3T Writing Tidbit - Sharpen your first-draft lump of clay

When I first write something, it resembles a lump of clay. It's vaguely vase-shaped, but it's thick and lumpy and has no color.

One of the things I do when editing is to sharpen up the details.

Character: Lean into their quirks. Are they a snobby lawyer? Get out your thesaurus and upgrade their dialog from talky to loquacious. Pick a word of one or two syllables in each sentence and trade it in for a spiffy new word of four or five. Lean into obfuscation!

Setting: Make all descriptions specific. Don't just say there's a rank odor - is it burnt hair or bubbling sulfur or the rasp of spores from moldy bread?

Plot: Have a bang-up scene ender? Go back to the beginning of the scene and have the protagonist expect the total opposite. Have a couple twists in the book? Figure out how to add one more -- both you and the reader will be pleasantly surprised with how much that adds. Look for scenes that add nothing to character or plot development -- and cut them.

Sequels: the bits where the protagonist ruminates over what's happened and plots their next goal usually start out all in her head. Sharpen these by adding solid resonances. Is she planning violence? Have her pick up a knife or bazooka. Is she totally fed up with work? Have her throw her computer mouse across the room or glaring at a customer considering coming in her empty check-out line at one minute after closing or shutting her eyes as her manager stomps toward her or... you get the idea.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.   

2T Repeat Performance - Synopsis in a Snap

 

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published August 2, 2013 for Savvy Authors

You’ve just spend weeks (or months or years) writing, honing, and polishing your story. But to sell it, you need to write a full synopsis. Imagine condensing your novel or novella down to 500 words or less. Does your heart pound in your throat? Does your whole being rebel against the thought?

Well, of course. A synopsis is like putting your story on an X-treme diet. Who likes diets—especially ones that reduce your baby to a bare 1% of the total?

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can ease the stress of writing a synopsis by flipping your thinking around.

Build the synopsis from the ground up.

How? You simply have to know the traditional five turning points of your story: the catalyst, the big event, the pinch, the crisis, and the climax. These go by other names, so my definition of each is at the end. (Please note that this technique is for the one or two page synopsis, complete with ending, that you send an editor, publisher, or agent. The teaser synopsis, or blurb, is another animal entirely.)

Let’s build a synopsis using this technique from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, you’ll still be able to follow along.

Here are the turning points. If you don’t understand the story from the raw points, that’s okay. It’ll become clearer as we go.

Catalyst: Dorothy’s dog Toto is seized by her wicked neighbor. Dorothy retrieves Toto and the two run away from home.

Big Event: A cyclone hits, sweeping Dorothy’s house, Toto, and Dorothy away.

Pinch: Dorothy and her friends reach the Wizard, only to be told she must destroy the Wicked Witch (or bring him her broomstick in the movie).

Crisis: The Witch captures Dorothy and imprisons her.

Climax: The Wizard’s hot air balloon takes off without Dorothy. She must rely on herself to return home.

The book actually jumps right to the Big Event, but that’s a normal difference between books and movies. Authors are taught to get right into the story. Screenplays include a setup that’s usually ten percent of the finished film.

Now we write our synopsis. Take these five points and add to them like this: add a sentence or two before each point to orient the reader, remembering to include the setting; insert those specific details between the points that are necessary to transition smoothly. Bonus Tip: You can add in hints of what makes your writing special (like a touch of humor), and one or two tidbits of color. In this case, I’ll expand “Dorothy’s friends” to include their very lively names, and also add the yellow brick road to contrast with Dorothy’s old gray farm. Bonus Tip: The theme often makes a good wrap up.

The Synopsis:

Dorothy is a young girl living with her aunt and uncle on a small, gray farm; only her dog Toto brings her joy. Then Toto is seized by her wicked neighbor. Dorothy recovers Toto and runs away from home.

She meets a carnival man who convinces her to go home. But when she gets to her house, a cyclone hits. Before Dorothy can reach the storm shelter, the wind sweeps away Dorothy’s house with Toto and Dorothy in it.

The house lands in a colorful countryside—on top of a bad witch, killing her.  A good witch appears and tells Dorothy that the great wizard Oz can send her home. She gives Dorothy the dead witch’s Silver Shoes (ruby slippers in the movie). Dorothy follows a road of yellow brick to Oz’s city, and along the way rescues three friends: the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion. But when Dorothy and her friends reach the Wizard, he will only help her if she destroys another bad witch, the Wicked Witch of the West.

But the Wicked Witch sees them coming and sends winged monkeys to capture Dorothy and Toto (and the Lion in the book). The Wicked Witch incarcerates Dorothy (enslaves her in the book). Dorothy is alone and friendless.

But when the Witch tries to steal Dorothy’s silver shoes, Dorothy, in anger, throws a bucket of water on the Witch. The water melts her. Dorothy is freed. She collects her friends and returns to the Wizard to claim her reward.

The Wizard, though, tries to get out of his promise. Dorothy and her friends confront him, and the Wizard is proven to be merely a man. But he is a man with a hot air balloon and offers to use it to take Dorothy home.

Then, the day of the launch, the balloon takes off without Dorothy. She must rely on herself to get back home. She finds the good witch, who says the silver shoes will take Dorothy and Toto back. She’s had the power all along, but without her adventure, she wouldn’t have discovered that there truly is no place like home.

Easier than whittling down a hundred or so pages, right? Only items which are essential to making the plot points make sense are added, such as the silver shoes, which both trigger Dorothy’s anger (melting the witch) and get her home. Only the main characters and those who infuse extreme color are named.

If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you’ll note I haven’t included the friends’ stories. That’s why this is such a great tool. The Scarecrow’s brain, the Tin Woodman’s heart, and the Cowardly Lion’s courage are important, but they’re not critical to understanding the plot points, so I know I can safely exclude them.

Need more? If you’re asked for a longer synopsis, you can simply list the five plot points for the secondary stories and weave them in. This also works for romance, where you have story arcs for both hero and heroine, or paranormal romance, where you have the hero, heroine and story arcs.

The five plot points defined. These definitions are my own. You can find other names for these points and fuller explanations with a simple web search. If these definitions don’t match yours, the technique will still work using your own understanding of the major story turning points.

The catalyst: The protagonist is going about her daily life when something changes.

The big event: Takes the protagonist in a new direction. The problem is worse than she first thought.

The pinch: Either the point of no return or a low point when the protagonist fails utterly. Usually starts her on the right path to the final solution.

The crisis: Locks the protagonist in and leads directly to the climax. Can be where the protagonist tries for a final solution and fails.

The climax: Final showdown. Can be where the protagonist tries for a final solution and either tragically fails completely with no more options, or succeeds.

 

3T Writing Tidbit - I hate selling, but without sales I'll starve

 The creativity to write books doesn't always exist alongside another very important talent needed by authors to be successful -- selling.

Basic fact is, if you want to be a successful author, you have to sell books.

Now, I do not like selling. Didn't like it even as a child. Frankly, most of the band candy I sold was to myself.

You may be like me and wonder how you'll be successful. Well, here's a small thought to help you.

It's not about what I need. It's about what I can contribute.

Readers are actively looking for good books. Your book is good, right? So why not just let them know about your book?

 

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.   

2T Repeat Performance - Vampires, Volvos and Time Travel

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published June 1, 2013 for the Samhain Blog

Back when I was the Volvo Goddess (I ran an automotive marketing database and let me tell you, I could make that data sit up and beg) I found myself doing a strange thing every September.

I started dating my checks with the next year.

The problem is, car models jump the gun, year-wise. 2013’s cars were on sale in 2012 and 2014’s will be on sale soon. You can bet marketing firms are already gearing up ads for 2014’s shiny new models, and 2013 isn’t even half done.

I learned from that experience that if you work in next year long enough, you start believing it’s already here.

That first timewarp was beaten, hands down, by being an author. As I’m writing this (on May 24), I have just finished the first draft of Downbeat, Biting Love Book 7, which is scheduled to go on sale March 2014.

Problem? Biting Love Book 6, Beauty Bites, hasn’t even been released. I’m deep in a story that takes place after a book that only a handful of people have read so far.  What makes it worse is that my editor loved the Beauty Bites hero’s sidekick so much she suggested—strongly—I make him the hero of his own story. Soon. So Book 8 is already rolling around in my mind.

Now when I start talking about my stories I yak about characters nobody has met, and even my bestest reader friends look at me funny and suggest we change the conversational channel. It’s enough to drive a sane person nuts.

No wonder us poor authors are a little west of weird. J

Mark your calendars! Beauty Bites, Biting Love Book 6, is coming August 27.

Downbeat, Biting Love Book 7, releases early 2014

Biting Love Book 8, Aiden’s story, will release soon after that if Christa has her way J

Hugs!
Mary

Strong men. Stronger women.
http://maryhughesbooks.com

 

3T Writing Tidbit - the dreaded scenery dump

Too often when I read a book the plot comes to a crashing stop to set the scene.

Now Umberto Eco got away with exhaustive description in The Name of the Rose (although frankly, I skipped a lot of pages). And I heard Hunchback of Notre Dame starts out with an architectural treatise on Paris.

But most of us aren't Umberto Eco or Victor Hugo. So how do we give the reader a sense of the surroundings without stopping them in their tracks?

The answer's in the question - a sense of the surroundings. Your character is moving into, around, and through your scene. Let the reader experience the place through her senses! 

Compare:

The store's neon sign was bright blue.

My gaze lit on the store's neon sign, a blue which seared my retinas. I stumbled around half-blind for the next minute.

Or:

Lilac bushes lined the yard.

A scent teased her nose, drawing her toward the yard. Sweet, heady, the scent from the lilac bushes filled her with a sudden joy.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.  

2T Repeat Performance - The Problem with Clichés—it’s not what you think

 

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published April 16, 2013 for Savvy Authors

Every writer has flaws to overcome, or as they’re known in the business world, “opportunities”. With some it’s bland characters, with some it’s Swiss cheese plots.

My problem was—“What’s a cliché?”

Oh, sure, I knew the definition. A trite word or expression. Worn out, no longer fresh, overused. But by that definition, wouldn’t “the” be cliché? Or even “it was the”, as in “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” The Pedagogue sneers. “Clichés are old phrases, such as ‘Dry as dust’.”

Clichés were “over the hill”. I understood that and was happy…until I read an article that said heroes with chiseled faces and beautiful, plucky heroines are cliché. Worse, I found out (on a sold story) that a character growling eighty-four times in a manuscript is overuse to the point of cliché. (Yes, I really did this.)

 So…trite phrases aren’t the only type of cliché? Again I was confused.

 “It’s any overused word or phrase,” The Pedagogue says, but the sneer is gone. “A description that’s hackneyed. Lost its color, its meaning.”

 “But I like chiseled-faced heroes and I understand the meaning of ‘dry as dust’.” I’m getting militant now. “‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink’ is pretty colorful as far as I’m concerned. How do I know what’s cliché?”

 “You just know.”

 The point was, I didn’t “just know”.

 Until I ran across UrbanDictionary.com in its early days, where regular phrases are turned inside out and spun onto their heads. Clear away the definitions that are bodily functions, and you get some fresh, witty stuff.

Urban Dictionary inspired me to create Nixie, a 5’0”, 100-pound punk rock musician who never says anything normal. I paired her with a 6’-plus blueblood vampire lawyer. Good times… And suddenly my writing sang and descriptions bled with color and emotions had depth and action ripped.

A light went on in my head. Um, I mean, my brain fizzed with “I get it”. Clichés aren’t simply worn-out phrases. Clichés still have meaning. “Dry as dust” still means really dry. “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” still means “opportunity doesn’t equal achievement”.

What those phrases don’t have is anything more. The reader processes them and understands them, but those words don’t punch her in the gut or grab her throat or explode in her eyes.

Think about “Dry as dust”. What do you picture? A pile of dust? If you want your reader to picture a hot attic with motes of dust floating in the sere sunlight, dry as dust won’t do it.

How about leading your horse to water? Do you picture your gelding, the gentle brown of his eye changing to a militant gleam as you approach the trough? I’m going to guess many of us don’t have the kind of daily experience with a horse that would make that image pop.

Here’s the main point: writing tells a story; good writing makes the reader live the story.

Air that’s “dry as dust” is dry. Air that scours your nasal passages is yikes. Air sawing into your lungs or breathing air that’s like inhaling acid—did you almost feel that dryness?

A cliché isn’t simply a trite phrase or words leached of their meaning. It’s any word or phrase that sits on the page. That’s important, so let me say it another way. It’s anything that goes in one eye and out the other. Anything that slips through the brain leaving meaning and nothing else. A cliché isn’t dead—when read it’s perfectly understandable. But it doesn’t resonate into more; it doesn’t sing or sting or knock the reader over the head with I get it now.

How does a writer get beyond cliché? Ooh (rubs hands gleefully), I’m so glad you asked.

• Use strong nouns and verbs. Really, this is like eating right—it fixes a variety of ills, not just clichés.
• Read for places you understand but don’t immediately picture what’s going on. These are places of opportunity to freshen the writing.
• Read for places you picture what’s going on, but don’t shudder or cry or swallow hard or grab your throat in vicarious sympathy with the hero/heroine. Is this supposed to be a place of relaxation or rest in the tension? Okay, but there’d better be something compelling on the rest of the page.
• Put yourself in your character’s shoes…er, look out of her eyes. If she has an ounce of personality…um, more backbone than an ant?...anyway, she’ll have her own perspective and so her own way of experiencing the world. Musicians might hear the wobble of guilt in the voice of an otherwise confident liar; a harried mom might experience everyone around her as demanding and whiny.
• If you can’t get a passage out of bed, go back to the basics. What are you trying to say? Now imagine making a movie of it. How would you show it? What is the actress feeling (smelling, hearing, seeing, touching) as she moves through the action? How would she show that feeling (scent, sound, sight, touch)?
• Use character-specific swearing.

 

One of my button issues is the overuse of swearing—not because it’s offensive, but because, as too much pepper makes for a numb tongue, too much swearing makes for a numb brain, and even the freshest writing in the world won’t stimulate a stunned mind. Darn, pfui, and their cayenne cousins are wonderful ways to grab the reader’s attention with small smacks. But used every other paragraph, they’re a verbal tic or worse.

 Dig deep into the character to tailor that pepper into fresh barbs. In Biting Oz, my heroine Gunter Marie “Junior” Stieg is a musician whose day job is selling sausage. Here’s her take on her hero, Glynn Rhys-Jenkins. Her swearing has a sausage theme (my comedy tends to be a bit broad, but you can tailor your substitutes to your situation). Also note the hero has the cliché blue eyes and chiseled features, but through Junior’s eyes they take on a new dimension.

 

A glow of sapphire eyes, a flash of dangerous planes, the impression of broad shoulders. Glimpses through lowered house lights and dark wings hadn’t prepared me for seeing him in full light for the first time. Great Braunschweiger, he was beyond gorgeous, as in punch-out-my-heart-and-use-it-to-club-me-senseless stunning.

 

And one longer passage to leave you with. Heroine Junior and her friend Rocky (both musicians) are discussing hero Glynn. Here’s how it could have been written.

 

Rocky said, “So how do you know Glynn?”

 

“I don’t. I just met him tonight.”

 

“So I only imagined he was looking at you ‘that way’?” She opened the house doors and we walked down the aisle.

 

“What way?”

 

“Like you’re hot.”

 

“Really?” Glynn thought I was sexy?

 

And here’s how it actually was written.

 

Rocky said, “So how do you know Glynn?”

 

“I don’t.”

 

“Oh.” The normally neutral syllable was lengthened and pitched high, filling it with her skepticism.

 

“I don’t,” I repeated, as if saying it again would convince her. “I just met him tonight.”

 

“So I only imagined he was looking at you ‘that way’?” She elbowed open the house doors and trotted down the aisle.

 

“What way?”

 

“Like he wanted to eat you up. Which reminds me, did you see Rob brought pit chocolate?”

 

My voice wouldn’t work. Glynn was looking hungrily at me?

The problem with clichés is not that they’re meaningless, but that they only have one meaning; they don’t resonate into a symphony of meaning or splash into a painting of meaning or leap into a dance of meaning.

The stunning revelation is that the word “cliché” is sort of a cliché. We understand its definition, but it’s not useful for anything more. The Pedagogue was correct, you do “just know” when a word is lay-on-the-page cliché. (Pedagogues are almost always right; the problem is they’re also annoying about it. J) Oh, and the word “the”? Not cliché, but mostly transparent like “said”, except when you’re making a point about this being the definite article: “That’s not a king; that’s the king.” But it’s still not best practice to growl eighty-four times in a manuscript.

 

3T Writing Tidbit - End on a Bang?

 I have a two-inch stack of notecards filled with bits and bytes I've learned over the years. Today in reviewing them I came across one that reads

Prologue needs to end on a bang.

So, part of that is because prologues are out of fashion. Readers want to be immersed in the story as close as possible to the moment the story engine starts. If you're going to flout that, you'd better have the hook to end all hooks at the conclusion to make sure they read on (basically they're starting over again with Chapter One, why are you doing that to your poor reader)?

Really, we're taught to end every section with a bang, aren't we? Sequel structure is: Character has a Goal and makes a Plan to get the Goal. Okay, here we go! Scene is: Character executes Plan. Plan goes off the rails, and Character does not get the Goal. Sometimes Character not only doesn't get the Goal, Something Worse Happens.

Chapters traditionally end with Something Worse, which is often Oh No What Will Happen Now!! or what my husband calls the wha-wha whaaaa moment (think of a melodrama music just before the ads break).

Example: I crept up to the sleeping man who held all the answers to my missing parents. Gently I shook his shoulder to wake him. He rolled onto his back, mouth agape.

He was dead.

Wha-wha whaaaa!

Example: Chloe walked into the bar, angrily searching out her cheating boyfriend. When she got hold of the him and whatever skank he was two-timing her with... she saw him in the back corner. Some cheap blonde was all over him. Chloe stalked toward the couple, readying her scathing words. Her boyfriend saw her, his eyes widening. The blonde must've sensed his stiffening because she turned. Chloe stopped in recognition.

It was her sister.

Wha-wha whaaaa!

As much as we as writers should strive to hook the reader and offer surprises and turns of fortune to keep them reading...

Don't go full melodrama. Don't end your scene, chapter, or even prologue with a wha-wha whaaaa.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.