If You're Real, I Won't Kill You

A popular post from December 2009

by Annette Lyon

Due to the fact that it's holiday season and none of us are particularly active (or, let's face it, over our eggnog comas and even awake), this post is something from the archives of my personal blog.

It, however, writing-related: a writing first for me, and quite possibly an obsession.

Since that post first made its appearance back when I had oh, about a dozen people regularly reading my blog, I'm guessing that

1) most Writing on the Wall readers haven't seen it and

2) quite a few might relate to it.

(Happy New Year!)

**********

I think I was fourteen at the time. I’d gone with my mother to the local university bookstore, where she agreed to buy me a binder for my writing. It was a rosy pink. The binder still sits on a shelf in my office.

Once home, I eagerly filled it with notebook paper, then plopped onto the living room couch and began scribbling.

I had no concrete story idea; I was just in the mood to write. I began with an image and went with it: a little girl walking through a meadow where her imaginary friends lived. I’m sure the idea was a direct result of the fact that at the time, I constantly poured over the work of L.M. Montgomery, of Anne of Green Gables fame.

In the brief story, the girl greets fairies and other mythical creatures and bemoans how she has no other friends. The other children mock and tease her. She feels welcome only there with her magical companions. As I wrote, I discovered that the girl also has a serious illness and rarely gets to go out to her meadow.

She lies on the ground, hidden from sight by the flowers above and around her. Then she closes her eyes and whispers, “My dears, I’ve come to join you.”

And dies.

It was a perfectly melodramatic story for a teen to write. But overdone as the two-page ditty was, the ending hit me with a bolt of lightning. I closed the binder and stared at it, feeling not a little shaky.

A little girl was dead, and I had killed her.

It didn’t matter that she was fictional, that she hadn’t ever really inhabited this world, experienced life, or had a family to mourn her passing. (I worried about her poor mother—would she be able find her daughter under all those flowers?) In those few minutes I’d lived with her on the page, she had been real to me.

The sensation was odd—a creative rush combined with the sensation of intense guilt almost nauseating in its strength. The little dead girl seemed to haunt me for days afterward.

I’m sorry, I wanted to say. I didn’t mean to kill you. I didn’t know you’d die. It took a week or two to get over the guilt.

Then I had my first dip into research. I had to figure out what she’d died from, so I cracked open one of my mother’s many reference books and read up on various fatal illnesses that could strike children. For reasons I don’t recall, I settled on aplastic anemia, a disease I knew nothing about save for a brief description written in tiny text. The fact that a child minutes away from death wouldn’t be in a position to frolic in a meadow was pretty much irrelevant.

Since then, I’ve killed many fictional people, but I’ve reached the point where I no longer take responsibility for their deaths. I grieve when they die; they’re my friends, in a way. But it’s not my fault. Sometimes characters, just like people, die.

After reading At the Journey’s End, a man in my neighborhood came to me and said, “What is your problem with death?”

Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“By the end of the first chapter, three people are dead.”

At first I was taken aback. THREE? No way. But then I thought through the opening of my book. One person dies in the prologue. One in the first chapter. Oh, wait. Two. Yep. That makes three. But both deaths in chapter one were real historical figures. I didn’t kill them. They actually died on that day in history; I just told about it.

As if that made it so much better.

So I thought back to my other books. My first one has a mother already dead before the book begins, which is pretty much what the plot revolves around. Plus a little girl’s kitten dies. Oh, and a man dies in the girl's presence. Almost forgot that one. My second book features two deaths. And House on the Hill? Several pretty major deaths. Plus a dog.
Wow, I thought. I do have some kind of fascination with killing people off.
The best response I could come up with for my neighbor was, “Rest assured, no one dies in my next book.” I paused to double-check, thinking through Spires of Stone just to be sure—did anyone—or anything—die in it? Even a cat or dog? A mouse? Nope. No one dies. Phew.

However . . . I can’t say the same for Tower of Strength. Sorry. It does have two deaths. Wait. Three. My obsession with the end of life is apparently quite healthy.

[Update: my upcoming Band of Sisters doesn't escape death either. It has at least two. Crimeny!]

But I’m innocent! I swear, I didn’t kill anyone. It’s not my fault, and I won’t feel guilty over it.

Okay, I still cried writing them.

Goodness, we writers are certainly an odd lot . . .

Just Call Me Hero

A popular post from March 2009

By: Julie Wright

Back in college I was engaged to a guy who, whenever he did something that merited a pat on the back, would strike a superman pose and say in a deep melodramatic voice, "Just call me hero!"

I didn't end up calling him hero (or marrying him--I know . . . I'm a fickle female) because there was someone else who deserved the title a little more.

Writing stories is like dating. You've got to weed through your options before you figure out who your hero is. And like dating, the hero you pick is totally dependent on the outcome you desire. So when picking your hero, or protagonist, how do you know who is best suited for the job?

Ask yourself a few questions:
*Who has the most to gain?
*Who has the most to lose?
*Who hurts the most (because let's face it, pain is interesting)
*Who is the character who will most connect to your reader?
*Whose story spans the greater part of the novel?

Knowing the answers to those questions will make it easier to find your protagonist--your story's true hero. In the novel I just completed, I have twin sisters who are separated. Both have compelling stories, both have much to lose and much to gain if the cards are played right. But one sister had enough *more* to lose--she hurt more. I picked the sister who hurt the most.

Because if the hero doesn't hurt, why do we care? And if the hero doesn't hurt, what will they over come to gain them the right to be the hero?

If you feel like your story isn't heading in the right direction, it may just be because you picked the wrong hero, or maybe you picked the right hero, but you didn't hurt them enough, which means they have nothing to lose, and nothing to fight for.

Ideas and Playtime

A popular post from October 2009

by Annette Lyon

(with a bit by her daughter)

One of the most common questions writers get is this one:

Where do you get your ideas?

Most writers don't have much of a problem with this. We get ideas from everywhere.

For example, I had a character show up after I listened to a radio show. The entire concept of another book showed up after a brief conversation with my cop brother. Others appear after reading an article or a news story. The more I read, watch the news, pay attention to the world around me and ask, “What if?” the more ideas flow.

Granted, not all ideas are gems. Most aren’t, for that matter. But you need a constant flow of ideas, like a river, so that when the real gems float by, you can recognize them, grab hold, and hang onto them for all they’re worth.

My 12-year-old daughter was recently planning a lesson to teach to the writing club at the junior high. "Coming up with ideas" was her topic.

She had great notes, so I’m stealing them today, because what she planned for her lesson is applicable to all of us. And frankly, she had some awesome notes.

Earlier, I’d told her the genesis of a few books I knew about, and she wrote them into her notes, so they’re below as well. (I love how she refers to me by my full name one second and then as “my mom” the next.)

Coming up with ideas, by Lyon Child #2

All books have to start with an idea from some idea. Some of ideas that became published books:

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card: He was driving up a canyon and imagined seeing fighter planes and wondered how would you teach pilots to fight in space when there is no up, no down, or side to side. All the rules of strategy would change. The book is much more than that, but that was the first idea.

House of Secrets by Jeffrey S. Savage. He read a column in a newspaper about the day a woman went to her grandmother’s house after she died. Jeff wondered what would happen if you went to your grandmother's house after many years and you found a dead body in the bedroom.

House on the Hill by Annette Lyon, was reading a book with a lot of historical articles and one was about Indians that would sell their children to get money so there were a bunch of Indian children raised by white families in Utah. So she knew that one of her characters in that book would be an adopted Indian.

Then my mom told me about walking through graveyards and reading the names and other stuff on them. She found a group of stones that were children who died within days of each other. One said that the child died from cholera, so Mom figured the others most likely died from it too.

Then I started thinking what if everyone in a town got cholera and died except for one person that was like 20 and lived by themselves for years and then got cholera too, and was freaking out because there were no more people living and the human race would be extinct.

Another story I thought of after talking to my mom about a gravestone and the inscription on it was that what if there were these four people in college two boys and two girls that hated each other and one of the boys and one of the girls got married and so did the other two. So when the first couple got older they had a girl and when she was twenty she really liked this boy and he came over and they really liked him and thought that he was really nice and his parents thought the same about the girl, but what they didn’t know is that the boys’ parents were their enemies from college. Then at their wedding they find out who his parents are.

One way to find ideas is to go somewhere that’s noisy with lots of people. You can just watch people walk by and imagine what their life might be like.

Or play the “what if” game. Like:

What if penguins could fly?

What if cars ran on lemonade instead of gas?

What if cats were the dominant species?

What if mice could fly?

What if Mother Nature were a real person?

What if house flies were really the size of a house?

What if pigs really could fly?

What if dolls could walk and talk?

What if pictures moved like in Harry Potter?

What if we lived in the 60s?

What if cows could talk?

What if everyone in the world had a super power?

What if socks went on your hands and gloves on your feet?

What if we lived in a time with no technology?

What if there were such thing as flying carpets?

What if we walked on our hands?

What if cows could type?

What if chickens could talk?

What if it was always raining?

What if pencils were earrings?

[End of lesson notes]

All of this came from about half an hour of my seventh-grade daughter typing away with my AlphaSmart Neo. Somehow I think if she can come up with this many ideas in that short of a period (even the soap opera love story one), the rest of us adults don’t have any excuses.

As you drive on your commute or while running errands, turn off the radio and mentally play the “what if” game and take each story as far as you can. My good friend J. Scott Savage has been known to take it so far as he lies in bed that he's plotted out entire trilogies before he falls asleep.

Eye people in the cars next to you and pretend they’re characters. Come up with reasons for where they’re going and why. Or ask yourself why they're driving that make and model of car and how do they feel about it. Make up additional conflicts. It’s great fun.

Now for a dare based on my daughter's notes:

This week, go to a mall, grocery store, or other crowded place and observe. I did this some time ago. I bought myself a few pieces of my favorite See’s candy and sat back on a bench at a busy mall.

I watched high-powered business men scurry by, mothers with huge strollers, senior citizens going on power walks, and more. I came up with stories and characters surrounding them. I sat there for a good half hour or more, letting my mind go wild, taking notes when I felt like it, letting myself daydream when I didn’t . . . and eating chocolate in between.

Best of all, when you do this kind of thing, remember to eavesdrop. That's one of the best ways to get great characterization and storyline ideas. Late-night grocery runs are fantastic for this. Check out this blog post for an example of a recorded late-night grocery trip that I laughed myself silly reading.

The bottom line is that coming up with ideas and filling your creative bucket aren’t so different from one another. Remember the artist child inside you needs fun. Make sure you take him or her out to play every so often.

Oh, and remember to take my daughter’s advice. She may be young, but she knows what she’s talking about.

(That may have something to do with the fact that she’s been living with a writer since, oh, birth.)

Step Away from the Manuscript

A popular post from October 2009

by Annette Lyon

I know of writers who claim there is no such thing as writer's block. In a sense, that's true. No matter what the situation, you can sit down, put your hands on the keyboard, and plunk out some words.

But will they be any good?

I've also heard people say that claiming you have writer's block is akin to a plumber saying he's got plumber's block.

To me, that comparison is ridiculous, because a plumber doesn't have to come up with a fresh, new way of fixing a pipe every time. He's got the exact same wrenches and other tools, and a pretty clear-cut list of leaks, clogs, and other issues he'll likely need to fix on any given day.

He doesn't need to find a unique voice, a fresh metaphor, a brand new way to plot a wrench, for Pete's sake. For that matter, if he's good at what he does, he can probably do most of his work without giving it too much thought. He might enjoy a periodic challenge because it's a change in his daily routine.

On the flip side, writers must come up with something new and different each time we sit down. Using the same proverbial wrench every day would be boring or, worse, cliche.

Sure, we can force ourselves to show up at the keyboard, but frankly, sometimes, showing up isn't the best thing to do. Sometimes our creative side needs a break to figure out where we've gone wrong, where to head next, what our character is trying to accomplish, where the plot has gone off into a ditch, what's missing.

And that means walking away from the keyboard.

Paraphrasing an interview I recently read with Audrey Niffenegger (author of The Time Traveler's Wife), writers can often solve problems by coming at them sideways, while working on something else creative. She paints and lets her mind drift. She doesn't force herself to think about her characters or story, but sometimes her mind goes there, and her characters decide to come slip into her mind, showing up with their own answers.

I've found the same thing happening when I let go and stop trying to chase the answers down. The more I try to force the story or the characters to face me head-on, they more they elude me just as I'm about to grab hold of them.

But if let them roam free and I do something else with my mind, letting them come to me, I find that eventually, they will.

For me, sometimes that means setting up my sewing machine and tackling the giant pile of mending my children's clothing. Other times it might be cleaning out a closet or pulling out my knitting needles for a new project.

Maybe I'll go on a walk several days in a row to let my brain think all the messy thoughts it wants to and eventually "unkink" and drift.

Often I find answers while driving, but only if I'm alone in the car and I turn off the radio and drive in silence.

In the summers, weeding a garden or mowing a lawn can do the same thing. Or scrubbing a kitchen floor. In the winter, try shoveling snow.

Do the dishes. Hand-washing is particularly effective for overcoming blocks. So is folding laundry.

I know that it's a pain in some ways that so many of these techniques are chores. (Darn it.) But the reality is that they work. You accomplish something without using a lot of mental energy.

That's the key, because you trick your mind: it knows it's getting something valuable done, yet it's not under pressure to be productive by itself, to be "on" and creative.

Therefore, as you work, your mind gives itself permission to play . . . and a tiny part of it drifts (sometimes you aren't even aware that your mind is working) . . . and then it becomes creative (again, you may not even know it) . . . and then WHAM! the answers come.

Sometimes all it takes is a couple of hours of a different activity. Sometimes it's a few days or even a week or two. But it works.

I'm always amazed when the answers show up. They're clear. They're vivid. They sparkle. And they're always something so much better than I could have come up with on my own by forcing my behind to stay in the chair and by pounding out my word count goal for the day.

That's not to say that writing goals don't have their place; they're very effective, and I use them regularly when drafting. But when occasional blocks smack you in the face, pause and take stock.

If you think it's time, step away from the manuscript. Don't feel guilty about doing so.

Wait for the answers to come while you darn a sock or bake a cake.

(If it's chocolate, save some for me.)

Anachronisms & Other Ways to Make Readers Snicker

A popular post from November 2009

by Annette Lyon

Anachronisms are hysterical in fiction . . . and usually not in the way the author of a piece intended.

An anachronism is something stuck in a place where it doesn't fit in time. A really, really bad one would be giving a caveman a car. That's a bit too obvious, something no writer would ever accidentally do, but writers put in anachronisms all the time in more subtle ways.

While this is relevant to me as a historical writer, the overall concept is crucial for all writers to keep in mind, particularly in the revision stage, so read on.

For me, I constantly have to research bits and pieces to make sure that certain vocabulary, hair styles, household items, and so on were in use when I place them into a story.

Could Joe use a match to light a fire in this year? Can Sally eat a "cookie" in that year? Would David have access to envelopes in this location at this time? When did diamond rings become common symbols of engagements?

Those are the kinds of things writers pay attention to in their research. Where writers often lose focus is inadvertently throwing in common expressions that don't work for the time period of the book.

For example, a bad anachronism would be for a character from Shakespeare's time to say, "We're really off track."

The problem? "Off track" came from railroads. And yeah . . . railroads didn't exist in Shakespeare's time, so someone from that period wouldn't know what the phrase means.

So why is this important if you don't write historical fiction? Because this is one more way you can mess things up by imposing your mindset onto your characters.

The writer must always remember how the CHARACTER would really think and feel and relate to his or her world.

Luke Skywalker would never say he's "shell-shocked," even if what he's feeling would apply to our definition of that term. He'd use some other way to describe the feeling, because "shell-shocked" is World War II lingo.

When Lizzy from Pride and Prejudice discovers Darcy's involvement in saving her family's name, she'd never have said that he "stepped up to the plate." That's an American baseball term from the 20th century, for starters, one that didn't exist when the book was written. So granted, Jane Austen couldn't have used it, but someone trying to write a P&P sequel today could, and would really mess it up.

Another phrase I came across in a historical novel recently was, "We should give it a shot." I don't know for sure when that phrase came about, but the novel was set a long time ago, so the sentence jumped out as not belonging. It sounded way too modern for the context. I stopped believing the writer. These kinds of things just don't work.

Another warning: too much colloquial phrasing will date a contemporary book too; avoid anything too dated, even if it's dated as now.

In one book, the characters were from the early 1800s, and one referred to his mother as "pushing his buttons."

Um . . . which buttons would those be? The ones on his shirt? Because, yeah, well, hate to say this, but see, computers and other things with buttons that can be pushed . . . weren't invented when this guy supposedly lived.

What this writer needed was an idiom, term, or phrase from the early 1800s that would give the reader the same feel as "pushing my buttons" does today, but that came from the right period. They also needed something matching the character's personality. Instead, what we got was the writer's voice intruding on the story, the writer's point of view.

Sadly, it was hard to get immersed in the book when the author kept poking their nose into the story. I was painfully aware that they weren't fully into the characters' minds and hearts, let alone fully into the time period.

One of my favorite stories of this kind of revision (for the better!) is in Michele Paige Holmes's newest book, All the Stars in Heaven. She's used this example in a workshop herself when teaching how to get into characters' heads.

She originally wrote a scene where Jay, her hero, listens to the heroine, Sarah, sing a choir solo for the first time. He is blown away by her voice and says it's one of the most amazing things he's ever heard.

The rough draft had him compare her voice to an angel's. But then Michele realized that Jay wouldn't say that kind of thing. He's manly and tough. He wouldn't think in terms of angelic choirs. He loves and plays rock music.

Her final version says that Sarah's performance was the most amazing thing he'd ever heard with the possible exception of Hendrix playing "The Star Spangled Banner."

I love that change. It's true-blue Jay, precisely how he'd think. It's okay that Michele's rough draft had the angelic bit. We all have rough drafts that aren't perfect (that's why they're called rough). And frankly, the original wasn't bad. But the final version was perfect: just how Jay would think and express himself. Michele stepped aside as the author and let him speak.

Be sure that when you do those later passes over your manuscript for revision that you read each scene with an eye out for when you're really in your characters' heads. Is this really how they'd see each situation? Or is it your lens that we're looking through?

Ask yourself: Is there anything that I, as the writer, am putting in that doesn't belong?

Would your character really say it this way, think this particular thought?

Are you expressing your opinion or your characters'? Your world view or theirs?

Worse, did you inadvertently throw in an anachronism?

Another gem I caught recently: "No, way."

In context, it sounded just like a Valley Girl from 1988. The problem? The story was set during the time of pirates.

I closed the book, tempted to walk around the house, flipping my hair, snapping gum, and going, "Like, totally argh, Matey."

The Mirror That is Our Writing

A popular post from January 2010

By Julie Wright

I eavesdrop. I've confessed this before, but I've been doing it a lot again lately so figured I was due for another confessional. I HAVE to eavesdrop when I'm working on a book because I have a problem I call speech reflection.

My writing is a direct reflection of my own language and speech patterns. I have to edit out a lot to change that, but first drafts are so transparently me. And so I resort to eavesdropping on other people's conversations to save myself from my own voice. If you listen to people--really listen, you'll find that no two people sound alike. Their word choices, their cadence and beat, their stutterings, ramblings, and hesitations all reflect on who they are. Like snowflakes, no two are alike.

In so many ways, my writing is like a mirror. It is a reflection on who I am even when I try hard for it not to be. My own persona sneaks into all the characters I write, whether they are the good guys or the evil guy. It's frustrating.

And in some ways, it's unavoidable. They tell us to write what we know and sometimes we just can't help but listen to them. But there are things we can do to find our own characters speech patterns and voices.

These are the things I try to do:

--Eavesdrop. You thought I was kidding, didn't you? No seriously--eavesdrop. Go and listen to other people's patterns of conversation.
--have a complete picture of what your character looks like. Some authors I know cut pictures out of magazines to identify their characters. This keeps them solidly in their head. If your character is always shifting in your mind on how they look, how can you pin down how they sound?
--remember your character's age. A two-year-old speaks differently from a ten-year-old, who will speak differently from a twenty-year-old. Don't forget to check the nuances of speech in different ages.
--know where your character comes from. New Englander who says "wicked?" Southerner who says "fixin?" Know their accents, and the vernacular of the culture they were raised in.
--take out phrases that anyone who's met you could pin point as something you'd say.

I have books in the past where the character sounds just like me and I cringe over it. But I've confessed the sin of speech reflection and am daily working on eradicating it from my writing life. So if you notice this in your own writing, feel free to go eavesdrop. People don't mind. They really don't. If they did, they wouldn't talk so loud.

Everyone Needs An Editor

A popular post from December 2009

By Julie Wright

I got a great question from one of my up and coming author friends the other day about professional editing. She made this comment to me:

I'm assuming you don't send your own work off to an editor since you are one.

In my fantasy world, this might be true, but in reality, I'd dash out my eyes before trusting them, and only them, to catch all my flaws. You know that old saying? Something about not seeing the forest because of all those trees? Writing is a lot like that. We get too close to our projects and lose all form of objectivity. Or sometimes, even when we know something's wrong with our manuscripts, we don't see how to fix it exactly.

I have several professional authors/editors (These editors all work for Precision Editing Group) who I trade manuscripts with. I trust these people completely. I trust them to be brutal, but brutal in a way that helps. I've known editors who slash manuscripts to pieces simply because it makes them feel smarter, or empowered, or whatever, but a good editor will not slash for their own benefit, but the benefit of the manuscript. You know who you can trust for honest-even-when-it-hurts critiques. Don't trust your manuscript to anything less. And no matter how published, or smart, or HUGE an author is--everyone needs an editor.

And just for kicks, here is how my writing, editing, submitting process works:
• Write the book
• Edit the book myself
• Go over it one more time (just in case)
• Then send it to three others
• Write something new while waiting for the results
• Get results
• Cry a little over the fact that I’m not all that brilliant
• Eat chocolate and get over myself
• Do final edit
• Submit
• Get edits back from my publisher
• Cry over the fact that I’m not all that brilliant
• Eat chocolate and get over myself
• Do final final edit
• Get galleys
• Curse myself for not being more thorough in final edit
• Do final final, I-mean-it-this-time edit
• Get author copies of my book and still think of ways I could have been better, while also thinking how cool I am for getting a new book published.
• Eat chocolate and get over myself.
• Finish writing new book

If you're being honest with yourself, you know you can always do better. This is not to say you should never let a manuscript go. We all have to finally shout, "Enough!" and move on to a new project. Sometimes more fiddling is just more fiddling.

Eventually your book has to stand on it's own, but dragging it through a few other sets of eyes, makes it stand a little taller.