this we think that something is wrong. It is a sneaky way to create an emotional response in the reader.

You can give the reader information that one person in the conversation is ignorant of. We then worry about that person while we read their discourse.

This is list is NOT in any way exhaustive,

but hopefully a jumping off place to look at

the tension in your writing.

Will we make it to the end of NaNoWriMo?

Duh-duh-dum!

TWO MORE DAYS!!

Go! Go! Go!

NoMo Tuesdays: I'm So Excited!

I can't hear "I'm So Excited" without thinking of the 80's song by that title

I can't think of the 80's song without thinking of Jesse Spano.

If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about.

If you don't...I wouldn't worry about it.

On to my NoMo Tuesday Tip

So you are pumping out the next great American novel.

You are so excited!

You are so awesome!

You are a wordsmith extraordinaire!

You are stuck.

You are frustrated.

You have writers block...in the middle of your story.

You are muddling.

You went from

to

Wanna tip to avoid this spiral into inactivity?

Keep writing.

Lame tip?

Perhaps.

But let me elaborate on what I mean.

If you're like me, you get to a new character and you ponder, and think, and research, and dwell upon, what you should call this new character. By the time you come up with a name that you feel luke warm about, you have lost momentum to keep writing that day.

Then there is that chapter that explains how the characters got from LemonLand to OrangeOrchard. You don't want to write it. You have nothing to say and you don't know how to make that chapter exciting. You stare at the chapter heading. You write the first sentence four times, each sentence becoming duller than the last. You quit for the day. Maybe the muse will strike later.

You've painted your characters into a corner! Perfect! Noone will be able to figure out how you are going to get them out of this one!!! Even you... :(  You know that a couple of things have to happen in there but how the whole thing will play out is a mystery. You have seriously stared at a blank screen, googled awesome fight scenes, watched bits of your favorite movie on YouTube, and gone back to the kitchen for a cookie three times. But there is still nothing on your page. Might as well dwell on this tomorrow.

What can be done?

Skipping.

Hate it? Skip it.

Can't figure something out? Skip it.

This part is dull? Skip it.

Not forever. Just for now.

Move with the momentum of excitement.

What is it that you REALLY want to write?

Write that.

Put the other stuff in (parenthesis) or highlight or CAP LOCK.

You can't ignore it forever, but you can ignore it now.

You can't lose days in NaNoWriMo coming up with the perfect character name.

You just have to write.

You just have to get your story on paper.

Along the way you might even feel inspired to fix those parts that you left behind.

Before you know it you'll be writing like this!

And loving it!

Keep on NaNo-ing everyone!!!

(numbers? anyone?)