Please Don't Kill Me, Stephen

Last night I was working on my novel when I naturally began picturing my life as if it was a narrative. I do that often. I know, it's not normal.

I began thinking about the sort of protagonist I would be: a very young, stuggling writer dicking around in junior college while she struggles with figuring out if she's going to major in journalism or anthropology and managing to live a fairly healthy lifestyle with absolutely no money.

And, you know, there's the obsessive compulsive disorder that needs to be put under control before she can get a car and, as a result, a job that isn't freelance writing.

Then I started thinking about how many of Stephen King's protagonists are odd and/or struggling writers, and that made me paranoid that my entire life was really nothing but a Stephen King book.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

God, I hope he lets me die with dignity.

Or at least naked.

This is worse than the time when I watched Silence of the Lambs and became inexplicably frightened that Anthony Hopkins could read my mind.

I've been paranoid about a lot of people reading my minds ever since I was ten and watched a TV show about it. This is actually the one thing I haven't told my psychiatrist; I'm terrified that I'll keep revealing crazier and crazier things until I'm eventually committed.

Or worse, they tell my mom what I'm telling them. She can't handle what she knows already. I know they're not supposed to unless it sounds like I'm going to hurt someone, and I know I'm not doing that, so I should be good. Too bad being scared of things coming to pass that can't possibly happen is sort of the dealbreaker, here.

Whelp, I just heard something trying to get in through my window. I think I'm going to get off of here for the time being and figure out just what the Hell one does when one is the protagonist in a Stephen King book. 

Overcoming the Dreaded Mirror Scene

Image via Wikipedia

Don't lie. I don't care if you've won eight Pulitzer prizes; you've done it. We all have.

You're typing out your first chapter/scene, and you find yourself in dire need of some subtle physical description of your main character. Enter the Mirror Scene.

Jane is getting ready to leave the house to start her day. She is deeply contemplating all of the things that make her amazing and "Jane"-like, when she passes by the hall mirror on her way out the door. She turns to the side for a better view and pays an insane amount of attention to each and every one of her features, from her brown eyes speckled with green to the wavy locks of black hair framing her china-doll face. Because, you know, every time I look in the mirror I feel a need to describe myself inside my head in case someone just so happens to be listening to my thoughts but unable to physically see me.

I can't say that I considered the mirror scene to be unproffesional or even  unoriginal until another writer mentioned that it caused her to roll her eyes every time it popped up in a narrative--especially when the writer had a solid reputation. Once I got to thinking about character descriptions, I began to detest the mirror scene as well. Character descriptions that reveal more than necessary have always been my pet peeve. The more that is left to the reader's imagination, the better. I hate the three page long descriptions of how the main character is wearing her curly brown hair and brand specific eyelet tank top that show up in books these days. Character descriptions are best left shorter than a couple of sentences. Anything other physical description that is necessary to the story will come out later as the character interacts with other characters and begins to gain a life of her own.

So what if you find yourself abusing the mirror scene? What on Earth do you do? When I began my first novel idea---a project that I didn't seriously want to finish, but only intended to use for practicing novel writing---I swear that I used a mirror scene to introduce every single character that wasn't seen through someone else's eyes. I kid you not. If it wasn't a mirror hanging on the wall, it was a pool of reflective water. I was only about eleven or twelve, so I didn't really know much about, well...anything. I'm surprised at myself for not noticing that this was way, way too much mirror.

I overcame the overuse of mirrors in character description by asking myself what the reader needed to know right then and there in the story about the protagonist. The readers may never know that she has a mole on her left hip, or that her skin has yellow undertones. There are all sorts of aspects of characters, some of them major backstory elements, that the writer never really reveals to the reader in their entirety. It's always better to have more character development than you're willing to reveal in the story than the other way around. Have Jane run her fingers through her hair while waiting for the bus if she's the nervous type. Let them get caught on snags in her locks if she has wild curls. Let the protagonist's personality reveal what little you must about her appearance. When it comes to writing, less is generally more, especially when it comes to character descriptions.

Of course, if I had just a dime for every existing exception, I'd be able to move out of my cardboard box and into a fancy gilded trailer.

Think of it as going on your own personal MapQuest.

It doesn't have to look like this ^^^

Today's post is about one of my favorite parts of the novel writing process: story world mapping.

If there's one thing that most writers of genres outside of fantasy tend to ignore, it's the importance of drawing up a map of your story world. Sure, it's important to form an image of the layout of your world if you literally have an entirely different world, but it's just as useful to draw a little map of all of the normal, everyday settings that show up in your novel.

You know, like a character's bedroom, or the diner where most of the scenes take place...you get the picture. Mapping can actually be a valuable part of your brainstorming process, even if you're a non-otherworldly writer. Just try it out and see whether or not it influences how you picture the scenes in your head and how vividly you write them.

Now, I'm not saying that you have to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. My mountains are, to this day, nothing but triangles, and my trees look like chicken feet. I'm a writer, definitely not an artist. It doesn't matter if your people are stick figures, or if your dragons look like squiggly lines with crudely drawn feet. It's still a perfectly respectable story world outline either way, and you should be pretty damn proud of it if you ask me.

When I was little I did nothing but draw maps of the places I wanted to write about sometime in the future, sometimes having them set up so that to see the whole thing you had to piece several notebook pages together. My mother thought I was insane, especially because I wrote in mostly first person back then. I actually believe that her reaction to finding my writing notebooks is just the reason I have such an aversion to first person writing: she accused me of being schizophrenic and threatened to commit me.

I would suggest carrying your writing notebooks around like they're a treasure box full of gems that everyone would rip away from  you and steal forever if you were to let a single person catch a glimpse of what's inside. Nobody likes to know you're writing something unless you've been published. Once you have, everyone wants to know, and I hear it gets pretty freaking annoying.

Try drawing a map your main character's bedroom. If nothing else, it'll at least be fun. Then, feel free to go map-crazy, even if they're all just simple aerial views.

I'll Just Leave This Here

11 Types of Bad Writing Advice

Believe me, I've heard all of these and continue to hear them to this day. Pick up any self help writing book and you'll see nothing but around two hundred pages of this crap. Just a quick reminder:

There are no laws to writing.

Just because Bill H. Authorguy (sue me for the corny joke later) has written seven hundred bestselling books doesn't mean that you'll only be a successful writer if you mimic him.

Writing is fun. Some people love to make it look like it's brain surgery, because they don't feel important enough if they're doing something they enjoy. Work should be hard. Tough. Grr. Manly. That's a load of bull, however, and you'll never finish a manuscript if you feel like working on it is some form of punishment. While they are challenges, they are worthwhile challenges that you should enjoy undertaking.

If Mr. ITeachWriting hates romance novels, he'll shoot down anything of that nature that you show him. It doesn't mean it's bad, he just hasn't learned to be unbiased.

You're supposed to explore, have fun, and learn things about yourself.

Making a mistake or trying something that doesn't work is not an indication of whether or not you'll make it as a writer. This has happened to everyone, even the person writing that hoity-toity self help book, and it is part of the process. I usually have at least three different versions of a scene floating around before I find one that works when I try it out.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, some people just should not give advice. Most of these people are writers. Not all writers, of course, but the more pompous types. You'll know them when you see them.

Last but not least, remember that we writers are sometimes the most stubborn people you'll ever encounter. Many seasoned professionals make it painfully obvious that they believe their own way of going about their story to be the only way of going about ANY story. I've tried all of the advice I've ever been given, and can honestly say that no one thing worked perfectly for me. You basically have to take little bits and pieces of what works until you shape your own unique process. It's like a fingerprint, and not the same for everyone by any means. Try something that just doesn't feel right, and you'll end up with a story as awkward as that analogy.


I think I'll also leave this here, seeing as most of the people looking at my blog have author blogs, themselves. I found it beyond useful. I posted it on Twitter earlier, along with the realization that most of the people coming to my blog from a search engine are looking for Pinkie Pie. Sometimes Google Analytics will surprise you. 

The Suicide of Dorothy Hale

Frida Kahlo was asked by a close friend of the subject to paint a beautiful and grand painting in tribute of actress Dorothy Hale, who committed suicide by jumping out of the window of a tall building.

Frida painted this:

Image via Wikipedia

I'm a bit ashamed to say that I laughed. Ah, Frida, you were so messed up, and that's why you've always been my favorite.

Image via WikipediaChances are that if you're alive, you've heard of the Amazon Kindle (or some other sort of e-reader). What you may not have heard, however, is the changes that many believe it is causing in the ways people read, write, and publish their books.

Okay, let's get real here. You've probably heard. But what does it mean for you as a writer? What about you as a reader?

It's hard to tell at this point, but I think the results will be quite favorable to writers. As a writer you are presented with a wonderful opportunity to get your book out there without going through a publisher. It's a great way to get some valuable experience on what people actually like to read without sinking too much money into self publishing in print, which can quite literally cost you an arm and a leg. Well, if that's the type of currency they take, that is. In that case, I would probably become suspicious.

Not to mention all of the trees you save. And if you decide not to do the indie thing anymore in the future, it might help quite a bit if an editor knows you as, "that chick or dude who wrote that book that was in the top ten on Amazon Kindle for a year straight" instead of just a no-name right off the streets.

Not to mention, of course, well...this. I can only imagine the toes I'm going to step on by linking that one.

KDP (that's Kindle Direct Publishing, not Kurdistan Democratic Party) isn't just a boon for writers, however. Can you imagine a world with no book trailers hyping up terrible books to the point where you actually find yourself buying them when you know they're going to be terrible? How about world in which a book gains merit by impressing its readers alone and is hailed as a classic, while less well written and executed novels sink to the bottom of the barrel where they belong? Ladies and gentlemen, such is the world I've seen come into existence while browsing book reviews at the Kindle Store. Well, not always of course...there are those authors who ask their friends to leave incredibly favorable reviews of their products. In fact, you'll more than likely notice that all of the reviews for books that have just been added are usually five stars. The one star reviews don't start coming in until later when, obviously, other people have started buying and reading the book.

Then again, I have also seen people give low ratings to a book just because it "contained swear words", so I'm not saying that this is wonderful for writers and readers just yet. I'm just saying that, at the moment, it seems like it will have a pretty positive outcome.

I wrote this thing in a room full of screaming, cackling, tongue clicking people. I'm one of those people who requires absolute silence to write anything worth reading, so I apoligize if this post isn't...well, if it isn't worth reading.

Gah. This is one of the reasons why writing a novel takes me so long. Has anyone ever had absolute quite in their homes when they weren't home alone (which I never am anymore -.-).

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