R.M. Archer's Blog, page 47

Camp NaNo Prep: The World

Second to characters, the world is what generally catches a reader’s interest in a story, assuming it’s done well. The world affects the characters and outline (at least to some extent), so it shouldn’t be neglected.

Now, I speak as a speculative fiction writer, so all of my stories take place in worlds that are at least somewhat fictionalized (even my contemporary stories don’t adhere to specific real-life places most of the time), but this is at least somewhat applicable to all settings.

Find out what’s important to the story

When you’re writing a novel over a longer amount of time you can develop all the details of your world, but when you have a limited amount of time to prepare before a draft you’ll want to start by asking what you need to know about your world for this story. Does your story take place in the palace of your main country? Find out what nobility is like in your world. Are you writing about pirates roaming the open seas in 18th century England? Look up the fashion and how pirates were treated in that time period. Start with what you know you’ll need and then expand from there.

Find out what makes the setting stand out

Find out what makes your setting unique and find a way to spotlight that. If your country is known for its jewelry and fashion, make sure that comes through in the story. If you’re writing a story set in ’50s America, keep in mind the fashion, the cars, and the racial issues. Graceling by Kristin Cashore does a good job of this with the Lienid rings and jewelry, as an example. I want to read the rest of the trilogy if only to learn more about the world it takes place in.

Find out what your characters think of the setting

Has your character lived here all their life? What do they take for granted? How do they respond when they realize there’s something there than they didn’t know about before? (For instance, the other day my aunt and I were talking about the things around town that we hadn’t seen before despite having lived here for ten years.) Or maybe your character is visiting for the first time, or even moving there, and has no idea what to think of the different customs or a different climate. Your character’s perception of the world will affect how the reader perceives the world. It can also be interesting if the character perceives the world much differently than it really is.

Details mean a lot

Similar to the “what makes the setting stand out” point, details can really make a world come to life. Examples that immediately come to mind are the Lienid jewelry in Graceling and the memory scars in Colors of Fear by Hannah Heath. Little details that make the world seem different from our own like that immediately make the reader thirst for more. We want to know more about the world and how these little things came to be and how they tie in with the larger picture. We want to know. So go to what makes the setting stand out and see if you can come up with a couple of details like that that you can sprinkle throughout the story that tie in with the bigger picture.

Want more on how to develop a world? Check out my resource round-up here!

 

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Snippet Sunday: Mournseeker

Some of y’all might remember the excerpt from this that I posted back in April for M of the Alphabet Challenge. Well, here’s the beginning of that story, in which you’re officially introduced to the main characters and the setting and what’s going on. Enjoy. :)

Genevieve was startled by a sudden knock on her door. She closed her book and set it on a side table before rising and opening the front door to see a familiar face.

“Gen, I need your help.”

She rolled her eyes. “You always need my help.” She let in her visitor nonetheless, giving him shelter from the rain and whatever other trouble he’d gotten into. She closed the door behind him and took a seat in the chair by the window where she’d been sitting before he arrived. “What is it this time?”

“Do you have any food?”

“Ever the polite one, aren’t you, Reyce?” She paused a moment, looking at her bedraggled friend, before nodding towards the kitchen, exasperation written all over her expression.

He hurried into the kitchen and she picked her book back up. She’d only gotten past a couple of sentences before he returned and sat down with a heaping plate of food. He didn’t bother waiting until his mouth was empty to speak. “I’m running away.”

“No surprise there.” Gen didn’t look up from her book.

“I need to talk to Charlotte.”

Gen’s eyes darted up to find his. She slowly set her book aside. “You’d take a risk, alerting her of your presence.”

“You know it’s not a risk I would take unnecessarily.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she muttered. Louder she added, “Why do you need to talk to her?”

“I need her… services.”

“And why is that?”

“The thing chasing me isn’t anything I’ve ever seen before. Not anything you’ve seen before either.” Gen raised an eyebrow, but he continued as if he didn’t notice. “Charlotte might know what they are.”

“And why would she know better than I would? I’ve seen everything this side of the Rush.”

“But she has more experience with the… paranormal.”

“Paranormal?” Gen almost laughed. “Yeah, you could say that. What the heck could be following you that would be considered ‘paranormal’?”

Reyce’s expression was entirely serious. “You’d understand if you saw it, but I hope you never do.”

Gen hesitated. If he would be willing to say that even she didn’t want to encounter one of these things, and with a completely straight face, that gave her pause.

“So can you get me to see Charlotte?”

Gen nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think I can.”

“Good. You should come with me. Your expertise might be helpful, too.”

Great, I’m an afterthought. She didn’t give voice to her thoughts, just nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll go see her and then I’ll come back if she says she’ll see you.”

Reyce nodded. “That’s how it always works.”

“Just making sure you remember. It’s been a surprisingly long time since you came running to me.”

Reyce shrugged. “I’ve been making my own trouble. Didn’t need any help.”

Gen laughed. “I’ll believe that. It’s a bit harder to believe you didn’t need bailing out in that whole six months.”

“Maybe I found someone else to bail me out.”

“No one else would be willing to help you out. You’re a chronic troublemaker. You’re lucky I’ve put up with you for so long.”

“Aw, you know you love me.”

Gen rolled her eyes.

He took a bite of the food on his plate – mostly junk food like a couple of two-day-old refrigerated slices of pizza and potato chips – and started talking with his mouth full again. “Shouldn’t you be heading over to Charlotte’s place now?”

“Shouldn’t you be learning how to take care of yourself by now?” Despite her retort, she stood and headed into her bedroom, grabbing her twin pistol holster – with both slots filled, of course – from between her mattress and the bedframe and fastening it around her hips before taking her rifle from its place behind the headboard and placing it across her back, tightening the strap just a hair so that it was loose enough to grab easily but not so loose as to cause problems.

Her dark hair was already tied up in its usual ponytail, and her black combat boots were already on, concealing a handful of knives that lightly stabbed her feet as she walked. It was a feeling she was long used to, and she’d feel bare without it.

She headed back out into living room, where Reyce was already finishing up his food.

“Looking just as fierce as always,” he commented, his mouth full of pizza.

Gen rolled her eyes and grabbed her long coat on the way out and slipped it on, hiding the rifle and her holsters, though everyone who knew her knew she was well armed. As she passed through the dusty streets everyone she passed gave her a polite nod, which she returned each time. Passing skyscraper after skyscraper, the upper levels long since abandoned, she finally reached one whose cracked sign read: “Mercy’s Textiles.” She turned here and headed around the building to the large shed behind it. It had once stored materials, but now it housed the city’s strangest citizen.

Gen knocked on the door and was greeted with a quiet, almost inaudible through the door, “come in.” She entered and saw Charlotte, as usual, sitting at her table with several books spread out in front of her. She never seemed to read them, just studied their covers as if the covers alone would tell her the story they held tucked in their pages. The girl herself was small and oddly young, seventeen at most. Gen remembered when the girl was born. She had fair hair, curled and silky, and her eyes…

“Welcome, Genevieve,” she said, in an impossibly old voice for the body it escaped.

“Thank you, Charlotte.”

“Is it Reyce again?”

Gen nodded, though Charlotte’s attention was still absorbed in her covers. “He says there’s something hunting him. He wanted to come see you.”

“Of course he did. He always does. There’s always something.” Though her words may have seemed almost bitter coming from any other mouth, Charlotte’s tone was entirely indifferent, as if nothing anyone did made any difference in anything.

“May I bring him?”

“Do I ever turn him away?”

“You haven’t yet.”

“Then you have your answer. I’ll be available at midnight tonight.”

Gen nodded. “I’ll bring him, then.” She turned to leave, but Charlotte stopped her with a simple “Wait” in that same indifferent tone. Gen turned to see the girl’s pale lavender eyes focused right on her. She held herself stiff so as not to shiver. Those eyes…

“Tell him to bring the cat.” The words were almost casual, but the tone in which they were spoken was entirely serious, even urgent.

“I will.” Gen had no idea what Charlotte meant, but she had no intention of dismissing the girl’s request and silliness. Everything she said had meaning.

Book Review: Azalei’s Riders

Azalei’s Riders is a book I’ve read before perhaps one and a half times when I had it on Kindle (I have a terrible memory when it comes to remembering to read Kindle books, hence the half), but it recently came out on paperback and since I ordered her book box I got all three books in the Fire Rain Chronicles on paperback, along with various other goodies (including a candle that smells amazing). So of course I had to read it again, both because it’s amazing and because I’d totally forgotten what happened and needed to read it again before reading Azalei’s Strategy and Azalei’s Fall. *dun dun dunnnnnnn*

I think the different aspects in this book didn’t stand out to me as much since this was a reread, so this review might be kind of short, but I’ll preface by saying that this is an awesome book.

My absolute favorite thing about this book is the characters. (Do I ever not say that when I’m talking about a book I love?) More specifically, I love the dynamics between them. This is something I did remember from my prior reads of this book. I’m particularly partial to the relationship between Nathan and Jessica; they’re so much fun to read. We don’t get to see a whole lot of some of the characters in this book, since there are several of them and they can’t all have the screen time they perhaps deserve (this is something I’m struggling with in the book I’m writing, as well), but since this is the first of a series I trust that we’ll get to know them more and more as the series progresses (and I remember we do, with at least a few of them). All of the characters are really distinct, each one having one or two features or traits that particularly set them apart. Thatcher with his accent and blue eyes (unfortunately he kept ending up English in my head rather than Scottish because my brain has a harder time formulating a Scottish accent), Autumn with her red hair, Azalei with her almost-silent authority, etc. The characters in this book were just really well-done.

I did think that some of the flashbacks were a bit forced. Several of them seemed kind of tossed in there for the sake of plot convenience, to either give us a piece of backstory or tell us more about the plot or to tie the present to the past and I think they could have been executed a little better. I think I would have preferred the memories to be part of the characters’ thoughts rather than their own flashback in most instances.

The world is really cool, because while this is a dystopian world and it’s clearly a dystopian world, it’s incredibly unique and it doesn’t really seem all that awful. You know it is, under the surface, but on the surface you have highly advanced tech, people living above the ground so the ground can be lush and green again, vehicles built to look like dragons (how many of you would not love to have a car that looks like a dragon?), and ground-level streets that almost no one uses. (I don’t know why, but for some reason that’s really fascinating to me. It’s super cool to imagine old abandoned roads with greenery growing through cracks in the asphalt and vines wrapping around old shells of cars…)

One thing to note: If you don’t like a lot of points-of-view, this book isn’t for you. The point-of-view breaks are clear and it’s established very early in a scene whose head we’re in, but there are a lot of points-of-view in this book. I can think of ten off the top of my head. In most cases it was helpful for giving a deeper sense of the characters and the plot, but in a couple of places it didn’t seem incredibly beneficial. It still wasn’t particularly off-putting for me, but if multiple points-of-view aren’t your thing then this probably isn’t the book for you.

Overall this is definitely a five-star book and I highly recommend it. :)

 

Character Interview: Griffyn Yarrow

Griffyn is a character from The Shadow Raven, a member of the royal council due to his position as captain of the army’s archers. That’s pretty much all I know about him at this point (unfortunately), but here goes his interview.

Griffyn: *shakes the interviewer’s hand before taking a seat across from him* Hello.

Interviewer: Hello. How are you today?

Griffyn: I’m doing okay. How are you?

Interviewer: Just fine. Shall we get started?

Griffyn: *nods*

Interviewer: What is your name?

Griffyn: Griffyn Warner Yarrow.

Interviewer: How old are you?

Griffyn: Nineteen.

Interviewer: And I understand you’re captain of the Roenoran archers? How did you get the position so young?

Griffyn: I was in the middle of my class at the military academy, and I mean exactly in the middle, and I was really just coasting by. I knew I wasn’t doing my best, but I was content to be good enough. My family was familiar with the royal family, and Alleyn would often watch the military training personally. To enjoy a bit of nostalgia, I guess, since he’d been a soldier before he became king. He saw me practicing and realized I wasn’t doing as well as I could and encouraged me to do better. I rose through the ranks fairly quickly – not to the top or anything, just out of the middle and much nearer the top – and apparently Alleyn admired my ability to grow when pushed, so he made me captain over the archers and had Emric Caden train me personally from then on.

Interviewer: Who’s Emric Caden?

Griffyn: The best archer Roenor has ever known. He’s retired from the military, now, but he’s still an excellent archer and an excellent teacher.

Interviewer: What’s your favorite part about training with him?

Griffyn: Besides having the opportunity to train with the best? *chuckles* I don’t know. Probably the way he pushes me to always do better.

Interviewer: He does sound like a good teacher. *glances briefly at question list* Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

Griffyn: It depends on who I’m with, but I think extrovert.

Interviewer: Do you have a favorite food?

Griffyn: Potatoes in gravy.

Interviewer: A favorite color?

Griffyn: Ash brown.

Interviewer: Do you have a favorite book?

Griffyn: Skandain’s Pride by Morena Eren, I think. It’s interesting seeing the stories that have sprung up about faeries since they disappeared.

Interviewer: Do you have a favorite animal?

Griffyn: Dogs. Closely followed by falcons.

Interviewer: What are your hobbies?

Griffyn: When I’m not practicing archery I’m generally hanging out with Arden Alameda – one of the two cavalry captains – or reading, or hawking. Emric got into falconry after retiring and I’ve picked up quite a bit from him.

Interviewer: We’re nearing the end. Which of these is most important to you: Kindness, intelligence, or bravery?

Griffyn: Bravery, but they’re all close.

Interviewer: And honesty or selflessness?

Griffyn: Selflessness, but that’s another tough one.

Interviewer: What’s something you can’t leave home without?

Griffyn: The compass locket my sister gave me. She’s seven years younger than me, and for my eleventh birthday she very carefully picked it out. I guess she’d seen my dad put a lock of my mom’s hair in his watch, because she cut her own hair to put it into the locket. *laughs* I’ve kept the locket with me ever since.

Interviewer: What’s her name?

Griffyn: Edlyn. *smiles*

Interviewer: That’s beautiful. *smiles and glances at the question sheet* Well, that’s everything. *looks back up at Griffyn* Thank you for your time.

Griffyn: My pleasure. *shakes the interviewer’s hand before leaving*

Camp NaNo Prep: The Characters

“Characters are the lifeblood of any good book.” – Craig Hart

I whole-heartedly agree with this quote (no pun intended), as both a reader and a writer. As a reader, if the characters don’t engage me I’m not likely to enjoy the book. As a writer, if the characters aren’t working then the story doesn’t work. This means that characters are perhaps the most important aspect of a book, and as writers we need to put a lot of attention into them. As I mentioned in my previous prep post, I’m a firm believer in the value of developing almost every character in a book as deeply as possible, and the advice I share below is applicable to any character in your story, be they the protagonist, the antagonist, or a side character.

Give your character a goal

Every character in your story who has any significance should have a driving goal. Knowing your characters’ goals can help you figure out conflict between them as their goals conflict or as their goals align but the characters themselves don’t like each other or as they do something they’d rather not because it’s the best way to achieve their goal. Their goal should be big enough for them to consider doing just about anything to achieve it. (Which is not to say that they should compromise on their values, but the goal should be powerful enough for them to struggle with the temptation of compromising to achieve it.) On the flip side, it can also be a motivation for them to be better. Nissa from The Shadow Raven wants to prove to her guardian that she can do just fine without him (or anyone else) and she wants to prove that she’s better than anyone else, which leads to her making a lot of poor choices throughout the book (some of which undermine her beliefs without her realizing). Detren wants to be as good a king as his father was, which both leads to him hiding from his responsibility when he feels incapable and also urges him to be better later on and do what his father would have done.

Give your character a motivation

Generally a character’s motivation for their goal is something that comes from their past (as I’ve written about before), and it should be a powerful driving memory or fear or desire that makes their goal as strong as it is. Nissa wants to prove that she’s fine on her own because she’s been rejected by far too many people and wants to prove to herself as much as anyone else that that doesn’t bother her. Detren wants to be as good a king as his father because he wants to make his father proud and also fears letting down the people of Roenor. Characters could want to redeem themselves from mistakes they’ve made in the past (like Catessa from The Last Assassin) or fear letting people down (like Detren, or Coraline from The King’s Paladin) or want to prove they’re better than someone (perhaps a historical figure, or perhaps a rival as in the case of Jerod from The King’s Paladin). Make sure the motivation has an anchor.

Give your character flaws

No one wants to read about a perfect character. Near-perfect, maybe, but not perfect. Everyone has flaws, some bigger than others, and readers can’t relate to perfectly flawless characters. Nissa’s main flaw is her pride, followed by her vanity. Detren’s is his fear of being inadequate, which drives him to hide from his responsibilities when they become too overwhelming.

Your character’s flaw should tie in with their goal. For instance, Nissa’s pride keeps her plugging away at her goal and causes her to succumb to it, and Detren’s causes him to buckle when confronted with his goal to begin with. Your character’s flaw should be something that inclines them to compromise to reach their goal, or which keeps them from completing their goal, which they’ll have to overcome at some point in order to reach their goal or which may teach them over time that they don’t really want what they thought they wanted. Nissa’s goal is to prove that she doesn’t need anyone in order to hide the fact – even from herself – that she deeply craves connection, and the steps she takes to achieve her original goal eventually lead her down a road that shows her she’s been running this whole time from what she really wants.

Your character’s flaws, motivations, and goals should all be interconnected for them to be the most impactful.

This is just the bare bones of your character, and there’s a lot more that should be developed, but beginning with these three will send you well on your way to having a deeply developed character.

What’s your favorite thing about creating characters? What area is the hardest for you to develop?

Want more character development resources? Check out my round-up here!

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The Language of Worlds Link-Up #1

My snippet for today wasn’t going to work (turns out I know the random story even worse than I realized. That’s going to need to be fixed), but I saw this link-up yesterday from a couple of bloggers I follow and decided it would be fun to join in. (Snippet Sunday will be back next week, I promise.) The image above links to the original post, where you can also join in if you’d like. :)

Without further ado, here are the questions.

1. Introduce your character and her story!

Nissa is a thief from Roenor who’s really unfamiliar with any sort of affection or real love, so when she meets Prince Detren and he actually cares about her she’s totally lost and ends up pushing him away rather than letting him love her like a friend is supposed to. Her whole arc is her trying to prove that she doesn’t need anyone and then realizing she actually does and finally coming to her senses.

2. What does she look for in a friend? Consciously or subconsciously?

This is actually a tricky one to answer for her. Because she doesn’t want to look for friends, and she kind of hates friends who are actually good friends because she hates not knowing how love works, so I guess… she kind of looks for friends who will do what she expects and leave her after a while, and friends who distract her from her lack of relationship knowledge by just doing thrill-seeking-type stuff with her rather than just hanging out. Like… climbing clock towers and nearly falling off.

3. If she could study any foreign language, what would it be?

And here we come to a massive flaw in my worldbuilding for this world… there are no language barriers. Well… technically the elves have their own language and the Morressir have a variation on elvish, but they don’t really show up much and overall everyone speaks “common.” And Nissa’s pretty content with that. XP

4. Which person from the Bible would she be besties with? Why?

Um… I don’t know. No one coming to mind is really anyone I can see her becoming friends with. Maybe Jonah? Since he’s running from things the same way she is?

5. If she were to visit you for a week, what would you do together?

This would be a very, very bad idea. A very bad idea. I don’t have the stress tolerance at this point to deal with her being stubborn and rebellious and if I met her I’d try to talk sense into her and things would just end very badly. (Also she’d try to convince me to do something really dangerous and I might actually say yes depending on the exact danger level. Like, if she wanted me to climb onto the roof with her I probably would because I’ve always been curious what the view is like from up there, and our roof is fairly flat. But she’d also probably try to convince me to do much dumber stuff and overall this would just not go well at all.)

6. What is her ideal future?

Consciously or subconsciously? Consciously she’d like to get pretty high up the chain of command with The Dragons (a criminal organization in Roenor) so she’s important and doesn’t need anyone ever again, but subconsciously she’d really like to be friends with Detren again and repair that relationship and have things go back to the way they were before {SPOILERS}.

7. If she were to spend a weekend alone, what sort of pastimes would she pursue?

Dangerous stunts. She’d actually get really lonely on a weekend alone, because she’s actually really extroverted, so she’d kind of go crazy after a while and do more and more dangerous stuff. I don’t think she’d get herself killed, but there’s no guarantee she wouldn’t come back severely injured. (And then annoyed that she can’t do anything with her injury.)

8. If you could send your character a care package, what would be in it?

I’m hopping on the bandwagon and starting with a Bible, because she really needs one of those. Also coffee, shiny jewelry, and a letter trying to convince her to start hanging out with Detren again.

9. Is there a song that describes your character’s journey?

*shoves five-hour-long story playlist into a corner and looks it over* Just hers? I feel like New Romantics by Taylor Swift describes her well, but I don’t know if it really describes her journey. Maybe Get It Right by Diplo.

10. What is your character’s place in the story (hero, antihero, villain, sidekick, etc.)?

Antihero, I believe.

Character Interview: Nya Hook

Nya is the main character of my short story Lost Girl, available now by itself on Kindle or in the Short Story Collection Vol. 1 which is available on Kindle or in print. She’s a pirate captain who’s deeply attached to her crew but doesn’t tolerate any stupidity. She loathes Peter Pan with a seething passion, seeing as she’s Captain Hook’s granddaughter, and she’s stubborn. Enjoy her interview. :)

Nya: *steps into the room and takes a seat across from the interviewer, brown hair brushing the tops of her shoulders* Hello.

Interviewer: Hello. How are you?

Nya: I’m well. How are you?

Interviewer: Doing well myself. Shall we get started?

Nya: *nods*

Interviewer: What is your name?

Nya: Nya Thomas Hook.

Interviewer: Where did your middle name come from?

Nya: Yes, it’s a boy’s name. It was my grandfather’s middle name, and he asked that it be passed down to me.

Interviewer: That’s interesting. Was there any specific reason he wanted you to have it or did he just want his name passed on?

Nya: *shrugs* He thought I’d be a good captain someday. It was almost like a good luck charm. But I like it; my grandfather and I were very close before he died.

Interviewer: How long ago was that?

Nya: Five years ago.

Interviewer: How old were you at the time?

Nya: Eleven.

Interviewer: So I suppose people do grow up in Neverland after all?

Nya: Not exactly. There’s an island off the coast, where my grandfather made his lair, that is touched by time. I spent the first twelve years of my life there and then took over for my father as captain of my grandfather’s ship so that he and my mother could be “normal.”

Interviewer: You were captain at twelve years old?

Nya: This is Neverland. It’s not unusual for kids to do anything. The crew knew me well, I knew them, I knew the ship from sailing with my grandfather all the time, so it didn’t take me long to get used to being the captain. My grandfather had trained me to a degree. And Smee helped me keep the crew in line as I was starting out.

Interviewer: The same Smee who was with your grandfather?

Nya: No, his son Tyre.

Interviewer: Interesting. Um… *glances briefly at question sheet, then back up at her* Do you have any siblings?

Nya: *shakes head*

Interviewer: Do you have a favorite food?

Nya: Crab.

Interviewer: Favorite color?

Nya: *gestures to her red coat, which matches the large hat on her head* Red.

Interviewer: Favorite animal?

Nya: Dolphins.

Interviewer: Do you have any hobbies?

Nya: Playing cards and singing.

Interviewer: Which of these is most important to you: Kindness, intelligence, or bravery?

Nya: Bravery.

Interviewer: And honesty or selflessness?

Nya: Honesty.

Interviewer: What’s something you can never leave the ship without?

Nya: My sword. *taps the hilt of the rapier at her side*

Interviewer: And that’s it. *smiles* Thank you for your time.

Nya: *nods* It’s been a pleasure. *stands and shakes his hand before leaving*

Camp NaNo Prep: The Idea

NaNoWriMo’s next session is just a month away. For those of you who don’t know, Camp NaNoWriMo is a version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in which you’re put in a virtual cabin with other writers (assuming you sign up on the official site) and you get to set your own goal. Your goal can be measured in words, hours, minutes, lines, or pages. It’s more laid-back than the regular November session (in which the goal is a set 50,000 words, though obviously you don’t have to stay tied to that if you don’t want to) and you have the opportunity to hang out with a small group of like-minded writers for the whole month of July. (I’m considering putting together a cabin starting with those of you who follow my blog. Would anyone be interested in that?)

Anyway, over the next month my Tuesday writing posts will be crash-courses in prepping for Camp NaNoWriMo, and today’s post is about choosing your idea. I already wrote about this topic back in April for the Alphabet Blogging Challenge in my post “Potential Energy,” so I’m going to sum up that post (you can click through and read the original post afterward) and then throw in some bonus stuff about organization.

As a writer you’ve likely collected inspiration from everywhere and thus probably have a lot of story ideas. You probably have a folder bursting with unfinished stories and half-starts and you’re probably hit with overwhelm like a ton of bricks any time you even think about writing them all in a lifetime. Some of them have probably already been voted into the “DNF” folder where they will remain, gathering dust, until you die and some historian stumbles upon your folder once computers are a bygone technology. (Totally kidding.) So then how do you pick one story to focus on for a whole month? Well the first option is to just not. You could decide up front that you’re going to tackle two (or more) projects at the same time during July. Or you could be a rule-follower and pick one.

But then do you pick the ancient story idea that’s been yanking at you for years, begging to be finished, or you pick the brand new, shiny idea that you just got yesterday that’s also begging you to write it?

If the old story has been tugging on you for years then it’s probably a pretty good idea and you should probably at least give it a chance. In addition to being persistent, the older story idea has been culminating in your mind for a lot longer and is probably further developed than a lot of the other things you might write. So if you have an old story idea that you’d like to write, it’s probably best to go with that, particularly as there’s less prep time for a NaNoWriMo event than a story you can write entirely in your own time.

If you’re picking between two newer story ideas (or two older, for that matter) figure out which one is taking up more of your time. Which are you consistently thinking about and brainstorming (whether intentionally or not)? Which has more pieces that just grip you and won’t let you go? Pick that one. You can come back to the younger idea once it’s had a little more time to develop naturally.

Or, of course, you could continue a story you’ve already been working on, as is my plan (I’ll be working on continuing The Shadow Raven) or you can edit something you’ve already written (like I did in April with The Heart of the Baenor).

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If you’re writing a novel for Camp NaNoWriMo, there’s a lot to keep track of. (There’s a lot to keep track of anytime you’re writing a novel, but it’s harder to keep track of the faster you’re working.) You have characters (sometimes a lot of them), sometimes an outline, sometimes a whole new world, and any one of those things can be difficult to entirely keep track of consistently. So how do you organize it? I use this thing:

This is my story binder (if you click that link you’ll go to a post all about it) and it’s where I keep all the pertinent character and world information for my trilogy. (Yes, the entire trilogy. The thing is stuffed.) Most of what’s in here is character information (since the world isn’t a huge part of the story and the timeline is kept on my computer. More on that later.), and I currently have 20 character profiles in there, only eight of which are completed. I really need 51 (and that number will probably continue to rise as it consistently has…). These things get massive. BUT they’re the best for keeping info all in one place, and since it’s a paper notebook you can open it up and flip to whatever spot you need while you keep your story open and don’t have to worry about shuffling windows and tabs and whatever else on your computer. I have extensive character sheets for each of my characters (you can get the template I use by signing up to my email list; it’s in the resource library), but you could just have full profiles for your primary characters to start out and then as minor characters pop up you could add a simple sheet with their physical attributes and a page of notes, for instance, and then put together their full profile later. I believe in the importance of deeply knowing all of your characters, primary or not, but for the first draft you don’t need to know every detail of every side character’s life. You can figure it out between drafts and work it in in a second draft or whatever.

For word tracking I generally stick to the official NaNo site word count tracker during events (on either the main site or the Camp site, depending on the month), but I also keep track with myWriteClub when I remember, I keep track of daily word count in my bullet journal, and sometimes I put a tracker in my bullet journal. (Lately I’ve also been keeping track of word count in an Excel spreadsheet for the Go Teen Writers 100-for-100 Challenge, but that’s not a normal thing.)

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry about the poor quality on some of those. But that’s basically the various ways I keep track.

To keep track of time in my novels (which is very important with this trilogy since there’s so much overlap) I use an Excel worksheet (simply because I can insert rows easily). Here’s what my spreadsheet looks like (spoilers redacted):

Off-screen is color-coded peach (I’ve since made all of the peach match…), important things are marked in red (the blank red spaces are where an event was only specifically important to a couple characters (across the top; characters are color-coded by story) but is important to others as well. Scenes might be color-coded for a story because they included characters from book B but the scene was written in book A or whatever. And then I write over on the right what chapter of each book something happened in. I based the general idea off of the POV tracker from Ink and Quills’ story binder printouts (which are awesome, by the way), and then moved it to Excel so that I could easily insert events in between things that I’d already written down without erasing and copying and shifting a book’s worth of events. And then there are other pages for really brief character profiles if I need to quick-reference them and setting descriptions, as well as a couple others that I use very rarely. (I inserted the Ink and Quills POV tracker into the Go Teen Writers story spreadsheet template, which you can find at their respective sites.)

So yeah, that’s how I keep organized. Hopefully at least something in there was helpful (or at least interesting).

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Do you know yet what you’re working on for Camp? An old idea or a new idea? Would you like to be in a cabin with me for July?

Snippet Sunday: Unstoppable

Just a little bit of info on the Unstoppables before we start: They can talk telepathically to one another (and only one another), so dialogue in italics is telepathic speech. It’s part of the tech that went into them when they were experimented on, and it was meant to link it to their handlers as well but Grantech didn’t have a chance to finish it before they escaped.

“Any-” I stopped myself. It wouldn’t be wise to speak aloud here. Anything interesting?

Trey shook his head. Not yet.

I joined him looking through the papers and grabbed a manila envelope from beneath a stack of paper. The paper all slid to the floor as the stack’s support was removed. Bold letters in the corner read ADP-2353.

I opened the envelope and pulled out the documents within, setting the envelope back on the table. I flipped through the pages, seeing plans of the Grantech business facility, as well as constant references to test subjects Alpha through Gamma.

The Unstoppables had been named starting with Hectic. I had been Opaque; ironic, considering my power. Who were these earlier test subjects, and why hadn’t I ever heard of them before?

Does anyone know who test subjects Alpha through Gamma were? I asked.

No, Trey said. No one does. We were kept in the dark about them. I asked a couple times who they were, but they silenced those questions.

Of course Trey would have asked. He asks about everything, and studies everything.

Why does it matter? Nyssa asked. They probably died like all the rest.

I don’t think so. I just found a file they’re mentioned in quite a few times.

It’s probably old.

I looked at the date on one of the pages. January 11th, 2422. It was only a couple of months old.

They’re not, I said. I told them the date.

That’s interesting, Trey said. Does it say anything about them? He left whatever papers he was looking at and came to look over my shoulder. My stomach did a quick turn at how close he was.

No. Most of it’s redacted. Their code names are mostly all that’s visible.

Because they don’t matter, Nyssa said. Let’s just get out of here.

That’s entirely backwards, Trey said, in a private link to me. If they weren’t important all their files wouldn’t be redacted. He reached around me and flipped through the pages, his arm brushing against mine. He stopped at the Grantech facility plans and looked them over. Maybe they’re here.

In a business facility? Isn’t that a bit risky?

Who’d think to look for prisoners in a business facility? Besides, why else would these plans be in their file?

I hesitated. So what do we do about it?

We go looking for them.

Farewell to May

We’re already halfway through the year. Yikes! I think that means it’s time for a reevaluation of the year’s goals (which is something like three months overdue), and I’m going to snag the Spring Cleaning Writer Challenge Tag (now that it should be summer) from Melissa at Quill Pen Writer. (And after that will commence the normal updates I include in these things.)

Here are the rules:

1) Link back to the person who tagged you.

2) Share the picture.

3) Answer the questions or even pick and choose which ones you answer.

4) Tag 3 other writers and inform them that you tagged them (via comment/message/email or hey, even carrier-pigeon or smoke signal; I’m not picky).




Dust-Bunnies and Plot-Bunnies: Reorganize your writing goals (or make new ones)

First, my original goals for this year:

Prepare The Dark War Trilogy for publishing. BAHAHAHAHA. This is absolutely not going to happen. I’m nearly 80k into The Last Assassin, about 65k into The Shadow Raven, and The King’s Paladin is basically not even started. I doubt I’ll even have the first drafts done by the end of the year, much less have them edited and pretty much ready to go. I’m way more ambitious than I realize, apparently.

Publish House of Mages. Well I already announced I was scrapping this one back in January or February, so that doesn’t need anything else.

Publish The Heart of the Baenor. First of all, another example of my over-ambition: I intended to publish two books this year. Professional authors do that. Professional authors with editors and cover designers that they go back to. I’m still just a little fledgling without an editor or a cover designer (although I’m in the process of remedying that). While I’d like to still shoot for this goal, I don’t think I’m likely to reach it.

Get started on The Historian. I’m not sure I even want to write this story at all at this point, and this timeline was one in which I had the first drafts of all the Dark War books finished prior to NaNoWriMo, so this one’s on the very, very back burner.

Win all three NaNoWriMo events. One down, two to go.

Write 2k every day. I wish I could say I’d stuck to this one.

Do some Kersir worldbuilding every day. I’d honestly forgotten this was even a goal of mine. I have done some worldbuilding over the past six months, both with Kersir and the Aleruus planets, but certainly not every day.

Start making an income. This isn’t specifically a writing goal, but my intention with this one was always to achieve it through writing means. I’m working on getting a freelance business up and running, so this is still a goal for the year.

New/continuing goals:

Finish The Last Assassin, The Shadow Raven, or both. First drafts, that is. I’m off to a good start with The Shadow Raven with the Go Teen Writers 100-for-100 challenge, but I don’t actually know how long these books are going to be so I don’t know how much I’ll still end up having to write after the challenge ends on August 31st. We’ll see how that goes.

Start making an income. Like I said, I’m working my way toward a freelance editing business, and I’d also like to start selling cheap short stories as ebooks.

Publish The Heart of the Baenor. At the very least with this one I want a second draft completed, ideally a third, and I want the cover and editor locked in. (Which is dependent on starting to make money, because I’m a broke teenager.)

Win all three NaNoWriMo events. I still intend to make this goal. I have yet to win all three in a year. (And I want to start up a new winning streak of the November event since I broke it last year. It was due to vacation, and I wouldn’t have given up vacation, but I was only 10k away.)

Which stage are you at? Expound!

a. Remodeling layouts (planning the story)

b. Painting the walls in colorful hues (writing)

c. Polishing the windows and scrubbing the floors and putting flowers in vases (editing)

d. Blueprints (not to the cleaning or remodeling yet… just drawing up plans for the very beginning inklings of a story)

e. Some combination of those things (cleaning out a closet)

Cleaning out a closet. I’m “painting the walls in colorful hues” with The Shadow Raven and “polishing the windows, etc.” with The Heart of the Baenor.

Treasure from the back of the closet (Share one to three snippets you love!)

From The Shadow Raven:

Lucienne gave {Detren} a look, but Nissa read a twinkle in her eye that said she wasn’t quite as displeased as she let on. Nissa looked the woman over and noted from her crisp black uniform that she held to her military position even when she wasn’t on duty. Which was probably never, Nissa realized. There hadn’t been a war for hundreds of years. After the Ocean War nearly decimated both Roenor and Mandoria, they’d worked hard at not going too far into their disagreements again. She’d paid at least a bit of attention to her history lessons, she realized. Or maybe she’d taken them in through osmosis. She’d certainly fallen asleep on her books enough for that.

 

From The Heart of the Baenor:

Bloggers I tag:

Leila at Wildflowers and Cosmic Tea

Mels at Melody Jackson, Author

Anna at Conscious Dreamers

 

*a loudspeaker crackles to life* We now return to your regular programming. *loudspeaker snaps off*

May’s Writing

I’ve written 24,201 words this month, which isn’t wonderful (there were far too many days when I wrote nothing. XP), but I’m getting back on track with the 100-for-100 Challenge, I finally got back into The Shadow Raven after a three-and-a-half month hiatus, I contacted an artist about doing the cover art for The Dark War Trilogy (including The Heart of the Baenor), I finished the first section of a giant writing resource I’m making (though I’ll likely add to it later on), and I redesigned my newsletter and I made a new newsletter to begin a street team, so I’ve actually gotten more done this month than I’d realized. Most of that happened in the latter half of the month, but it still got done.

May’s Reading

I finally finished things this month! I started The Darkling Child by Terry Brooks back in July and finally finished it this month, and I started The Hobbit back in December 2016 and finally finished it this month. *winces* I also read Rebekah DeVall’s new short story Iron Core and wrote a review. I also read Hope Ann’s The Stealthmaster’s Shadow, which releases today, and wrote a review yesterday. Lastly, I’ve been reading Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris, which is wonderful so far.

Other Stuff

The only other remarkable thing to happen this month was that I applied for a mission trip to Maine and didn’t get to go. I’m still kind of wrestling with God to figure that out, but I’m trying to trust Him.

I’m looking forward to this summer, though, and specifically to camp. Camp was wonderful last year and I can’t wait to go back. ^-^ Plus my best friend and I will be performing The Other Side from The Greatest Showman at the talent show which is going to be SUPER fun. :D

How was your May? Are you looking forward to summer? Have your writing goals changed since the beginning of the year? I’d love to hear your revised goals in the comments. :)