Outlines

I hate outlines.

When I work on a first draft, I hastily scrawl something that could pass for an outline as I go. It's more of a "I can't forget to do this later" list.

When I progress to a second draft, I outline the first one and what happened and rearrange the events as needed.

But sometimes that's hard and not as clear cut as I'd like.

I received iWork version 9 for Christmas. I purchased the original version of this software when Mac Minis came out about five years ago. The Mac Mini has since died, but iWork keeps going strong. With my latest MacBook, I didn't want to sully it with any Microsoft products. Just a goal of mine. And since Pages, the Apple version of Word, imports and exports as Word docs and PDFs, there's no reason I can't use it. Plus we have Word on our old iBook, so I can check the formatting of the file before I send it off to anything official.

My hatred of Microsoft is fodder for another day.

iWork includes three elements: Pages (Word), Keynote (PowerPoint) and Numbers (Excel). My original version (1.0.2) did not have Numbers. So I decided to play with it, partially because I keep hearing how other writers plot in spreadsheets. I prefer random scraps of paper, but I lose those pieces of paper, so I thought a computer document might be good.

I started with a simple chart of the old manuscript:
Chapter -- Character -- Item done really well that I'd forgotten about -- How to use

On my second worksheet:
Chapter -- POV -- Summary

On my third worksheet for the current revisions:
Chapter -- POV -- Summary -- then tabs for each character and plot theme and what happens in those various items in the chapter as I get the revisions done

My four worksheet:
An exact replica of page 3 except this one is for chapters I haven't revised yet and what I want to put in them

I'll keep you posted how it works.

My constitution

I know my next blog entry isn't due until Monday, but I'm inspired. I attended my first quasi-official PLRW (The Pocono Lehigh Romance Writers), the local chapter of the Romance Writers of America. In the previous meeting of this group I attended, I found them amiable, nurturing and very serious about their writing. While they may not all be published, they all work toward something, which I don't always feel is the case with some other writers I know.

So, they set goals every month. And announce them. The newsletter editor publishes them and then she asks the following month whether or not you met your own goal. I am competitive. I am deadline oriented. This is a good thing for me.

I said I'd finish revisions to chapters five through eight of my second novel.

The speaker today was member Nisha Sharma. She spoke about applying Asian time management techniques to your writing. I had to leave earlier because of my daughter's dance class, but she really got my applying the same skills I normally use it my own life to my writing. I won't go in depth about her talk, because its her talk. But here's her web site:

http://nisha-sharma.com/

Now the first couple steps of her system involve writing a letter to cheer yourself toward your goals for the new year. Here's mine:

We’ve had a great few years with the wonderful support of family. I think you’ve managed to make positive steps toward reinventing yourself when many of your colleagues from the journalism industry are still bitching about not having a job.

I think you’re a tad crazy for going back to school, but you’re setting a good example for your daughter and stimulating your own intelligence, which will come through in your writing. So with all of this going on, keep with the writing. I know you keep wondering if realistically writing is an endeavor that makes sense, but it makes you happy, as your husband says, and your husband likes when you’re happy. It will come together.

Then she said to set goals and list them in priority order. Here are mine:
Finish revisions to book two
Query/web/network
Finish the "prequel"
Begin revisions on book three

Next she instructed us to make a plan of how to do these things and assign a reasonable time frame. So...

Finish revisions to book two
HOW: revise at least a chapter a week
have daily uninterrupted writing time, no Facebook, email, or iPod, or drinks
TIME: the book should be finished around 25 weeks, or six months. Get the book cleaned up by July-- though Spring Break should be the time to REALLY move it forward

Continue/ramp up trying to ‘sell’ book one/agent/ Web?
HOW: network with folks, read more, internet research
TIME: -- submit a query a week, minimum two a month

Prequel/market as paranormal romance
HOW: chapter outline, then revise beginning to get in swing, write synopsis and use this piece as the center of your membership in PLRW/RWA
TIME: before the PLRW may workshop, have a synopsis and a chapter outline for that manuscript, and July is devoted to the prequel, writing

Begin revisions to 3
HOW: read in August, not before. Outline the third manuscript as succinctly as possible by the end of August.
TIME: August and fall 2010

This almost seems doable, doesn't it?

Synopsis

Our critique group took a break from the normal 'story edits' stuff and we looked at each others' synopsis. We've been critiquing together for about six months, and in some cases, the manuscripts created confusion about what we're trying to do. We thought a synopsis, and 'revealing' the end, might help us as critiquers.

This brought up the question of what really is a synopsis. I thought, based on my experiences, that a synopsis summarized the main events and characters of the novel and told the ending. You can't hide the surprises. It's not a type of publicity blurb that might go on the back cover or the inside jacket. It's something the editor or publisher wants to read to know your concept, test your writing skills and judge how original your whole treatment is without actually taking the time to read the book. They want to judge how good your book is, without reading it.

As writers, we're also told to have a concise, ten to thirty second long elevator pitch. My elevator speech/pitch is easy. The first book is Stephen King rewriting The Devil Wears Prada. The sequel is less flashy, but is something like "Fashion designer must defeat supernatural villains to heal the fractured soul of a dead friend in order to save her, and himself."

The trick of the synopsis is to maintain your writing voice and not to write a ninth-grade book report. Sometimes, it helps to read as you type. There seems to be something conversational about this endeavor...

This is an excerpt from mine synopsis for Book Two of the Fashion and Fiends series, Courting Apparitions:

Mount Bethel, Pa., February 2003. Etienne d’Amille hasn’t felt much like himself lately—not since he suffered a heart attack after finding his surrogate daughter Adelaide Pitney dead of suicide in his bathtub. He’d always worried about the prospect of dying young like his father, but the reality of it hadn’t sunk in until that day. Five months later, the frenetic French fashion designer and his 32-week pregnant ex-wife, Basilie, return to the United States to sell the house where she killed herself.

It’s only a matter of days before they discover Adelaide left something behind—her ghost.
So, while heart medication and depression have stifled Etienne’s joie de vivre, creativity, and legendary capacity to reduce any woman to putty, he now must deal with voices in the night, eerie dreams, premonitions, and visions of Adelaide. The d’Amilles quickly learn that Adelaide did not clumsily end her own life. Instead, mysterious photographer Galen Sorbach murdered her for her magickal powers. Etienne doesn’t believe in ghosts, and he sure as Hell doesn’t believe in magick.

Etienne isn’t the only one freaked out by Adelaide’s earthly return. When Galen coerced Adelaide into surrendering her water-based elemental powers, he thought he’d gained the final segment to master his magick. But, Galen noticed his aptitude in fire magick didn’t return as it should have with Imbolc and its promise of spring. Then, Etienne saw something that had disturbed Galen for months: Adelaide’s traits surfacing through Galen’s body.

Now I'm going to skip ahead to the very end:
Each member of the d’Amille family must offer Adelaide what they carry of her, and Etienne must place the final kiss on Adelaide’s unembalmed year-plus-old corpse to give her rest. Adelaide has one last act before she goes, she reaches into Etienne’s chest and heals his troubled heart.

This particular synopsis is three pages.

On Conflict

A good friend of mine said to me last night, "sounds like a great conflict."

Another good friend several year's ago reminded me that each character needs an external and an internal conflict.

As writers, we must torture our characters.

I never intended to write a series. I hate series. Typically, stories that run in series read like one great big story with very slow pacing. Or perhaps, more so, pacing that feels the same in all the books. And after several books the rhythm becomes predictable.

The friend who reminded me about internal and external conflict wanted a sequel to my manuscript, the one I'm marketing to agents now. I knew in my head what happened next, and in telling her, she became captivated and asked me to write it. So I did. The third volume came purely as therapy when I lost a job and needed to distract my own brain from my troubles.

At that time I had a two-year-old and I wrote 180,000 words in 31 days (July 2007). Whenever my daughter slept, I was at the keyboard.

This is what my experience with a series taught me:

• Each book needs to "up the ante." In other words, the bad things that happen to the characters/ their struggles need to increase significantly with each volume. To keep the reader interested, to keep them guessing, and to make sure they can't predict your writing.

• If the characters change, their internal conflicts must change with them.
• One character should be struggling with a conflict across the entire series. The end of this conflict should signal the end of the story.

If I look at my first book, the following items happen:

• One person dies, one person almost dies
• There is a car accident
• There is a medical emergency (not related to the person who dies or the person who almost dies)
• The reader witnesses two murders.

If I look at my favorite character, he experiences the following in the first book:

• Relationship issues (who doesn't?)
• He *gains* something he never expected he would
• He loses a friend
• He has health issues

In the second book, he:

• copes with losing his importance in his own company
• becomes impotent
• has a bad leg AND a bad heart
• hangs out with the wrong woman
• must rescue his wife and newborn son from a bad situation he caused
• survives a serious house fire

And in the third book, he:

• corrects #1,2 & 3 on the list above
• has an affair
• almost loses his wife
• ends up tortured (literally)

In the end, his wife is the hero(ine), and there is a "happily ever after" ending, but see what they must endure first? Oh, I am so evil.

Deadlines and expectations

I have impressed myself with my ability to get my second novel edited over the holidays. I shouldn't be, as I know myself and how obsessed I become when I'm in the midst of a project (plus how exhilarated I get when writing).

In a discussion last week with novelist Molly Cochran she mentioned the importance of writing everyday. When you don't write everyday, she said, you lose track of where you are and where you are going.

Oh, yeah, I agree with that. On the same token, I don't believe a writer has to write everyday, but a serious writer should. Treat it like a job. An amateur writer who wishes to improve himself/herself must follow this advice, because it takes a certain amount of focus and craft to work on a project without continuity.

I know. I know because I am a mom, a college student, a community volunteer and an employee of a local non-profit. I started these revisions over the summer and submitted them to my critique group. In early December, right before finals, I ditched the first chapter and wrote a new one. I started changes to chapter two.

After Christmas, I thought I could finish them one evening. More than three weeks had passed, and when I opened the chapter, I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I spent the entire evening reading my most recent revisions. And then I realized I didn't like the new chapter two, so I started outlining another chapter two.

Now, over the last four or so days I have fixed that chapter, cleaned up and added some stuff to chapter three and edited chapter four. But most of that success is because I have been working on it every day. Yes, inconsistently for an hour or two here or there as my family life allows.

But every day.

And it makes a huge difference in the quality.

This brings me to my blog. In talking to other writers, most are setting goals to update their blogs weekly or twice a week. I guess I'm a little nuts for doing this daily. In order to give myself some breathing room, I'm going to post entries on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Writers, Readers and Friends

A friend of mine asked if she could read one of my stories some day... every time she mentions it, I had brushed the thought aside. She's a "new" friend who works at the local library and has a European background and a literary taste similar to mine.

As writers, we gather friends around us who are other writers, readers, or "bookless" folk. When one of the more "bookless" friends asks to read something, I always worry it's just a polite offer to show interest in something I do. I avoid dealing with these offers. Until they get wrapped up in my literary pursuits some other way.

Now, writer friends fall into two camps: the anxious and the reluctant. Both are dangerous. The anxious writer friend wants to read you as soon as possible, as if to judge you and base your friendship on what your words do. These writers can be dangerous. They're the ones that can sometimes push too far in "helping" and try to influence your work in ways you don't want and then you're stuck telling them their ideas suck.

The reluctant reader is the writer friend whose voice you respect, and you want to read their stuff because you like them so much (becoming the anxious reader from above) and you want to know if they like your stuff. Almost like seeking compatibility as much as moral support. But you don't want to ask or be pushy.

My new friend is a reader, and readers are the best friends writers can have. They read the work and react to it without trying to influence it. They are honest without looking for things to fix and they can read the work without pushing their own style on it.

But as a friend, considerate writers need to remember not to overwhelm their reader friends with too many requests. That's why I'm often reluctant to take advantage of a new reader friend, because that level of intimacy changes the relationship. As the author, you have certain questions you want to ask, but you don't want to become a pest or desperate.

So, if you ask to read my stuff, remember this.

Sequel Chapter two done (hopefully)

So, a few weeks ago I was thrilled to revise the first chapter of my second book in my series. I finally came up with a concept that worked. A concept that conveyed all the items and tensions I needed, with action and compassion and characterization.

Chapter three is strong. Chapter four is even stronger.

But chapter two... well, with a new chapter one, I had to toss chapter two to the dogs. It didn't make sense. For days, I have puttered around the house trying to come up with what I needed to do in chapter two. Oh, the mundane realities of what came next were easy, but as I sat down to write, I realized, 12 pages in... I had pertinent information, but nothing that advanced the plot.

I had too many new characters introduced, random conversations in the kitchen, detailed getting ready for bed rituals, even 800 words on how to cover a bruise with make-up.

So I needed to consider my objectives for the chapter and list my housekeeping items:

• acclimate the reader to the layout of Étienne's house
• foreshadow some of Étienne's relationship struggles
• develop a secondary character, but not ALL of them, not in the same chapter
• construct more of an identity for the deceased character
• have the characters find the secret sketchbook

Now, in addition, I tend to write my chapters almost like short stories, with a central action. So I needed something to fuse these ideas.

At it's simplest, chapter one breaks down to this:
The main character heads to a bar, meets an old acquaintance who dated the now deceased character, has a hallucination and gets into a fight.

Chapter two now goes something like this:
Character goes home, has heart-to-heart with old friend/employee and in the morning, they pack deceased characters clothes until her parents arrive.

How can such simple things cause such pain?