Writing sprints and spinning from dangling story threads

Yesterday I tried some 5-minute writing sprints at the computer on my story.  (Yes, I'm still aspiring to be faster on the computer.)  I did well the first time, but at each of the three sprints I did thereafter I got worse and worse. Clearly I’ll have to practice word-sprinting.  After some time, I expect I will try out 10-minute sprints.  But I’ll practice 5-minute sprints for, oh, maybe a month first.

There are a lot of writers that say writing sprints are a really great way to get in some writing in small slots of time, and I agree, but I’m feeling like there are some factors that go into a successful sprint.

If I were to sit down at any time and write for 5 minutes straight, I could do it, but to write 5 minutes on my story, I need to do some prep work first.  If I’m stuck on a scene, writing for 5 minutes is going to be kinda lame because, after all, I’m stuck.  Stuck-ness isn’t going to change just because I’ve started a timer going.

I think that in order to do a writing sprint for 5 minutes, at the very least I need to know about 5 minutes text-worth of what’s going to happen next in my story.  Which means I need to do some thinking first. 

But what if I closed every writing session by jotting down a little summary of what I think is supposed to happen next?  Then, the next time I start I’ll have a thread to pull on immediately, instead of having to brainstorm first.

Behold, an analogy!   If you knit, you don’t want to end the knitting session by cutting your yard and tucking the yarn end in an inaccessible place.  You leave the yarn attached to the project so you can get back into it easily.  Or, if you are changing colors, you connect up the new color and then leave it for the next time. 

You can do the same for yourself when you’re writing. Keep connected to your story by leaving a summary of what’s happening next to work off of when you come back to it.  It’s like a little story thread out dangling so there’s something for you to pull on.

Some writers leave a thread dangling by leaving a sentence unfinished because it is natural to want to finish an unfinished sentence.  Ta-da, you’re off and running again. 

Personally, I’ve tried this and I think there must be an art to it because about half the time I have no idea what I intended to say in the sentence, and I am not sure how to finish it.  But I have a bit more luck with jotted notes about what is supposed to happen next in the story.

How's your sprinting?

When you read a book and it disappoints you

Sometimes you’ll pick up a book and it hooks you enough that you push through to the end.  But then the ending makes you say, “WHAT?  NO!  That’s just wrong!”

This happened to me recently; a book I read ticked me off.  I’m not going to say the title or author because I don’t want to shame the individual.   She probably won’t ever read my blog, but I’m going to be courteous anyway.

Anyway, the ending irritated me.  I felt like the twists were not foreshadowed well enough, and

I felt like the reason the hero gave for loving the heroine was a total mismatch with the kind of relationship they had.  For most of the book, the hero and the heroine were at odds with each other, and there was even some question as to whether the hero might actually be the villain.  The hero stonewalled and sought to thwart the heroine every step of the way. With that kind of relationship, did I believe it when the hero told the heroine that he loved her from the first moment he saw her?  No!  No, I didn’t!  He did not love her from the first moment he saw her.  His behavior showed none of that.  There was one scene at the 2/3^rd point when he was subtly protective, but that wasn’t enough.  There was a sequence when they were together and told each other stories, but that was never presented in scene, only as exposition and narration, so it never felt real to me as a reader.  

What would have been more believable is if the hero had said, “I hated you when you came, and I was determined to fight you, but you won me over anyway, and now I can’t imagine life without you.”   And with all the conflict between them early in their acquaintance, the scene where they confessed their love needed a lot more rehashing of previous events.  They needed to explain to each other when they first noticed each other as a romantic prospect, when they first started to love each other, what they thought, what they feared, when they doubted, etc.  That all needed to be explained in order to make the ending feel satisfying and believable.

I also had a hard time believing that the villain was the villain when that was revealed.  The villain was the only person who was kind to the heroine in a very hostile social environment.  The environment stayed hostile for a long time, and the villain was friendly for a long time.  There was just one little scene where the villain snapped a bit and let down the mask.  But because of the villain’s pattern of kind behavior, this seemed like an aberration, rather than showing true colors.  I had a hard time believing that the villain would have the moral courage to show friendliness to the heroine when everyone else was determined to isolate the heroine socially for so long.

There’s a problem when you get to the end of the book and you’re not convinced that the twists are really the truth.  It means there’s been inadequate characterization or foreshadowing.  In this case, I think it was inadequate characterization.  The truth didn’t fit the larger pattern of behavior for the character.

As you can see, when I get done with a book and I don’t like the ending, it helps me to analyze what went wrong in it that left me dissatisfied.   It gives me a little more insight as to what is required for a good story to work.  Frequently I end up asking myself, “Does my story make that mistake too?”  And if so, that becomes an opportunity to improve my own writing.

Why I love Scrivener

I have mentioned in before that I have ADD and this makes writing a novel into a challenge.

Today I want to discuss how Scrivener (the writing program) helps minimize distractions so I can be productive.

I have written some non-fiction books previous to my attempt at writing a first novel, and one of the problems I ran across really quickly was that a long document took a very long time to scroll through.  In fact, I never composed non-fiction books with all chapters in the same file.  (Heavens, that would be the worst mistake of my life.)

Here’s what would happen if I did compose with all the chapters in the same file: 

1.     I would open the document intending to look for Chapter 14.

2.     While scrolling to Chapter 14, a mistake in Chapter 9 would catch my eye and I’d stop to fix it.

3.     Then I’d start reading the rest of Chapter 9, looking for more sneaky mistakes. 

4.     I might remember I’d intended to go to Chapter 14, but while scrolling toward it again, I would notice a sentence in Chapter 11 that didn’t sound right and stop to fix it.  This would lead to more reading in Chapter 11.

5.     I would never actually make it to Chapter 14, but spend my time distracted on the way.

Before Scrivener I would have a file for each chapter so that I could go quickly to where I needed to go.

Scrivener makes it so that you can do this automatically in the same window, but its binder feature keeps all your chapters visible and instantly accessible.

Not only that, but all my research files are also visible and accessible.

This feature alone has saved me so much time and distraction it probably can’t be counted except by visiting a parallel universe.  

If you want to see what Scrivener is like, I have a link to it in my sidebar. (No, I do not get money from this recommendation.) They have a 30-day free trial, and the price is pretty reasonable for the features.

Writing fast

I imagine that anyone who writes or wants to write novels will probably find themselves wondering, “How can I write faster?” 

There are a number of factors to take into account.

What’s your record?  You can’t know if you are writing faster unless you have been keeping track of your productivity in the first place.   I have a spreadsheet on which I track the dates I have written, my starting and stopping times, and my word-count during that period of time.  I’ve been doing this for several years and this helps me notice work patterns and gives me a baseline for judging my own productivity.

What is the best way that you work?  Experiment. 

I actually write fiction faster if I handwrite it instead of typing it.  This was totally counter-intuitive to me, and only a freak accident could pry my Macbook Air from my fingers long enough for me to figure this out.

Story time!   

I was at a writing retreat and on the second-to-last day in the afternoon I discovered that I had inexplicably unconsciously severed my computer’s power cord. (gasp) Long story as to how, but essentially I couldn’t use my computer for the rest of the retreat. (Chagrin! Dismay!)

I could have spent the rest of the time commiserating endlessly with my writing buddies (and thereby wasting their time). I could have demanded someone take me to an Apple store immediately so I could replace my power cord.  But instead, I chose to go old school--paper and pencil.  How productive could I be while handwriting?   I decided to experiment to find out.

I recorded my start time and my end time, and then I counted every word I had written.  (A bit mind-numbing, yes. But I was curious.)  My word count actually went up. 

So I did it again.  Wrote for an hour, recording start and end time, and then counted my words.  My word-count went up again.  I had actually improved!

I did it again.  My word-count went up again.   

Whoooooa!  Dude!  What does this mean?  Could it be....?

Over the process of experimenting with this, I discovered that I really did compose fiction faster when handwriting.  This shocked me because I have typed my journal entries for years because that is faster.   I type when journaling, but I compose fiction best while handwriting.

Why was handwriting faster for me?  When I try to compose while typing, I write a sentence quickly, and then spend minutes between sentences thinking of what I’m going to say next.  And I get distracted by other thoughts and I have to pull myself back on task and then I forget where I was in the story, so I have to reread and then think some more.  And when I finally think of something to write, the words don’t seem to appear until I’m actually typing them. 

When I’m handwriting, I think of a sentence, and as I am writing out that sentence, my mind has time to think about the next sentence. By the time I get to the period, the next sentence is there in my head and I never pause, just keep writing.  Sure, I can type faster than I can handwrite, but the important part isn’t putting the words down, it is composing them. 

So what does this mean for you?  You need to figure out what speed you naturally compose at, and you need to pick the capture method best synchronized to that, otherwise you will frustrate yourself.  I have talked to people who compose in gushes and they don’t have time to handwrite it out.  They have to capture it or it’s gone.  Typing or dictation is the best method there.  If it comes out slow, then handwrite it. 

Another thing I learned by experimenting is that I work best by writing in hour-long spurts.  I have ADD, and even though I take medication for it, it is very hard for me to sit longer than that and be productive.  So after an hour of writing, I’ll stand up, walk around, get a drink of water, do a spot of housework, and then go back to writing.  Writing in general is not very natural to me; I’ve had to train myself little by little over years to do this. 

You have to figure out the best way that you work. 

Is there a best time of day for you?  Morning? Afternoon?  Late at night?

Do you have to be in a certain place?

Do you need music or silence? 

Do you need to be fresh or can you be tired?

Do you write best by working for a period of time, or chasing a work-count goal?

Typing or handwriting?

Long writing sessions or shorter sessions?

Do you know what has to happen in your next scene?  Do you know where it's supposed to go? It is hard to write anything if you don’t know what to say.  

 If you don’t know exactly what the characters say, you can at least write down what they are supposed to talk about or what they are supposed to argue about. You can even write down what they might argue about.

I seem to work best when I make a list for a scene of all the important things characters could debate, then a list of things they could gossip about, as well as important things that need to happen.  With that list, I put it in order of priority, and then I start imagining how the characters are going to attack that list.  (It’s like I pretend the character has a to do list.) 

You might think a scene planned like this could end up sounded really mechanical and contrived, but fortunately my ADD kicks in, and I let the characters go through that list any old way they want to.  They can even go off on tangents, but by the end of the scene, they must have hit all the necessary things on the list.  If they don’t hit the important stuff, I keep them there until they finish it.

Occasionally my characters surprise me by throwing in important things I hadn’t previously thought of, rendering my list moot. They open new cans of worms.   After I get done being torked off about that, I realize they were smarter than me and the new direction is better for the story anyway. 

Does this mean the list was a failure?  No, my list becomes the criteria by which I can judge digressions and plot bunnies to see whether they are any good or not.  If it looks better than the stuff I’ve planned, then I know the digression was definitely a good thing.  Otherwise, I need to find where I went off the rails.

Essentially, I outline the things that need to happen in a scene, but I discovery-write the order in which they will occur.  That's one way I try to make my ADD work for me.

Are you excited about what’s supposed to happen?  Let’s face it.  If it doesn’t interest you, then how the heck do you expect a reader to be interested?   However, if you are interested, then by golly, nothing is going to get in the way of your writing that scene.  You’ll want to write it as soon as you can. 

And guess what? You can write it right now.

In my teens, the thing that always made me get bogged down when trying to write a story was that I felt like I had to write through a bunch of boring stuff to get to the exciting stuff.  I thought I had to start at the beginning and write straight to the end. As a result, I never made it very far before I lost interest.

On my first novel that I am currently working on, I threw out the write-from-beginning-to-end rule.  I told myself, “I’m going to write the shiny-sparkly-awesome scenes when I want to.”   And thereby I have written far more on this story than I have ever written on any other story I tried. 

I’ve said to myself, “I’m really interested in writing this scene where the bandit flirts with the priestess while chopping wood,” and even though most of my story hadn’t actually gotten there yet, I wrote it anyway.  I wrote devastating revelations for the end of my story, and then starting filling in the scenes that led up to it.

It’s like building islands in an ocean and then building bridges between them.

What about filler scenes that have to happen but are boring?  You have two tactics you can use.  First, do everything you can to keep from having to write the boring scene. (In the professional office world that 's called procrastination, but in the fictional writing world it's just common courtesy to yourself and your readers.)  Second, if you absolutely have to write it, think of all the crazy things you could do to it to make it more interesting for yourself.  Include a sentient land squid, if you have to, or kill someone with the Traveling Shovel of Death.    

Conclusion

I don’t know if this is all the factors involved in maximizing productivity.  But they are what I have discovered thus far.  (After all, I'm only on my first novel.)

1)   Track your productivity. Dates, times, word-count.  Use mad spreadsheet skilz.

2)   Experiment to find your best working conditions and best capture method that matches your composition speed.

3)   Know what is supposed to happen in that scene in front of you.

4)   Only write the scenes that interest you.   Don’t write the boring scenes until you’ve figured out how they can interest you.

Building your characters

I have read of other authors who say that they develop their characters with a dossier sheet that requires them to make up and list a bunch of different attributes. 

I have a hard time with this personally.  (Of course, I am only on my first novel, so my opinion may change over time. I will revisit the topic after writing a few more novels.)

Filling out an attribute sheet all at once can get burdensome simply with the huge amount of detail.  At the beginning I’m not really sure what attributes are going to make my story work better.  Just how is it going to help to know that my character loves cheesecake?   Only if another character finds this out somehow and surprises them with it.  These details are useless to know unless they are used in the book for description or for plot points.

The more significant characters you have in your book or series, the more character profiles you’ll need to create. 

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Age  

How old does s/he appear?

Eye Color:
      Glasses or contacts?

Hair color:
       Distinguishable hair feature (bald, receding hairline, etc.):
       Type of hair (coarse, fine, thick, etc?)

Typical hairstyle:

Height:

Weight:
       Type of body/build:

Nationality:
Skin tone:

Skin type:

Shape of face:
Distinguishing Marks?
       Scars?

Most predominant feature:
       Resembles (famous or not):

Accent?

Is s/he healthy?                                                 
       If not, why not:
Physical disabilities:

Physical abilities (what is character good at? sports, etc.):

FAVORITES

Color:

Music:

Food:

Literature:

Expressions:

Book:

Quote:

Expletive(s) (swears):

Mode of transportation:

HABITS

Smokes:
       What?
       How often?

Drinks:
       What?
       How often?

Worst bad habit?
Quirks:

BACKGROUND

Hometown:

Type of childhood:

First memory:

Most important childhood event that still affects him/her:
       Why?

Lower education:

Higher education:

Booksmart or streetsmart?

Religion and/or religious views and/or tendencies?

Firsts:

Job?

Kiss?

Sexual experience?

FAMILY

Mother (name):
        Relationship with her:

Father (name):
       Relationship with him:

Siblings:
       Birth order:
       Relationship with each:

Children of Siblings:

Extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.):

Close to family?  Yes/No

CHILDREN

Does character have child(ren)?
       How many?

Are all children with the same partner?
       If no, why not? If no, what is the custody arrangement?

How does character relate to his/her child(ren)?

Which child is character's favorite?
       Why?

Character's most favorite memory of his/her child(ren)?

Character's least favorite memory of his/her child(ren)?

Is relationship with children good?

Is relatioinship with children important to character?

OCCUPATION

Where does character work?
        How many years?

Relationship with co-workers?

Like his/her job?
       Why or why not?

Dream job:

ATTITUDE

Greatest fear:

Worst thing that could happen to him/her?

What single event would most throw character's life in complete turmoil?

Character is most at ease when:

Most ill at ease when:

Priorities:

Philosophy:

How s/he feels about self:

Past failure s/he would be embarrassed to have people know about:

If granted one wish, what would it be?
       Why?

Daredevil or cautious?
       Same when alone?

Biggest regret?

Biggest accomplishment:

Minor accomplishments:

Character's darkest secret:
       Does anyone else know?
              If yes, did character tell them?
              If no, how did they find out?

PERSONALITY

Greatest source of strength in character's personality (whether s/he sees it as such or not):

Greatest source of weakness in character's personality (whether s/he sees it as such or not):

Character's soft spot:
       Is this soft spot obvious to others?
       If not, how does character hide it?

Biggest vulnerability:

Which of the 7 deadly sins does character fight (or give into, willingly or not)?
       (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride)

Which of the 7 virtues does your character have (or fight against)?
       (chastity, abstinence, liberality, diligence, patience, kindness, humility)

TRAITS

Optimist or pessimist?

Introvert or extrovert?

Drives and motivations?

Talents (hidden or not)?

Extremely skilled at:

Extremely unskilled at:

Good characteristics:

Character flaws:

Mannerisms:

Peculiarities:

SELF-PERCEPTION

One word character would use to describe self:

One paragraph description of how character would describe self:

What does character consider best physical characteristic?

What does character consider worst physical characteristic?
       Are these realistic assessments?
              If not, why not?

How CHARACTER thinks others perceive him/her?

What four things would CHARACTER most like to change about self? (#1 most important, #2 second most important, etc.)

If change #1 was made, would character be as happy as s/he thinks?
       If not, why not?

INTERRELATION WITH OTHERS

Is character divorced? Why?
       If yes, how many times?

Has character ever cheated on any signficant other?

How does character relate to others?

How is s/he perceived by...

Strangers?

Friends?

Wife/Husband/Lover?

Children

Co-workers?

Protagonist?

Antagonist?

First impression character makes is:
       What happens to change this perception?

What do family/friends like most about character?

What do family/friends like least about character?

GOALS

Immediate goal(s):

Long range goal(s):

How does character plan to accomplish goal(s)?

How will other people around character be affected?

PROBLEMS/CRISIS

How character react in a crisis (calm/panic/etc.)?

How does character face problems?
       Kinds of problems character usually runs into:

How does character react to NEW problems?

How does character react to change?

GENERAL

Jewelry?

Other accessories?

Drives a ... :

Where does character live?
       With anyone?  Yes/No

Where does character want to live?

Spending habits (frugal, spendthrift, etc)?

What does s/he do too much of?

Too little of?

Most prized possession: Why?

Play musical instrument?
       Which one(s)?
       How did s/he learn?

Does character like animals?

Any pets?

Likes music?
       What kind?

TECHNICAL

Owns a computer? Yes/No
       If not, why not?

Email address(es):
       If more than one, each used for...?

"Handle":
        Meaning to character:

Uses computer for business, pleasure, both?

Play computer games?
       If yes, which game(s)? If yes, how many hours per day?
       If so, are they/it multiplayere game/s?

Name used on each game & meaning to character?

List 4 online site(s) (URLs) visited daily?
       1.
       2.
       3.
       4.

UNCATEGORIZED

Person character secretly admires:

Person character was most influenced by:

Most important person in character's life before story starts:
       Why?

To me, an easy way to start a character is first with appearance, then by trying to describe their common attitudes about things they usually have to do or deal with.  This goes a long way toward helping me write a character realistically.  Then, I try to create situations that display their attitudes.

One of the ways characters grow is by a change of attitude about something.  I try to write situations that lead to a character changing their attitude, usually through major personal struggles or interactions with other characters. 

Either they come to dislike something bad, or they come to love or admire something good. Or, if they are turning to the "dahk side of the force", the opposite will be true.

In my first novel, I have some characters who are highly cynical about religion.  Their attitude was created by certain negative experiences in their backstory.    I have other characters who are highly optimistic about religion.  They have different experiences, positive ones, that created that attitude.  When these two different types of characters get together, there is dramatic conflict.

From attitudes, the next very good thing to put together is goals and motivations. Those are going to make a character active instead of passive.  Then, a lot of stuff can be imagined about the person from knowing those things.  Throwing in a little weirdness in there makes a character fascinating. 

I think other attributes can be made up as I write as I require plot points and description about them, but a character profile sheet does a good job of keeping track of that information as I make it up.  I wouldn’t want to have to search through my text to track down eye color or hair color.