Chris Baty's Blog, page 162

"So your plot is veering away from your treasured outline. That’s a good thing because it means your..."

“So your plot is veering away from your treasured outline. That’s a good thing because it means your characters aren’t stick figures— they’re coming alive and taking charge.

 

This isn’t a step-by-step road map that must be followed at all costs. A good outline contains the characters’ goals and a set of problems they traverse in pursuit of those goals. If you find they decide something else is more important that’s not the end of the world. If your outline breathes and stretches then your story is alive.”

-

B. A. Binns is an award-winning African American author of contemporary, multicultural novels and short stories, including the novel, Pull.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.

"You may find your characters have their own minds; let them go off in their own directions if they..."

“You may find your characters have their own minds; let them go off in their own directions if they chose.

 

Your mission is to observe and record.”

-

B. A. Binns

is an award-winning African American author of contemporary, multicultural novels and short stories, including the novel, Pull.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.

Camp Pep: Writing Through Your Everyday Life

Are you participating in this July’s Camp NaNoWriMo? Our participants have words of wisdom to share with their fellow writers. Today, Danica advises you to embrace the writing itch while living your everyday life: 

Camp NaNoWriMo is nothing without you, our incredible participants. Today, some pep, straight from a Camper’s mouth: 

Dear WriMos,

I’m a writer. It’s a phrase that’s easy to say, and a life that is hard to have. For most of us, writing isn’t our full-time job, the 9-5 that pays the bills. We all wear several hats, from student to CEO, and each of them steals away large parts of our days.

I’m a Psychology and Communication major, the social media editor of a student newspaper, a member of several student organizations, a daughter and a friend. After I get home from school and work, I do my homework and try to catch up with all the friends I feel like I’m neglecting. When I’m finally done for the day, all of my other hats put up, my head is spinning from a busy day and Netflix seems like an easier option than writing. The last thing I want to do is write.

But writing is the only thing I want to do. At the end of the day, no matter how exhausted I am, there will still be a need to write down all of the stories inside of me. I’ll begrudgingly promise that I’ll only force myself to write for ten minutes and then I’ll settle into bed. I’ll stare at my laptop screen for a few of those minutes, deciding that my writer’s block is probably from how tired I am, and then I’ll slowly start typing away. My fingers will begin to hit the keys a little faster and the words will tumble out before my eyes. Suddenly, ten minutes are up and I’m in the middle of a scene I don’t want to stop. My writing has momentum because writing was exactly what I needed to feel refreshed from a day that has worn me out.

Soon enough, I’m energized and I’ve powered through that scene I was dreading or I was able to add a crucial part of character development to my story. When I finally settle into bed, I don’t feel run-down from my everyday life. I lead a hectic life, and those moments when I am in the zone with my writing are the ones that keep me sane. Words tumble out and for the first time all day I’ve cleared my jammed head. That itch to write will always be my sanity after a long day.

Danica wears many hats, but being a writer is her favorite. She has participated in NaNoWriMo twice (winning once) and Camp NaNoWriMo twice (winning both times). Her debut novel, Taking My Life, will be published Fall 2015. When she’s not buying coffee for NaNoWriMo, she’s drinking espresso to write about her life as a 19-year old for Real Talk.

"Sometimes writing advice just won’t click with you. You’ll read a nugget of wisdom that everyone..."

“Sometimes writing advice just won’t click with you. You’ll read a nugget of wisdom that everyone else is oohing and ahing about, but instead of that zing of realization, you’ll just hear a clunk.

 

Realize that even the best advice might not be for you. As long as you’re not rejecting advice out of hand because it’s not what you want to hear, you can pick and choose what works for you. There is no one way to be a writer.”

-

Karen Sandler is the author of nineteen novels for adults, as well as Tankborn, Awakening, and Rebellion, a YA science fiction trilogy. She is a founding team member of We Need Diverse Books.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.

"You can’t fix a blank page. When you are frozen in self-doubt and you question every word you..."

“You can’t fix a blank page. When you are frozen in self-doubt and you question every word you write, just kick yourself into gear and keep typing. Nothing is set in concrete in your manuscript. You can always fix it later.”

-

Karen Sandler is the author of nineteen novels for adults, as well as Tankborn, Awakening, and Rebellion, a YA science fiction trilogy. She is a founding team member of We Need Diverse Books.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.

"Every character has a back story. It’s what makes them fully formed and believable. But resist the..."

“Every character has a back story. It’s what makes them fully formed and believable. But resist the urge to describe your character’s past with a data dump of everything they ever experienced since birth. The best way to reveal a character’s back story is through the character’s actions/dialogue on the page.”

-

Karen Sandler is the author of nineteen novels for adults, as well as Tankborn, Awakening, and Rebellion, a YA science fiction trilogy. She is a founding team member of We Need Diverse Books.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.

"Fiction is not the real world. In the real world, not everything means something. Much of what..."

“Fiction is not the real world. In the real world, not everything means something. Much of what happens is just mundane, boring stuff that nobody cares about.

 

In fiction, the reader expects that every detail of a scene will connect to the story. If you spend more than a few words describing your main character, Ray Santiago, watching a brown and white spotted dog with one blue eye trot down the street with a bone in its mouth, that dog better bite Ray before the end. Or that bone the dog is carrying better be human.”

-

Karen Sandler is the author of nineteen novels for adults, as well as Tankborn, Awakening, and Rebellion, a YA science fiction trilogy. She is a founding team member of We Need Diverse Books.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.

Camp Pep: Building the Framework for your Novel

Still struggling to start your novel for Camp NaNoWriMo? Our incredible participants have words of wisdom to share with their fellow writers. Today,  participant John Morey encourages you to build on your novel’s framework:

“I’m afraid I’ll mess up,” an author friend of mine said. “Every time I write, I keep deleting it and starting over.”

Sound familiar? Does this happen to you? Well, don’t worry. You’re in good company. And the good news is, there’s a solution. We all run into difficult projects that terrify us, but we make the conscious decision to do them anyway. Writing is exactly the same.

When you build a house, do you meticulously build each wall one at a time, complete it, and then move on to the next? Or do you build the framework first before filling it in? Your first draft of a novel is just that: the framework. Maybe you nail your frame so awesomely that it’s pretty much done, or maybe it’s a rickety skeleton held together by duct tape and prayer. If you really, really feel that you just wrote some garbage, you could delete it and start again, but I would advise you to keep going, at least until you’ve set some stuff up afterward. Revision is much easier when the whole draft is in place—it’s the difference between demolishing an entire building and replacing a single wall.

And yes, you will have slow days. I have ‘em, too. You will have doubt. So do I! You will write trash. Everybody does! But the thing is, when you train yourself to actually do your job, when you take control of your muse, you will produce better and better work. You will build that house. You’ll renovate it. As big and scary as it is, which is scarier? Botching a draft and having to revise it? Or, never becoming a writer in the first place?

Writing is hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. And hey, you can do this. Trust me. Just the fact that you are reading this means that you can do it. No matter how difficult, the challenge isn’t more than you can handle. Learning this is what took me from never finishing a draft to multiple NaNo victories, and I know it will pay off for you, too.

John Morey is a former professional editor who got his noveling start thanks to NaNoWriMo in 2013. He is the author of the upcoming Vintage Soul series.  He was raised on a steady diet of monsters, moved around the country like a human ping-pong ball, and currently lives in the Bay Area, where he juggles writing and serving his feline overlady. You can also find him on Twitter, or Nerditis, where he writes “Life In Plastic” twice-weekly.

Top photo by Flickr user Bill Dickinson.

"Give yourself permission to spew run-on sentences, spit out awkward phrases, and regurgitate..."

“Give yourself permission to spew run-on sentences, spit out awkward phrases, and regurgitate unnecessary background details; dump information into a festering literary mound. That’s what revision is for. Crappy paragraphs and poor word choices are all good here. If you set out to write a first draft that’s ready to go to the printer, it ain’t gonna happen (See? I can correct that later).”

-

Steven dos Santos is a Team Member of We Need Diverse Books. Steven is a passionate advocate of LGBT rights and is currently working on the third book in The Torch Keeper series.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.

"Writer’s block. It’s the bane of our existence. When I’m agonizing in front of a blank screen,..."

“Writer’s block. It’s the bane of our existence. When I’m agonizing in front of a blank screen, starting a scene already in progress works wonders to get those juices flowing. Think of it as walking in at the middle of an argument. Who cares if it’s a scene that doesn’t take place chronologically or may end up discarded? Choosing to dive into a conflict in progress definitely gets the ball rolling.”

-

Steven dos Santos is a Team Member of We Need Diverse Books. Steven is a passionate advocate of LGBT rights and is currently working on the third book in The Torch Keeper series.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.