Laura Teagan's Blog, page 30

Picking Your POV

I’m back! So, Friday, I managed to tank both my websites and this weekend was an absolute mess. Thank God for the nice guy named Connor for getting both my websites back up and running. I lost a lot of content over on Ginger & Co., but I managed to get everything back over here! So, hopefully, I don’t ever play with my stupid website again and it’ll all be nice and dandy.

I hope.

Either way, today, we’re going to talk about POV. If you’re new to the writer lingo world (check out She’s Novel’s post about writer lingo), POV stands for point of view. Which basically means, what perspective are we reading this story from? Real quick, I’m going to go over these in case you’re unfamiliar.

First Person POV

This is my personal favorite, but first person is when you’re inside the mind of a character. If you open up a book and you see sentences that sound like “I opened the door,” or “he looked at me funny,” you’re in first person. First person is a lot like being in your own brain, which is why I like it. I feel like I can make a better flow out of it.

First person usually appears in Young Adult novels, some mystery novels, and chick-lits.

Third Person POV

Third person is being outside of someone’s mind. There’s third person limited, where you follow one character throughout the whole story, and then there’s third person omniscient, where you can follow different characters. Third person omniscient is hard, because you have to be able to transition smoothly between one character to another, and trust me, I’ve seen many ways on how to mess up that transition.

Third person usually appears in fantasy and sci-fi novels (I think – not familiar with those), romance books, and some mystery novels.

Picking Your POV

So, when picking your POV, there’s a few things you need to think about. One is the industry standard. Different genres are usually written in different POVs. Obviously, you don’t have to stick to what’s the standard, but it’s good information to know. You never know when someone may ask you why you decided to be different (read my post here about defining your genre).

The bigger thing you need to think about is what you’re comfortable with. If you’re looking for a challenge, you can always pick the POV you’re not familiar with, but here’s my take on it. Writing a book is already a big enough challenge, why make it even harder on yourself, especially your first time around?

Stuck on your POV? Here's some things to think about when picking one!
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For me, I always pick first person because I find it easier. For a person who talks to herself all the time (Seriously, I need a recorder in my car) and is constantly blogging in the first person, it only seems natural to take my first person writing skills and apply them to a character. I feel like you get a better sense of the character (especially one with dry humor like Cassie) in a first person POV.

Also, think about what kind of books you read. Do you read a lot of first person books? I know I do, in fact, I’m a snob and don’t read books sometimes if they’re in third person. Even though the last book  I read was in third person, but I read it because I’m familiar with the work the author has done and most of her other stuff is in first person.

So, my two rules are, pick with what you’re comfortable with, but make sure you do your research. Especially if you’re planning to go the traditional route, know your genre standards, because you can never know too much information.

Tell me, what POV are you most comfortable with?

 

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June Writing Goals

Monthly goals are something I do all the time at Ginger & Co. so I thought it would be fun to take this to and put a spin on it here. Let’s talk about some writing goals for the month of June.

I have two main goals:

edits on The Assassin: My editor and I decided that we could work with the manuscript I have and make it something awesome. So, I’m hoping to get some serious edits on it done! I don’t know where I’m going to make the edits, but I’m hoping to make some expansions.

What are your writing goals for June? Laura is sharing her's. Come share yours!
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Find some beta readers: I have one awesome beta reader, but I know that I really ought to have a couple more. My only problem is, where do you find a beta reader? So, I’m going to figure that out next month, and in July, I’ll let you know!

Launch the newsletter: If you’re on the blog, you can sign up over there, but you can sign up for The Ginger’s Book Club right here. I’m really excited to launch it at the end of June! I’ll spend most of June coming up with some great ideas.

Make an exciting announcement about an e-book: I feel like I’ve already said enough, but I’ll be hopefully making some exciting news later in the month about something fun!

Tell me, what do you hope to accomplish in June for writing?

The post June Writing Goals appeared first on Ginger & Books.

Why You NEED That Outline

Today, we’re getting into the nitty gritty of writing. Whether you should outline or “pants” your way through. “Pants” is pretty much the nice way of saying you’re BSing your way through a novel. And that’s totally fine, some people like to BS their ways through books, for a first draft that’s totally fine.

But, beyond that,I’m going to tell you why you need that outline.

I know, some of you are probably rolling your eyes thinking, “I BS my way through my stories all the time.” But I bet you really don’t.

Outlines are a great way to get an idea of where you book is going to go. Right now, in the middle of working on this new draft of The Assassin, I have no outline, I’m just trying to see where it goes, and it’s not going. Outlines are the flashlight on the dark path of finishing your novel (I know that’s depressing, but work with me).

The cool thing about outlines is that you can make them as detailed or as undetailed as possible. And yes, they can totally change. Mine usually are just a list of three or four things I want to happen in the chapter. So, for instance, the first chapter of The Assassin is something like this;

Cassie goes to her first day at the FBI
Meets Jessica and Kevin
Takes note of their relationship and wonders how she will fit in.

See? Simple enough. You can get a little more detailed than that, obviously, but this is simple enough that I can make sure to get all the points across in the chapter and still have room for more information if needed.

Whether you like it or not, you really need that outline for your story. #amwriting
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My suggestion? It’s what I use. Pick three or four main parts you want to happen in the chapter, but be open to the story changing in ways you make not expect. This allows the outline to morph and becoming this breathing document that can grow with you.

There’s a few other things I like to do before I get to outlining my novel though, that I feel help the story.

Make character outlines. Mine are usually simple demographics like hair color and height and what not, then I go to pinterest and find pictures that I can associate with the character.
Investigate the city the story is taking place in. Setting is so crucial to a story, whether you realize it or not, which is why you need to pick your book’s location early on.
I also usually obessess over ten different plot ideas and how crazy they are before I really settle down and get serious.

Here’s why I prefer outlining during the first draft though – first drafts are messy. You’re really getting to know your characters and what to expect. If you don’t know what journey you’re taking them on, that just makes more of a mess.

And think about this, even if you say you’re a pantser, and flying by your seat, are you really not thinking about what this moment will lead to in the next chapter? That’s outlining right there! Mental outlining is a great place to start when it comes to outlining!

Outlining is all about anticipating what’s going to happen next, and we already naturally do that, so trust me, it helps if you take the time and sit down to at least figure out your main plot points. Even if you’re a pantser, just try a little bit of outlining and see where it’ll take you.

You’ll save time and your characters will love you!

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Building Character Maps

First, I know, you’re probably thinking, what on Earth is Scapple? It’s from the great people at Literature and Latte, the ones who made Scrivener (aka, my favorite app). Scapple is a mapping program of sorts.

You have bubbles that feature information, and you can connect different bubbles to each other to hook up information. While I know some people love to use this for plotting, I think very linearly (if that’s not a word, it is now), so I don’t use it for that.

What I have been using it for is for building character maps. I don’t even know if character mapping is a legit thing, but for me it is. You see, part of what I love about public relations is the connections you have to make with people for them to believe your story. So, when it comes to characters, I want to make sure that they all have great connections, and I want to get those down so they aren’t rolling around in my head (and subject to being forgotten).

Have you ever tried building a character map? learn more about why you should try!
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So, I introduce to you my character map. Granted, it’s a bare one, but that’s okay. It’s a work-in-progress.

I think this would work really well for stories that have double plots, for instance, if you’ve seen (or read) The Longest Ride from Nicholas Sparks. Well, there were two stories, and they were tied together, one from the past and one in the present. That would be a cool way to keep track of who in each plot is connected to one another and how.

Even if you just make one character map, you can use this to connect past details in life that happened to this character. For instance, did an accident happened that caused something else to happen? Anything you can think of connecting, you can connect here.

I think character maps are becoming my favorite new thing in writing just because it’s fun to find out your characters. There’s something fun to me about seeing the relationships between characters connect with the little line across the screen.

Besides characters, I’ve used this in the past to tie in long plot ideas that span over multiple books. Pretty much, if you need to connect the dots, Scapple is the place to do it at.

Characters are critical to your book, but if you don’t understand how they work together, are they really that critical? What I love about this program is that it’s a great way for me to draw it all out, but still have it look nice and clean.

By putting all the characters down into Scapple, it gives me a great place to take inventory, and then I don’t have to flip through notes (That are probably packed in a box somewhere) to find a character’s name. As I add more, the web gets bigger and it becomes even cooler.

So, tell me, how do you keep track of who knows who in your world?

The post Building Character Maps appeared first on Ginger + Books.

Bringing Down the House

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This is a post that I feel I need to write, because I know, at least in my real life, there’s been a lot of confusion. So, today, I’m going to tell you the story of why I postponed my book.

Spring Break was in early March and I realized that my book was going to be out in two months. And I didn’t feel good about it. But I felt even worse about the fact that I would just push the deadline back and keep the cycle going. It seems like every time I would announce a release date, the date would come and go and there’d be no book.

So, I was done. I decided to pull it, and this time, I didn’t put a time on myself to get it done. I knew that I would be busy with school for the remainder of the time between Spring Break and my release date (I wrote ten papers in two weeks at the end of school – just to put that in perspective of how busy I was). I told one friend and she agreed with me. Told my editor and she was shocked.

But that’s not the main point of this post. A lot of people have wondered, “what’s next?” So, here’s your answer.

I start all over. I mean, all over. That wasn’t my intention. When I decided to pull the book, I wasn’t planning to touch it for a few months, if at all the rest of the year. But a week later, in my creative writing class, the wheels in my head started turning and I thought about things I could change. What if I moved the story’s setting? What if Cassie was older? And so many other questions.

These questions I kept asking myself were questions I knew I needed answers to, and I quickly scribbled down some ideas, not sure where it would go.

The Assassin has gone through many incarnations, usually the big changes in each incarnation are Cassie’s age and the location. There’s the one major plot that always stays the same. If you think of a story as a house, with the main plot being the bare frame, subplots being support, details being the decorations, I threw everything out except the main frame.

It was awesome. My only regret was in the two months of imagining this, I didn’t get to dabble with it more because school was absolutely crazy. Now that school is out, I get to dedicate my free time to the book.

Then yesterday, in my seven hours of road-tripping with my dad, I started wondering, what if I threw out that main plot line too? What if I tucked that in my pocket and saved it for another book, like a sequel? The more I thought, the more I thought that made sense.

So, as of now, I have no story. Well, okay, I have a story, I just haven’t found all of the pieces in the fog. It’s terrifying and amazing at the same time. I took the last bit of the frame of my house and threw it out. I brought down the house and I can’t wait to rebuild it.

It’s pretty much a brand new house anyway.

The post Bringing Down the House appeared first on Ginger + Books.

Finding Focus to Write

Howdy there, remember me? I’m Laura. This is my blog. I’m back to regularly scheduled programming after a two and a half week break to write ten papers, including a 15 page term paper that ended up being 18 pages. Now that my semester is basically over, I am back! Tell me how you’ve been! One of the biggest problems writers face today is how to write without getting distracted, finding focus on your writing. Your phone, Facebook, people, pinterest, the list gets on and on. Distraction is a problem we all struggle with and it never seems to go away.

Distraction Crusher #1: Ditch the Phone

My trick is to put the phone on my bed. That way it’s close enough if someone calls, but not close enough that I feel then need to pick it up every five minutes.

Distraction Crusher #2: Off Goes the Wifi

Have a problem with Facebook and pinterest like I do? Turn the wifi off. It’s so much easier to focus when I can’t check my notifications.

5 Things to Help you crush the distraction and Find Focus for Writing!
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Distraction Crusher #3: Full Screen is Our Best Friend

If you have a Mac, use full screen. With Scrivener and full screen on my computer, it feels like too much of a hassle to change screens, turn the wifi back on, and surf the internet. Knowing that I don’t have easy, instant access to everything is a great way to force me to focus on the writing.

Distraction Crusher #4: a Drink  

Water is best for this, but you need to stay hydrated. It seems silly to think that water can make or break a habit, but if you feel like you’re tired and just not with it, try a glass of water.

Distraction Crusher #5: A clean desk

This one isn’t as important, but even if my desk is a mess, I need an area for my laptop and my notes, so I usually end up shoving everything to the back, against the wall.

Now that I’ve shared five things I need to focus on my manuscript, what do you do to find your focus?

The post Finding Focus to Write appeared first on Ginger + Books.

Finding Focus to Write

Howdy there, remember me? I’m Laura. This is my blog. I’m back to regularly scheduled programming after a two and a half week break to write ten papers, including a 15 page term paper that ended up being 18 pages. Now that my semester is basically over, I am back! Tell me how you’ve been!

One of the biggest problems writers face today is how to write without getting distracted, finding focus on your writing. Your phone, Facebook, people, pinterest, the list gets on and on. Distraction is a problem we all struggle with and it never seems to go away.

Distraction Crusher #1: Ditch the Phone

My trick is to put the phone on my bed. That way it’s close enough if someone calls, but not close enough that I feel then need to pick it up every five minutes.

Distraction Crusher #2: Off Goes the Wifi

Have a problem with Facebook and pinterest like I do? Turn the wifi off. It’s so much easier to focus when I can’t check my notifications.

5 Things to Help you crush the distraction and Find Focus for Writing!
Click To Tweet

Distraction Crusher #3: Full Screen is Our Best Friend

If you have a Mac, use full screen. With Scrivener and full screen on my computer, it feels like too much of a hassle to change screens, turn the wifi back on, and surf the internet. Knowing that I don’t have easy, instant access to everything is a great way to force me to focus on the writing.

Distraction Crusher #4: a Drink  

Water is best for this, but you need to stay hydrated. It seems silly to think that water can make or break a habit, but if you feel like you’re tired and just not with it, try a glass of water.

Distraction Crusher #5: A clean desk

This one isn’t as important, but even if my desk is a mess, I need an area for my laptop and my notes, so I usually end up shoving everything to the back, against the wall.

Now that I’ve shared five things I need to focus on my manuscript, what do you do to find your focus?

The post Finding Focus to Write appeared first on Ginger & Books.

Finding Your Book’s Location

Location, location, location – we hear it all the time, especially for real estate. But location can play a huge role in your book too! So, today, I’m going to talk about why it’s important to really know your location for your story.[image error]

If you do it right, location can become a separate character in your story. I don’t know a lot about fantasy books, but think about all the world building involved with these books. These stories involve so much location, so you need to know your location.

Here’s three tips to figuring out your book’s location and getting a better understanding of it:

1. What Needs to Happen?

In my book, The Assassin, there’s a famous serial killer who kills lots of people. I’ve moved the book three times (New York to Washington DC, and now to Dallas), but the story always takes place in an urban area because there’s a lot more people there. It’s easier for a serial killer to hide in the masses than not.

Does your story feature some gossipy scandal? Maybe a small town works because things never stay as a secret there. You need to know what the location is going to do to help

2. Take a Visit – And Lots of Photos

If you can, take a visit to this place. When I went to DC during high school, I took lots of photos, and when The Assassin took place there, it became ridiculously helpful in looking at the pictures to get a sense of the town. Even if you can’t visit, you need to understand the people of the town too. Washington DC has lots of politicians, but when I was there, I met lots of people like myself, passionate about the history of our great country.

Struggling with your book's location? 3 tips for picking/understanding it!
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3. If You Can’t Go, Google It. Or Pin It.

Have you seen the map feature on pinterest? It’s pretty awesome, I use it on my book board. IF you can’t visit your book’s location, or it’s been a long time, use google maps to keep up with what the layout of the town looks like.

I also had a huge wall map that I placed little sticky flags on so I knew where things took place. My favorite one though, is pinterest. I have a fun time looking at apartment complexes and deciding where my characters will live. This is the great feature of Pinterest, I can pin a picture from a separate website and add the address and it’ll show up on my pinterest board.

Follow Ginger + Co. ‘s board the assassin on Pinterest.

No matter where your book takes place (a real place or a place you build), you need to have a good understanding of the town you pick.

Where does your book take place? 

The post Finding Your Book’s Location appeared first on Ginger + Books.

Finding Your Book’s Location

Location, location, location – we hear it all the time, especially for real estate. But location can play a huge role in your book too! So, today, I’m going to talk about why it’s important to really know your location for your story.

If you do it right, location can become a separate character in your story. I don’t know a lot about fantasy books, but think about all the world building involved with these books. These stories involve so much location, so you need to know your location.

Here’s three tips to figuring out your book’s location and getting a better understanding of it:

1. What Needs to Happen?

In my book, The Assassin, there’s a famous serial killer who kills lots of people. I’ve moved the book three times (New York to Washington DC, and now to Dallas), but the story always takes place in an urban area because there’s a lot more people there. It’s easier for a serial killer to hide in the masses than not.

Does your story feature some gossipy scandal? Maybe a small town works because things never stay as a secret there. You need to know what the location is going to do to help

2. Take a Visit – And Lots of Photos

If you can, take a visit to this place. When I went to DC during high school, I took lots of photos, and when The Assassin took place there, it became ridiculously helpful in looking at the pictures to get a sense of the town. Even if you can’t visit, you need to understand the people of the town too. Washington DC has lots of politicians, but when I was there, I met lots of people like myself, passionate about the history of our great country.

Struggling with your book's location? 3 tips for picking/understanding it!
Click To Tweet

3. If You Can’t Go, Google It. Or Pin It.

Have you seen the map feature on pinterest? It’s pretty awesome, I use it on my book board. IF you can’t visit your book’s location, or it’s been a long time, use google maps to keep up with what the layout of the town looks like.

I also had a huge wall map that I placed little sticky flags on so I knew where things took place. My favorite one though, is pinterest. I have a fun time looking at apartment complexes and deciding where my characters will live. This is the great feature of Pinterest, I can pin a picture from a separate website and add the address and it’ll show up on my pinterest board.

Follow Ginger + Co. ‘s board the assassin on Pinterest.

No matter where your book takes place (a real place or a place you build), you need to have a good understanding of the town you pick.

Where does your book take place? 

The post Finding Your Book’s Location appeared first on Ginger & Books.

Defining Your Genre

When it comes to your book, there’s one big thing that will define where it ends up, as far as marketing: your genre. Well, okay, there’s two things. Your genre and your age market. I know there are some genres that seem to cover both of these, but today, I’m going to break down why each is important to the market and why you ought to define both (even if you do it just for yourself).

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Genre

Your genre is your niche, the type of book you write. For instance, I write mystery books, so my genre is mystery. Genres are used to bring books together that are similar. It helps people find books they like. I’m not a big sci-fi person (just not my thing), so by bundling books together under “Sci-Fi” (I know that’s not the real term), this allows me, the reader, to not waste my time looking for books I’m not ever going to read.

It also lets the Sci-fi reader easily find them in a book store, allowing the person to quickly pick their books and get to reading. And as authors, isn’t that what we want? People to enjoy our books?

Confused about book genre and target audience? Laura's got you covered!
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Target Audience

I use target audience as something different than genre. Target Audience, at least for me, is more of the age demographic. I know there are some age demographics that are treated more like genre (specifically Young Adult and New Adult), but these aren’t really genres! A Young Adult romance book is completely different from a Young Adult Fantasy book. They aren’t going to catch the same readers (for the most part – some people like all of them).

When it comes to Target Audience, you need to be smart about marketing. You don’t want to market a teenage romance book to an eighty year-old man. You want to target it to the age group you’re writing for. If you’re worried about people outside of your audience not being able to find your book if you don’t market, here’s my advice: write the best book you can. People in your audience will pass it on if they believe the book deserves it.

Tell me, what genre are you writing? Who’s your target audience? 

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