Category: Writing Craft

Who Are You (woot-woot)?

This week, YA Highway asks the questions How do you decide on names? Would you ever name a character after a friend/family member/ex?

Back when I was writing romances, I wanted everyday names for my characters. So I kept a baby names book near my computer. I’d flip through it for my hero’s or heroine’s name, looking for one that seemed to match the character’s personality. When I found the right name, a little bell would go off inside me. I could see the character that much more clearly.

When I started writing the Tankborn series, I couldn’t use a baby name book anymore. The Tankborn trilogy is set hundreds of years in the future. To set the tone for the world, the names needed to be a little more exotic than what’s on offer in the naming books. Also, I had a multi-ethnic cast and I needed names that would suit them. So I had to rely on the Web, and sites that listed, for instance, Brahmin or Chinese or Zimbabwe given names and their meanings. Here’s one of my fave sites for finding international names.

Kayla, the name of my main character in Tankborn, isn’t super unusual. At least it isn’t now. When I first came up with it, back when I was writing the movie script that later became Tankborn, I thought I’d made up the name Kayla. Not so much.

When I wrote the first book, I did make up some of the names of other characters: Tala, Jal, Tanti, Quila. In real life, people make up names all the time for their children, why wouldn’t they in my future world? I used made up names mostly for GENs, sometimes for lowborns. And just as with Kayla, sometimes the names I thought were made up, that originated with me, were actually “real” names (Pia and Risa come to mind).

For my trueborns, I used real names of various ethnicities. There’s Devak (Indian), my main male character, Devak’s friend, Junjie (Chinese), Devak’s father and mother, Ved (Indian) and Rasia, (Indian). Raashida (African), is an important character in Awakening, the upcoming follow-on to Tankborn.

Do I ever use the names of real people in my books? Yes, although I don’t match the character to the real person. I just “borrow” the real name because I like it and it works for my book. I borrowed Zul (Devak’s great-grandfather) and Azad (Devak’s dead half-brother) from people I actually know.

How about you? If you write, how do you come up with those character names? If you’re a reader, have you ever stumbled across a name that didn’t seem to fit the character, or a name that was absolutely perfect?

December 19, 2012
I Love You, You’re Perfect…Now I’m Gonna Revise You
This week, with November and NaNoWriMo in the rear view mirror, YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday asks, How do you approach editing/revising?

So, here’s the first most important thing about revising. You should write your draft knowing that you not only don’t have to get it perfect the first time through, you’re not expected to get it perfect. That’s one thing about NaNoWriMo that’s pretty great. The demand is so enormous (having to average close to 1700 words a day, every single day of November), you can’t possibly revise as you go. You just have to barrel ahead, getting the words down. But you have that freedom every time you write. You can always fix it later.

Here’s the second most important thing–nothing that you’ve written is sacred. Nothing. Nothing. Every chapter, scene, paragraph, word, even character must be subservient to the story. If something doesn’t work, even if it worked at first, but in the course of revising is no longer relevant, that beautiful chapter, scene, paragraph, word, or character must go. And you must be ruthless in cutting out that dead weight.

Here’s the third most important thing about revising. You must approach your revisions as if you were the editor rather than the writer of the book. You must go in there looking for trouble, not expecting a masterpiece. And you should never take it personally. Even the best manuscripts go wrong sometimes.

Now that we’ve got those three basic musts down, here are a few other things I’ve learned over the course of writing and revising 20+ books.
1. Give it a rest. After you’ve finished your manuscript, give yourself some time so you can return to it with a fresher eye. How much time? I personally don’t like to go longer than a week, and it’s usually just a few days. But you might need a couple weeks or even a month.
2. Give it a read and think story as you go. Are the story questions answered? Are all the setups paid off? Is there extraneous material that doesn’t move the story forward? Are there characters who don’t pull their weight? This is where your major revising will be happening, where your bigger problems are solved.
3. Give it another read and look at characters and details. Are your characters’ actions & dialogue consistent for them? Have you introduced word or phrasing repetitions in the course of your first big revision? Ditto for typos?
4. Give it a final read. Are there any parts that just don’t flow? Awkward phrasing, expository dialogue, settings that are either overly detailed or not detailed enough? Anything confusing that you think a reader might stumble over or have a problem following?
5. Let someone else give it a read. If you have a critique group or a beta reader, preferably someone who has never heard about the story, ask them to read it. It has to be someone whose opinion you completely respect and trust. And you have to be open-minded about their feedback.
6. As needed, give the manuscript one last revision based on reader feedback.
So is it a hard and fast rule that you must give your book three (and only three, no more, no less) readthroughs? No. But is it necessary to pay attention to all of the above elements while revising? I’d say yeah. If you can do that with one pass through the book, that’s great. As long as you’re reading with an editors eye, and are brutally honest with yourself about what’s working and what’s not.

Happy revising!
December 5, 2012
Lee Child is a Pantser (and So Can You!)

The other night, I had the fortunate opportunity to attend a talk by mega bestselling thriller author Lee Child. He is funny, charming, and down-to-earth, not at all the prima donna stereotype of an internationally successful writer. Even in the face of reader controversy (and these were some passionate readers in the audience of about 650) Child stood his ground, explaining why in the upcoming film, Jack Reacher, his main character, standing six-foot-five and weighing in at 250 pounds, will be played by Tom Cruise, who stands a tad shorter and is a wee bit lighter weight. (Short answer–there aren’t too many actors who can “open” a movie and none of the ones who can are of Jack Reacher’s physical stature).

One of the best parts of the talk was when Child described his working style as a writer. He’s not a morning person. He’s up by around 10:30am and doesn’t start working until about noon. He tends to write for 4-5 hours, then the well is pretty much dry. (Side note: My husband was there, and I was glad he heard this. Because my experience is similar in that I have a limit after which I just have to walk away from the book).

It takes Child about 90 days like that to finish a book. I’m going to guess his books are at least 120,000 words long, which means he’s writing close to 1500 words/day. That’s a hard pace to keep up. Could be even more words if that 90 days counts editing time.

One tidbit I found especially interesting about Child’s method is that he does not outline his books. At all. He wants to have the same experience as an author (gee, I wonder what’s going to happen next?) as a reader does. This is utterly amazing. He writes big, complex books, and I’ve never seen anything in them that seems out of place or extraneous. To write all that off the cuff is awe-inspiring.

After the talk, I had an even more delightful opportunity–to exchange a few words with Child. I’d bought two of his books at the event, the newest Reacher novel, A Wanted Man, which came pre-signed, and a backstory book, The Affair, which wasn’t signed. So I stood in line with hundreds of other equally excited fans wondering if I would just stand there squeeing like a fangirl, or if I would be able to say something coherent.

I’m glad to say I was mostly coherent. I said to him, “So, you’re a pantser,” and he confessed he was. I then told him that I was a total plotter, my very unsubtle way of announcing that I was also a writer. He asked my name, asked me what I wrote, I told him young adult, and squeezed in that I’d just sold two mysteries to Angry Robot’s new Exhibit A imprint. His assistant (publicist?) said, “Oh, we’ve heard really good things about them,” and I was totally chuffed. I moved on, not wanting to monopolize his time any more than I had.

Very fab night. But here’s the grand revelation I experienced. Yes, I’m a plotter before I start writing. I’ve got a 21-page synopsis of Revolution, the third Tankborn book. But when I’m writing, an entirely different process takes over. I almost never look at that synopsis. I get brilliant inspirations. I have someone come into a room and have no idea why they’re there, and they’re looking for something, and I have no clue why that thing even matters. But then something clicks, that pantsing moment, and I realize this seemingly mundane scene I’ve written is a set up for something wonderful later on down the line. Something very important to the story.

So, by God, I am a pantser. And I’m glad to tell the world.

December 1, 2012
The Trouble With Trilogies

Back in my romance writing days, I didn’t write trilogies. The love stories I wrote were one-offs. Although half of my Harlequin books (Counting on a Cowboy, A Father’s Sacrifice, His Baby to Love, The Three-Way Miracle, and Her Baby’s Hero) were all set in the same small town of Hart Valley and had some overlapping characters, there weren’t any connections between the stories. There were two books I did for Harlequin (Their Second-Chance Child and The Family He Wanted) that were part of the Fostering Family mini-series, where the second book picked up where the first left off. Characters from the first book were mentioned in the second, but the main story revolved around a new hero and heroine.

Then along came Tankborn. When I first wrote Tankborn, I had a hazy idea of possibly writing a trilogy. Then when I signed with my agents and we were getting the manuscript ready for submission, they suggested I write up short blurbs for a second and third book. When we sold to Lee and Low/Tu Books, the original contract was only for the one book, but we later sold them two other books to complete the trilogy.

So my foray into writing my first real trilogy actually commenced with the second Tankborn book. With book one, I was blissfully ignorant of how anything I wrote might have a ripple effect into books two and three. Although I’d still had that hazy idea of writing two more books, I completed Tankborn and saw it into print before I ever wrote word one of the second book, Awakening.

And that was when the hand-shackles went on. From the moment I started Awakening, I had to constantly keep in mind the Tankborn universe. The book was already printed, many, many people had already read it, and while most readers probably wouldn’t notice if some little detail wasn’t consistent, someone somewhere would.

So I certainly couldn’t change the planet my characters were on from Loka to somewhere else. I could not make the sky blue instead of green. There had to be two suns in the sky, not one. And seycats and droms had to have six legs, not four or eight. In other words, I couldn’t fudge or goof. The first book was already in print, there for anyone to refer to and point out my mistakes.

Still, as I wrote Awakening, I thought it was pretty cool having the Tankborn universe already defined. I didn’t have to re-invent the wheel. If I couldn’t remember whether seycats had stripes or spots, or just how tall a genetically engineered drom was, I had the best reference in the world–the first book.

So I finished Awakening feeling pretty good about things. My editor and I had a great round of developmental edits that strengthened all my characters and added some complexity to the plot. Then it was time for the copy editor.

That’s when the oopsies started. For instance, Risa, a very minor character in Tankborn, is a prominent secondary character throughout Awakening. As I fleshed out her character in the second book, I gave her red hair mixed with gray. I didn’t bother to check in Tankborn to see if I’d mentioned what color hair Risa had. But the copy editor did check. And pointed out that in Tankborn, Risa is described as having dark hair. For continuity’s sake, Risa’s hair couldn’t be red.

This may seem very minor (and it was for the most part). But I was a little sad at the necessity because Risa has a pet seycat (a wild feline indigenous to the planet Loka) and seycat coats are red (with black/grayish markings). I’d really liked the idea that Risa’s hair matched the seycat’s. That had to go away with the change of hair color, which required a bit more tweaking than a simple change from red to dark.

The second blooper was an incorrect character name. There’s an important character who plays a very minor role in Tankborn, a slightly more important role in Awakening, and will play a major role in the third book of the trilogy, Revolution. I used the wrong name for her throughout Awakening. I hadn’t remembered that one of the last changes we made in Tankborn before it went to print was to change that character’s name. Again, it was a good catch on the part of the copy editor that saved us from using the wrong name and really confusing readers.

Alas, there is an error/inconsistency that was my fault that sneaked its way into Tankborn. I only noticed it as I was working on Revolution. There’s a shrub on the planet Loka called a sticker bush. At least that’s what I was calling it all through Awakening, what I thought I’d called it in Tankborn. But it turns out that at some point, I decided to call the sticker bush a prickle bush instead. And I wasn’t even consistent at that, because while I call it a prickle bush twice in Tankborn, I call it a sticker bush once.

So what to do? Prickle or sticker? I realized I liked sticker bush better and made an executive decision to call it that, inconsistency be damned.

Live and learn. Continuity in trilogies has proved to be a tricky business. I’ll have another chance to play around with this in my upcoming mystery series from Angry Robot/Exhibit A, which begins with Clean Burn. Since it’s not science fiction, it should be a piece of cake, right?

Right.

November 18, 2012
RTW – Writing Books & Writing Advice

This week, YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday asks us to Share your most inspiring and/or motivational video, book, or quote on writing. All those NaNoWriMo participants out there nearing November’s half-way point could probably use an extra push toward the finish line.

I have not read very many “inspirational” writing books. Back when I was just starting out, I tended to buy the nuts-and-bolts how-to books, read partway through, or just bits and pieces, then set them aside. I did read The Elements of Style (by William Strunk & E.B. White) cover to cover many years ago (it’s a real hoot), and back in 2000, I devoured Stephen King’s On Writing. I highly recommend both of those.

There are a couple of inspirational/how-to-write books that most people rave about, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Story by Robert McKee, that I started but couldn’t finish. I’m a severe plotter who does lots of advance prep. Then when I finally start chapter 1, I switch gears and become a very instinctual writer. Lamott’s and McKee’s books just made my eyes glaze over. However, many, many people have recommended these books, so I’m sure they have much of value in them. Just not for me.

Now on to some writing advice. The first is from romance goddess Nora Roberts, and came to me via a talk given by the incomparable romance author, Anne Stuart. Back when I was writing romance, I belonged to Romance Writers of America, and Anne came to speak to our local chapter. She quoted something Nora Roberts had said: I can fix a written page. I can’t fix a blank page. This one piece of advice has pushed me through book after book, shutting up the little editor in my head with the clear knowledge that I can fix it later. Nothing is set in stone. Nora said so.

As a companion bit of advice, Anne herself said something that night that has bolstered me many times when I have struggled to write even one page, when the words sit sullenly at the back of my head and refuse to step into the light. Anne said (and I paraphrase here), If you look the pages that were like pulling teeth to write and compare them to the pages that just flowed easily and beautifully, you won’t be able to tell the difference between them. In other words, even though you’re certain that pages you struggle to write are awful crap, they’re not. They’re just as good as those breeze-to-write pages and just as ready to be “fixed” as advised by Nora.

If I may, one bit of my own advice. As I mentioned, neither Bird by Bird nor Story resonated with me. By the time they came along, I already had a methodology that worked. I’ve tweaked my writing method over the years, but the basic system has remained the same.

If you’re just starting out as a writer and checking out various methods/structures to find what works, that’s great. But every writer is different. Some things you try will not work for you. Other methods that you find are perfect for you won’t work for others. Never judge yourself because you’re, for instance, a pantser, when everyone else in your critique group insists you should always plot first. Don’t freak out when you go to a conference workshop and the speaker tells you about a work style that doesn’t sync with yours. You’re not necessarily doing it wrong just because you’re doing it differently. The only real must is to continually improve the quality of your writing and storytelling.

So how about you? What books or advice have inspired you?

November 14, 2012