Ksenia Anske's Blog, page 65

Collaborative writing, or get ready for a mad party!

Photo by Phillip Schumacher

I've been asked to blog about collaborative writing, what kind of a beast is it, how to do it, how not to do it, and if it's a good idea to do it at all. Before you read any more, however, know this, I only have experience creating flash fiction sprees on my blog like the one about Easter Bunny Apocalypse (20 writers participated) or Bloody Santa vs Zombie Siren (10 writers participated) or quick flash fiction exercises like compiling a story out of tweets between t...

On hero's journey, monomyths, and Minotaurs

Photo by trini61

One late autumn evening, when the sound of raging rain broke through the window of my castle, and the brick road beckoned me... err, let me start this again. One evening one of my Twitter followers has asked me to blog about the whole concept of The Hero's Journey or Monomyth (if you never heard of it, I suggest you read this article first), coined by Joseph Campbell, an American writer and mythologist, basically stating that most myths follow the same pattern of a hero leavin...

Picking character names

Photo by trini61

As much as writing a book seems like a grand idea that requires a major effort to fulfill, it consists of little things, like writing a little every day, until it's finished, and picking out particular details that will make the book one final beautiful organism that hums with life. It seems big to the reader, but it's really comprised of carefully chosen tiny things. And one of those tiny things are character names. They don't seem important at first, and yet, in a well writt...

Overcoming writerly self-doubt

Photo by trini61

This is yet another blog post requested by my Twitter followers, and, as it turns out, I have briefly touched on the subject before, using pink pony horror as a metaphor. This post will go much deeper, to the very root of this writerly self-doubt we writers seem to have so much of and seem to never be able to shake off completely, staring at the blank screen for hours, paralyzed, petrified, mortified to the point of wanting to give up and get a job like normal people do. And y...

Choosing a path to publication

Photo by Joel Robison

It's amazing how people asked me to write a post about publication, when I have only self-published 1 little book of my tweets so far, BLUE SPARROW, and nothing else, my 1st novel being currently edited and my 2nd still being written. So, please, proceed with caution. What follows is an account of a rookie writer who dove into the world of publishing like a complete fool, without any prior research, without much understanding of it, winging it along the way. I started wri...

Genre jumping

Photo by Rosie Hardy

All right, so this is something I sort of have done, having written screenplays in the past that were not entirely fantasy, having written fantasy and preparing to write a literary novel (after finishing my 2nd novel, ROSEHEAD) called IRKADURA and set in the 80's in Soviet Union, and after that a sci-fi novel called PAGE TURNER (temporary title for now). Both concepts are already worked out and both go beyond what I have done before. And you know what? I'm so excited to tr...

Transitions, from dialogue to descriptions and back

Photo by Joel Robison

I've been asked to write about this, and at first I didn't even know where to begin, never having given much thought about this particular topic when I'm writing. And then I thought, no, not true, I have, it's just that now it seems to flow and I forgot to think about it, but I did think about it when I first started, and I hated how my dialogue was clumsy, how it seemed like I jumped from people talking to describing the setting, to wondering when it was appropriate again to jump to people talking. You get the drift. So how come I don't think about it anymore? Because I seem to have found a certain rhythm. I think. Let me share what works for me, and hopefully it will help you too, because for me writing started having a certain beat, a pulse, almost, like in music. 

Listen for a tempo. This is probably the best I can describe it. It all comes down to listening for a tempo in your own writing and then comparing it with the tempo of the books you are reading. So, at first, don't worry about transitions at all, simply write, but after you are done, every day, read. Read some really good stuff, read books that you love. The next day write again, and read again. Keep doing this and allow yourself to be horrible, be okay with sounding very choppy or unnatural in your writing. The most important thing is to keep writing and reading every day, even if it's only 30 minutes each. Soon you will start seeing patterns, you will notice how some authors rely heavily on dialogue, while others hardly use it at all (just read Nabokov's Lolita, you'll see what I mean). Please, don't throw rotten tomatoes at me here, but my prediction is, it will take you at least 1 year to get it, you will start seeing distinctive patterns. It will take you another 4 years to get really good at it, if you are writing full time. I'm not there yet, and it's not me who calculated it. Malcolm Gladwell said in his book Outliers that it takes 10K hours to become good at anything. So, the main thing you can do for your writing to flow smoothly is simply to... keep writing and reading!

Measure it in paragraphs.  Until I developed a certain tempo, which my beta readers told me I have (I lean more heavily on descriptions rather than dialogue), I used the rule of paragraphs. I didn't read about it in a book, it was simply easy to visually remember and I have glimpsed it in other books too. So, it went like this. I would always open each chapter with one paragraph of description, no more (still do), and then would open the next paragraph with dialogue, go for a while, then do a paragraph of description again. I did it like in a song, alternating between the main verse and the chorus, if you will. It wasn't beautiful, but at least it was organized and it kept me on track. And that's all a beginning rookie writer like me needs, some kind of organizational system to hold on to when everything else seems to be falling apart.

Highlight important stuff for the story. Another way of thinking about transitions is to only highlight what the reader absolutely needs to know and not mention the rest. For example, if your main character is wearing a pink panda costume, make sure you describe said costume in minute detail, because it's an out of ordinary thing to do. If, on the other hand, your character buys a pink panda costume every day in a town where everyone wears pink panda costumes, then it's not something out of the ordinary, and you only need to mention the pink panda costume once in a sentence, no more. This is where the idea of the rhythm comes in. You write about unusual interesting stuff that is new, and you leave out the boring stuff. Now, in my experience, this really comes together in the rewrites, when you start seeing what is fluff and what is solid. Until then, especially in your first draft, don't worry about being choppy. The goal is not to be perfect, the goal is to get the story down on paper.

Read it aloud. This is the simplest exercise you can do for your transitions. Read your own writing yourself aloud, and, if at all possible, ask a friend to read to you several pages of your writing. Where you will stutter, where your friend will stutter, that's where it's rough and you have to smooth it out.  How? Simple. Cut to the next piece of action. The most important thing for your story is to make the reader turn the pages, and you have to ask yourself a question. That line of description, will it make my reader want to know more? That line of dialogue, will it make my reader sit on the edge of the seat, dying to know what happens next? Yes? Great! No? Cut it. The more you do this, the more you will start feeling a certain tempo that is unique to your own writing. It might be fast and choppy, or it might be slow and lyrical. Whatever it is, without doing a lot of it you won't find it, and once you do find it, you will feel it, and you writing will star flowing smoothly. It's the best feeling in the world.

I honestly hope I wrote here something that made sense to you and that you could put to practical use, because never specifically studied transitions, I don't even know if I'm supposed to use some big important words that people use when they talk about transitions. All I do is feel, and transitions in writing are like transitions in music, they are fluid, they are hard to catch and put in a box, but if you really listen for them, listen for them in your own writing and in the writing of others, one day a veil will fall off your eyes and you will see them. And, once you do, your own writing will start singing in accordance to that certain rhythm that's yours and yours alone. 

How to start a blog

Photo by Phillip Schumacher

Let's get back to the basics, shall we? I didn't think I would be writing something like this, but then one of my Twitter followers, @ChelsieBee93, asked me a very simple question: "How do you start a blog?" It stumped me at first. And I thought, wow, really, how did I start it? Since I've been blogging for so long now, it didn't even cross my mind that there is a universe of people who don't have a blog and really want to get into blogging, but perhaps don't know how. This post will be, however, specifically geared towards writers who are looking to get into blogging, either because they don't have a blog yet for some reason or are only starting to write, having not given it much thought in the past. So, how do you do it? Where do you start? What do you write about? Let's get cranking on this one point at a time.

Choose a hosting platform that is simple and beautiful. My firm belief in any product's success is that if you make it easy for people to get and if it looks stunning, people will want to get it. This applies to everything, from computers (I'm obviously an Apple girl, though I would've been a Fangardandia girl, if there was such a brand and if it was making beautiful products) to clothes to food to books. Yes, books. When we pick up a book,  if we don't know the author, we judge it by its jacket. Same goes for blogs. Your blog has to be clean, free of advertisement, ideally, and it has to use READABLE BLACK FONT ON WHITE BACKGROUND!!! Sorry for screaming, but I have come across so many blogs that were typed in all caps (not kidding), in all cursive that was impossible to read, white letters on black (readable, but hurts eyes), blue on green (impossible to read if you're color blind), blog entires' text centered instead of left justified (I'm serious!), and even a blog that was written over a background of a photo which made it readable on light parts, but vanished on dark ones. Please don't do this, it's impossible to read! My preferred blog platform is Squarespace, of course, because I'm not a techie and don't know how to work WordPress, but read this article on top 5 blogging platforms and decide for yourself.

Decide what to write about. What will be the content of your blog? If you Google this question, or ask any writer anywhere, you will be bombarded with advice left and right and will soon find yourself completely confused, because there are so many contradicting suggestions, it's easy to feel like you're drowning. I remember I felt like it too, and I have found out this simple maxim by trial and error. Write what you're passionate about. That's all. The key to writing is honesty. If you're being fishy, your reader will smell it a mile away. You can keep up the facade, of course, there are many smart looking, smart talking, successful bloggers out there who will tell you that I am full of bullshit. And maybe I am. But I do read other blogs, and I know that there are only a few I come back to, for their honesty. The deal is simple. If you force yourself to write about something that the industry demands, but you're not passionate about it, you won't be happy. And what's the point in writing if it makes you miserable? None. So write about your passions. Maybe you're into frogs, or crazy flash poetry, or socks, or watching for aliens to arrive every night. Whatever it is, write a list of things that makes your heart beat fast, and write about that. For me it's mostly about writing and reading, and a bit about editing (when I have an epiphany), marketing (cause I happen to love doing it), and crazy flash fiction. I also invite other authors to guest blog sometimes, those whose work I have read and fallen in love with.

 Pick a schedule and stick to it. Now this is perhaps the most important part. Once you start blogging, you're becoming a sort of a channel for people. They expect to wake up in the morning, have a cup of coffee and read your new blog post. So if you are inconsistent, people will drop out of your reader base and go elsewhere, it's as simple as that. I suggest you to blog at least once a week. Any longer than that, and people will forget about your existence. I wouldn't suggest blogging more often than once a day, though, it might be too much. I have actually lost subscribers in the past when I have gone a bit too crazy on posting flash fiction every day on my blog. I currently blog like a clock every Wednesday and Saturday, as you can see in the little note below this post. It is a good idea to let people know this, so they know what to expect. And, once you commit to it, you can't flake out!

Spread the word to other people and comment. Now, with blogging, like with everything else, it's a two way street. Don't expect people to come to your blog, read it and comment, if you're yourself are not reading other blogs or commenting. Please, go read the work of others and comment, comment, comment! Comment as much as you can! It will make other bloggers curious, and eventually they will hop over to your blog to check it out, simply because we're built this way. We want to give back, if someone has given us something freely, it's in out nature. Well, it's up to you, make the first step, and give, give, give, without asking for anything back.  And don't forget to post on your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and anywhere else you are on the web, each time you publish your blog, just so people know where to find it.

To conclude this post, why blog at all? For yourself, for therapy, for building your own writerly discipline. Don't be discouraged if you get no comments and no visits on your blog at first. Treat it like professional experience first and foremost. It will be your routine, it will build your discipline for writing at least once a week, and that's worth gold. People will come in time, just keep doing it no matter what.  For those of you veteran bloggers, did I miss anything out? Please feel free to add in the comments!

Closing your novel

Photo by Laura Zalenga

This is a very scary topic for me to write about, because even though I've written 3 books of SIREN SUICIDES, technically, it's 1 book broken into 3. It has 1 major ending, and it didn't come to me until Draft 4, despite the fact that I planned it out beforehand. As I kept rewriting, the ending kept changing, until it felt right. Now, with ROSEHEAD, my second novel, the story is completely different. I didn't meticulously plot it like I did SIREN SUICIDES. As of this moment, I'm about 90% done, with 31 chapters of Draft 1 completed, at about 92K words and 4 or 5 more chapters to go, meaning that I'm smack in the middle of this wonderful topic on how to close a novel. And I have no idea how it will end! Scary, eh? I think so far from my experience (please bear in mind that it's been only 1 year since I started writing full time) is to let your story close itself. Meaning, keep writing until you can't write anymore. Here is what I mean by it.

If ending falls short in 1st draft, it will expand in the next drafts. Don't freak out if at 30K words you suddenly can't write anymore because it seems like your story has simply dried out. It happened to me with SIREN SUICIDES, at one of my earlier attempts, and I thought I would never return to it, shelving it. But the story kept living on in my head and wouldn't let me go. In short, I have gone through about 4 completely different endings until I found the right one. So, rule number one, remember, your story is like an accordion, as you write it, it will expand, then shrink, then expand, it will keep doing it until it can't do it anymore. When it will stop, you should stop writing it, and whatever ending you end up with, will be your end. If you don't like it, please don't try fixing it. Instead, be done with this book and move on to the next one, because you will see the ending forming in your head quicker than your first time writing, guaranteed. 

A novel is like a bundle of ropes woven into a braid. It doesn't matter in what genre you're writing, your novel will have multiple plots simply by the virtue of having at least 2 characters, because without conflict there is not story, and there is no conflict without at least 2 characters, even if one of them is the inner representation of the other. Each of the characters will want something, or something will happen to them, or they will mention some secret about something. Whatever it is, my method is to write it down on sticky notes and pepper my writing desk with them, to remember what loops I opened, to be able to close them at the very end. So I imagine they are ropes strung through the fabric of my novel, and I need to touch upon them as I go, more so on the bigger ones, less on the smaller ones, but I need to close every single loop, or finish the braid, at the end of my novel. What inevitably happens in multiple drafts is that some "ropes" fall off and new ones develop, so that by the end I don't remember what started where. If you feel the same, it's okay! That's what multiple drafts are for, for polishing to tucking those loose ropes into the braid so it looks nice and snug. It's even okay if you don't close all of them, just read 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and you'll see what I mean.

Each character must reach her or his goal in the end. I touched upon this a little befote in describing plots, but this is a slightly different thing called a character arc (or, at least, I think I remember reading about it called like that, so don't kill me if I'm wrong). In the simplest sense of the word, every character wants something and by the end of the novel it will either get it or not, therefore causing the character to undergo a major change. This is why we read stories, we want to see how a hero overcomes a monster, to be able to believe that it's possible and do it in real life. This means that if by the end of your novel not all of your characters have gotten their goals, your reader will be disappointed and not very happy with the book. We like closed loops, we don't like feeling confused, we like seeing the hero succeed and the monster defeated. Keep writing until you resolve each character's wish, even if it means writing a very very long draft. Remember, it's like an accordion, in the next draft you will shrink it, cutting out the water and keeping solid stuff.

Above all, you must feel you're done with it. It all comes down to you. You're the writer, the creator, and you will know in your gut when your story is over.  As soon as you feel it, stop. It might be an arbitrary moment, nothing spectacular, but if feels right, it must be the end. Here is the trick. If you were truthful to yourself, if you really opened up your guts and spilled your deepest emotions on paper, the ending will not only feel right to you, it will feel right to your reader, because the reader connects with you emotionally, and there will be nothing worse if you force the ending because you read in some book that it's how it's supposed to be. Even this blog that I wrote, take note of it but still listen to yourself. Disregard what I wrote here, feel. Does it feel right? Then your story is over. Is there more? Then write more. The only rule you can apply here is this: KEEP WRITING. The more books you will write, the faster you will read your inner signals at how to properly close your novel.

Whew. I hope it made sense to you and was helpful. I'm still working out this for myself, like I said, being in the middle of closing my 2nd novel, so feel free to chime in the comments and let me know what you think! 

Past versus present tense

Photo by Brooke Shaden

This rickety subject of timing didn't come out of my head, oh no, it was all my Twitter followers' doing who asked me to write about it. But, however, because they know me better than I do, as soon as they asked, I realized I did both and have perhaps something to say on the subject (whether or not it will be a wise thing, I doubt it). Anyway... How do you choose what tense to squeeze your story into? I say, don't. I say, the story will tell you itself and if you try to bend your story, it will bite you back, so I highly recommend to steer clear of it, that is, if you want your story to have teeth, of course. Let me just recount my personal experiences on doing both and you decide for yourself what suits you best. 

Present tense is more personal. When I started writing SIREN SUICIDES, I didn't think about it in terms of a novel, it was more like therapy for me, to let out my personal pain, to bleed it out on the page and feel better. Naturally, most sentences started with words like "I feel nothing..." and "I hug my hunger..." and such. It was as if I was writing about me, only it was Ailen Bright speaking, my character, speaking through me, yet allowing me to be very much in touch with her, as if possessing her and re-experiencing everything through her eyes. It felt very personal, it was hard to write, but it was also very cleansing. So I would suggest, if you are ready to see your story unfold through the eyes of your main character, choose present tense. But, remember, you will be restricted by only being able to cover what the character sees, without being able to shift between characters.

Past tense is more observant. Now that I'm done with SIREN SUICIDES and am writing ROSEHEAD, I'm gleefully enjoying writing in the past tense. Why? Because it gives me the status of on observer. Where as before I was being able to look at the world from one perspective only, literally, looking only through Ailen's eyes, now all of a sudden I get to soar above the world I'm creating, shifting between scenes and characters and places at will and sensing more freedom, yet at the same time a bit less of a personal connection. Is this a good thing? Yes, I let the story drive me forward, unlike I did with SIREN SUICIDES (I meticulously plotted it and am writing ROSEHEAD without any plot whatsoever). Is this a bad thing? Yes, I don't feel as personally connected to my main character. But, on the flip side, I am able to connect to more characters and develop them better, because I am slipping in and out of their multiple skins. So, does it let me develop an overall richer background? You bet, for one, as compared to only 8 characters in SIREN SUICIDES, I have a whooping 26 and more coming in ROSEHEAD. Compare Life of Pi and A Game of Thrones, you'll see what I mean. Both are excellent and very different.

Past tense is more complex, present is simpler. I am, of course, grossly dumbing down the concept here, but it's only because in this blog post alone I won't be able to demonstrate the difference, but if you could just go to Amazon right now and read the beginning of Fight Club and 1Q84, for example, you will see how one grabs you personally, and the other grabs you observantly. I'm by no means an expert, but it felt to me like this when reading both novels, and I'm sure that scores of you will disagree with me. Again, this is my first time writing novels, so I can't tell you with an important look in my eyes and my chest puffed out like that of a popinjay that I'm absolutely right, but I'm an avid reader, and that's the impression I get. If you set out to create a complex magical world, chances are, you would be better off with past tense. If you are wanting to write a highly emotional personal novel where personal experiences are core to your character, it's probably better to choose present tense. 

The takeaway from this? Take the lead from your story. That first sentence you put on the napkin when you had your idea first surface in your head, what tense did you write it in? That first attempt at seriously starting the first chapter, what tense did you start in? Your subconscious is always smarter than you, go with your first impulse. Your first impulse is always right, yet the longer you linger, the more you will start thinking, the more doubt will settle in, and ultimately you might lose that spark that you had and feel obligated to me your piece of art, because you started, not because you feel excited. So be foolish, pick what comes naturally, and go with it. Remember, you can always write another book after this one.