Kellyn Roth's Blog: Kellyn Roth, Author, page 52

Plotting Crash Course, Day Three: A New Book and a Perfect Review

This has been very much so a crash course … even more so than expected! I’ve done about a quarter of the posts about this as I expected to (but, to be fair, I intended to start in September and then stuff happened … blog parties, deciding to publish a book I had no intention of even finishing, etc.), and I’m not quite as well-prepared as I’d like to be with NaNoWriMo coming in less than a week.

Yesterday my copy of Outlining Your Novel by K.M. Weiland finally arrived! It’s absolutely beautiful. :)

It’s also full of amazing advice. I’m already about halfway through it. And everything I read makes me feel more guilty.

Fifty-page outlines (although this was for a 100,000-word-long novel).

Months upon months of intensive structuring.

Knowing everything (and I mean everything) about your book before you start writing.

The author (K.M. Weiland) notes that her methods aren’t for everyone; however, I must agree with her on one point; it would be fantastic to have a fifty-page outline … or even a twenty-five-page outline!

The more I read about how helpful these outlines are, how halfway through the book, you won’t be fixing a plot hole, how it simplifies the revising process, how it gives you more time for creativity as you don’t need to bother with structure because you’ve already got it down, the more attracted I am to the idea.

Well, I don’t have time to come up with a complete outline of any great length, but I’m definitely going to organize my notes the best I can!

In Outlining Your Novel, there are many helpful tips for getting your story together before you actually begin writing. One of the best ideas (in my opinion) is to write a review of your own book, a glowing review, a review by a reader who totally gets everything you want to express in your story and LOVES IT. This gives you a clear something to go for.

So, I sat down and wrote a review of At Her Fingertips. I wrote it from the perspective of, oh, a sixteen-year-old girl who loves reading and … archery. (Yep, that was totally random …) She’s also a huge fan of historical fiction, particularly that set during the Victorian era and including romantic elements and Christianity, of course. And, of course, she gets everything I want to express in my book perfectly.

She’s read the first two book in The Chronicles of Alice and Ivy and enjoyed them, but she loves At Her Fingertips best of all, as you’ll see in her glowing review which goes as follows. (It ended up being long, by the way.)

I just finished reading Kellyn Roth’s At Her Fingertips, and I must say … it was an amazing story! I bought as soon as it came out after loving The Dressmaker’s Secret and Ivy Introspective, but this was the best of the series so far!!!

At Her Fingertips is the story of Alice Knight, an upper class Victorian young lady who is about to come out into polite society. At seventeen, Alice is a little different than the eight-year-old we all learned to know and love. She’s a bit more critical than in The Dressmaker’s Secret, her simple view of the world gone, but we still see the old Alice there, as intense, independent, sensible, and overall charming as always. She’s the kind of character you like, though lazy people like me sure wouldn’t want her as a boss! When Alice says, “Go!” she doesn’t mean tomorrow. She means NOW in big, bold letters.

At the start of the book, I was a bit worried for Alice. I’ve always loved how she has such a strong faith in God. As a young adult, though, she has some hesitations in her faith. For instance, she deliberately ignores what the Holy Spirit is plainly telling her for a lot of the book. She tries to do what she thinks is the right thing, yet she keeps getting distracted. As I said before, Alice is not the kind of girl who sits around and thinks. She acts! And sometimes she forgets to do a little thinking first – or a little praying, though more accurately a little listening would be in order! She prays a lot; she just doesn’t wait for an answer.

But we all forgive her that, because, if anything, Alice is a human, and who doesn’t love a human? And I know God knows that, and I believe that if we see Alice again, God will still be working with her to weed out that “I’m too busy doing whatever I think You want me to do to listen right now, God!” tendency.

I don’t want to give away spoilers, but I will say that Alice definitely ends up at a good place in her relationship with God. But, of course, we all know Miss Roth will have a happy ending (even if it’s a bit bittersweet sometimes).

The odd thing about Alice (and I think it’s realistic, too!) is that when she does stop and think (or listen, or however you want to put it), she ends up with an interesting thought, or a new way to help someone, or a new battle plan (that is actually a good one!).

I think my favorite thing to read about in At Her Fingertips was Alice’s art. She lives large (as you probably already guessed), so it’s odd and enchanting to see (well, read about, but it feels like seeing) her sketch and paint the little details when we know she’s a big-picture thinker. You can tell from Miss Roth’s descriptions that she takes time to capture each detail of the scene, whatever that may be. You can feel Alice’s talent tumbling off the pages. That scene where she absent-mindedly sketches you-know-who (read the book!) is so fantastic (I knew right then who she was gonna end up with, though she obviously wasn’t thinking about it herself or even considering his appearance … but more on that later). Also, another great way to fit in a description of a character without boring the readers.

October Character Studies ~ Costumes

First: OH MY GOSH!!! She liked my idea. Is the world collapsing on you or is it just me?!?!?!

Wait a minute … why would the world be collapsing if I actually thought up something good that someone liked for once instead of a bunch of mindless blither-blather? Well … I don’t know. Maybe because everything’s been kind of going wrong with me lately.

I was reading over reviews of The Dressmaker’s Secret, and I started going all like, “AAAH IT’S SUCH AN AWFUL BOOK, HOW COULD I HAVE WRITTEN THIS STUPIDITY, EVERYTHING’S WRONG WITH IT, etc.” (Although I have gotten some amazing reviews … but others were honest …) Then I read over old blog posts and they are so full of typos that they are impossible to understand! So, yep. Things like that keep happening …

I’m sorry guys. I’m such an awful person.

Photography, Poetry, and Life

Another of my three-in-one posts.

Beautiful Books, #1

I didn’t know about this because I … I just didn’t, but around this time every year, Sky and Cait take a break from Beautiful People and do Beautiful Books instead to celebrate NaNo.

I figure this is a good idea for me to do now, as I’ve been getting the basics of At Her Fingertips assembled in my head, starting the pre-outlining (what?! The more perfectionistic you are, the more outlining you need to do to even finish a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad first draft!), etc.

After all, I’ve got tons and tons of little details … and sometimes it’s a good time just to take a step back and say, “Okay. We’ve examined every tree as thoroughly as any golden retriever. Time to take a step back and look at the forest. Like a border collie.” What? Border collies are scientifically proven big-picture thinkers! Okay, I just made that up …

So … here are the questions.

Plotting Crash Course, Day 2: Character Sheets and Aesthetics

Today we’ll be talking about character sheets and novel aesthetics, because I started developing a playlist today, got excited about it, and need to share it with you.

Let’s start out with character sheets.

Now, everyone has their own version of the character sheets, and you can find about a thousand, all relatively good, by just Googling ‘character sheets.’ I developed my own this year … pointlessly (more on that later).

Anyway, here’s my character sheet:

Basics:

Full name:

Nickname(s):

Gender:

Reason (for being in the story, like protagonist, supporting character, etc.):

Age in Story:

Birthdate:

Appearance/Physically:

Overall (from unprejudiced viewpoint):

Height:

Weight/Build:

Hair color, length, style:

Eye color and expression:

Details about face:

Skin color:

Other Appearance Details:

Perceives him/herself as:

Others perceive him/her as:

Style of dress/fashion preferences:

Handicaps:

Athletic? Inactive?:

Overall health?:

Past illnesses/injuries:

Family:

Father:

Relationship with:

Mother:

Relationship with:

Brothers:

Relationship with (each brother):

Sisters:

Relationship with (each sister):

Grandparents:

Relationship with (each grandparent):

Aunt/Uncle/Cousins:

Relationships with:

Stepfamily of any kind:

Relationships with:

Other family (such as birth-parents, etc.):

Relationships with:

Background:

Birthplace:

Race/Nationality:

Childhood Religion:

Other beliefs/perspectives from raising:

Important memories from childhood:

Educational background:

Where did the character live in each year of his/her life:

How did any moves during his/her childhood effect him/her?:

Where does the character live at the beginning of the story?:

Where does the character settle in the end of the story?:

Other things that effected the character during childhood:

Adult Life:

What did he/she do when he/she grew up?:

Important decisions made as an adult:

Changes in beliefs/religion/perspectives as an adult:

How did his/her personality change as he/she matured?:

Love interests:

His/Her Own Family:

Husband/Wife:

Past Husbands/Wives (if applicable):

Children:

Stepchildren (if applicable):

Nature and Personality:

Top three words:

MBTI-type:

Strongest and weakest trait:

Who/what is most important to him/her?:

Who/what is least important to him/her?:

What does the character fear?:

How does the character deal with his/her fear?:

What gives the character courage?:

What is the character proud of?:

Outlook on life:

Ambitions:

Dreams:

How does the character see himself/herself?:

How is the character seen by others?:

Friends:

Friends? Why? Relationships with?:

Coworkers? Relationships with?:

Other people that have an effect on his/her life?:

Enemies? Why? Relationships with?

Changes:

How does the character change in the course of the story (if at all) …

Physically:

Mentally:

Spiritually:

Other:

It’s probably not as good as a professional character sheet … but, on the other hand, maybe it’s pretty close, because it’s developed from the bones of several different ‘professional’ character sheets …

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programing …

… to bring you a special news bulletin!

First, I just had a mental block and couldn’t figure out how to spell ‘bulletin’ for, like, five minutes. Which is weird because I’m usually a pretty good speller …

Second (and more importantly), I just finished writing Ivy Introspective! I know! It’s so exciting! Yes, I do realize I was supposed to finish it in a while ago … June, I think, actually … but you know what? It’s great to have it finished even if it was supposed to be finished a zillion years ago! Now I can concentrate on planning At Her Fingertips and not always feel like ‘I should be writing.’ You know … until November.

Today I was researching the distance between Edinburgh and the Scottish border (51.23 km, 31.84 m) and how fast trains went back then (15-20 mph average, though they could go up to 70 mph … if being chased by rogue cowboys or something, I guess).

Social Media: What Does an Author Really Need?

I was going to do a second post for The Plotting Crash Course today … but you know what? I want to devote what I have of today (and it’s not much) to Ivy Introspective, so I’m going to direct you to another great blog post and hope my mother reads it.

September Character Studies: Celebrations

You may not have noticed, but I was too busy to do last month’s character study, so I’m doing it today.

Set-Up for the Plotting Crash Course

(WARNING: Spoilers for The Dressmaker’s Secret. May also be minor spoilers for Ivy Introspective. And possibly for At Her Fingertips, though I’m doing the best I can to make sure they stay out! If you see one that shocks you, give me a good yelling at.)

A few things you ought to know before you start reading:

I don’t know what I’m talking about.
I do realize this isn’t the right day for this post.
I’m immensely proud of myself for my achievements. Ignore me if I sound egotistical; Adele and I are working on it.

Excited? I know I am!

A Step-by-Step Guide to Publishing with Createspace for Intelligent People (Part 2)

I know, I know! It’s been over a month since I promised part 2 for ‘A Step-to-Step Guide to Publishing with Createspace for Intelligent People’ would come out. (You can read part 1 here, by the way.)

I do have an excuse, though. Createspace is a pretty easy-to-use, simple self-publishing site, and if you’re really an intelligent people, well, what are you doing here?