Lynn Blackmar's Blog, page 20

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Avoided and Repeated Words List

I’ve been working on a editing style guide for my works. A style guide is a book that contains principles and tips for editing, both in a big picture way, and from line to line. Most of my style guide pertains to my own writing quirks and problems, but I thought I’d share with you my lists of words to avoid or to check for repetition.

Feel free to copy it, and add your own problem words.

Repeated Words List

These are words that are easily overused.

nodded
smiled
shrugged
frowned
seemed
that
different
shrugged
… (ellipses)
; (semi-colons)
- (hyphens, unless proofreading justified text)

 Avoided Words List

just
so
very
maybe
possibly
could
might
guess
apparently
literally
can be
well
mostly
may
though
just
because
really
seemed
shrugged
think
thought
know
knew
believe
feel
figured
decide
see
saw
look

Common Typos

the the
“” (double quotes
and and
.. (double periods)
Double spaces
teh
your – you’re
a – an – and
they’re – their – there
to – too – two

Related Posts:

Brain Game – Creating Useable Ideas, pt. 7
Live the Process – Creating Useable Ideas, pt. 6
Level Up – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 5

Original article: Avoided and Repeated Words List.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Brain Game – Creating Useable Ideas, pt. 7

At last we are at the final leg of our journey to create a new story idea. We have a main character, a villain, and a place to write all our ideas down from the first half of the process.

Now we move on to filling out our story so it starts to take shape in our head.

At this point, I usually decide if I will plot the story fully or write by the seat of my pants. Yes, I do both. No, I don’t think one is better than the other. I tend to plot when I have a lot of characters, and/or in later books in a series. I almost always pants a first book in a series, or a standalone book from one or two points of view. Since this is a first book, and I’ll keep it in close third person, I’m going to pants it.

Contrary to what a lot of people insist to be true, I get writer’s block much more often when I’ve plotted the story already. I think it’s because it loses its sense of fun to write for me. My advice is do what feels most comfortable to you, though it’s worth trying both ways. Everybody is different.

Main Character Voice

The first thing I do when I’m brainstorming is come up with some distinctive qualities for my main character. This helps me imagine them, but also provides a baseline for creating the other characters.

Artistic comes to mind first. It’s not generally the first thing I would attribute to a science fiction character, but that might give us something interesting to work from. The militaristic background has been done a lot, so let me pull on this thread a little bit.

Say Xavara is a brilliant advertising executive. She comes up with innovative campaigns for nonprofit organizations. The campaigns are vivid and memorable, and she’s very good at what she does. She also chooses organizations that are trying to fix the world, in a sense.  Her hero complex is already in practice.

I also often thing about nicknames. My name doesn’t nickname very well, so I tend to choose character names that can shorten into nicknames. Xav is the most logical, but I think Vara makes more sense. Zara then comes to mind, and I like that the best, but I think I’ll spell it Xara.

Antagonist Voice

I want Kalder to contrast enough with Xavara enough, but have some things in common at the start. Betrayal has to be keenly felt to be effective, and Kalder is someone that Xara trusts at the beginning of the book.

When I think about trust, I end up thinking about mentors. The hero’s journey includes a mentor, but I want to make Xara’s mentor be the person that betrays her. Kalder is someone who has encouraged her and someone she looks up to, but he isn’t everything she thinks he is.

His voice will be encouraging at first, but will increase in tension as the story goes on. When she refuses to help, his voice will turn to rage and violence.

Secondary Characters

We need some secondary characters to fill out the roster a bit. I think Xavara needs a love interest, a best friend, and a rival.

I think at first I will combine love interest and best friend. Often the main character doesn’t choose the best friend, and I find that unfortunate. I might not necessarily have them get to together in this book, if I carry it out into a series, but I’ll make that decision later in the story.

I follow the same methods for my secondary characters as for my protagonist and antagonist. I do try to give my characters very distinct appearances from one another. I also try to give them names that start with different letters. The more distinction I can draw between them, the easier it is to write them with a unique voice, and the easier it is for readers to remember them.

Name generator name: Aleic

Playby search: Aaron Taylor-Johnson

I also found a brother for Xara while I was searching. I didn’t intend for her to have a brother, but the model Zakaria Khiare looked so much like Xara that ideas began to spring to mind. This is usually a good sign that something can come out of it. You can always cut or edit characters later in the process.

Name generator name: Daned

Playby search: Zakaria Khiare

And last, a rival, a lower level antagonist, but ultimately pushes Xara to be better, so she can meet her challenges.

Name generator name: Rune

Playby search: Taylor Momsen (of Gossip Girl fame)

Aliens

I have two main ways I come up with aliens. Not that I’ve written a lot of aliens into my stories, but it has happened a few times.

Method 1 – Google aliens, click on “Images”, then take the attributes of several different photos and combine them together. Fairly simple.

Method 2 –  Consider monsters in fairy tales, and update a version for your story.

I’ll use method 2 for the sake of an example. I scrolled down the wiki list, and “banshee” caught my eye. I looked more, but went back to it, so this is what I will use.

A banshee is somewhat non-corporeal, and has a disabling scream. So, if I create aliens that are intelligent, energy-based, mist-like beings who disable their opponents with sound, we have a fairly scary alien enemy. Took me all of one minute to create.

Setting

There are different ways to go about setting. I usually like to come up with a few settings at the beginning, and then I make up the rest as I go along.

Generally, for setting, I come up with a major theme, then I start asking myself what I would need there, and also what I could do. This is where a brainstorming session comes in handy.

We’ve established Xara is human, so let’s set her on a space station orbiting earth. It’s a closed, small setting, and perhaps she works for a broadcasting station and their clients. Let’s assume it’s cramped, and has little in the way of decor. The walls are metal, but everything is kept as clean as possible to avoid rust and contamination, which means a rather large sanitation staff.

Xara lives on the station with a number of other broadcasting staff. The station allows better control of the satellites, as well as gives the station some notoriety. Living on the station allows her to network with those staff and better position her ads.

Adding Depth
Layer 1 – Hero’s Journey

The top layer of my story is a simple hero’s journey storyline.

Normal person in an average society
Society becomes threatened
Normal person decides to confront threat
Normal person goes on a journey to acquire the skills, tools, and friends to fight threat,  becoming a hero
Hero confronts threat

Xara will have to be taken to a place where she can confront the threat, so the space station must be a key for defending the planet. Perhaps she likes to fly on her spare time? Maybe she becomes a member of the security staff. I could go in a lot of directions to place her at the center of the action.

Secondary story layer 2 – School

Underneath my hero’s journey I want to give another flavor to my story, so I’m going to juxtapose a different storyline that runs in a different direction. If you imagine the top layer going vertical, this layer will go horizontally.

This layer is going to be Daned’s story, how he becomes the hero of his own storyline in the novel. I’m going to choose a traditional adventure school story for him, and let him become part of the in-crowd on Earth that eventually will let him break restrictions for Zara. Think Harry Potter. In the story, we’ll touch base with Daned as he copes with school, breaking rules, and eventually being the hero of the school, eventually positioning him in a pivotal place in the military where he and Xara can work together to beat their enemy. We will keep tabs on him via his communications to Xara, public broadcasts, and even a few chapters of his own.

One thing we don’t want to do is allow our layers to overtake the main storyline. There can be a different storyline below the surface, but it should push the secondary character to either help or hinder the main character in their ultimate goal. Think of it as two streams which join at the end before meeting the ocean.

But wait!

Did you develop ideas of your own just from the names and character photos? Did you see the characters coming to life, even though I really didn’t give much about the characters themselves.

This always happens to me when I develop stories this way. The stories take shape on their own. Your story is probably different than mine, but that’s the spectacular thing about writing. We can use the same things and still come up with something with our own storylines and voices.

Wrapping Up

That’s my process for creating a story. I hope something in it is helpful to you as a writer.

Related Posts:

Live the Process – Creating Useable Ideas, pt. 6
Level Up – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 5
Fight The Biggest Monster – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 3

Original article: Brain Game – Creating Useable Ideas, pt. 7.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Live the Process – Creating Useable Ideas, pt. 6

Now that we’ve gone through the steps to developing a story, I’m going to put into action, hopefully in a visible way. There will be some lists, because that’s how my brain works. Those of you who mindmap or use other visual methods to brainstorm will come up with something a little different, and that’s great.

I decided to split this live process post up into two weeks, just because it’s a behemoth.

Scrivener Untitled Project

Story Collector

I use Scrivener to keep all my ideas, just as I use it for most of the writing process. Whenever I get an idea, no matter how big or small, it becomes a new page in my story file.

When I am close to starting a new book, I start a project file in Scrivener, and start collecting things to put in it. I start a project file for this story, using the novel setting, though it may end up a short story. So far, it’s untitled.

The first things I do when I start a new Scrivener project is add a folder for pictures, as well as a folder for notes. I will use these folders a lot throughout my writing process.

Heart & Soul

Let’s start with themes. Themes that are important to me are:

friendship
loyalty
doing the right thing
empowered women and men
diversity
trust
family
quirky characters

Genres I like are:

science fiction
action
adventure
modern times
future
steampunk

Out of this, let’s narrow down to a futuristic science fiction story about loyalty, friendship, and empowered women and men.

Many times I get an idea for a character first and wrap the story around that character. But say today I have no ideas, so I’m going to go searching for a character on whom to base my story.

I’m going to look at  playby blogs to get some ideas. Playbys are visual representations, or avatars, for characters used by forum and blog roleplayers. Playby blogs are very popular on tumblr, to help roleplayers looking for a face for their character. Often I see a photo and a character jumps to life in my mind.

I type “female playby” in the tumblr search.  You can look through the blogs that come up for specific features, which are often tagged. Male, female, hair color, skin color, and so forth. I often choose diverse models, because I feel there is not enough of them represented in stories.

The first person to come up is model Vickie Sorensen. She’s gorgeous, exotic, and really interesting to me, so I’m going to base my main character around her. I search her name on Google for a few more photos of her, download them, and add them to my Scrivener file under a new category, Photos. I also create a main character page for her under Characters, and I insert one of the photos.

It helps to have a name for her, and the name Xavara pops into my head. Usually that doesn’t happen, and I end up using name generators and creating lists of names. Xavara sounds futuristic, and it has a nice sound to it. I pick the last name of May, and I have a character.

Monster Hunting

Now we need a bad guy, someone or something for the main character to fight, causing the progression of the story.

There are three main directions to go with an empowerment theme. I could start in a normal society with a secret/new evil, a dystopian society, or I could start in an empowered society where something encroaches on that empowerment. I’m going to take the normal society route, which in literary terms would be called the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey is a common narrative used throughout history of a normal person turning into a hero to save their society or ideals.

Let’s create an evil for the hero to fight. Xavara May lives on a futuristic earth, and let’s say space travel is common. So let’s have some big, bad aliens who want to come and take over earth. But I want to put a personal face on this monster, so I’m going to have someone close to her betray humanity. Xavara gets tangled up in the plot, and takes on the task of stopping them.

This time I will use name generators first, and find a good villain name. Seventh Sanctum is the first place I go for names of people and places. Serendipity has some useful generators as well. A Google search will bring up many other great generators. Caldr comes up on Seventh Sanctum’s evil name generator, and I kind of like that, but I’m going to play with it a little. Maybe Calder? Caalder? Kaldar? I chose the last. Kalder doesn’t really need a last name right now for me to envision him, so I’ll just stick with that for a bit. Picking my image for him is a little harder, but searching “male playby” on tumblr yields Willy Cartier, and I think he will work. So now my great evil has a face.

I still need to develop an alien race, but I’m going to save that for the brainstorming session. All I need to know right now to get started is that they want to own earth, and they will do whatever it takes to get it.

Up Next

Next week I will brainstorm some details for my story, and come up with a setting, some obstacles, and add some secondary characters.

Related Posts:

Level Up – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 5
Write What You Like – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 2
The Idea Game – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 1

Original article: Live the Process – Creating Useable Ideas, pt. 6.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Level Up – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 5

We have developed a story file, found a journey for our main character, created a monster to fight, and then brainstormed more ideas to fill it all out.

Now we’re going to take those brainstormed ideas and fill out the rest of the story. This week is all about depth.

Layer ideas

In Plot Inspiration from Korean Dramas, I noticed that Korean dramas often layer genres on top of each other, creating a more dynamic and intense story.

Take a second genre and layer it underneath your main genre to creating more conflict, tension, and plot obstacles. We see a lot of romance under most genres, but how about a family drama under a thriller? Or a touch of fantasy under a modern romance?

Give your leads their own personal stories underneath the main plot, such as a romance or a family drama. You can also experiment with different genre ideas, public domain ideas, and characters that have opposite goals who actively work against them.

Another way to layer is to give your secondary characters a different story than your main characters. Many secondary characters are flat and stereotypical, only in the story to create obstacles for the main character.

Take secondary characters and give them their own plot lines, desires, conflicts, and obstacles, almost as if you were writing two books. I will say that this is most effective when writing in third person, though you can create the story for your secondary characters and then use your main character’s voice in first person to narrate their story while staying in your main character’s voice.

Combining ideas

Something I do often is borrow one of my ideas or themes from my story file and mash it with another one. This is one reason why having a story file with even your “small” ideas can be handy.

A useful source of storylines is public domain stories or myths. Use your characters, change genres, or bring a story into a different time period. TV shows often use public domain stories for plot ideas. You can do the same. Ask yourself how you can make it completely your own.

In a story I’m currently writing, I added a family drama to a story that is science fiction in genre and coming-of-age in theme. Originally, they were two separate ideas for stories, but I combined them together. The family drama intensifies the coming-of-age story, making the protagonist’s fight to grow up a fight against everything her family stands for.

Most stories benefit from some additional complexity than your basic storyline. Layering and combining flavor your story, while giving the reader a meatier experience. Another benefit of combining ideas is that it can give your secondary character their own storylines and conflicts.

Story Speed

Story speed is an important element of how readable your story is. You can have the most beautiful prose in the world, but if nothing happens in your story, readers will lose interest. Obstacles keep your story moving, but they are also a good way of showing the reader what is happening, as opposed to telling them.

Putting an obstacle in each chapter or every other chapter is the best way to keep the story speed going. These obstacles should be big enough that they make the main character stumble or feel like they cannot complete their goal. A good reference for this type of writing is Jim Butcher’s scene and sequel method (as outlined by RK Athey).

Be careful though. Remember when we discussed support systems in part 3? Don’t move too fast to using supportive characters and situations in your story. Bring crutches in slowly, or tease them and keep them away from your character. You can even offer them, rip them away, and later reveal a more unique method of supporting your character to their goal, one readers might not suspect. An antagonistic character (that isn’t your “bad guy”) might switch sides and suddenly decide to help your character, for their own reasons or not, but bring them in only when all hope is lost.

Move Your Character Around

Many authors don’t think about this, but moving your character from one place to another is an easy way to generate motion in the story. If your story is slowing down, moving them to a new place to confront a new obstacle is an easy way to generate momentum.

Always visualize the location from the perspective of the character whose voice you are in at that moment. What would they notice that others would not? Do they pick out how people act? Their clothing? Do they notice a particular object immediately?

Coming Up

Next week, in our last discussion about developing plot ideas, I’ll go through the steps of the process to come up with a completely new story idea.

Related Posts:

Write What You Like – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 2
The Idea Game – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 1
Fight The Biggest Monster – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 3

Original article: Level Up – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 5.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Required Reading: The Basics of Self Publishing

This is the start of a new series I’m calling “Required Reading”. Not so much of me, but over the past few years I have collected links and books on various topics. In a nutshell, these are the core elements of the topic, and after reading, you should have a pretty good idea of how to get started.

Think of it like the reading for a college course. Once you get a basic idea, you can jump off on tangents and go deeper into the subject.

Getting Started in Self Publishing

When I met people and tell them I’m a self published author, and that I do pretty well at it, some tell me they have written a book or plan to write one. Usually the question comes up, “Isn’t self publishing hard? How do you do that instead of finding an agent and a publisher?”

I don’t think self publishing well is easy. However, I don’t think the traditional route is easy either. They’re both very difficult. An agent and a publisher will not do most of your work for you. If you want to be a writer in any capacity, be ready to research the field and then work like crazy. Whether self or trade published, you will be responsible for turning out near perfect final drafts, and you will be doing most of your own social media.

Self publishing suits me because I like being in control of the whole process. I have a lot of graphic design experience, and I believe that anything I can’t do, I can hire someone to do for me. But I’ve still done a lot of purposeful reading to acquire as many skills as possible, so even if I hire someone, I know what to expect and what I want out of that process.

These are resources for the person curious about self publishing, but unsure of which route to take. I’ll dive into some different aspects of self publishing later.

Required Reading for Self Publishing

There’s a few books that are essential for getting a start in self publishing. I reread them regularly.

Let’s Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should (Let’s Get Publishing Book 1)

 

 

Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success)

 

 

Helpful Articles on Self Publishing

I also have a collection of websites and articles on the basics of self publishing. Generally, these are listed in reading order, since some build on the knowledge of the others.

Investing in Your Writing Career, or Why I Decided to Self-Publish Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn

(Self Publishing) Basics by David Gaughran

How Self-Published Books Are Made: Start To Finish (PART I) by Catherine Ryan Howard

Self-Publishing Basics: Where to Publish by Susan Kaye Quinn

Getting Ready to Publish by The Book Designer (Joel Friedlander)

Does Book Design Really Matter by The Book Designer

Other Resources for Self Publishing

Writer Beware – Every author should be familiar with and check Writer Beware before buying author services from any company. Many authors get scammed, even by subsidy vanity publishers owned by well-known trade publishing houses. Don’t get scammed just to get a book in your hands. Many of the promises of these companies will not pan out for you (ie. they’ll control your books, make them unavailable, or you won’t ever get paid).

Author Earnings – Statistics on the top books and authors on various platforms.

kboards Writers’ Cafe – Sort of the self publishing gathering place on the net. Keep in mind that there are many ways to do things, and many opinions that can conflict or get heated. Still, it’s a good place to get recommendations and read

Self Publishing Reddit – Another discussion place is Reddit’s Self Publishing board. Tends a little more toward articles, but sometimes has heated discussion.

Related Posts:

10 Things I Learned Self Publishing… That You Might Not Have Heard Before
Brainstorming – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 4
Fight The Biggest Monster – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 3

Original article: Required Reading: The Basics of Self Publishing.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Brainstorming – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 4

We’ve discussed creating a place to keep your ideas, finding a central idea, and the secret of creating obstacles. Now we’ll tackle some brainstorming methods so you can start filling out your story with ideas.

 Post-it Board

Post-it Notes on the White Board by Drew Leavy, flickr.com CC Attribution/No Derivatives license

My favorite way to brainstorm is a medium-sized whiteboard and Post-its. I’ll jot down ideas on the Post-its and stick them to the board. My favorite time of day to do this is in commercials of my favorite shows.

Sometimes I make pretty designs out of the Post-its, but most of the time I line them up in rows. Or use a mind mapping method, outlined below.

Big, small, weird, or mundane – every idea goes up. One idea usually leads to another. Sometimes I combine them together. After I collect a board full of Post-its, I go back and write them down in my story file, usually in Scrivener’s notecard function.

I find a physical whiteboard works the best for me, but some alternatives can include:

Scrivener’s notecard function
Free sticky note software such as Stickies (PC), Sketchbox (Mac), Sticky Notes ! (Android), and Sticky (iPad).
3×5 notecards (which you can keep in your story file, if you want)
Websites like Padlet or lino

Mind mapping

NPR Mind Map by Chris Gladis, flickr.com CC Attribution license

Mind mapping is a method of visually brainstorming by creating bubbles of thoughts around a thought, and then branching out from there.

I am too linear of a thinker to find mind mapping that helpful, but many people I know use it with great results. Some make amazing doodles and designs on their mind maps.

Lifehacker has an excellent list of mind mapping software, though a pencil and a piece of paper might work even better, and something you can do even if you are out and about.

Listing

Listing is underrated in my opinion. I still find it the easiest way to generate ideas quickly.

I often list at the beginning of a chapter, jotting down some thoughts on what needs to happen or what could happen. I also write down questions about the characters or the story, or single words and emotions.

I tend to use PiratePads for listing outside of Scrivener, but sometimes I write on a physical whiteboard as well.

Workflowy is an outlining app that many use for listing and outlining. It’s super easy to write quick lists and keep them handy, along with creating outlines for your stories. Workflowy is accessible on just about every device, so you can make notes from anywhere.

Pace and Talk

I have Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and though I find it awkward to write drafts, I do like to walk around my office and talk out ideas. Some of it might be a little garbled, but since its notes, it doesn’t really matter.

Creative Visualization

Creative visualization can also be used with Dragon NaturallySpeaking or a digital recorder, but you might find other physical methods distracting.

Here’s my method of creative visualization. Custom tailor your experience to suit your personality and style.

Turn out the lights in the room and draw the shades. It doesn’t have to be pitch dark, just low light.
Turn on Songza’s Post-Rock Bliss station or one of the other instrumental stations. Keep the volume soft.
Lean back in a comfortable chair, feet up, and begin imagining your characters.
Put your characters through some scenarios (have a little card with these questions, if you need to):

Your main character’s biggest fear comes to haunt them. What is it? What do they do? What is their first action of self protection? What would it take for them to face and challenge it?
Your antagonist finds your main character to taunt them. The antagonist starts listing how they will throw obstacles in your protagonist’s path. What are they? What is the worst thing they could do to punish the main character?
Your main character and allied secondary characters are in a room together. How do they go about trying to come up with a plan to defeat the bad guy or a big obstacle? How do they differ? Get them really arguing about it. Hear their voices and pick out small mannerisms that make them different from the other characters.
Take A, B, and C, and put your secondary characters in those places. Who is their antagonist? What is their biggest fear?



Coming Up

Next week, the last in our series on idea generation, we’ll be tackling some ways to create depth and how to keep reader interest in the storyline. And for our last post in this series, I will develop a whole new story using these techniques.

Related Posts:

Fight The Biggest Monster – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 3
Write What You Like – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 2
The Idea Game – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 1

Original article: Brainstorming – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 4.

If you would like to receive freebies, discounts, and updates about new books, sign up for my newsletter at the top right of my website.

Fight The Biggest Monster – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 3

Godzilla by Ian Myles, flickr.com, CC Attribution license

How can we create a story that readers will remember? What makes readers want to keep reading, and eventually come back for more of your stories?

The key is fighting the biggest monster in the story — finding the scariest or most challenging thing for the main character to face.

In part 1 of Coming Up with Useable Ideas, we developed a story file in which to keep our ideas. In part 2, we discussed writing what we like as a starting point for storylines. Now we turn our attention to the emotional journey of the story, and how to make it exciting.

Monsters All Around Us

Real world challenges can help us find our monsters in every day life. We face obstacles every day, and many of them are pretty scary. Just in my own life I’ve faced down cancer, life-threatening illness, deaths of people closest to me, heartbreak, financial devastation, and more. Inwardly, I fear loss, anger, loneliness, and hurt, among a host of other emotions. I watch those around me suffer similar hardships and some have even changed dramatically for better or worse because of the difficulties in their lives.

We all face very frightening circumstances in our lives, and writers turn these challenges into obstacles for our characters. By dealing with our own fears through our writing, readers can connect with the characters and are absorbed into the story.

Face your fears

What do you fear most?

Think about more than just bugs or heights, but if someone were to hurt you, what would be your weakness? Being forced to live a life you didn’t choose? The closest person to you walking away and leaving you alone? Someone exposing a long-hidden secret? Someone coming after your family?

What about the fears of those closest to you? Have you watched someone you love deal with a heartbreaking struggle? How did that affect them? How did it affect you?

Try instilling the reals fears around you into your characters. Make your deepest fear your main character’s inner struggle. Take that inner dialogue that you hear whenever anxiety attacks and turn it into your characters’ inner dialogue.

You can confront your fears through writing, not only for yourself, but for others who struggle with the same fear. Many fears are more universal than we realize, but even  readers who don’t share that fear feel more immersed in a character written with a very real personal struggle.

Start with a character

Begin with your greatest fear. The first step is to take that fear and go two directions:

1. Make a character that can grow to overcome that fear – the protagonist

You don’t want to start your main character at a point of being able to overcome the fear, but you do want to create someone that can learn, grow, and eventually can overcome it.

This character shouldn’t be exactly like you, but you can use your own weaknesses in that character. What weakness hinders you from overcoming your fears? Even if you can’t answer now, think about how a character might overcome these fears with the same weaknesses.

What emotional tools did you have or want when you were going through the problems in your life? Is there a person or support system that you could have used? Is there one you can imagine now, looking back on the situation?

If envisioning your character is difficult at first, find a celebrity or model that can physically represent them. Give them a funny quirk or vice that would hinder them even more from achieving their goals. Start to imagine how they would bumble about with that quirk holding them back.

2. Make a character that personifies that fear – the villain

You can also start with your villain. An effective villain could be someone who personifies your own fears. It could be a corporation or country that symbolizes your fears, but make sure you put a face on that entity with a character that leads or represents that entity. The Dark Side in Star Wars would not have been quite so easy to imagine without the shadowed mask of Darth Vader or the Emperor’s lightning.

Like Darth Vader, giving your villain some sort of visual cue will help readers identify their entrances into the story. It doesn’t have to be something quite so dramatic as a full mask, but as simple as the company logo on their lapel, black gloves, or a red scarf.

3. Give your secondary characters contrasting fears from your protagonist

Your secondary characters can be another challenge for your characters. They should have their own set of goals, fears, and challenges. Dramatic tension can greatly increase when you give opposing fears to your secondary characters, ones that cause disagreement and conflict between your characters.

For a simple example, say your main character wants a beautiful woman. The woman can want another man, or the main character’s friend can also want her. We see tropes like this in stories all the time. They are familiar to the readers, and generate a lot of tension between characters.

However, even if your storyline is familiar, use your characters’ unique voices to approach those traditional problems. What could your characters do that would be totally different from what other characters might do? If you need to insert quirks, also make them contrasting. The more contrast you put between your characters, the more conflict and tension you can produce.

Set up giant obstacles

Obstacles create conflict and force your character to decide to keep fighting. Obstacles need to make your character feel as though their whole life was at stake, either literally or figuratively.

Obstacles need to happen regularly in your story. I would say every three chapters at least, but some writers use them in every chapter with great effect. The key is that they don’t always have to be huge. They do have to present a big enough challenge that your character wonders if they can win. Even a simple time delay with the obnoxious neighbor, or a car not starting can hinder your character and make it seem like they can’t complete their goal. If you’re a seat of the pants writer like me, thinking “What terrible thing can I do to my character today?” is a fun way to start a writing session.

Don’t be afraid to make the obstacles big. Include some huge, sticky, and very dangerous obstacles. From thrillers to romantic comedies, you can incorporate potentially disastrous problems:

The troublemaker out to get your character fired, which will cause them to lose their home.
The backstabbing friend who is going after the guy/girl
A witness to a crime who saw your main character at the scene
A boss who messed up and plans to place blame on your main character

Use your fears to propel the characters’ emotional journeys against those obstacles. Whenever you feel stuck, start writing down fears and how a character might approach those fears.

Coming Soon

Next week we’ll finally get to brainstorming and how to take your base ideas and rachet them up to create more twists and plots. After that, we’ll discuss some ways to add more depth to your story. In the last installment, I’ll use these methods to develop a brand new story idea, and go through the process so you can see how I use it.

Related Posts:

Write What You Like – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 2
The Idea Game – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 1
Writing the End: How it should have ended

Original article: Fight The Biggest Monster – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 3.

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Write What You Like – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 2

180/365² Sin ideas by Andrés Nieto Porras, flickr.com, CC Attribution license

In The Idea Game – Coming up with Useable Ideas, pt. 1, we discussed finding a place to keep all your ideas. This step is crucial, because you need somewhere you can return again and again to store and grab ideas.

But where should you start finding ideas for stories? There are lots of ways, but focusing first on what you enjoy should sit at the center. It should also be the first place to return when you are feeling dry.

Write what you like

A fairly common phrase in writing is “Write what you know”. I don’t really like it, though. I certainly have never lived on a space station or been in a high speed chase, but I write about them anyway.

So I prefer “Write what you like”. What kinds of books and movies do you like? Do you like thoughtful contemporary dramas or high speed action fantasy? Do you enjoy touching romance or one fight after another. Maybe you like both together?

Knowing what you like is at the heart of finding ideas because it connects you to your passions. We like things for reasons, sometimes reasons that go way back in our lives. We tend to watch or read a lot of stories that follow after our preferences, and so we understand those stories natively. Plus, it keeps you from being bored while writing, because it speaks deeply to who you are.

Mine your mind

Did you find somewhere to put all your ideas last week? Grab that, and start making a few simple lists. Leave a space or two between each items so you can make some notes on them later.

List 1: Favorite books and movies of all time

What are the first books, movies, or TV shows that come to mind as all-time favorites? What do you watch over and over again? It doesn’t matter if they are in different genres, write them down anyway.

It’s okay to write in more than one genre, so don’t count out ideas because they don’t seem to fit what you see yourself writing. Many authors write in multiple genres, and many take things from one genre and add it to another.

List 2: Guilty pleasures

Everybody has guilty pleasures, and those can be a key to what might bring you a lot of joy in creating a story. Are there things you really enjoy that you avoid mentioning to others? Do you tend to read or watch certain things when you are down or sick?

It’s okay to have guilty pleasures, and personally, I don’t think anyone should feel bad for liking something even though they think others might not. There’s something that attracts us to things we really enjoy. That attraction draws you, and your passion draws an audience. However, if it’s something you like a lot, there’s probably a lot of other people out there who like it, too.

Compile a list of guilty pleasures and add some notes about why you like each story. Is it the characters? The high speed action? Comedy? A side character? Look for patterns and similarities, and later you can pick and choose from those elements you like most to make them more captivating to you and to your audience.

List 3: Daydreams and fantasies

What do you daydream or fantasize about? Love? Wealth? Daring adventures?

Write down some of your recent or most vivid daydreams and fantasies, enough to remember exactly that fantasy. If you have a computer-based or index file, you could even start a section just for these ideas. I also keep a dream diary, and write down memorable dreams I have. My first book, Surfer Girl, was straight out of a particularly vivid dream.

It might help to separate story ideas from themes at this point. Keep track of both.

Go Deeper into the Mine

Now take it a little deeper. Make a new list, this time about your plot preferences. Do you like happy or sad endings? A little bit of romance or a lot? Are you good at writing comedy? Action? Melodrama?

Are there patterns you noticed from the above lists? Similarities? Differences? Something that stands out as being completely different from the others? Even though it is different, does it have something in common with what you normally like?

Later, you can pick apart your ideas and just use parts of them. Use a character, an emotional tone, or even a silly line. We’ll be discussing more ways to do that in the next few weeks.

If you like and enjoy your own story, you’re not only more likely to come up with ideas for it, because you’ve probably exposed yourself to lots of stories in that style, but you’ll enjoy writing it more. So start asking yourself what you like most, and what kinds of stories you’d like to see.

Coming Up

Next week, we’ll talk about more ways to give depth to your ideas. After that, we’ll discuss methods of brainstorming.

The Misfit Spies series by Lynn Blackmar

Related Posts:

The Idea Game – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 1
Writing the End: How it should have ended
Plot Inspiration from Korean Dramas

Original article: Write What You Like – Coming Up With Useable Ideas, pt. 2.

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Summer Sale on the Misfit Spies series!

Get both the Misfit Spies books for $.99 each on Amazon and Smashwords until July 6th! The same discount also applies at Amazon UK and other Amazon stores.

Don’t have a Kindle, but still want the Amazon version? Read ebooks using the FREE Kindle reading app for most devices, such as PC, tablet, or your phone.

Surfer Girl, Book 1 of the Misfit Spies series

Surfer Girl, the first book in the Misfit Spies series, by Lynn Blackmar

Arena Schmidt has no trouble surfing a big wave, but she faces more than she can handle after she witnesses the kidnapping of her roommate by a bunch of government agents on hoverboards. Arena steals a board to chase the kidnappers down, revealing her natural ability to fly the hoverboards. The CIA captures Arena and gives her an ultimatum: help them find the other boards or lose everything she loves.

Assigned to a geeky unit of spies known as “The Misfits”, Arena struggles to find out what happened to her roommate while recovering the boards for the CIA. Each Misfit offers a unique perspective and unconventional methods, from gorgeous martial arts master Nate to enigmatic analyst Sterling to bubbly, quirky Lorna. Arena finds herself in the middle of gunfights and high-speed chases, on the run from a sinister organization’s treacherous double agent out to claim her and the hoverboards for their own.

Surfer Girl is an action-adventure young adult/adult crossover novel appropriate for ages 14 and up. There is moderate violence and several deaths.

Find it on Amazon Kindle, Amazon Kindle UK, and Smashwords

Rebel, Book 2 of the Misfit Spies series

Rebel, , the second book in the Misfit Spies series, by Lynn Blackmar

Nate Johnson traveled from superstar darling of the CIA to discredited misfit and back. Offers arrive from every level of the CIA, pulling Nate away from his unit STATUS, known as the Misfits, now his family and his home. Nate wrestles with moving up in the agency, but maybe it’s time to leave espionage behind in exchange for a peaceful life.

Suspicion grows that the Misfits are behind a massive government scandal. With the help of a beautiful Washington DC analyst, Nate battles personal demons and political corruption in the CIA, uncovering a startling and very powerful enemy in the process.

Rebel is an action-adventure young adult/adult crossover novel appropriate for ages 14 and up. There is moderate movie-style violence and several deaths.

Amazon Kindle US,  Amazon Kindle UK, and Smashwords with coupon code PK89U

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Original article: Summer Sale on the Misfit Spies series!.

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