Detox = Delays

On Sunday I was supposed to host another #10KWritathon, write and post the 5th installment in the Planning for Pantsers series, and just generally be a productive writer.

Unfortunately, I chose Saturday to go see my homeopath who put me on a new eating plan, starting with a detox. Sunday was spent doing month end shopping, including all the things I'd need to stick to the eating plan and detox, and a therapy session in the afternoon.

We arrived home in time for a quick bath and a nap before going out for supper with the family - my aunt flew up for business and wanted to see us for a few hours. We got home just before midnight and by then I was finished.

My body has decided that detoxing equals sleep and killer headaches, although I've managed to keep my #writechain link going (thank goodness I changed it to something more manageable when I received my study guides), but aside from that, I haven't even looked at anything online since Sunday morning.

HUGE apologies to everyone who expected me to be around for the Writathon. I expected myself to be around, at least for most of the day, so it was rather disconcerting to suddenly realise that the hour I spent online in the morning was the most I'd spend writing all day.

To those expecting the next installment in the Planning for Pantsers series, I'm working on it and will have it up this Sunday instead.

I don't expect this week to be very productive, but my energy levels should start picking up as soon as my body has decided that it's clear of toxins and bleh stuffs. In the meantime, here's Munchkin urging me to hurry up and get my butt in gear (to feed her, but we'll pretend it's for the rest of it too).

Planning for Pantsers - The Thing about Themes

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

“Argh! I don’t have a theme! I NEED a THEME!”

And so a billion stories have remained unwritten for want of a theme.

What is this elusive concept anyway and is it really that important for a story to have one? Simply put, a theme is an underlying idea or common thread that flows from the beginning of the story to the end. It can be something as infinitely broad as Good versus Evil, or something more focused such as Betrayal.

Most brilliantly written novels will have several interweaving themes threaded through the story. Some are so subtle that you can reread the book several times before you finally spot them, feeling as brilliant as Sherlock when you finally do.

A lot of “How to Write” workshops/courses/clinics, suggest the necessity for deciding your theme before you write. While this may work for some, it doesn’t work all that well for me as a Pantser. I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I hear “What’s your theme?” and instantly I hit a blank. How do you sum up your pride and joy, the sweat and blood you’ve poured into the blank pages for months; in a simple phrase or a single word? What happens if you have more than one theme?

In my humble opinion; themes are important, there’s no doubt about that. Someone once said, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything,” and that’s what a theme does. It gives your book something to stand for.

However, I don’t think that you need to decide on your theme before you even start writing. If, for example, you decide right at the beginning that your book is going to be about Good versus Evil, well, good for you. But what is good and what is evil in your book? Who are the good guys, and why do they have to fight the bad guys? And why should we care?

Before you even decide on a theme, you should be answering the important questions: Why is Bob good? What makes him so great? Do we like him for being good, or do we want to punch his perfectly handsome face in because he’s just TOO perfect?

And if we want to punch him for being so sickeningly sweet, is there a situation we can put him in to make us empathise with him?

Therein lies the key ingredient to writing a book with meaningful themes. Creating characters and situations that readers can empathise and sympathise with, giving them challenges that seem impossible to overcome and yet the reader is with them every step of the way, cheering them on because even though we want to break their nose with our fist, we still want to see them succeed because they deserve to.

Themes are what book-reviewers, editors and publishers look for in your writing. As a writer, your only concern should be with telling a story that means something to you. Because if it means something to you, then guaranteed it will resonate with someone else.

Leave the theme for later, when your betas have read your novel and said “You know, I really love the theme of Unconditional Love that runs through your story, even though it was really difficult for the characters to get to that point.”

Then you can turn around in an elevator when you have a poor publisher helplessly trapped between floors and say, “My book’s theme is Unconditional Love. I’d LOVE for you to read it.”

How do you feel about themes? Do they make or break your book?

Planning for Pantsers - Explaining Essentials

Calvin and Hobbes - Bill Watterson

Last week we worked on timelines, and sorting your scenes into some semblance of order. When we discussed making scenes, we spoke about ensuring that something, anything, happened in every scene in order to keep the story interesting.

This week we’re going to be discussing two essential elements of stories, things your story HAS to have in order to tell one.

When I first heard about the character and story arcs, I struggled to make sense of it. Definitions were vague and indefinite and although I searched for examples to make it clearer, I didn’t find very many that were useful. It took a while before I was able to make it sound sensible in a way I understood. So, presented here are my - admittedly - a bit simplified, but hopefully clear, definitions and examples.

An arc describes a movement, from one point to another. When applied to writing, this refers to story and character arcs.

A Story Arc is the movement of the story from the beginning, to the end. It is what keeps the story moving forward, provides the focus of a climax, and then ends it after the challenges have been resolved. It can be the change from one setting to another, or the change that makes characters view their setting in a different way, but in order for an arc to exist, change has to happen.

The same is true in a Character Arc except that these can be internal - the change occurs because the character makes a decision to change, or external - something happens to force the change.

The two types of arc are dependent on each other - if there is no story arc, the characters won’t grow, or move from where they are at the beginning. If there’s no character arc, the story won’t move from point A to point B.

Both elements can have several different arcs - in a novel, the settings can change numerous times and various characters can undergo several shifts in their ways of thinking or acting.

The confusing thing about arcs, and something that I’ve only recently come to realise, is that you don’t need to outline them at all. You don’t even need to really think about them all that much.

Which sounds contrary to the idea of them being essential to telling a story. Stick with me here, while I attempt to explain my reason for saying this.

If you’ve followed this series since Week 1, you will have already dealt with creating scenes and then ordering them into your timeline. If you followed the rule of making sure that SOMETHING happens in each scene to keep your reader hooked, then change (the overall element of an arc), is already present in your novel.

In creating a timeline, you’ve ordered the elements of change, the movement, and created an arc. The characters and story undergo shifts within each scene, and each one brings them closer to the solution of the trials that you’ve put them through.

As with scenes and timelines, the only rule to making sure that the arc makes sense, is to remain consistent within the story telling itself. If you manage to do that, your arcs will fall into place automatically - which is great if you’re a Pantser who hates planning.

How do you feel about Story Arcs? Does the idea of finding one before you start writing leave you feeling intimidated? I'd love to hear from you. 

Bout of Books 9.0

I think I'm officially crazy. On top of editing, writing, studying and blogging, I've now decided to add an extra challenge to my timetable: 

Bout of Books 9.0 

What is this challenge I speak of, I hear you ask? Well, dear reader, allow me to elucidate:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 9.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

There you have it. So what am I going to be reading? 

We picked these up at bargain prices last year during our holiday to Dullstroom. There was a lovely little bookshop full of second hand books and a vast supply of fantasy and sci-fi - my favourites. I picked up three complete series... and haven't read a single book. I think last year, in between all the studying and butterflies, I managed to finish three, maybe four books. I know, I know! I'm a terrible example of a bookworm. 

I can't say with any certainty that I'll finish these in a week, with work and writing and the beginning of the year planning for studies going on. But I'm aiming for at least two. Maybe three. 

As I finish each book, I'll post the title, author and total number of pages here. 

Wish me luck. 

Edit: I'm a terrible Bout of Books-er. I didn't read ANY of the books pictured above. Well, I read the first few pages of one. BUT, I did read some other books - downloadable books I found on storycartel.com Here are the details:

Bear Naked: Interior by R.J. Eliason  260 pages.
Curse: Book 1 of the Wexkia Trilogy by Dale Furse  255 pages.
The Spirit of Imagination by S.A. Tawks  132 pages.

I managed to finish all three of the above before the 12th January, but have only managed to get online now to update this post. So even though I still haven't read all the books we bought in Dullstroom, I did manage to read some others. Which is better than none. 

Planning for Pantsers - Just in Time

 If you don’t have them, you might end up with a story that looks like this paragraph. In most stories, they reach the end, start with a beginning, and go through the middle. Timelines are important. They set out to tell the story in an order that makes sense.

Let’s try that again, shall we?

Timelines are important. They set out to tell the story in an order that makes sense. In most stories, they start with a beginning and go through the middle to reach the end.

But they don’t have to follow the three-act structure in order to tell the story in a specific order. The confusion with timelines comes in when a writer forgets the story he’s trying to tell, and starts to jump around, mixing up scenes and events within the story. The scenes on their own will still make sense, but much like the first paragraph of this post, when you put them all together, they’re jumbled and give the plot away long before you’ve hooked the reader.

As a writer, you have the power to change time itself. You also have the power to confuse the time stream to such an extent that you create multiple time warps and end up on a stage with aliens in drag doing a funky chicken dance. If you’re a pantser, you’ve probably time warped a few times while writing.

Last week I spoke about making scenes, and creating the titles for them so that you roughly know what’s going to happen throughout the story.

I found that when I did this exercise, I created the scenes from where I imagined the story would start, adding odd bits here and there before reaching what I thought would be the end.

The problem I discovered while doing this is that I’m never sure which scene I’m going to be writing next. Part of being a pantser means that you just write, sometimes with a vague idea of where you want the scene to go, but mostly, you’re just writing until something hits a chord and you get a small part of the story that sits right.

Of course, this means that by the end of having written 50 odd scenes, you’re left with a whole lot of time warps. Which is where timelines come into play.

First of all, we need to define what a timeline in novel writing is NOT.

• A timeline is not an A to Z layout of events in your story.
• A timeline is not always structured from the beginning to the end.
• A timeline is not necessarily in date order.
• A timeline is not set in stone.

That said, it’s time to delve into what novel timelines ARE.

• A timeline is a layout of events that happen in your story.
• A timeline can be structured to include flashbacks, journal entries, dreams, or if you’re writing a time-travelling novel, future and past events.
• A timeline is set up to help you keep track of all your important scenes, so that you can be sure to write bridging scenes between Big Event A, and Big Event B.
• A timeline is a device to make sure that Betty isn’t pregnant with Bob’s baby two months before they meet.
• A timeline can be changed to help the story flow better, so don’t be scared to mix it around a bit.

If you’re working with Scrivener, you have the lovely option of viewing your scenes on a virtual corkboard. This makes creating a “timeline” extremely simple, because you just click and drag the index cards into the order in which you’d like to tell the story.

Liquid Story Binder is free to use for 30 days, after which you need to purchase the software. It comes with a timeline feature, in which you can sort your timelines by date, character, events, etc.

The Timeline app from ReadWriteThink is free, and allows you to create a straightforward A-Z timeline of events, which is useful if you just want to know when things happened if not where they’ll appear in your story.

Timelines are a Pantser’s best friend, for the simple reason that if you’re writing your scenes as they pop into your head, you can write them all, and then place them into a semi-coherent order - your novel’s timeline.

Once that is done, you get to play with writing bridging scenes, and editing, making sure that your story flows smoothly from one scene to the next, whether you’re jumping ahead to the future, or tripping back to the past. Just make sure that unless you meant to do it, you don’t create time warps and funky chickens.

Ninja Chicken from play.google.com

Resolutions vs. Inspirations

Every New Year brings with it fresh ideas; inspiration and ways to make your life better, by making resolutions. 

While this is all well and good, New Year's resolutions are infamous for one reason: they're normally impossible to keep. 

I'm in two minds about making resolutions. On the one hand, I know goals are a good thing to have. On the other, I know I'm really lousy at sticking to my goals, especially when life gets busy. I also realise that when I don't stick to them, I feel guilty and start running myself down about it, and then decide not to do anything at all. Which is worse?

On a personal level, I've come to the conclusion that resolutions are not the way to accomplish anything. Beating myself up about things that seemed important when I made the resolutions, but that I ended up not doing because life happened just doesn't feel like motivation to me. It feels like a pointless guilt trip on the road to failure. 

So if I'm not making resolutions, what am I doing to mark the turning of the calendar into a new year?

I'm making Inspirations. (Shh. I can hear you giggling all the way over here. Let me explain.)

The key difference between resolutions and inspirations, is the lack of guilt if I fail to make an inspiration. But there are other differences. For example:

Resolutions	Inspirations
I will write x number of words per day.	I will find something that inspires me to write every day.
I will go on a diet and lose x amount by x.	I will find a reason to make healthier choices every day.
I will learn to paint.	I will try to create something beautiful every day.
I will study and pass my exams.	I will find ways to enjoy my studies so that I pass easily.

I realise these aren’t concrete goals, but as you’ve probably already guessed, I don’t function very well with set goals. I’m a dreamer by nature, and that generally means that I spend my time dreaming, not doing. Being a perfectionist also means that if I set goals, everything needs to be perfect in order for me to reach them. It’s baking the cake without the right bake-ware all over again.

Don’t get me wrong, the resolutions are things I would like to achieve this year. But not at the expense of my self-esteem and motivation. Also, Inspirations encourage me to find things that have a positive meaning, and that bring joy and beauty into my life. Instead of being discouraged by not hitting my word count for the day, I’ll have found something inspiring to write about, and I will have written, even if I didn’t make two thousand words. Instead of feeling like a fat blob because I’m not losing weight, I’ll be encouraged to walk the dogs for the exercise.

Every day will bring me something new to look forward to, and with each day that passes, I will develop a new habit: Positive thinking. Which, when you think about it, is the reason that most resolutions fail.

Resolutions are, generally speaking, made while in a positive and committed frame of mind. They fail, because in the daily grind that is life today, it’s difficult to remain positive. When your boss is being the pre-menstrual bitch from hell and taking it out on you, it’s hard not to get home, crawl into bed with the chocolates and refuse to move for the entire weekend.

But, when your boss is being the pre-menstrual bitch from hell and you can get revenge by writing a novel in which she gets a terrible infection from a paper cut; it’s hard not to get excited about putting words on the page.

This method isn’t going to work for everyone and if goal setting works for you, then I say well done. You’ve achieved something I struggle with on a daily basis and I admire you for that. But for those of you like me, who find it easy to get discouraged if you miss a day and mess up your resolution; maybe you should try inspirations instead?

And if those don’t work, I’ve found that Disney stickers on a specially designed Writer’s Calendar work wonders for motivation.  *shiny*

The 2014 Writer's Calendar was created by me and can be downloaded here.