Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 152
July 2, 2019
Questionables: The Index
Every now and then, I throw open the comments to writing questions, and then take the next month or so to answer them all at length. Below is a sorted list of all the answers up to July 1, 2019. You can also search for “Questionable” since all the titles begin with that, and all the posts are tagged that. There’s some repetition of questions in there–we’ve been doing this a long time and there’s been no organization so people couldn’t check to see what had been asked–but all the answers are there. Organized. Easier to find. Progress.
And as always, these answers are my opinion only, not rules, not even guidelines. There are many roads to Oz, follow your own road and your instincts.
Note: This page will be updating for days as I add the links after I revise and tag each post. Yes, it’s worth it.
Discovery and Drafting:
What is the discovery process?
How do you get from idea to story?
How do you start a story?
How do you focus on one story?
What’s this book about?
How do you move between writing new scenes and rewriting?
How do you organize your computer files for a book?
How do you brainstorm on a computer?
How do you do digital collage?
How do you use images in your discovery process?
What is a premise, a central story question, and a theme?
How do you deal with surprises in a first draft?
Does it matter if you write longhand on paper or on a computer?
How much research should I do?
Character and Conflict:
What makes a character watchable?
How do you write characters that readers connect with?
How do you create character chemistry with the reader?
How do you create character depth to make characters real?
How can I write in emotional shorthand to avoid overwriting my characters?
What are positive and negative goals?
How do I identify character goals?
How do you write character goals in a romance?
How do you get your characters to act?
What makes a great protagonist?
How do you make the protagonist come alive on the page?
How do I identify my antagonist?
How can you love your antagonist?
How can you like unlikable characters?
How do you plot multiple antagonists?
Can I have sub-antagonists?
How do you create a strong character arc?
What is deep point of view?
How do you write multiple point-of-view characters?
How do you show what the point-of-view character doesn’t see?
How do you have characters think in story?
Can a love interest be an antagonist?
Is sociology a better approach to character than psychology?
How do you write the Wound from the Past?
How do you write the ordinary guy (not alpha or beta hero)?
How do you write conflict in a romance?
Should I use lots of description?
How do you choose character names?
Plot and Structure:
How does form affect story?
How do you turn an idea into a plot?
How long should a scene and chapter be?
What does building a reversal mean?
What is patterned structure?
How do you focus on one plot when your book has two?
How do you start and develop subplots?
How do you move a story through time?
What’s a good opening scene?
How do you write the first scenes in a book?
How do you know if a scene isn’t necessary?
How do you write good love scenes?
How do you write sex in stories?
What is too much detail in a sex scene?
What are beats?
How do you write back story.
How do you work with back story and flashback?
How do you work with red herrings and gotchas?
How do you write endings?
Critique and Revision:
How do you evaluate a first draft?
What do you look for in revisions?
How do I save a book that I’m no longer interested in writing?
Publishing and Marketing:
What do editors do?
What are some of the reasons for rejection?
What if I write a lot of different genres and subgenres?
What’s the difference between YA and adult fiction?
Can you put a death in a romcom?
Is collaborating on a novel a good idea?
How different is collaborating from writing solo?
How do you make a collaboration work?
How do you deal with after-publishing regrets?
What are the top ten things you know about publishing?
Everything Else:
How important are the rules in writing fiction?
How can the concepts of fiction be used in non-fiction?
How do I keep writing when I’m overwhelmed by daily life?
How do you manage your writing time.
What are good writing how-to books?
What are some good writing prompts?
What is your writing process? (HAHAHAHAHAHA)
The post Questionables: The Index appeared first on Argh Ink.
Questionable Table of Contents
Every now and then, I throw open the comments to writing questions, and then take the next month or so to answer them all at length. Below is a sorted list of all the answers up to July 1, 2019. You can also search for “Questionable” since all the titles begin with that, and all the posts are tagged that. There’s some repetition of questions in there–we’ve been doing this a long time and there’s been no organization so people couldn’t check to see what had been asked–but all the answers are there. Organized. Easier to find. Progress.
And as always, these answers are my opinion only, not rules, not even guidelines. There are many roads to Oz, follow your own road and your instincts.
Note: This page will be updating for days as I add the links after I revise and tag each post. Yes, it’s worth it.
Discovery and Drafting:
What is the discovery process?
How do you get from idea to story?
How do you start a story?
How do you focus on one story?
What’s this book about?
How do you move between writing new scenes and rewriting?
How do you organize your computer files for a book?
How do you brainstorm on a computer?
How do you do digital collage?
How do you use images in your discovery process?
What is a premise, a central story question, and theme?
How do you deal with surprises in a first draft?
Does it matter if you write longhand on paper or on a computer?
How much research should I do?
Character and Conflict:
What makes a character watchable?
How do you write characters that readers connect with?
How do you create character depth to make characters real?
How can I write in emotional shorthand to avoid overwriting my characters?
What are positive and negative goals?
How do I identify character goals?
How do you write character goals in a romance?
How do you get your characters to act?
What makes a great protagonist?
How do you make the protagonist come alive on the page?
How do I identify my antagonist?
How can you love your antagonist?
How can you like unlikable characters?
How do you plot multiple antagonists?
Can I have sub-antagonists?
How do you create a strong character arc?
What is deep point of view?
How do you write multiple point-of-view characters?
How do you show what the point-of-view character doesn’t see?
How do you have characters think in story?
Can a love interest be an antagonist?
Is. sociology a better approach to character than psychology?
How do you write the Wound from the Past?
How do you write the ordinary guy (not alpha or beta hero)?
How do you write conflict in a romance?
Should I use lots of description?
How do you choose character names?
Plot and Structure:
How does form affect story?
How do you turn an idea into a plot?
How long should a scene and chapter be?
What does building a reversal mean?
What is patterned structure?
How do you focus on one plot when your book has two?
How do you start and develop subplots?
How do you move a story through time?
What’s a good opening scene?
How do you write the first scenes in a book?
How do you know if a scene isn’t necessary?
How do you write good love scenes?
How do you write sex in stories?
What is too much detail in a sex scene?
What are beats?
How do you write back story.
How do you work with back story and flashback?
How do you work with red herrings and gotchas?
How do you write endings?
Critique and Revision:
How do you evaluate a first draft?
What do you look for in revisions?
How do I save a book that I’m no longer interested in writing?
Publishing and Marketing:
What do editors do?
What are some of the reasons for rejection?
What if I write a lot of different genres and subgenres?
What’s the difference between YA and adult fiction?
Can you put a death in a romcom?
Is collaborating on a novel a good idea?
How different is collaborating from writing solo?
How do you make a collaboration work?
How do you deal with after-publishing regrets?
What are the top ten things you know about publishing?
Everything Else:
How important are the rules in writing fiction?
How can the concepts of fiction be used in non-fiction?
How do you start a memoir?
Why can’t I write?
How do I keep writing when I’m overwhelmed by daily life?
How do you manage your writing time.
What are good writing how-to books?
What are some good writing prompts?
What is your writing process? (HAHAHAHAHAHA)
The post Questionable Table of Contents appeared first on Argh Ink.
Argh Independence: A Whole Blog Clean-Up
So here’s the plan:
I’m going to spend the rest of the summer putting Argh posts back up in sections. But this time, all the posts in a series will be linked and will have a master page with the posts linked and labeled. Needless to say, this will take time, and I’m doing other things–writing a book, cooking, shaving dogs, throwing out half my belongings–but my goal is to try to get one section up per day. Today’s plan is the Questionables, but since there are a zillion of those, that may slop over into tomorrow. I celebrated my holiday early. when Krissie was here (we had a fabulous time) so the next six days will be given over to being a cleaner, meaner blogger. Well, not meaner. You know what I mean.
In other news, I had a bitch of an MRI last week–90 damn minutes breathing on cue–but it was worth it: my heart function, the EF anyway, is back to normal. Went from 15% to 59% in a year (normal is 55 to 70%). So I can ease up on the death jokes. And get hit by a truck tomorrow, but that’s life for you.
In still other news, Krissie told me she knew how to groom dogs and took the clippers to Milton. He looks bald in some places and chewed in the others, but at least the neighbors laugh whenever they see him, and then they pet him and tell him it’ll grow out. I clipped Mona, too, but she just looks like a choppy little lamb. Milton looks like we ran the lawnmower over him. Yet to come: Veronica. Also, pictures if I can get that organized.
The post Argh Independence: A Whole Blog Clean-Up appeared first on Argh Ink.
June 30, 2019
Happiness is Stripping Down
So I’ve been stripping down the blog to put it back up cleaner and meaner in organization, and it’s coming along nicely. And when Krissie was here, we spent time stripping down the house, and she took a lot of stuff back with her. And then it got really hot here and Mona was looking awful so I stripped her down, too. I will not be getting my grooming license any time soon, but she seems to have survived to bark at squirrels and snarf cookies, so I consider her a success.
How did you find basic happiness this week?
The post Happiness is Stripping Down appeared first on Argh Ink.
June 29, 2019
Cherry Saturday, June29, 2019
It’s Audiobook Month. Here’s a confession: I can’t stand to be read to, so I’ve never heard any of my books on audio. I have a feeling I might be missing out, though, if there are some books that are actually better in audio than in print. Any opinions out there?
The post Cherry Saturday, June29, 2019 appeared first on Argh Ink.
June 27, 2019
This is a Good Book Thursday, June 27, 2019
I’ve been reading new romances, trying to figure out what makes a good one for me (not trying to establish a baseline for “good romance” since that depends entirely on the reader). The thing I keep coming back to is that although I love romance novels, some of them make me wince and think, Oh my god, that’s trite. And yet I keep reading anyway. (And some I throw against the metaphorical wall, but forget those.) One trope that fascinates me is the “we’re pretending to be in love/engaged/married” plot, which is really the contemporary version of the Marriage of Convenience. That plot always hooks me even though I know it’s a cliche, even though I know it’s ridiculous, even though I know that never happens in real life, it still gets me every time. I tried writing it once when I was writing category romance, and it was fun but I kept banging up against “this would never happen” so I’ve never tried it again, although I’m coming damn close with Nick’s proposal to Nita in order to give her his money. Since they don’t get married during the book, I think I’ve dodged that bullet, but they do move in together since somebody is trying to kill her, so I’m firmly in the “Can he protect her?” trope, which is a plot I actively hate (she’s not a victim, damn it), but it does get them in the same apartment and eventually in the same bed, so oh just hell it’s a Marriage of Convenience plot. Well, I do like that one, I’m just kind of ashamed of it. Sigh. Cowgirl up, Jenny. Own your guilty pleasures.
What did you read this week?
The post This is a Good Book Thursday, June 27, 2019 appeared first on Argh Ink.
June 26, 2019
Working Wednesday, June 26, 2019
So you may have noticed that most of the blog disappeared. It’s actually still here, it’s just all in draft form now. There was so much miscellaneous stuff on here, much of it interesting-in-the-moment and then not so much, and all of it needing organized and tagged and linked. So I put it all back into draft form with the idea of slowly cleaning it up and putting only some of it back. A cleaner, better organized archive, if you will. If there’s anything you particularly want. to see reinstated, let me know, but since I highly doubt anybody spends much time reading blog posts from 2005, I’m assuming most of you don’t care.
So how did you work this week?
The post Working Wednesday, June 26, 2019 appeared first on Argh Ink.
June 25, 2019
Argh Is Having a Moment
We haven’t been hacked, but it’s going to be weird for a day or two. Or weirder than usual anyway,.
The post Argh Is Having a Moment appeared first on Argh Ink.
IGNORE THIS POST, IT’S NOT FINISHED AND IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE UP YET
I’m finally getting a grip on the big picture of the book (the “What the hell is this book about, anyway?”), and as always, I’m seeing it through the four Point of View character arcs. ( PoV characters are Nita, Nick, Button, and Max.) Now that I know how this thing ends, I know where my characters begin and where they end. So now all I have to do is figure out how they got there (character arc!) and what it means. Which at this point is pretty clear: This book is about people finding their way home.
My first thought was that all books are about that, but I realized that’s not true. A lot of books are about protagonists who are happy in their stable lives and then something comes along and blows that good life up in the first scene, and they spend the rest of their stories trying to fix what’s gone wrong and establish a New Normal that’s safe and stable. Not everybody starts out in the wrong place. But Nita and Nick do, and analyzing the over plot today at the diner, I realized that so do my other two PoV characters, Button and Max. They all start out in the wrong places, and they’re all living lives that don’t fit because there are things they don’t know about themselves, they just don’t realize it until the story hits them and wakes them up. .
Where was I? Oh, right, character arcs for Nick, Nita, Button, and Max. So here’s the process, keeping in mind that you never do this kind of analysis until the majority of the book has been written (in this case, Acts One, most of Two and Four, and some Three in there, too).:
1. Describe where each PoV character is in the first act:
• Nita is a cop on Demon Island and her goal is to keep the island safe and stable; she sees herself as its protector.
• Nick is the Devil Elect (except the Devil isn’t elected) on the island to clean up the last few loose ends before he becomes Devil; he sees his job as keeping Earth safe from bad demonic influence and Hell stable.
• Button is a new cop on the island and her goal is to be incredible at her job and make her family proud.
• Max is Mammon’s fixer, and his goal is to keep the old guy safe from his own worst impulses while limiting the collateral damage.from his plans.
2. Describe where each PoV character at the end.
Where are they after the climax, who are they, how do they see themselves, what are their goals.
3. Do a one sentence description of each character for each act, showing how they got from the beginning of Act One to the end of Act Four by describing who they are and what their goals are for each act.
4. Describe how each PoV character has a major pivot at the plot turning points, keeping in mind that it’s an event that pushes that pivot, not just a change of heart, but that the events of the act have been leading up to it.
So here’s the character arc analysis for The Devil in Nita Dodd. There are spoilers below including new plot points below, so you have been warned.
The post IGNORE THIS POST, IT’S NOT FINISHED AND IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE UP YET appeared first on Argh Ink.
Argh Author: Brenda Margriet’s Gateway Crescent
Brenda Margriet’s Gateway Crescent, Book Two in the Bendixon Sisters Series, is available for only 99 cents! The ebook goes live June 26, so preorder now . . .
Jo Bendixon loves to sing, enjoys working in a coffee shop, and is secretly teaching herself to code. If only she could find a way to combine her varied interests into a career her sisters would approve.
Luke Donwell’s Catholic faith is the bedrock of his life. For as long as he can remember, he’s contemplated a vocation to the priesthood. Now it’s time to make a final decision about taking his vows.
When Jo and Luke end up working together, neither of them is prepared for the heat blossoming between them. Luke begins to doubt his calling, but Jo encourages him to continue seeking the truth. Her heart will break when he leaves her, but how can a girl compete with God?
Early Reviews:
Jo and Luke’s story was a heartwarming romance with many realistic bumps in the road. The secondary characters all added depth to the storyline.
The Romance Reviews – 4 Stars
This is a warm romance and is a satisfying read, full of real-life struggles and a conflicted heart!
Tracey’s Vampy & Racey Book Blog – 4.5 Stars
This was a completely different kind of romance…nothing conventional about this one and I loved it!
Fun Under the Covers – 5 Stars
Amazon
http://bit.ly/GatewayCrescentUS
http://bit.ly/GatewayCrescentCA
Other places to find Gateway Crescent:
http://bit.ly/GatewayCrescentKOBOUS
http://bit.ly/GatewayCrescentKOBOCA
http://bit.ly/GatewayCrescentBN
http://bit.ly/GatewayCrescentITunes
For an excerpt or more information, check out Brenda’s website: www.brendamargriet.com.
The post Argh Author: Brenda Margriet’s Gateway Crescent appeared first on Argh Ink.
