Kate Lowell's Blog, page 18

Three Dirty Birds on Weiland’s Abbreviated Outline

The Dirty Birds are back with the second to last chapter of KM Weiland���s book Outlining Your Novel: Map your way to success. In this chapter, she shows us one of her abbreviated outlines and talks about how to make one.

Zoe: Here���s the abbreviated summary of the abbreviated outline chapter: take your extended outline and shorten it.

Kate: It did give me more respect for Brandon Sanderson (who I happen to like), because he seems to have a clear, unbiased view of plotters vs. pantsers.

Ana: And spend several weeks doing it. (I watched lectures he gave on youtube. I think I took more out of those than I took from this novel.)

Kate: His lectures are good. It���s very reassuring to hear that he wrote 12 novels before he sold one, too.

Zoe: Oh good. I can procrastinate today by watching his lectures.

Ana: Here���s a handy index http://www.writeaboutdragons.com/brandon_w2012/

Zoe: Thank you! In the meantime, I did do an abbreviated outline of my outline this past week, though I didn���t think of it that way at the time. I just wanted to break it up into story goals I could aim for every day until I got the book done. (I like it better than aiming for word counts; it makes me feel more like I���m getting somewhere.)

Ana: I���d like to have story goals, but that would require putting my outline down on paper��� God I���m lazy.

Zoe: You can do story goals on the fly. I used to. I���d just write down my goal for tomorrow when I finished for today.

Kate: I like to leave it with a bit still left to write, and I put it on a sticky that this is what I need to do the next day.

Ana: I could try doing that. After I enjoy the gorgeous weather today. Did I mention we���re getting 19c? (That���s 66 in F)

Kate: Ana! Stop! *Wails and stares out the window at the FOUR FEET OF SNOW still in her front yard*

Zoe: We hit 72��F last week…for a day, and then we plunged back to 15��F and freezing rain. But it got rid of our snow. We should do some kind of chant to get rid of Kate���s.

Kate: Watch for the UPS trucks coming your way…

Ana: In Germany we dress up in funny costumes and do silly things to drive out the cold weather. Kate should try that. We also light a fire on Easter��� I���m not sure she could get a fire lit right now.

Zoe: I want pictures.

Ana: Just google for German carnival.

Zoe: No, I want pictures of Kate dressed in a funny costume.

Kate: That���s my normal outfit on a daily basis. Was this where your fox-man pictures came from, Ana?

Ana: Yes. And the candy.

Zoe: Germans know how to take the dreariness out of the end of winter.

Ana: Sometimes I wonder why we decided to have carnival at the end of winter, because for a lot of people, that requires dressing in very little clothing. Froze my ass off last year.

Zoe: Halloween always bugged me that way too. It���s not as bad as the end of winter, but it can get pretty nippy at the end of October.

Ana: It���s probably why there���s so much alcohol involved in carnival celebrations���

Kate: Antifreeze.

Zoe: Annnnnyway. I always try to do the thing Kate does, leaving off with more to do, but I can���t help myself. I always end up making where I ended for the day sound like something ended.

Ana: I get more satisfaction out of ending it when something ended.

Kate: I need something to look forward to. If I finish without some plan to work on the next day, the writing is like pulling teeth. I think I need to be primed. :D

Zoe: Yeah, it���s the next day when I wish I���d done what Kate does. But the day before, I just can���t help myself. :(

Kate: It takes a fair bit of self-control, and I don���t always manage it.

Zoe: Maybe I should just end each day with ���Dun dun DUN!��� so I feel like something was about to happen anyhow.

Ana: I approve! Anyway, when I have to start a new scene/chapter whatever, I usually take about 5-10 minutes before I start to scribble my thoughts on it in my note pad. Loosens me up and gives me something to refer back to.

Kate: That���s a good idea, Ana.

Zoe: James Scott Bell recommends that in his latest book, doing five minutes or so of journaling before you start for the day, asking yourself questions about where your story���s going, what���s happening right now, etc.

Ana: What I do isn���t really structured. Just brainstorming. I first got it from that 2k to 10k book. I forgot the author���s name. Rachel something?

Kate: Rachel Aaron. I have to say, I DNF���d her fantasy novel. I really wanted to enjoy the book, because it was exactly the sort of thing I like to read, but I only got about three chapters in, and that was because I was living on hope.

Ana: I read the blog post first, which I think is actually enough. (Can be found here: http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.de/2011/06/how-i-went-from-writing-2000-words-day.html) I haven���t read her novels.

Zoe: I���ve only read her writing book, not her fiction. (And I���d forgotten she suggested brainstorming before writing…because something apparently only lodges in my head if James Scott Bell says it.)

Kate: I think Zoe has a crush���

Zoe: A writing-book crush. I���ve never read his fiction either.

Kate: I did like Weiland���s ���End every chapter with a question��� part. as in, you have to leave the reader wondering what���s going to happen next, pique their curiosity, or they stop reading.

Zoe: Overall, there really wasn���t a lot to this chapter (as readers of this discussion have probably surmised).

Kate: It was nice to have the different categories of questions. If a chapter feels flat, having that list to bounce ideas against might help you salvage it. I found that potentially useful. And the mention of using scene breaks, even if it only covers a short period of time, to avoid having to deal with dull parts.

Ana: As an easily bored writer and reader, I love me my scene breaks.

Zoe:: I���m trying to learn to use them more.

Kate: Me too.

I think that���s it for the chapter. Kind of…meh.

Zoe: So, on par with the rest of the book then. We���re going to have to start calling ourselves the Three Jaded Birds.

Ana: I think I���d prefer the Three Jade Birds.

Zoe: I had a jade egg once. It never hatched.

Kate: You need to burn it in a fire with the corpses of your husband and child.

Zoe: I don���t think my husband and child will get on board with that. But that explains why the egg eventually disappeared���

Ana: I know Zoe���s the horror writer, but sometimes Kate has ideas that scare me.

Zoe: It���s the extended winters. Her mind goes to a dark place.

Kate: Snow-madness.

Filed under: Three Dirty Birds Talk, Uncategorized Tagged: KM Weiland, Oulining Your Novel, outlining, writing advice

Three Dirty Birds on Weiland’s Extended Outline

Over at Zoe-bird’s blog. :)

Filed under: Three Dirty Birds Talk Tagged: outlining, Outlining your Novel, Weiland, writing advice

Three Dirty Birds Discover Their Settings

Another crazy week and I oopsed. Check out our chat on setting on Ana’s blog.

Filed under: Three Dirty Birds Talk Tagged: KM Weiland, outlining, Outlining your Novel, writing advice

Tuesday Tickle: The Emperor’s Favorite

Still chugging along. If you can picture this guy:



as a ten year old boy, that’s what Addan looks like in this scene. Well, dirtier, and bruised, and…well, you know.

This occurs after Krys interrupts Addan getting the beating of his life.

Krys jumped down and tied the mare to the gorse bush. ���Are you all right?���

���Ahm fine. Go���way!��� The boy staggered a couple of steps, then seemed to find his feet again.���Git!��� He picked up a rock and held it ready to throw.

���You know you���re bleeding.���

���So?���

Krys approached him cautiously. ���Can I look at it?���

���Feck off!��� The boy threw the rock at Krys, and raced away.

Not love at first sight. :P

Filed under: Tuesday Tickle Tagged: fantasy, mm romance, rescue

Three Dirty Birds and Weiland’s Character Sketches

Our Dirty Birds discussion of K.M. Weiland���s Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success continues with the second chapter on character sketches.

Kate: I just…can���t…even. By the time I got through everything she does, I���d be so done with that story. Though I can see it being useful over a series.

Zoe: I can see notes of some kind being useful over a series. I���m still not liking her character worksheet for that. I can see now, though, why it takes her so long to get an outline done.

It feels like a waste of time to me to think up all this info that you may not use. It���s good to ponder your characters���but in most cases do you need to know their favorite color? You���re writing a novel, not a teen magazine interview.

Ana: I used my MC���s favorite color in Lab Rat���s Love. (But to be fair, when I needed it, I made it up on the spot. It���s not that hard.)

Kate: I can see using her character interview form as a place to record that info as you come to it, in case you need it in other stories, but I don���t see the point of coming up with info that isn���t important to the plot ahead of time. Yes, there are things you need to know or have in place, because the plot depends on them, but it seems a bit overkill to go into the detail she does.

Zoe: I did find the freehand interview section more useful���where you just interview your character about what���s going on in the story, what his problem is, etc. But I can see that for when you have a snag you���re trying to solve, not as homework before you even get started.

Kate: That���s a useful tool.

Ana: I���ll just keep whining about my problems to Kate. That always seems to help. I fear it���s not a tool most other people can use. though.

Zoe: Maybe Kate can start a service and make some money.

Kate: I could give up the dayjob and spend my time going ���Yeah���, ���Uh-huh��� and other non-committal words.

Ana: I���m sure that would fulfill you.

Kate: Lol. Probably not. I do like to solve problems, though.

Zoe: But she wouldn���t have to put pants on to do it!

Kate: That���s a real positive part to it.

So, most of this chapter was examples of questions she uses to get her character figured out before she starts writing. I didn���t find there was a lot in this part that was new to me, though I���m thinking the list of questions could be a jumping off point for brainstorming. (Can���t see me going through and answering all of them, though)

Ana: I���d have lost the will to write long before the end of it.

Zoe: Too much like homework. It might be fun to make our own custom worksheets, though. Mine would have questions like, ���Describe the monster that lives under your character���s bed.���

Ana: Mine would probably have sexual preferences and kinks.

Zoe: Ooh, yours could be like a Kinsey survey. ���When did your character first start masturbating���and to what?���

Ana: I think I���d try to stick to things I���ll actually use! (Though the second part of that question is good.)

Kate: I���m worried mine would be about food.

What did you guys think of the Enneagram?

Ana: Uh, yeah, I remember that from when I was into personality quizzes when I was 14. I can���t see myself using it. Actually, even if I did use it, I don���t see how it would help me.

Zoe: I thought the enneagram looked like a way to dither around with make-busy work so you don���t have to get any actual writing done.

Kate: It felt really simplistic to me, so I tried shoehorning a couple of characters into it, but they don���t fit. I don���t think it���s something I���ll use either.

Ana: Your characters must not be real people!

Kate: Uh oh. You mean those voices in my head are all my imagination?

Ana: Yeah, we can call it your ���imagination.���

Kate: All right. So, if we don���t sit down and fill out a massive worksheet with info about our characters, how do we get to know them?

Zoe: Well, they live right in my head, so if I need to know something, I just go knock on the door and ask. Usually I don���t even have to do that, because they���re prone to leaving their door wide open and doing their thing whether I care to watch or not.

Kate: Zoe���s characters are all exhibitionists.

Zoe: I think they just don���t realize they���re being watched.

Ana: I brainstorm about my characters, I just don���t write that info down. Often my brainstorming consists of brainstorming. It has the downside (or added benefit) of often turning into naps.

Kate: Ana naps her characters to life.

I generally have a couple of situations, then I start asking characters why. (Pretty darn uncomfortable to do with Glyn). I usually figure out my best stuff when I���m just writing along, aiming for the next signpost, and stuff seems to show up on my page. But it only happens when I���m not thinking too hard about the story while I write.

Zoe: I have a lot of brainstorming that I don���t write down too. It���s like real people���I don���t keep dossiers on my friends. I just remember stuff.

Kate: I think, by the time you���ve worked on the story in your head to the point where you���re ready to start putting it on paper, a lot of this is already figured out, even if you don���t remember it consciously.

Zoe: The great thing is that not a single reader is ever going to know if you interviewed your character to find out his favorite color or just made it up on the spot. THEY WON���T KNOW! So why waste your time?

Ana: I don���t know, what if I���m writing along at full speed and then everything crashes to a halt just because I don���t know my MC���s favorite color and then I have to go back to outlining to figure it out and–yeah I���m just kidding.

Kate: Lol. I use **** when I���m too lazy to go back and figure out what it is. I can fix that later.

Ana: My first drafts are full of underscores. I can���t do *** because those are scene breaks.

Kate: I use ### for scene breaks.

Ana: Too wild for me.

Filed under: Three Dirty Birds Talk Tagged: outlining, Outlining your Novel, Weiland, writing advice

Three Dirty Birds and Weiland’s First Chapter on Characterisation

In which the birds are confused over on Zoe’s blog.

Filed under: Three Dirty Birds Talk Tagged: outlining, Outlining your Novel, writing advice

Three Dirty Birds and Key Story Factors

Over at Ana’s blog today, talking about important things to consider as you construct your story. And, we ended up talking about our early writing issues. :P

Filed under: Three Dirty Birds Talk Tagged: KM Weiland, Outlining your Novel, writing advice

Tuesday Tickle: Kev ‘n Mo

A trip down memory lane, to those halcyon days of the first week of university…

���Hi���oh.��� Kev grinned, and tried to hide it by cupping his chin in his hand with his fingers over his mouth. ���Frosh Night was a little too much for him?���

���Yeah. Can you open his room for us so we can put him to bed?���

���Sure. He���s in four-twelve. If you want to start down, I���ll be right behind you.��� The blond ducked back into his room and was back before they���d gone more than five feet. In one hand, he held a card-key. In the other, his wastepaper basket. At Mo���s curious look, the blond shrugged and smiled. ���In case he doesn���t make it to his room.���

Mo laughed. ���Good thinking.���

���That���s why they pay me the big bucks.���

They made it to the guy���s room without incident, and got him undressed and tucked into bed. The blond guy put the room���s wastebasket on the floor beside the head of the bed, then turned his empty one upside down and put on the floor by the bed. He pulled the guy’s leg out of the bed and rested the foot on top of the bucket.

���Helps with the spins if you’ve got a foot on something your body thinks is the floor. Might keep him from throwing up all over.���

���I never knew that.���

���You learn interesting things living in Bedlam.���

���Maybe someone should stay with him.���

���I���ll check on him on my rounds, and get the other RA to do the same. Hopefully his roommate isn���t in the same condition.���

���He looked a lot steadier when I left.���

���Good. One���s enough.���

They left, closing the door behind them. Mo held out his hand. ���We���ve already kind of met, but I���m Mo.���

���I���m Kevin. Kev, actually.��� He shook Mo���s hand. ���I���m sorry, where did we meet?���

���You got me checked in here, the first day.���

���Oh, right, sorry. We see a lot of first years that first day. So, nice to meet you again.���

I’m suffering from a serious temptation to put the beer tree in.

Oh, why not? :D

Filed under: Tuesday Tickle Tagged: college boys, contemporary, mm romance, new adult

Three Dirty Birds and Connecting the Dots

The Three Dirty Birds are back with Chapter 4 of KM Weiland���s Outlining Your Novel: Mapping Your Way to Success. Today we���re talking about what Weiland calls ���Connecting the Dots���.

Kate: I think we need to stop reading outlining books. I���m developing a ���permanently annoyed��� state of mind. I���m going to get wrinkles!

Ana: So long as you don���t get your feathers in a twist!

Zoe: We can���t have that! But yeah, even though the Stephen James (anti-outlining) book was annoying at times, it had a lot of meat…and this book is more vegan. Lots of textured vegetable protein shaped into hamburger patties.

Kate: Does anyone, even pantsers, write without a scene list somewhere, even if it���s just in their head? I���m coming to the conclusion that this is the only difference between pantsers and plotters–one does it on paper, one keeps it all ���upstairs���.

Ana: I���m not sure it���s the only difference, but certainly part of it. I mean, I���ve started writing books without knowing the ending, which is something most plotters don���t do, I guess. I never know all my scenes, just the next few, and maybe a few relating to far ahead plot events I know I���ll eventually reach.

Zoe: Yeah, there���s probably a difference in level of knowing the story between plotters and (most) pantsers before they start, but I get what Kate is saying with regard to this book: it���s almost as if the author is talking to us like pantsers don���t think about their books at all���it just flows straight out of their fingertips without passing through their conscious brains.

Kate: Yes, that���s the impression I get from her. I wonder how many pantsers she talked to before writing this book? My last half hour before I go to sleep is running plotlines in my head, rewinding, changing something, running it again. That, or letting the plot bunny run wild in every crazy direction I can point it in. There���s no lack of planning–I just don���t use paper.

Ana: I don���t know, I feel like she turned to plotting because she didn���t know how to pants in any effective way (for her.) And then when she wrote this book she turned to more people who couldn���t pants. I���d have been more impressed with accounts from people who have actually pantsed books before starting to plot and finding that it helped, you know? (By which I mean, successfully pantsed, not ���I tried and crashed and burned and it was awful.���)

Kate: Maybe we���ll get an interview like that later in the book.

Zoe: There���s actually a discussion going on right now in one of the places I hang out, started by an author who tried plotting for the first time and found it successful in that she was able to write her book much faster…yet the process felt stilted to her, so she wasn���t entirely happy with it (though she���s looking into alternate ways of plotting so that she can try to get the best of both worlds, which is what the discussion is about).

Kate: I would love the best of both worlds. That���s what I���m trying to get to, with all this outlining reading I���ve been doing.

Ana: Same. Because, let���s be honest, I���m never going to sit down and write a scenes list.

Zoe: Me either. Or at least, I���ll never set out to write one. Once I���ve written my synopsys-y telling of the story I���m going to write, I might break it into scenes to drop into Scrivener (or I might not, if I���m using Word).

Ana: That���s probably a good plan of attack. To come back to the writing things down instead of keeping it in your head thing, I think this is why I like talking my plot out with people. When I sit down at my computer to write down stuff like character motivation for myself, my brain goes meh, bored now, why are we doing this, you already know all this stuff, shutting down, bye. But when I have someone to talk at, it���s like I have a reason to write these things down and think about how to put them into words.

Kate: I think Ana and I have the same brain. I���m enjoying Scrivener (though I���m still getting the hang of using scenes) because I can put down the backbone of the story as chapter (and now scenes within the chapters) and, when I get to a chapter and realize the story I have in my head is too big for it, then I can break it into two or three.

Maybe I do outline, but I just do it in Scrivener���

Zoe: I think you do. And Ana outlines with her mouth.

Kate: Chatty bird. :) I���m not good with putting stuff on paper, because it feels permanent then. Like, if I write it down, there���s an inertia to it that makes it hard to change, even if I can see that it���s wrong.

Zoe: I don���t have that inertia. If I have something wrong, I���m happy I spent 80 words getting that part wrong and not 80,000.

Ana: I have to find another way to make my brain work, because I don���t always have people to talk at. (But honestly, when I think back, even as a kid when I was telling myself stories, I pretended I was telling them to an invisible listener.)

Zoe: Invisible friends are cheap and never overstay their welcome. (Or eat all your food.) You should resurrect one.

Ana: One of them was a talking elephant. (Also the only reason I can get myself to write down the stories in my head onto paper is because I want to share them, which is why having an alpha reader works so well for me.)

Kate: That���s an awesome friend!

Zoe: How exotic!

Kate: I have to ask–does anyone have anything to say about this chapter?

Zoe: Not especially. We can move on to not talking about chapter five any time you���re ready. (But a quick recap for readers: summarize your scenes, highlight the problem areas, connect the dots, and listen to your body…which apparently doesn���t have anything to do with your bladder.)

Ana: I have something I want to crank about. There���s this quote under the bullet point ���The Scene List��� that basically goes ���you know when you���re not ready; you may be wrong about being ready, but you���re rarely wrong about being not ready.��� She���s basically giving hundreds of insecure writers an excuse to not start writing.

Kate: You���ll never be ready until you���re willing to sit down and explore a little. You���re right, she is giving them the option not to start, because their ���gut��� says not to. The problem I see with that is sometimes I need to start a story for some of the middle stuff to make it out of my subconscious and into the light (and the manuscript). I did think the ���Ask questions��� advice for when you get stuck was good. It���s what I do, though I���ve been doing it for a while.

Zoe: I totally thought of you when I got to that section.

Kate: Lol. What did you think of the interview at the end?

Zoe:I continued my trend of not reading it. Did I miss anything?

Kate: Only irritation. Because pantsing is only for stories of a specific structure, like a journey. Any plot or character arc isn���t a journey. Only physical journeys can be pantsed.

Ana: Do they realize Stephen King is a high order pantser?

Zoe: I always loved his analogies for discovering his stories, with the whole digging them out of the ground, finding out what they are bit by bit as they get uncovered. Or bringing them up from the basement!

Kate: I���d be afraid of anything King brought out of his basement. (I am afraid of everything he brings out of his basement.)

For me, it���s more like a walk through the woods. You can see the woods from outside them, but you only see the detail as you go through it.

Zoe: Now let���s take a walk…over to chapter five.

Filed under: Three Dirty Birds Talk Tagged: outlining, writing advice

Three Dirty Birds Talk Outlining Your Novel

We’re over at Zoe’s blog today. We all liked this chapter better than the first two, so come on over and see what we thought!

Filed under: Three Dirty Birds Talk Tagged: outlining, writing advice