Speed is of the Essence

To complete the NaNoWriMo challenge, you absolutely MUST resist the urge to go back and edit anything you’ve written before.  Any time you spend rewriting your work is time you’re taking away from the goal of cranking out additional words.  Remember, once the challenge is over, you have all the time in the world to go back and make your words better.  But if you don’t have them written there is nothing to make better.

So, how do you resist the urge to go back and rewrite?  These are the tools and techniques that worked for me, and may help you:

• Before you start, brainstorm. Get to know your characters, the locations they’ll be in, and have a basic idea for how they’ll get from start to finish.  I have a list of many free open source tools and commercial fiction writing tools on this site. (Remember, these are just tools.  Use them to enhance your writing process – not tell you what to write and how to write it.  It’s your novel, after all.)
• Create a “revision log” that stores all the changes you want to go back and make later.  Once you make a note in the log, keep writing as though the revision has already been made.
• Use “placeholder text” for any person, place, or object names you haven’t figured out yet.  Later, you can “find and replace” that placeholder text with the name you decide on.  If you feel like it’s essential that you have something named before you move on, remember that there are a lot of “name generators” on the web that can help you.
• Plot out your novel in a “modular” way to make it easy to restructure and reorganize later. Write in “scenes” rather than chapters, where a “scene” is defined as a specific group of characters in a specific place, doing a specific thing.  If the location, group, or activity changes, it’s a new scene.
• Use a novel-writing tool like Scrivener, yWriter, NewNovelist, Storybook, or any of dozens of other fiction writing tools designed for the purpose.  I found that with Scrivener I could store my revision log in the same project file as my novel, so I could easily add to it as I went.
• Realize that you’re only writing your first draft.  Like any first draft, it’s probably going to stink.  That’s OK.  You’re the only one who has to read it right now.  And no one will ever read it if you don’t get it written.

I’m going to expand on the above points a bit, to help you understand what I mean.  Feel free to skip the rest of this article or scan down to the points that interest you.

Brainstorming

When I started writing my NaNoWriMo 2009 novel, I had only the vaguest idea how the story would go.  My writing was sort of a “fictional stream of consciousness” from the starting point.  As plot ideas came to me, I incorporated them.  When I decided they were clichés, I abandoned them.  The finished piece was, well, crap.  But, I did meet my goal of 50,000 words of fiction in a month.

For 2010, I was determined to do better.  I found a copy of Dramatica Pro for sale on eBay, and managed to snag it for $35.  It’s normally around a $200 program, so this was a major steal.  I spent as much spare time as I could stand with the software through September and October, telling it about the characters I envisioned, the story I was hoping to tell, etc.  When I finally hit the end of its brainstorming process at the end of October, I had around 12,000 words of background material on the characters, their relationships, the story lines, etc.

I’m not suggesting that you need to run out and spend money on writing software.  Here are some less expensive solutions if you don’t have the money (or desire) to invest in a software product:

• “How to Write a Damn Good Novel” by James N. Frey was one of the first books I read on the subject, and is still one of my favorites.  You may find a copy in your local library, a used bookstore, or a friend’s bookshelf.
• “How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II” by James N. Frey expands on the first book and offers additional material.
• “Fiction Writer’s Workshop” by Josip Novakovich contains a number of exercises to help you find and expand on ideas.
• “Beginnings, Middles & Ends” by Nancy Kress provides some good advice.
• Although it’s not specifically about novel writing, J. Michael Straczynski’s “The Complete Book of Scriptwriting” includes a wealth of good writing tips.
• Discuss your story idea with friends, especially those who are avid readers.  If they tell you your story idea reminds them of something they’ve already read, think about how you can twist the idea so that it no longer resembles the story they read.
• Visit your local library and talk to the librarians.  Some libraries offer writing workshops and programs that might help you.
• Use the web!  Here are a few links I’ve found interesting (there are more in the “Writing Resources” area of this site):

o   [io9.com] “The 5 laws of making a story complicated without creating an ungodly mess” by Charlie Jane Anders

o   [suite101.com] “How to Create a Plot for a Novel” by Suzanne Pitner

o   [creative-writing-now.com] “Tips for Writing a Novel: So You’ve Got an Idea  — What Now?” by William Victor

o   [musik-therapie.at] “Learn the Elements of a Novel”

I’m sure you can find many more.  Consider the above just a starting point.

Creating and Using a Revision Log

If you’ve read many books or articles on novel writing, you’ve probably seen some version of the advice “Write your way through to the end without stopping.”  This is good advice in general, but it’s absolutely critical in a deadline situation like NaNoWriMo.  Unfortunately, as you start writing your book, you will invariably think of things that should be different in the parts you’ve already written.  Maybe your main character should be female instead of male, maybe the setting should a space station rather than a train station, or maybe your heroine should have two brothers instead of a sister.  The temptation is to go back and rewrite those earlier parts to make those sweeping changes.  If you keep a revision log, you can discipline yourself to let go of that need to change things.

Imagine that you’ve been writing a story about a man who travels to Europe and meets the love of his life there.  About ten chapters in, you realize that there are some great things you could do with this story if only your main character was a woman.  What do you do?  Open up your revision log.  Leave yourself a note like “Fred should really be a woman.  In chapters 1-10, rewrite Fred to Jane and set up the fact that Jane was robbed at gunpoint in the airport before coming to Europe.”

Now, close the revision log and write as though you’ve already made those changes.  From the next word you write until the end of the book, start writing “Jane” where you were writing “Fred” and refer to the robbery as though you had written it in from the beginning.

When you finish the first draft, open up your revision log and go back to make the changes needed to properly tell your story.  Rather than chewing up your deadline time going back and rewriting words (which won’t add to your word count or get you any closer to the end of your tale), just keep writing and trust yourself to go back to make the necessary changes once your first draft is written.

Yes, not making the revisions as you go means that there can be huge inconsistencies in your novel at the end of the first draft.  But that’s OK.  It’s a first draft.  No one has to read it but you, and you can always make the changes later before you show it to anyone.  (And you can still call that updated version a first draft if you want to, if that makes you feel better.)

Using Placeholder Text

Something I struggled with in both of my NaNoWriMo novels was naming the characters and places in the story.  No matter what name I came up with, I just didn’t like it.  Even going through the lengthy plotting process in Dramatica, I just couldn’t seem to think of good names for my characters and locations.  Finally, I told myself “We’ll plug those in later” and moved on.

Anywhere I needed to refer to a character I hadn’t named, I used placeholder text like “[Village]” for the name of the main character’s home town, which I had pictured as a small village.  When I later settled on the name “Estervale”, I had the word processor replace “[Village]” with “Estervale” throughout the document.  The resulting text makes it look like I had that name in mind from the beginning.

The key to using Placeholder Text is to make sure that you mark it in a way that uses spelling or punctuation that you wouldn’t normally use in the story.  For my example above, it is possible I might have used the word “village” in the story to refer generically to a village.  By surrounding the placeholder with brackets (“[]”) I could ensure that my find-and-replace method replaced only the placeholder text and not every occurrence of the word “village” in my story.  If you planned to use brackets in your story, use some other punctuation mark instead.  Or, if you want to leave your options completely open, make your placeholder text unique – like “InsertVillageName” or some other string you know you won’t use in the story.

And be sure to list these placeholders in your Revision Log to remind you what they are and that you need to go back to fix them later.

“Modular Plotting”

In one of the fiction writing seminars I have attended, the presenter defined the word “scene” as he saw it.  The definition condensed to “A group of one or more characters, in a specific location, doing a specific thing, over a specific period of time.”  By his definition, if you had three characters in their living room, trimming a Christmas tree, and one of them left the room, you had a new scene.  If the three characters stay in the room, but finish trimming the tree and start making cookies, that’s a new scene.  At the time, I thought this was splitting hairs, and a lot of extra work.

As it turns out, it’s really rather logical, fairly easy to do, and has one very useful benefit.  Your entire story becomes “modular”.  Imagine you aren’t using the concept of scenes as I’ve described here.  Instead, you’ve written a chapter of your book where three characters trim a Christmas tree, bake cookies, and go caroling.

Farther along in your writing, you realize that the cookie baking activities should really take place much earlier in the story, perhaps two or three chapters earlier.  If you’ve written the story chapter-by-chapter, you’ll have to read through the chapter until you get to the cookie baking part, cut it out of the story, clean up the text before and after it, paste it into the earlier chapter, then adjust the text before and after it.   It’s not big deal, but it could have gone much easier if you’d written the story in a modular fashion.

In the “modular” version of the above story, you have separate “scenes” for the tree trimming, cookie baking, and caroling activities.  Each scene could be stored in a separate file, or a separate element in your preferred writing tool.  When you realize that you want the cookie scene to appear sooner in the story, all you have to do is move that file earlier into the book.  You might need to adjust the start and end of the file to blend into the new location, but you probably won’t have to change anything in the scenes before and after it.  The scenes are “modular” in nature and can be shifted about as needed.

The Scrivener software lends itself very well to this modular approach.  So would the open source Storybook software.  All of these allow you to have a “master document” with “sub-documents” that you can move about as needed.

This approach could also be used with the traditional “index card” method where each card represents a specific scene.  The writer can shuffle the cards into any order to tell the story in the desired way.

Novel Writing Tools

Because I’m still a fledgling, unpublished, newbie author, I realize that there is a lot I don’t know about how to write a good story.  For me, using tools like Dramatica helps me to think my story through before I sit down to write it.  But just as important as plotting out the story is the tool you use to help you enter and organize your words.

For NaNoWriMo 2009, I used Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org and they were fine.  I got the job done, and hit my 50,000 words without a problem.  After beating the challenge that year, I received a discount coupon for the Scrivener software for the Macintosh.  I ran through the tutorials provided with it and realized it was a good fit for the way I wrote.  I bought a copy.  Then, as ridiculous as it might seem, I bought a MacBook so that I could have the software with me when I traveled.  Up that point, I hadn’t owned or used a Mac for about 10 years.

Just prior to starting NaNoWriMo 2010, I found out that they are working on a Windows compatible version of Scrivener.  Since my primary desktop computer is a Windows 7 machine, this was good news.  I downloaded and used the beta to write my 2010 story, and I’ve been very happy with the software.  (I have a review of Scrivener for Windows available.)

I created separate “Texts” (think of them as text files) for each scene in my story.  Into each of these text files, I pasted the text from my Dramatica brainstorming about what I wanted to accomplish in that scene.  When November 1 rolled around and NaNoWriMo began, I opened up each text file and started writing the scene I had described in the notes.  When I was finished, I deleted the notes.

By organizing each text file around a specific scene, I was able to move events in the story to earlier or later parts of the book by simply clicking and dragging them in the Scrivener window.  This made it much easier for me to restructure parts of the narrative on the fly without actually having to do any revision.

When I have the story in Scrivener the way I want it, I can have the software “Compile” all those text files in order into a finished manuscript file.

I was also able to create a “Research” folder  that contained information about the characters, locations, and story points I wanted to make.  I also included a Revision Log among those documents, which I updated as I continued to write.  (Items in the research folder are not included in the draft that Scrivener compiles for you.)

Below is a screenshot of Scrivener in action, with a portion of my NaNoWriMo 2010 book open in it.

Scrivener Text View

In the left-hand pane of this window, you can see that I’ve got a separate text document for each scene in the novel.  The center pane is the word processor built into Scrivener, in which you can see the text for the scene “Kevin is attacked”.  In the upper-right pane, I have the “index card” telling me the name of the scene and a brief description of what happens in it.  Below that, I’ve labeled this document as a “Scene” and indicated that it is in “First Draft” status.  Additional notes can be entered into the “Document Notes” section if I need more than the Index card holds.

By clicking and dragging any of the text files in the left-hand pane, I can move the corresponding scene earlier or later in my story line.  There is also an “index card” view that allows me to reorganize the story using a virtual version of paper index cards.

Scrivener Corkboard View

Since this isn’t a review of the software, I’m not going to go into great detail about it here.  Suffice it to say that I found Scrivener very helpful and intuitive for my particular writing style.  It may or may not be helpful for yours.

Other similar tools you might want to consider include Spacejock Software’s free yWriter 5 software, which includes features for organizing scenes, project notes, characters, locations, and items – as well as writing your story.

Spacejock Software's yWriter 5

The open source “Storybook” software also provides tools for organizing your story components as well as drafting the story itself.  As you can see below, I began writing my notes for NaNoWriMo 2010 in Storybook before switching over to Scrivener.  I was already using the “scene” idea.  Each of the thin boxes you see in the left-hand pane represents a modular scene.  Storybook allows you to drag those around as need between the chapters (the larger gray boxes).

Open Source Storybook Software

If you’d like to try fiction writing software and don’t have money to spend, Storybook is a nice option since it’s free of charge (though the free version does contain a few “nag” messages about donating to the project).

From now until the release of the finished version, the public beta for Scrivener for Windows is free.  (The Mac version can be downloaded as a free trial.)

yWriter 5 is a free product as well, and is worth taking a look at.

There are many other text editors, word processors, and novel writing products on the market you can consider as well.  Some of these are listed on my site’s Resources page.

Conclusion

Getting a novel written in 30 days is not an impossible challenge.  In each of the last two years, I’ve managed to win the NaNoWriMo challenge of creating 50,000 words of original fiction in a month.  The keys for me have been to plot out the idea in advance, use a modular approach to constructing the story, use a revision log to keep myself from wasting time revising as I go, and having novel writing software to help me keep things organized.  Hopefully, some of these tools and ideas will help you in your own writing.

The “goodies” that winners of the challenge receive include a  congratulatory video featuring the staff of the Office of Letters and Light (which runs the contest), downloadable “winner” badges like the one pictured here, and a PDF certificate you can download, customize with your name and your novel’s name, then print and (if you like) frame.

I ordered my “winner shirt” from them.  This is a standard T-shirt which features a variation on the image shown above.  (Costs $20.00 with profits funding next year’s event.)

On December 2, winners receive a promotional code from Amazon.com’s “CreateSpace” service and the developers of the “Scrivener” software.  The CreateSpace code allows you to print a paperback copy of your book for free, one that looks like any paperback you might find on the shelves at a local bookstore.  The Scrivener code provides a 50% discount on their novel writing software (which I used to great effect this year on Windows and have previously purchased for the Macintosh).

My novel isn’t finished yet, but I’m planning to complete it now and edit it some time in the next few weeks.  Then I’ll have CreateSpace print a copy I can put on the shelf.

On the other hand, I have a much better handle on where I need the story to go this year than I did last year.  I have a set of scenes plotted out in Scrivener and all I really need to go is go back and write them.  Motivating myself to do that is, and has typically been, the greatest challenge for me.  There’s a part of me that feels like once I’ve outlined the story and fleshed it out a bit, it’s “done” and there’s no point continuing to write.  That’s silly, of course, but it’s how my mind works.  Yesterday I managed to push quite a bit of text out.  On 11/25, I was counting about 11,000 words of notes in my total.  Today, with over 42,000 words as my total, I am counting only finished words in the draft.  So I’ve managed to crank out over 10,000 words today alone, which is pretty darned good.

But is it good enough to reach 50,000 by November 30?  We’ll have to see.

While this is good as far as the challenge is concerned, I was really hoping to be at the 40,000 word (or higher) mark at this point, so I am disappointed in my progress.

Also true is that I’m counting 11,997 words of character notes, background material, and scene descriptions in the total, so my finished word count is much closer to 20,000 (which means I’m actually behind the 26,667 word point I should be at by now.  That’s also disappointing.

Fortunately, however, I am taking all of next week off.  While I am doing this in part to relax, spend time with family, and do some holiday shopping, I’m also doing it to start kicking out the word count.  I’m hoping that at the end of next week I’ll be well above 50,000 words of “finished product” and moving closer to my 80,000 word goal.  Time will tell, however.

I was pleased to learn last week that the makers of one of my favorite writing tools, Scrivener, have announced the upcoming release of a Windows version of the software.  I own the Mac version, and it was in fact the reason I looked for a Mac when I purchased my last laptop.  Normally, I have no use for the Macintosh operating system.  (It’s not that I have any particular problem with the Mac, it’s more that I switched to Windows in 1998 and I haven’t had a compelling reason since then to switch back – Scrivener included.)

I’ve been using the free public beta of Scrivener for Windows since I found out about it.  For Nanowrimo 2010 I had been using the open source Storybook software which is fairly similar and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.  The Scrivener beta has so far been very reliable and hasn’t crashed, though it has exhibited a couple of bugs that I’ve reported to the development team.  I expect to complete this novel entirely in Scrivener now and to acquire the final released version in 2011 when it comes out.  If you don’t have a favorite writing environment you might want to check it out, especially since it’s free at the moment.

Well, I’d better get to cranking out today’s words…

Those who complete this goal will be dubbed “Winners” and will get some token prizes.  These include a printable certificate with your name, graphics (similar to the one at the left) to post on your site, and discounts with a number of merchants who offer products and services for writers.  The most significant freebie you get is the opportunity to have Amazon.com’s “CreateSpace” service produce a printed paperback copy of your finished NaNoWriMo novel.  I didn’t take advantage of that particular benefit last year because I never got the novel finished and what I had in those 50,000 words (to be quite honest) was terrible.

This year, I started preparing in September.  I began writing my notes and character sketches, and even fired up a copy of Dramatica Pro 4.0 to help me brainstorm and gather my thoughts.  My plan this year is to actually complete the entire novel (which will likely be more like 80,000 words) and have something I can officially print into book form via CreateSpace.

If you’d like to follow my progress on the book, here’s the link to my profile on the site.  (The site’s been really, really slow lately, so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work that well.)

I thought it might help to investigate some of the many software packages available for writers of fiction, to see if these would help guide me through the planning phases of my novel writing and perhaps help me to better flesh out my ideas.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve become aware of many software tools of value to fiction writers (some of these include Windows, Linux, and Macintosh versions, others are Windows only).  The Fiction and Novel Writing Software List below is the result of my research:

• Black Obelisk Software’s “Liquid Story Binder”: This Windows-only application is rather daunting for first-time users. It incorporates character dossiers, timelines, storyboards, journals, outlines mind maps, and more. It probably has every tool you would want, and although I own two licenses to it (long story, involving keeping bad records) I’ve yet to actually really learn it.
• Richard Salsbury’s (no relation) “RoughDraft”: This is a donationware word processor designed for writers. Richard stopped development on it in December 2009.
• Anthemion Software’s “Writer’s Café”: This application promises to include “everything you need to write fiction”. It features drag and drop cards to help you lay out a storyline, auto-formatting for screenplays, various built-in writing resources like writing prompts and an e-book of author Harriet Smart’s writing experiences.
• Write Brothers’ “Dramatica Pro 4.0”: I purchased an inexpensive copy of this from eBay a few weeks ago. I’ve decided to use its StoryGuide feature to make the first cut through my NaNoWriMo 2010 novel idea. I may supplement with other software later.
  
• Typing Chimp Software’s “Character Writer”: This looks like a pretty helpful tool for fleshing out a fictional character. It asks questions about the character’s mental health, personality type, psychology, childhood, dialogue style, relationships, etc..
• Space Jock Software’s “yWriter5”: This free software, created by an author, helps a writer track characters, chapters, scenes, locations, etc..
• StoryCraft: This software has been on the market for 15 years, and purportedly guides you through the story development process, helps outline it, improve character development, etc..
• Ravenshead Services’ “WriteItNow”: Includes storyboarding, monitoring your progress against writing targets, a thesaurus, a built-in editor, a “tree view” look at your work, and character profiles.
• StyleWriter: This application is a “style and usage checker” for writers that plugs into Microsoft Word on Windows. It looks for things like jargon, abstract words, passive verbs, clichés, and long sentences.
• Write Brain’s “PowerWriter”: This program includes integrated outlining, story development tools, integrated dictionary and thesaurus, and integrated storage of research.
• Write Brain’s “Power Structure”: This software is supposed to encourage writers to think through their stories. It helps the writer graphically analyze the evolution of conflicts in the story, organize story points in an index card style view, and supposedly acts as a “playground of the mind” for exploring the story you’re writing.
• NewNovelist: This product claims that you can use it to write a novel “your way” whether that means starting with the characters, the ending, or something in the middle. There isn’t a lot of detail about the software on the site, but there are a lot of linked reviews and testimonials from people who have used it. (I reviewed the 2.0 version on this site.)
• Fahim Farook’s “PlotCraft”: Described as a “complete idea/research management database utility for writers” this free software allows you to storage and save ideas for later use, including hyperlinks and images.
• Storybook: This free, open source software helps a writer organize characters, story strands, locations, and other details. It features a chronological view of the story, as well as a “book” view and “chapter/scene” view.
• Anthemion Software “Storylines”: This looks like it may be a defunct product, from the same folks who produce Writer’s Café. It is a storyboarding tool that helps organize the plot of a fictional story.  My biggest gripe about this software is it’s appearance.  It reminds me of one of those “child’s computer desktop” packages that tries to simulate a computer inside an application.
  
• Ashley Software’s “Writer’s Blocks 3”: Claiming to be “The Smartest Way to Write”, this software encourages the writer to create “blocks” of text that can be rearranged to better structure the story. It helps outline, organize research, structure the content, and more.
• wikidPad: This free open source software is designed to be a “wiki-like notebook” for storing thoughts, ideas, lists, contacts, etc. on your computer. It features text auto-completion, document history, auto save, search and replace, export to HTML, and more.
• WordWeb: This software is offered in free and Pro versions. It is described as a “comprehensive one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows”. It can look up words, show their definitions, synonyms, and related words. It also includes pronunciations and usage examples.
• WriteSparks: This software can reportedly generate over 10 million story ideas to help you come up with a story idea when you need one. (I haven’t had any trouble with that so far.)
• Fahim Farook’s “WriteTrack”: This is a submission-tracking tool for writers, to help them keep a handle on where they’ve submitted their work, when, etc..
  
• Spacejock Software’s “yEdit”: This looks like an ideal tool for NaNoWriMo. You set a target number of words to write, and the software tracks your progress toward that goal. It’s free of charge, too.
• WriteWay Pro: Includes book organization, outlining, composition, dictionary, thesaurus, notecards, character profiles and templates, word/page count tracking, reports and statistics, storyboarding, research folders, and more.
• Celtx: This software is described as “the world’s first all-in-one media pre-production system”. It includes screenplay, stageplay, AV script, audio play, comic book, and plain text editors. It contains storyboarding, sketching, document management, and more. Although aimed at screenwriters, it’s of value to all kinds of writers. I’ve seen this one being sold on eBay.
• The Literary Machine: This software is described as a “dynamic archive and an idea management tool aimed at creative thinking” for writers.
• Outline 4D for Windows: Outlining software for fiction, playwriting, and screenwriting.
• Literature and Latte’s Scrivener:  This software, a product of Literature and Latte Ltd., is my current tool of choice for novel writing activities.  While the current version is Mac-only, there are free public betas of Windows and Linux (at the bottom of the Windows page) versions available as of April 2011. I posted a review of the Scrivener for Windows beta on the site.
• Dramatica Pro:  This software is kind of “story brainstorming on steroids”.  You start by making some selections about the kind of story you want to write, and Dramatica helps guide you through the plotting and characterization to produce a well-fleshed-out story.
• Sol Stein’s WritePro:  Helps you flesh out characters, plot, etc.
• Fiction Master:  A more-advanced version of WritePro.
• Book Writer:  A word processor for creative writers.
• StoryView: Outlining software for writers.
• Serenity Software’s Editor: Proofreading and style checking tool for writers.
• Ashleywilde Software’s Storybase: Given information about your characters and their mindsets, it generates a list of plot ideas you might want to use.  They are currently beta testing an online version of the tool: Storybase.net
• MasterWriter: Word/phrase finding software which claims to help you find the right word or phrase for any situation.
• Melanie Ann Philips’ Storyweaver:  Provides step by step guidance to completing a story.
• Storyist: Mac-only story development software
• StoryO:  Story development software that resembles index cards
• Storymind Software’s Master Storyteller:  Having not actually used it, and not seeing a lot of detail on the vendor’s web site, it looks like a set of “flash cards” with tips and tricks to help you tell stories better.  They describe it as a set of interactive exercises.

And there are probably many more out there with which I’m not familiar.  It would be a very easy thing for a fledgling novelist to get bogged down for months examining and trying out all this software… and not actually doing any writing.  As a computer and gadget geek, I’m doubly susceptible to this.  I’ve had to be careful not to spend all my time trying to find the “right” package and actually do some WRITING with the tools.

There are also many excellent free and open source writing tools that you may find valuable.

Over the next few weeks and months, I hope to take the time to at least “play around” with each of the above packages (and any others I encounter).  When I feel that I have a firm enough grasp on any of them to be able to review it competently, I’ll share my thoughts here.

I’ve spent the most time with Dramatica Pro 4.0 so far, so it’s likely I’ll cover that one next.

One program I am finding very useful is Microsoft OneNote 2010.  As I read useful writing tips or come up with story ideas I want to pursue, I drop them into OneNote.

In any case, the above list may be helpful to you if you’re looking for some software to add structure and organization to your fiction writing efforts.

Analyzing the Chapter “Hooks”

I’ve been told that if you want your novel to be a real page turner, there are a few simple techniques that can help you achieve that. First, start each chapter with a “hook” that gets the reader asking questions like “Who is this? Why did that happen?” End each chapter with a cliff hanger of sorts that makes the reader wonder what’s next. If you also keep chapters close to an average length of around 2,500 words, most readers can get through one fairly quickly. They’ll get to the end of the chapter they’re reading and think, “That last chapter went pretty quick. I wonder what will happen next. I’ll just read one more chapter before I quit.” This cycle continues chapter after chapter, and soon the reader has finished the whole book. With this thinking in mind, I took a look at how Harrison started and ended the 19 chapters in The Stainless Steel Rat. (For me, the book has always been a page-turner.)

Chapter 1 starts off with a pretty strong hook:

When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up. It had been a money-maker — but it was all over. As the cop walked in I sat back in the chair and put on a happy grin. He had the same somber expression and heavy foot that they all have — and the same lack of humor. I almost knew to the word what he was going to say before he uttered a syllable.

At once, the reader starts asking questions. Who is telling me this? What money-making game is over? Why is a cop coming in, and why does that make the character smile? How does he know what the cop is going to say? The rest of the chapter explains that our main character is a career criminal who has been running a scam where cans of fruit stolen from a government warehouse are re-labeled by robots and sold to unwitting shopkeepers at great prices. He knows what the cop is going to say because it isn’t the first time they’ve tried to arrest him. The cliff hanger at the end of Chapter 1 is that although Jim has eluded the initial pursuit, he is still on the planet and might not get away.

Chapter 2 doesn’t a hook at the beginning. It takes some time to explain what our anti-hero is all about, how he views his life of crime as a sort of public service, and that there aren’t many like him in the galaxy. It ends with him on a different world, about to end a second criminal enterprise, only to realize that something isn’t right. Someone is looking for him.

Chapter 3 starts with Jim wondering who is after him, and trying to escape from them. It ends with him receiving an offer to join The Special Corps, an elite government agency that catches dangerous criminals and solves problems that individual planetary governments can’t. Jim sees this as “the end of loneliness”.

Chapter 4 shows Jim finding life in The Special Corps as a new recruit incredibly dull. It ends with him discovering a plot to build a nearly unstoppable battleship and being sent to investigate it.

Chapter 5 begins with a description of the planet Cittanuvo, on which the battleship is being built. It ends with the battleship taking off ahead of schedule and escaping, and Jim wondering how he’s going to catch it.

Chapter 6 is primarily there to slow down the frantic pace of action established in the earlier chapters. Jim spends time thinking about the mysterious people behind the battleship, what their motives might be, and how he might catch them. It ends with the cliff hanger that “the next four days passed very slowly”, leaving a reader to wonder what happened after that.

Chapter 7 ramps the action back up, with the battleship threatening Jim’s ship (which has been setup as a tempting robbery target). It ends with Angelina, who turns out to be the criminal mastermind behind the battleship’s construction, escaping. Jim realizes he’ll be seeing Angelina again.

Chapter 8 has Jim stealing a ship and heading out after Angelina. When an explosive device detonates on the ship just after Jim disconnects it, he realizes that he’s on his own now and can’t expect help from the Corps.

Chapter 9 sees Jim as an independent again, deciding how to find and capture Angelina. It ends with him finding her in a bar, pretending to be a prostitute.

Chapter 10 starts with Jim pretending to hire Angelina’s services following her back to her room. It ends with Jim realizing that this was a trap, and that she knew who he was. “Then, at the exact and ultimate moment of my maximum realization and despair she pulled the trigger. Not once, but over and over again. Four tearing, thundering bullets of pain directly into my heart. And a final slug directly between my eyes.” Naturally, the reader wonders how in the heck Jim can survive that.

Chapter 11 finds Jim coming around in an ambulance, groggy and in pain. He survived because of a bullet proof vest and a reflexive move to shield his head with his arms. He modifies his medical charts to appear dead on arrival and is taken to the morgue. He exits the hospital before being treated.

Chapter 12 finds Jim looking for a disgraced medical professional to help heal his wounds and perform plastic surgery on him. It ends with a realization that Angelina is mentally ill, and that he’ll have to “follow her down the path of insanity” if he hopes to catch her. This is another chapter that breaks the action for a bit.

Chapter 13 starts with Jim taking a combination of drugs to simulate Angelina’s various psychological issues. It ends with him passing out, after triggering a booby trap he set for himself to prevent him from taking human life in his psychotic state.

Chapter 14 begins with Jim realizing he’s in love with Angelina and that simulating her psychotic mind was intoxicating to him (“Even while detesting the thought I felt the desire for more of the same.”) It ends with executing the first step in plan to get her attention as a member of the planet’s royalty.

Chapter 15 starts with Jim in the royal prison wondering if he’ll ever get out. It ends with hooded figures breaking into the prison and pulling him out.

Chapter 16 finds Jim being introduced to Count Rdenrundt, who wants to take over the planet (presumably with Angelina’s help). There’s no way for Jim to know if Angelina is here or not, but he plays along anyway. It ends with him meeting Angelina and learning that he had killed the Count’s wife, only to cause her family to threaten revenge.

Chapter 17 has Jim wondering what to do. Should he turn Angelina in or stay with her? It ends with him learning that her psychotic nature was caused by childhood taunting over her ugliness, and Jim telling her that she’s not that little girl anymore (but slipping and calling her “Angelina” in the process).

Chapter 18 begins with some suspicion over an assassin sent to kill Angelina the night before. It ends with The Special Corps showing up and capturing Angelina, who thinks Jim was stalling her so that they could close in.

Chapter 19 explains that The Special Corps had been monitoring Jim all along, and waited to see what he did with Angelina before finally swooping in to capture her. It ends with Jim and Inkskipp believing they might be able to cure Angelina of her homicidal tendencies.

So we see that most of the chapters in the book follow the pattern. There is something of a mystery at the start of the chapter, and a question at the end that makes you wonder what will happen next. Chapters 6 and 12 serve as a kind of break in the action and provide readers with a chance to catch their breath.

The hooks are a bit subtle in some cases, but are present in nearly every chapter.

Coming Up in Part 3 – Characterization

In Part 3 of the analysis, I’m going to look at characterization. How does Harrison establish Jim DiGriz as a career criminal, yet a sympathetic and likable guy? How does he depict Angelina as a cold, calculating criminal, yet leave her sympathetic enough that Jim can fall in love with her? And how has Harrison set the stage for Angelina to become a major character in future Stainless Steel Rat novels?

Jesse dropped his newspaper on the table and looked at the others. They looked up from their eggs and bacon. Frank sipped his coffee.

“Says here this man got 18 years for killin’ his wife and kids,” Jesse announced. “Ask me, that’s better than payin’ child support.”

The others looked at each other and they saw they were all thinking the same thing. What a jerk. But he’s the boss, so what can we do? The waitress, wearing a red plaid uniform skirt and carrying a steaming pot of coffee, stepped over to their table.

“Can I freshen anyone up?”

Jesse looked up and smiled. “Me, honey.” His eyes traced her figure from neck to knees. He rubbed a palm on his jeans.

She stepped closer and tilted the coffee pot toward his cup. Jesse’s hand reached out toward her skirt. She stepped back out of reach. Jesse’s hand dropped to his lap. A smile flashed briefly on his lips. She stepped forward again and started to pour, but stopped when his hand moved toward her.

She put her left hand on her hip, and cocked her head to one side. “It’s hard to pour when I’m trying to stay away from your hand!”

“Honey, it ain’t nothing us truckers don’t do every day.”

She scowled at Jesse. “Well, you’re not doing it to me!” She walked over to the manager, who was now glancing at their table every few seconds.

Frank glared. “Why do you have to be like that, Jesse?”

The others’ eyes widened. Did he really say that?

Jesse glared, and made a noise like air escaping from a truck’s breaks. He sipped his coffee. His upper lip wrinkled.

“It’s cold.” He put the mug down and pushed it away.

“If you hadn’t tried to grope her, she’d have warmed it up.”

“Just havin’ a little fun, Frank.”

Frank looked down at his plate and moved the eggs around with his fork. If I didn’t need this job…

Jesse chuckled. “You sound like my ex-wife…”

Frank’s face reddened. “Well, it wasn’t your ex-wife that got caught in bed with that stripper from Rascals, was it?”

“Lorraine had it comin’.”

“How do you figure that, exactly?” He stared directly into Jesse’s eyes. He had to hear the old man wiggle out of this one.

“Wouldn’t give me any. Had to get it somewhere.”

Frank rolled his yes. The others hung their heads. “She was eight months pregnant, Jesse. Came in the front door holding your two-year-old daughter, pregnant with your son, and found you banging a stripper on the couch. Classy.”

“A man’s got needs. You wouldn’t know about that, I expect.”

Frank wanted to jump across the table and beat some sense into the old man, but it wasn’t worth it. He’d lose the job. The way the economy was, he might not find another for a while. With so many people out of work, no one was buying much, so there wasn’t much need for truckers to haul things around. He needed to calm down. He took a deep breath and released it slowly.

“Don’t you think Lorraine had needs, too?”

“I don’t know what she needed, but I know what she’s been gettin’ for the last ten years. Eight hundred bucks a month of my money. Can’t wait for them damned kids to turn eighteen and the court’s off my back.”

“They’re your kids, Jesse!”

“How do I know that?” Jesse stood up. “It’s time to get outta here. Frank, you’re haulin’ that load of manure up to Riley Farms. Joe, them TVs for Big Buy are yours. Marsha, I don’t have to tell YOU what to do.”

“No… Answer the phone, keep the books, and deposit the checks.”

“That’s right, darlin’. Lose a few pounds and maybe I can find something better for you to do.” He winked at her and grinned.

Pig! They picked up their bills, and walked to the cashier.

The waitress looked over at the empty table. Three of the place settings had tips next to them. Next to the fourth there was only a newspaper.

]]> http://mikesalsbury.com/2010/09/15/jesse/feed/ 0 http://mikesalsbury.com/2010/09/03/notes-from-stackpoles-writing-in-the-post-paper-era/ http://mikesalsbury.com/2010/09/03/notes-from-stackpoles-writing-in-the-post-paper-era/#comments Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:07:38 +0000 mike http://mikesalsbury.com/2010/09/notes-from-stackpoles-writing-in-the-post-paper-era/ Continue reading →]]> At Gen Con 2010, I attended one of author Michael A. Stackpole’s seminars entitled “Writing Success in the Post-Paper Era”. The seminar description mentions that Stackpole was “the first author to offer fiction on the iPhone/iPod Touch through Apple’s App Store” and that he would give attendees “an up to date look at the digital revolution and explain how you can profit and develop your career”. He definitely delivered on that. Below are my notes:

• For every hardcopy book sold, two are printed.
• The economics of publishing are such that if 25% of the copies of a book sold are digital, publishers will drop the paper version.
• If you intend to make a living writing, you need a professional web site, a Facebook presence, and a Twitter feed. All of these will help get your name out there and draw people to your work.
• If you do a blog, everything you write, tweet, or post on Facebook should be entertaining. It should also be positive, and professional. All of these things become part of your image, and you want to present the image of an entertaining professional with a pleasant personality. If you come across as a moody jerk, a loser, or a person who sulks over all their rejection slips, that’s not going to help your reputation.
• You should be able to generate 500 words on pretty much any topic and make it entertaining. If you can’t, you probably shouldn’t be looking at writing as a career.
• A good, professional WordPress design will cost you $150-200. You should consider that an investment in your future, and not go with one of the free, cookie-cutter themes on the web. (Like the one I’m using here, I guess…)
• Buy domain names for yourself, your main character names, and book titles. That will make it easier for people to find your site and your work.
• Mr. Stackpole uses Zen Cart on his site to handle payments and shopping cart duty.
• Paypal can provide a good payment option for customers. Make sure you get a merchant account with them, though.
• Put writing samples on your web site. This will help readers who are new to you decide whether or not to buy your work.
• Non-technical documents/books priced at over $10 will pretty much not sell as e-books.
• Pricing recommendations based on his experience: $2 for up to 10,000 words. $3 for 10-40,000 words. $5 for 50,000+ words.
• He recommends a metric over “word count divided by 10,000″ to represent “hours of reading enjoyment” for your work. Price based on that metric and describe your content in that terminology. The term “pages” doesn’t really apply in a digitial setting. Even describing in “word count” doesn’t work. What you’re really selling is the hours of enjoyment someone will get from your work.
• Consumers tend to be more concerned about the time cost of entertainment than the money cost.
• We’ll start seeing more digital serial stories in the future, similar to TV episodes, that are sold for casual reading sessions and priced as above.
• The three main formats you should consider publishing your works in: PDF (optional), ePub (works for all devices except Kindle), and Kindle format. Those three formats should cover just about any e-reader your customer might have.
• Stackpole recommends “Legend Maker” software on the Mac for creating the eBooks.
• At some point there is probably going to be a “big collapse” of traditional publishing. Until then you have no reason not to submit your work to traditional publishers.
• Physical books will drive readers to your web site. That’s good. You get money from your web site faster. Publishers tend to pay 6-9 months after the sale of the book. Payment tends to be around $1.35 from the sale of a $10 paperback. Sell a $2 short story through your web site, and you’ll pocket around $1.67… so digital publishing is a better deal for the author. More money, sooner.
• As far as editing and proofing services, for a short story, it’s sufficient to have another writer look it over. For a novel, hire a freelance editor.
• A good strategy for offering samples on your site: Put up installments of a serial story free. Take them down after a week or two. Put up the next installment. Near the end, offer a digitial omnibus collection of the entire series, including the as-yet-unpublished installments. People will buy them to get the parts they’re missing and read the parts not available yet.
• In the digital age, there are no “established authors” anymore. You are as established as your web store.

Mr. Stackpole offers a “Digital Career Guide” for $30 through his web store that offers more detail, recommendations, and information. I purchased a copy at Gen Con but haven’t read it yet. I hope to publish a review when I do.

Make war, not peace! Ruffle the feathers of your characters. Stir the pot of emotions. Add a fistfight or two. Craft a clever and entertaining argument among your heroes. Not all conflict has to be bloody or increase the body count, but it does have to keep the reader turning the pages. Our panelists discuss the art of adding a dash of conflict to your pages.

Below are my notes from the seminar:

• Conflict drives everything in a book.
• Conflict happens whenever two or more characters (or forces, or philosophies) are in opposition.
• Conflict should build over the course of the story, starting small and growing larger.
• It’s important that you, and your reader, understand “the bad guy” and why that person does what they do. You don’t have to AGREE with the villain, just understand what makes them do what they do. Few, if any, human beings are intentionally “evil”.
• The term “psychometry” refers to knowing the history of an object at first touch. (One of the authors used that in a story. Sounded interesting to me so I made a note of it.)
• Having characters make the wrong choice because of their personalities can help build conflict.
• In achieving a goal, the character should try an easy or obvious solution, but fail. Then try a harder solution, and fail… and so on until the goal is achieved.
• Consequences of characters’ choices and actions should be explored. They might achieve their goal, but at what cost?
• Characters (and by extension, the reader) may not know the “right choice” for solving a problem.
• The two important points to consider in a conflict: What are the stakes? Why should we care?
• Conflict should be meaningful and advance the plot.
• Conflict should start as early as possible in the story.
• During action scenes (like fights), you want a level of descriptive detail that is appropriate to what a character in that situation might actually notice. For example, during a frantic martial arts battle, we shouldn’t see something like this:

The blow connected with Fred’s chin, knocking his head back. As his face turned toward the ceiling, Fred noticed the wallpaper border around it. The pattern looked familiar somehow. Of course! It was the same border his mother had put around the walls in their home on the Cape. He wondered if he would ever get back to that house. The summers there were so relaxing…

(A sequence like the above would stop the action DEAD in the story, and it’s unlikely anyone in the middle of a fight is going to reminisce about wallpaper and summer homes from their childhood. They might think back to a similar hit from a previous battle and how they reacted, but even that recollection is likely to be short and to the point.)