Tuesday, November 1, 2011

[Wordplay] Consider This Before Killing a Character

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In This Issue

Another First Draft in the Rearview Mirror

Quotes of the Month

Featured Resource: Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success

Helpful Links & Resources

Creativity Exercise

Your Questions Answered

Something to Ponder...

November Article Roundup

Consider This Before Killing a Character

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Quotes of the Month

"Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up."

—Stephen King

"Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind."

—Rudyard Kipling

"I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer."

—Doris Lessing


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Helpful Links and Resources

Make Your Keyboard Sound Like a Typewriter: A fun little trick for added writing inspiration—or distraction.

Better Book Titles—Find out what your favorite book really should have been named

Three Keys to Following Your Heart's Desire—Lisa Jordan on the three ingredients to a successful writing life.

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Creativity Exercise

If your story were a movie, who would you cast as each of the characters?

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Something to Ponder

Do you think there's benefit in a novelist writing short stories—and vice versa?

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November Article Roundup














































































































Another First Draft in the Rearview Mirror

October was another yet another eventful month—with most of those events continuing to center around Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success. As I write this, a month after the book's launch, Outlining is #3 in Amazon's Writing Skills section in the Kindle store. I've been thrilled to receive so many messages and reviews, letting me know the book is doing its job by helping Wordplayers write more effectively and have more fun doing it. (If you're interested in purchasing a copy, you can find links in the "Featured Resource" section below.)

In other news, as you may recall, my historical work-in-progress The Deepest Breath has been a roller-coaster —as all my books inevitably are in their own way. Deepest's ups and downs mostly consisted of me believing the book was finished two or three times, only to read the "finished" draft and realize something significant needed to be tweaked. So you've heard me say before that it's officially finished. But this time it's for real. I completed my final read-through of the first draft and slapped the seal of approval on it. I'm much happier with the cohesion and resonance of this longer version, and I'm also (finally) happy with the final few chapters, which have been giving me fits all month. This moment of completing a first draft is always a moment of mixed emotions. On the one hand, I'm thrilled to be done with the thing and able to move on to the next project. But, on the other, I'm sad to be saying the first big goodbye to the characters who have lived with me and in me for the past two years.

With Deepest's first draft in my rearview mirror, I now get to turn my attention back to what should be the last big edit of my fantasy Dreamlander before its publication late next year. In my experience revisions are only a chore when you're burned out on the project or when you can't see your way to improving it. Fortunately, Dreamlander suffers under neither of those. I'm psyched about the changes I get to make, since I can see clearly that the story will be all the better for them, and I'm excited to return to an old story with a fresh perspective. It's crazy, but every time I finish a book's first draft (in this case, Deepest), like magic, I'm always able to view the previous book with new eyes. So I'm diving headfirst into revisions and having a ball. Other than that, I've also started Dreamlander's big revision. I'm loving revisiting these old characters and getting the unexpected opportunity to learn even more about them. Plus, it's nice to have another writing project to move right into after finishing Deepest. Usually, about now, after finishing a lengthy project, I'm feeling a little bereft and aimless as I catch my breath for the next book. So I'm enjoying this little respite before deciding what new project to begin upon later next year.

Happy writing!




Featured Resource: Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success

Writers often look upon outlines with fear and trembling. But when properly understood and correctly wielded, the outline is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer's arsenal. Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success will:

  • Help you choose the right type of outline for you
  • Guide you in brainstorming plot ideas
  • Aid you in discovering your characters
  • Show you how to structure your scenes
  • Explain how to format your finished outline
  • Instruct you in how to use your outline
  • Reveal the benefits:
    • Ensures cohesion and balance
    • Prevents dead-end ideas
    • Provides foreshadowing
    • Offers assurance and motivation
  • Dispel misconceptions:
    • Requires formal formatting
    • Limits creativity
    • Robs the joy of discovery
    • Takes too much time

Even if you're certain outlining isn't for you, the book offers all kinds of important tips on plot, structure, and character. Includes exclusive interviews with Larry Brooks, Elizabeth Spann Craig, Lisa Grace, Dan L. Hays, Jody Hedlund, Carolyn Kaufman, Becky Levine, Roz Morris, John Robinson, and Aggie Villanueva, answering important questions:

  • Can you describe your outlining process?
  • What is the greatest benefit of outlining?
  • What is the biggest potential pitfall of outlining?
  • Do you recommend "pantsing" for certain situations and outlining for others?
  • What's the most important contributing factor to a successful outline?

Click for more information!



Your Questions Answered

Q: I try and write regularly, but my family doesn't take my writing seriously. If I'm writing, they think I'm just "mucking around" and I get very angry about it. Here I am, slaving away, and they don't even consider me to be working. I suppose that they don't know how hard it truly is, though; none of them are writers.—Breanna Wignall

A: Most, if not all authors, have to face a lack of understanding from non-writers. Even family and friends who are supportive of your writing don't always understand a writer's unique needs for time and space. We just have to consistently, firmly, and kindly keep setting the boundaries, and eventually, people will begin to understand. Convincing others to take our writing time seriously begins with us taking it seriously. If we don't make our writing time a priority, it's a sure bet no one else will.


Contact Me

Have a writing question you'd like answered? I respond to all emails and will publish one question a month in this e-letter.

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Consider This Before Killing a Character

I have a little game I play when reading a book or watching a movie, especially a violent one. I try to predict which characters are going to die. More often than not, I'm right smack on the money, and it isn't because I'm prescient or because I cheated and peeked ahead. It's because character deaths are often all too formulaic. Half the time, it seems like authors ax characters for no other reason than that the characters are likable and the authors want to wring a few honest tears from their readers. But this isn't really honest storytelling so much as manipulative storytelling. And aside from the fact that readers may be righteously indignant over the unnecessary death of a favorite character, they'll also resent being manipulated should they figure out that's what's going on.

Of course, we could argue that all of storytelling is manipulation, to some extent, since the author is purposefully crafting words and themes to guide the reader's thoughts and emotions in the direction he wants them to take. Readers accept and even embrace this. What they ask in return is that we manipulate them with style—and subtlety. And what that means is that character deaths, like every other part of your story, must be organic. They must make sense within the context of the story, and they must move the plot forward.

Snuffing everybody's favorite sidekick just because somebody's gotta get hit by a random bullet and because he's the character readers are most likely to sniffle over is a bad methodology. For a character's death to work in a story—for it to resonate with readers—it has to mean something. Unless your whole point is to illustrate random violence, make certain there's a good reason this particular character has to die. You have to compensate readers for the loss of a beloved personality. Not only will this make it more difficult for readers to suspect the death beforehand, it will also allow the death to carry more emotional and thematic weight.





Behold the Dawn

For sixteen years, Marcus Annan has remained unbeaten on the field of battle, but standing before him now is the greatest enemy he has ever faced… His past.


A Man Called Outlaw

Faced with vicious land wars, ranch foreman Shane Lassiter must choose between the cattleman he reveres as a father and the truth about a dead man everyone called an outlaw.





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