Kathleen Mix's Blog, page 3

What’s the Title?

Finding the perfect title for a book can be a mind-boggling task. I’ve had titles jump into my head as if strapped to a bolt of lightning, and I’ve had titles vex me like the endless gray days of January.

For one of my early books, I thought I’d found a title that included all the necessary elements: suspense, adventure, and romance. All the time I was writing the story, the title was in the back of my mind.

Then my editor said, “Sorry. We have another book in the pipeline with a title that’s very similar. You’ll have to come up with something else.”

For days, I made lists of possibilities, adding to the bottom as I scratched off and eliminated from the top. My final choice pleased my editor but has never been my favorite.

The title I wanted for a manuscript I finished recently would have been extremely appropriate. Except Staying Alive has a search engine problem. The hundreds of returns for the BeeGees’ hit of that name could bury a book with that title several pages down on Google. If people can’t find a book, they can’t buy it. I want my story to be easy to purchase, so I reluctantly had to brainstorm alternate titles and choose something else.

With the hundreds of thousands of books that have been published, finding a unique title sometimes seems next to impossible. A good title should suit the genre, be relevant to the book’s theme, be relatively short, have impact, be easy to remember, and hopefully intrigue a browsing shopper. That’s a big order for any word or phrase.

Right now, I have one title I love, but no compelling story to go with it. I also have one story I want to write that so far lacks a good title. Hopefully, I’ll think of something wonderful soon, otherwise I may be investigating whether Untitled is taken.

Resolution Alert

While others are back to their everyday routines and struggling to keep their New Year’s resolutions, I’m still looking back and considering what changes 2015 should bring. Making a resolution implies we recognize the need for change. But unless we can diagnose our ailments, we can’t effectively know how to cure them.

I want to be a more productive writer, so instead of simply resolving to be more productive I’m reviewing the volume of work I produced last year and hoping to figure out why I didn’t write more. Did I spend too much time researching details or writing profiles of characters? Did I read too many books for pleasure or watch too many crime shows on TV? Did I spend too much time trying to make every word of every chapter perfect as a way to avoid showing it to the world? Did I allow too much of my time to be sucked up by the quicksand pond called the Internet?

All these reasons for spending twelve months to complete two manuscripts are probably valid. But the big question is which of my time-wasting habits I can effectively eliminate or improve. Will setting self-imposed deadlines prevent me from editing every word of a ninety-thousand-word novel sixteen times? Can I find a better way to get to know my characters inside and out? Should I read fewer novels in my genre? Set a timer to limit my episodes online?

Most of our resolutions fall by the wayside quickly because they were made in haste. The beginning of a new year makes us feel buoyed and hopeful. We’ve been given a fresh start, and we don’t want to waste it. We make the mistake of vowing to change without knowing how or why.

Since we’re still early in January and you’re probably still burning with new resolve, I suggest you pause and reflect. What did you resolve? Why is that change necessary? What have you done in the past that turned out to be ineffective? What can you do differently that will result in success?

Change can happen. We can be better writers and people, make significant adjustments in our life. But we need to know where we’ve been before turning onto a new road. Why take a wrong turn and circle back to where you’ve already been?

Favorite Words

Like most writers, I have a few favorite words that I use too often. If you���ve ever heard a cracked 45 or 33 rpm record with the needle bouncing over the break and the same lyric replaying endlessly, you���ll know exactly what I mean. My brain seems to get stuck and replays the same words over and over and over.

The reuse of common words is boring. The reuse of odd or unusual words can be jarring to a reader. Strong words can be weakened by repetition, and a word that sounds clever once may be bland if used again in the same book. In every case, the reused words need to go.

The cure for favorite word overuse should be simple. Identify the repeated word or words, make a conscious effort to substitute synonyms, and voila, the problem goes away. But the cure isn���t that easy. The first step, identify the repeated word, is the key.

I���m usually blind to my favorite words, plus they tend to change from manuscript to manuscript, chapter to chapter, and even day to day. A critique partner or my agent will probably be the one who says, ���You know, you���ve used ______ a little too frequently.��� Or worse, ���Jeez, there���s a smile/frown/eyes/as/when��� in every paragraph.���

Detecting favorite word overuse is one of the best arguments for showing your work to a critique partner or beta reader. Your favorites won���t be their favorites, and they���ll see your darlings for what they are: words settling in for the long run in your brain.

Take a close look at the next thing you read or write. Can you spot any favorite words?

A Unique Idea

I often have an idea for a story that, after I���ve thought it through, never becomes a book. The ideas I discard usually seem brilliant when they first pop into my head, but loose their luster under scrutiny. Their most common fault is a lack of uniqueness.

Most fiction genres have a set of common story tropes that are repeated over and over. Romance has hundreds of stories of rich girl meets poor boy, enemies become lovers, and May / December relationships. Mystery and police procedurals have the burnt-out cop or disillusioned detective who must pull himself together and deal with a threat against his family or save his reputation when he is framed for a crime. Horror has an angry or evil monster coming to destroy the world. Science fiction has a scientist battling a rogue machine or an astronaut facing a dangerous alien.

Just another prince / pauper romance, cop catches killer, or monster eats swimmers story will not impress readers. For a novel to break out of the pack, the author must find a new slant on a familiar topic and write a story that is unique.

And that is where many novels fail. The author offers us a story we���ve read dozens of times before. The characters are stereotypes. The situation is clich��. The setting is ho-hum and bland. The spark of interest ignited by the pretty cover fizzles by page three.

When I vet a story idea, I ask myself several questions. What can I do with this that will enflame a reader���s interest? Can I make it different and unique? Can I develop a fascinating character and put her in a precarious situation or present her with a provocative conflict? Can I twist a familiar plot in a new direction or build an unexplored world that readers will want to visit?

If I find an idea I consider compelling and worthy of passion, I continue to the phase of outlining and research. If not, the idea becomes a scribbled note in my maybe-someday file. Years from now I may stumble on the perfect element to set a story based on the idea apart from the thousands of other novels fighting for readers��� attention. But until then, the common idea must wait to be deemed unique.

5 Books for Readers and Writers

Don’t make the mistake of believing that books about the craft of writing are solely for aspiring authors. Readers who peruse how-to books for writers gain an understanding of the complex make-up of novels. And once you’ve learned to read between the lines, you’ll get even more enjoyment from sitting down with an artfully crafted book.

Whether you’re in a book club and want to read more critically or you’re studying the advice of the masters before writing the next blockbuster, several writing books stand out as worthwhile.

Story by Robert McKee

Although written primarily for screenwriters, Story is a fascinating read. Mr. McKee helps us see past the glitter of Hollywood and into the heart of his craft. He explains the elements that give a story substance, analyzes scene design, and discusses character arcs and character function. Story is a must-read for every aspiring writer, and readers who pick it up will be thoroughly entertained.

The Writer’s Journey – Mythic Structure for Writers

by Christopher Vogler

In the introduction to his book, Mr. Vogler presents a simple idea: “All stories consist of a few common elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams, and movies.” He proceeds to show us how the techniques of ancient storytellers are still guiding us today and how character archetypes we love and recognize are rooted in the collective unconscious of the human race.

Readers may be satisfied with the insight gained from the two books above. If you’re serious about a writing career, continue on to the next three.

Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain

A comprehensive manual on craft by a wonderful teacher.

GMC: Goal, Motivation & Conflict – The Building Blocks of Good Fiction

By Debra Dixon

The basics of character and plot development that every fiction writer must understand.

Story Engineering – Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing

by Larry Brooks

My now you may have noticed that I’m a plot and structure devotee. Many of the ideas presented in this book took a while to sink in, but when they did, I felt as if I’d discovered a gold mine. Mr. Brooks takes The Writer’s Journey to the next level. After reading his book, you’ll never have to ask yourself, “What am I doing wrong?” again.

Enjoy these books. Hundreds more are available, and my choices are subjective, of course. If you have a favorite, please comment and share.

Slaying Writer’s Block

Writers frequently hit difficult spells where daily word counts dwindle to zero. The premise that seemed so wonderful seventy-five pages ago suddenly seems lacking, or we’ve reached the middle of the story and decided our plot is a tangled mess.

When this happens, we lament that our creative juices aren’t flowing, our muse has left the building, or our ideas are blocked.

New writers may simply be paralyzed by fear and self-doubt.

Published writers may feel pressure to be prolific. They’re told to produce a book a year, or worse every six months, to ensure readers remember their name. Slow writers may panic, and as a result, their minds go blank.

A writer with a contract may be facing a deadline. Some people dig in and forge ahead, others sit around wringing their hands and worrying about being late, making their time crunch worse.

Writers who have had a successful book before are under intense pressure to produce a good book again. The stakes are higher, and their inner critic sneaks out to whisper their work-in-progress won’t meet expectations.

The cure for writer’s block is always the same: write. Sit down and put something on the page. Temporarily forget quality. Go back and fix whatever you produce later.

If you’re out of ideas, try a few minutes of free association around a character’s occupation, the topic or theme of your story, or the problem your character must face. Jot down the words, concepts, and images that pop into your mind. Make a list of fifteen things that could happen. Brainstorm an unlikely plot twist. Maybe you’ll like that direction better than the way you’d originally planned to go.

Another trick is to open a new file and imagine a child just said, “Tell me a story.” Glance around the room, pick out an object, and use it to kick-start a narrative or inspire a character. You wouldn’t disappoint a child. Don’t disappoint yourself. Get your fingers moving over the keys. Keep going until you circle around to something you can use in your work-in-progress.

When panic starts crawling up my back, I usually think of Scheherazade. If she’d begged off telling a story using the excuse of writer’s block, she would have had a much shorter life. She had good reason to sit staring, wide-eyed and dry-mouthed, but she kept talking night after night, weaving tales to keep the king enthralled.

Somewhere inside, I have equally as many stories to tell. If you’ll just relax and let them out, so do every one of you.

No Selfie Zone

At a recent book festival, I saw several people stop, stretch out a hand, focus their phone, and take a selfie. Rather than capture the larger scene, they became the prominent feature of their photo and the rest of the world their backdrop.

This strategy may be fine for posting snapshots on social media. But when a fiction writer sits down to write, he or she should be less egocentric.

When a writer makes herself or her views prominent in a story the practice is called author intrusion. We’ve all read books where it happens. We’re following a character through an interesting event. The narrative suddenly switches away from the protagonist, and the writer stops the story to lecture or pontificate. The opinions expressed may somewhat mesh with the character’s views, or the writer may simply see an opportunity to get his viewpoint front and center, but either way, the reader is yanked out of the story so the writer can insert a literary selfie.

Most authors write with a message imbedded in their book. The stories we read and remember for years almost always have an underlying theme. They have meaning that is shown through the characters and their experiences in the plot. The theme can be so subtle a reader might not recognize it exists. But by the end of the story he’s received the message, because a skillful writer has kept the focus on his characters and designed his story to be more than words on a page. We’re shown whatever the author wanted to say – that crime doesn’t pay, we reap what we sow, capital punishment is wrong – through a character’s struggle with the issue, not by the author stepping in to tell us: this is what you should believe.

We are touched emotionally when a story has a rich theme, or multiple rich themes, subtly woven into a character’s journey. We are turned off when a rude writer misuses our time by shouting propaganda from a soapbox while the story is relegated to the background.

A writer who has an agenda and is writing solely to broadcast his opinions should stick with non-fiction or a blog. Fiction is the wrong venue for selfies.

Beginnings

For me, the beginning of a book is always the most difficult to write. The first pages are important and require a huge amount of planning and attention. From the first word, a story has much to do. And if I fail to do it well, my readers won’t enjoy my book.

Page one should present a compelling question, situation, or character in such a way that a reader is immediately interested and wants to know more. Writers call the words or sentences that accomplish this a hook because they catch a reader’s attention and hopefully won’t let them leave.

A good hook not only grabs readers’ interest but also tells them the type of story they’re about to read. Some stories promise a mystery, some promise deep emotion, some promise a view of another world. Before readers can understand the forthcoming trip, they must know what direction they’re heading.

The first pages should give the reader an idea of the time and place of the story and introduce the main character. Readers want someone to focus on and root for, be it a knight of the round table or a traveler in deep space. And the writer must show this person to be an individual capable of feelings, complex in character, and worthy of a reader’s time without throwing in pages of boring details about his past.

From the first word, sentence, and paragraph, a story should have implicit conflict. Something isn’t going as expected or a situation is about to change, A character has a problem, or soon will, and he’s going to need guts to solve it and find happiness. Maybe he’ll be on a quest, be running from danger, be seeking love or trying to save a marriage. Maybe he needs to win a contest or solve a crime. Whatever his situation, the reader knows the character is in trouble right away.

The beginning of a book must show the writer is credible: he or she can be trusted to use the English language correctly and get the details of a situation right. If the sun is bright at midnight, we’d better not be in Miami. If sentences sprawl or have faulty punctuation, how can a reader trust that the story won’t be equally flawed?

Doing all this on page one is a daunting task. Sometimes a writer needs two or three pages. But if we hope to get readers interested in a story quickly, we have to promise them a good read, earn their trust, show them our story is worth hours of their time.

I want my readers to be hooked from the first line and keep reading to find out what happens. So I spend many hours crafting a beginning I hope they’ll enjoy.

Finding the perfect opening is often difficult. But if readers stick with me past page one, then my struggles have been worthwhile.

Sanibel Treasure

I recently returned from a trip to Sanibel Island, Florida. Sanibel is known for its abundance of seashells, and shell seekers come from all over the world to scour the white sand beaches, hoping to find a treasure grown by a gastropod or a bivalve.

I have a huge collection made up of the shells I’ve found during sailing trips to the Bahamas, Caribbean, and South America. But like most shell seekers, I never stop looking for one more: one more variation, one more species, one more that’s prettier or larger. And when I find a special shell, I feel like I’ve won the lottery.

Shell collecting is done while walking the beach bent over in a distinctive stoop. To find collectable shells, you must focus on the small area directly in front of your eyes. You can’t stare longingly at the horizon, watch the gulls swoop, or splash or swim in the waves. Shell seeking is a pastime requiring intense concentration: the blocking out of the beach to see individual grains of sand. You need to be focused enough to spot a ripple or crater in the sand, observant enough to spot a shell tangled in a pile of seaweed, and patient enough to sift through thousands of broken shells to find one perfect specimen.

Shell collecting involves hard work, but is well worth the effort. And in my mind, shell collecting is a lot like editing fiction.

After a manuscript’s big revisions are finished, a writer trying to do a final edit needs focus. We can’t be easily distracted from our task by daydreams of the cover we might eventually have or the line of readers who might want a signed copy. We need to slowly walk from sentence to sentence, seeing beyond the type on the page to the meaning hidden behind, and considering the implications of each phrase. We must spend hours picking through hundreds of almost-right words to finally locate the perfect specimens.

If we do these things with tireless resolve, we’ll be rewarded with a better book. A book we’ll be proud to show any reader who comes near.

Maybe I learned to edit by seeking shells. Maybe I learned how to find shells by editing.

Much like the question of the chicken and the egg, I’m not sure which came first. But that matters little to my shell collection and backlist. What makes me happy is that they both continue to grow.

Fiction’s Added Value

I recently read a quote by French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty:

“We know not through our intellect but through our experience.”

Since I automatically relate everything to writing, I immediately realized this theory points out an added value of fiction.

Books entertain readers with stories that transport us to new and different places and give us vicarious experiences. From the safety of an easy chair or a blanket spread on a beach, we live through dangerous events and deal with threatening situations. We live the book vicariously through identification with the protagonist and experience problems and challenges that may be distant from our own life or may appear tomorrow.

In every good book, the protagonist is faced with a problem. Whether they want to survive, escape, succeed, or find peace, every character will face barriers and be forced to choose between various actions in their quest to reach their goal. But by the end of every good story, we, as readers, have seen the character persevere and learned a method of coping based on how the character solved his or her problem. Some day, we might be able to employ that solution if we’re ever faced with a similar dilemma. We know from experience, even if our experience was vicarious.

As writers, we give readers virtual experiences. We are teachers. We have a responsibility to make our characters problems serious and their actions plausible. Unless we’re writing vampires or aliens, we should strive to write about situations that are true to life and provide solutions readers can accept as real.

Fiction teaches and helps us to know more about life.

The writer learns by asking ‘what if’, imagining, and writing.

The reader learns a useful method of coping by vicarious experience.

And all this new knowledge comes from the pages of that wonderful digital or paper invention we call a book.