How to add in a character during revision

When I was doing a first-pass of revision of my novel, I realized that I had completely forgotten to include a secondary character, named Jepp Marvel. He’s first in command of the army, but he’s a secondary character. (Talk about a tricky situation!)

I was faced with the task of figuring out where to add him into the story in such a way as to make it better and not break what I already had.  Thorny problem. I didn’t want to make a bunch of changes and then realize later that they didn’t work and have to take them out again. That way lies madness.

So I figured out a method to test-drive the changes before adding them.

First, I used a print-out with a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the events in my story. I went through and highlighted all the places near the end where the 2^nd-in-command (one of the main characters, named Trice) did something. 

Then I went scene by scene through the ending section and figured out what stuff Trice still HAD to do to keep maximum emotional impact for the story.  Trice is a villain, so I had to keep him villainous.

Then I started a revision document, listing what-if scenarios, scene-by-scene.  What if Jepp did this thing here?  I wrote that down in a revision document, and I wrote down what would change and how that would affect the rest of the story.  If there was something later that contradicted or made that change impossible, or if things got broken too much, then that what-if scenario was no good and I crossed it out and tried a different one.  If I found a what-if scenario that worked, then I labeled it as a change that had to be made in that scene.

I had one place where it didn’t work for either Trice or Jepp to be involved, but one of them had to be there to do it.  In that case, I figured out which one it HAD to be, and figured what exactly the limiting factor was and started brainstorming ways to alleviate it.  Trice had to be injured in one scene, but he couldn’t be too injured, otherwise he couldn’t carry somebody later that he had to carry. 

Once I finished, I had a documents listing all the revisions that had to be made in each scene so that Jepp could be added.  (It also lists why so I can remember my brilliant reasoning. J) The analysis I did ensures that I can make those changes with the confidence that they will jive with the rest of the story and not break anything else.

I imagine that this method could be used for other types of wide-rippling changes that a writer contemplates making during revisions.

A Revision Technique for Cutting Out Wordiness

I have a tendency to be wordy and redundant in my first drafts.  So how do I deal with this in revision?  What helps me cut my beautiful words that I worked so hard to bleed from my brain? How do I do this without worrying that I'll lose anything important?

Identify, Isolate, Highlight, Analyze, Cut, Reassess.  Those are the steps. (No, they don't make a cute little acronym.  I.I.H.A.C.R.  Yuck. Sounds like a cross between a cough and hacking a loogie.)

Identify

One strategy I’ve found is to find (or ask beta readers to find and highlight) the wordy places where they think it could be tightened up. 

Other times I can find it myself by noticing the paragraph sections that I inexplicably skip reading.  If I notice I want to skim, that’s a pretty good indication it needs to be tightened/eliminated.

Isolate

Next, highlight the section in question. It feels a lot more do-able to condense a section that is visibly marked.  The highlight tells your subconscious brain that for the next 10 minutes that area is your sandbox and anything can happen there. Deletions. Re-ordering.  Rewording. Additions, even. (gasp)

Keep it between 5-8 paragraphs long. If it's longer than a page, it is harder to work with.

Be sure to record how many words long the section is. This gives you a number to compare at the end so you can see how much you’ve condensed.

Highlight the Essentials

Print out a copy of the highlighted section, then pull out your highlighter marker.  (If you used a highlighter marker in the “Isolate” step, you’ll have to change to a different color in this step.)

Read through and highlight the words that represent the bare essentials of what is important to the story in that section.  Don’t highlight sentences, just single words or short phrases. This tells you what story elements definitely stay in.  Highlight beautiful wording only if it is particularly vivid.

I find it helpful to focus on action words--what the characters actually do. That is usually essential.

Analyze For Patterns

Are any of the highlighted sections similar? They can be brought together to create more punch.

Does the order make sense, or should it be reorganized?

Cut the Fat

Large sections that aren’t highlighted are fair game for cutting. Notice redundancy and eliminate it. (Like when the hero winks or smiles multiple times, or the heroine takes her second and third deep breath.)

Slash.

Burn.

Re-jigger wording.

Massage sentences.

You can’t cut everything that is un-highlighted because you need sentences to string the essentials together, but you’ll be surprised how much you can cut.

Reassess the Result

You’ll have to read through it at least once to make sure it still makes sense.

Once you’re done, check how many words you have left and compare it to your starting word count. 

Congratulations! You have cut like a pro, keeping what works, and getting rid of what doesn’t. Your prose should now be a concentrated distillation of emotional awesomeness with maximum impact.

Things to do on next book as I write that will prevent headache in revision

1)   Write the summary of the action for each scene  (This will help with creating the story synopsis.)

2)   Track the goal of each scene, character goal (This will ensure that characters remain active and purposeful, moving the story forward.)

3)   Track the conflict of each scene, source of tension. (This will help ensure that each scene is interesting)

4)   Track the change that occurs to move the story forward (This will help ensure that each scene is necessary to the story)

5)   Track the promises that are made and where they are kept (This will help ensure that I leave no threads hanging that shouldn’t be tied up by the end. Unless they are supposed to still hang free for a series.)

6)   Track what people do to fall in love or show love for each other. (This will help ensure that relationship arcs build in a meaningful and natural way.)

7)   Track time passage (This will ensure that I can track the timing of the plot and spot any problems.)

As I read through what I have written, I might find things that have to be fixed or added later. I can make notes on these things and leave them, since later I might find the issue will have worked itself out or is no longer valid. 

Hopefully this will give me direction on revisions.

Learning about Scrivener: Compiling, Bullets, and Tables

I am in the middle of trying to prepare a manuscript for self-publication right now, and I want to preserve some of my learning for myself so that I won’t have to relearn it in the future.

Learning the compile function on Scrivener has been a stop-and-go process for me.  When I first looked into it, I was very excited about its potential, but as I read through books on it and tried things, I got overwhelmed at all the different choices. I also was worried about how it would deal with my footnotes, tables, and bullets.  I couldn’t find clear answers online to address my concerns, so I got frustrated and gave up for a while.  

Happily, I recently went back to it recently and suddenly it seemed perfectly clear, to the point that I wondered what had bothered me before. I wish I could have told my past self to take a chill pill and just try it out. 

Now for the learning:

1)   If you’ve already prepared a print-ready Word doc, putting it in Scrivener will be a step backward.  Scrivener does content creation really well, but when it comes to preparing formatting, they don’t give too much flexibility. If you're doing this for the first time, don’t even try to use more than one font through out your project.  To get the final formatting you need, you’re much better off compiling it to a doc and then messing around with the formatting there instead.  However, you can get all your front matter and back matter ready for that and export that too. It will save time. 

2)   You will not find out how many pages your project will be until you compile it for, say, a Word doc.  Number of pages is important info to give your cover designer if you are doing a paperback book.  Once you have set the number of pages, try really hard not to change that. (For instance, don’t do what I did and have your paperback cover design done before editing. Editing will probably shave some pages off your count.)

3)   Importing tables from Word into Scrivener will give you really wonky results.  Yes, you will get your tables, but they will have strange phantom empty cells in weird places. You may also find text outside the tables has a weird box around sections of it as if it were part of a table.    The way to get around this is A) Make all your tables into images and import them into Scrivener, or B) use Scrivener’s table-creation tool and redo all your tables inside Scrivener.  Both are extra work.  Pick your poison.  I do know that Tables generated in Scrivener turn out looking okay on the Kindle.

4)   When bulleted text is imported into Scrivener from Word and then compiled for Kindle, for some reason the bullets are doubled, which looks wrong. This is fixed by recreating the bulleted lists in Scrivener (much like with tables, as described in 2 above).

5)   Scrivener’s compile feature can make it very quick to make .epubs and .mobis and a number of different formats.  IF you know what you’re doing.  I look forward to that day.

An ideal work flow would be:

1)   Create document in Scrivener.

2)   For print: Compile document for print into Word doc. Tweak formatting and upload to POD vendor of choice.

3)   For e-book: Compile document for print into .epub and .mobi.  Test on previewing software.

Obviously, I haven’t done the ideal on my current project. But, eh, live and learn, right?

Writing Tool: Reverse Outlining

Just about everyone is familiar with the process of creating an outline and writing from that; it’s something taught in just about every English class at school.  However, the reverse outline is another writing tool that is just as useful as the pre-writing outline, although it has a different purpose.

What is a reverse outline?  Do you take your pre-writing outline and hold it up to the mirror?  (eye roll) No. 

A reverse outline is when you read through what you have written and summarize it in outline form in a separate document.  Happily, it doesn’t have to have Roman numerals and indenting.  (Who wants to fight with Microsoft word over that stuff? Not me!) The reverse outline can be as simple as a list.  In fact, the simpler, the better.

If you’re writing non-fiction, a reverse outline summarizes the main points you make and the way you try to make them.  Example:

Prairie dogs are good eating.

Story about eating prairie dogs when starving. They were filling.

Health benefits observed when eating prairie dogs. Lustrous hair and energy.

Story about imported prairie dogs saving the lives of malnourished Chinese children.

If you’re writing fiction, a reverse outline summarizes the events that happened in a chapter that are most important to your plot.

            Frank chases down heart-broken Wanda

            Wanda explains why she can’t trust Frank; she saw him kissing Charlene

            Frank explains kissing is part of normal Hispanic greetings.

            Wanda is skeptical because of the length of the kiss and storms off.

            Frank realizes he may lose the love of his life if he doesn’t get act together.

So how does a reverse outline really help?

Cognitively, we can only keep so much in our memory at a time, so making a reverse outline gives us a visual way to evaluate a lot of text easily.

While pre-writing outlines show us where our writing should go before we actually write it, a reverse outline shows us what is actually there once we’ve written.  Often the pre and post outlines don’t match. 

By studying your reverse outline, you can see if there are holes in your logic or missing pieces in your plot.

Not only that, but reverse outlines can become a tool for manipulating our long texts.  I can look at my reverse outline and see where I got off track.  I can see where the progression of my logic or story is out of order.  If I can move a few lines around in my reverse outline, that shows me where I can move much larger chunks in my long-form writing.

Story time!

I had to discover reverse outlining for myself. I was working on a religious book about applying the Book of Isaiah to modern teenage problems, and I noticed that as my chapters got longer and longer, I had a hard time making sure things flowed in a logical manner. 

I could keep about three pages of ideas in my head at a time, and keep those flowing, but beyond that, I just felt like I wasted too much time reminding myself what I’d written before moving anything around.  And if I wanted to insert new stuff it would break my beautiful linearity and then I had to wrestle with the whole thing again.

So I had to invent reverse outlining. (Yes, I know I didn’t really invent it; it’s been around a long time, but I had to discover-invent it for myself.)

I said to myself, “Self, you need a list of all the main points you’re trying to make in the order that you’re making them.”  So I made that list, and that was my very first reverse outline ever. 

Once I had it, I could see exactly where I needed to move things. I could see what arguments were duplicated. I could see where the holes were. I could see where I’d gotten distracted and gone off topic.  By using a reverse outline, my book became much more of a cohesive whole.

I remember I felt absolutely brilliant for having invented reverse outlining. It was like a shiny new toy that I played with.

More points about reverse outlines in fiction

“But Michaela,” you cry, “What about when writing fiction? I already have an outline I create from! Why do I need to do a reverse outline too?”

Again, reverse outlines tell you what you actually have in your story instead of what you want or plan to have.  They tell you the cold hard facts in the light of day.  And if a scene contains events but nothing that actually pushes the plot forward, then you know it’s unimportant and can be removed.

Reverse outlines for fiction can actually include much more than just a list of important plot events.  I use them to evaluate my scenes as I go. 

After I list events in the scene, I will then make a list of the conflicts that occur in the scene.  If you can’t figure out what the conflict is, then of course you’ll need to put some in.  I use a sign of >< to show what the conflicts are.  (Ideally these are conflicts directly related to the plot.) Examples:

>< The dragon wants Jessary to learn to read, but Jessary doesn’t want to.

>< Jessary wants food, but the dragon is unsympathetic.

You can also evaluate sources of tension in the scene, and naturally if you can’t find where tension is coming from, then you have to insert some ASAP.

            T Darkness in the cave and scary noises.

            T Fear of being eaten by the dragon.

            T Uncertainty of where to go from here and what life will be like.

Occasionally I will also evaluate the emotional direction of the scene, whether it goes from positive to negative or the other direction.  This helps me see where I am leaving my readers emotionally at the end of a scene, whether it is in a place of rising hopes or a situation of gathering darkness and trouble.   Emotional direction can be represented with +/-  or -/+. 

            -/+ Jessary escapes the dragon and is free.

            +/- The dragon realizes Jessary—his only hope to break the spell—is missing.

All these tools can help you evaluate the strength of your story as you write it and help you identify areas of improvement. That way, when you finish the whole darn thing, you know where you need to start revising.

 Bonus: If another author ever asks you to read their work and give them feedback, making a reverse outline can help you evaluate better. 

Killer book blurbs

My observation so far about blurbs is that they are really hard to write well in only one draft.   

Even worse, they are really hard to write cold after finishing a book. (Heck, I haven't even finished a novel yet, and I know it's hard!)

Because how to do you choose what to emphasize when you have a pirate kidnapping, and romance between the gargoyle and the gamine heroine, and intrigue over the miniaturized secret nuclear submarine plans hidden in the plug of the crock-pot lost at the church social?  (No, those aren't in my novel, but they should be in somebody's!) So many conflicts, what do you choose?  What’s most important?

I think the best way to approach blurb-writing is to begin drafting them at the beginning of the novel-writing process, then revisit and redraft as each third of the book is completed.  (Need a way to procrastinate while still being productive on your story?  Just go hone your blurb.  You’re welcome.)

Plot bunnies appear, and by heaven, sometimes we must chase them!  And sometimes… the plot bunny develops into such a six-foot pooka of awesomeness that you must bow to it and change your book accordingly. 

In those cases, it helps to revisit and change the blurb immediately before too many more distractions are added. I'm halfway through my current work in progress and I've already drafted my blurb eleven times.

I ran across somewhere that Pixar has some kind of formula for writing awesome movie premises, which can be used for writing story blurbs.  I may not remember it perfectly, but it goes something like this:

Character is in [starting situation].  Then [change] happens and now character has lost [something valuable]. But [external threat] looms, forcing character to [do something very uncomfortable and nasty] in order to reach [her goal].  [Allies] help or [advantages] develop, but they also cause [more trouble].  Finally character is forced to make a choice. Will character choose [Option A] and have [awful consequence A], or choose [Option B] and have [awful consequence B]? 

 Alternatively, for romances, if you have two POVs between your heroine and hero, you can have two paragraphs to examine their internal and external conflicts. Something like this:

Heroine is in [starting internal and external situation]. Then [change] happens and now [hero] stands in the way of heroine achieving her [goal].  But he’s attractive in a [list of devastating ways, skills, power to help her].  Can she overcome internal and external obstacles or will she get horrible consequences and lose love forever?

Hero is in [starting internal and external situation]. Then [change] happens and now [heroine] stands in the way of the heroe’s [goals].  But he’s captivated by her [devastating attractions].  Can he overcome his [internal obstacles] or will he lose her forever? 

 

(Extra points if the hero and heroine are each other’s external obstacles and overcoming those obstacles will cause them to lose in love.)

Yes, the above is formulaic, but it at least gives you a good place to start.

It helps to read other blurbs in the same genre to get a sense of the marketing hooks that are used and other creative blurb structures.  And reading blurbs in other genres can broaden your horizons further.

Another thing that helps is reading other author's blurbs, critiquing them, and trying to make them better.  Nothing's more fun than playing with a bad blurb. Or even a good blurb.

A good way to analyze a blurb is to highlight all the marketing hooks in it.  What kinds of verbs do they use? What language excites you and why?  Do you get a sense of who the character is and what kinds of conflicts and dilemmas they will face?  Is it all in language that screams "exciting"?

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?

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.

Developing voice

I read something interesting some months back about how a writer can develop their voice.  (I just wish I could remember who wrote it and where I found it.)

The writer said that they develop their voice by choosing an author whose voice they admire and then copying down by hand a few pages of that author’s best work.  They said this gets the rhythm and the diction and style of the author more deeply into their consciousness.

I don’t think this is about turning into a chameleon.   I think this is about widening the range of tone a writer can access.  It gives you the ability to create characters that have their own distinct style.  That’s pretty powerful. 

I can remember once after reading Pride and Prejudice to my grandma, I went and wrote in my journal and found Austen’s diction flowing out my pen.  Rather fun.

Ways to name your characters

When you want to write a story or a book, one of the first things you’ll want to do is name your character.  There are easy and hard ways to do this.  The hard way is to sit and think of names.  The easy way is to generate lists of names you like ahead of time and pick one that you think will work.

As I’ve read different stories, I’ve noticed that authors sometimes have a pattern in the names they choose for characters.   Often, they will choose names that have different first initials so that readers will be able to tell at a glance who the character is.  A_____ is the hero, and D______ is the love interest, and  Q_______ is the villain.   You know you are a fantasy author if you lean toward names that start with or contain X, Q, Z, V, K…  (wink)

Some authors like to create names that have lots of strange consonants but which are nearly unpronounceable when reading them out loud.  Like a hero named Soiuwrdoimcsxz.  As a reader, I personally don’t like this because it makes it hard for me to read the book out loud to my family and hard to discuss the book with family or friends.  I’m sure the poor souls who have to read out loud to create audio books hate it.  (Just a thought--if you as an author must have tongue-twisting character names and a particular way you want them to be pronounced, why not make it a little easier for your readers and include a pronunciation guide at the back of your book?)

It’s much better to make or use names that sing and zing.  Good names feel good to say, so much so that when your reader is done reading your book they will want to give the name to one of their children someday.  Or their next pet.  (Doesn't mean they should, but they will want to.  ;-) )

Some fantasy novels make all of their names unusual.  The function of this is to cue the readers that the culture is very different because naming conventions are different from our culture. I have noticed a cost to this--the names often seem blah or they seem to sound a lot alike.  (Terrick, Jarran,etc.) It could be argued that it could establish the naming conventions of the culture in the book, but I think a little more care with naming could help names feel interesting.

Another method of naming I’ve noticed is common names uniquely spelled.  These names look usual to readers eyes while evoking a different place, yet it also helps those who read the story out loud and gives a subconscious feeling of familiarity.  (Alison >> Alesyn)  Or, you can take a name you like and then mutate it beyond recognition.

When main character names are more recognizable or familiar than secondary characters or redshirts, readers instantly feel closer to them.  It’s a little trick for making a character sympathetic and cuing the reader to pay more attention to them.

Another method of naming is to smash together common names to make something that sounds different, but whose pieces are recognizable.  (Brandon + Christopher = Brandopher or Chrisdon.) 

You can name your character something exotic. For instance, a Japanese name is going to stick out in a list of Anglo-Saxon names.   This conveys that your main character is very different from his or her culture, like in fish-out-of-water stories or stories about misfits.   You can even put in your story that your character always has people joking about their name or asking about where they got their name.  If your character has an unusual name, call attention to it.

You can name characters after their attributes.  This works best for giving criminal types their names because it aids their anonymity.  Maybe you’ll call the guy with the short fuse “Stomps” after the way he stomps around.  Maybe the guy who inspects all the stolen merchandise with a magnifying glass for serial numbers will be called “GlassEye.”   Keep in mind, though, that trait names are very memorable, so if you use trait names for your criminal element then you’ll have to have very strong names for your main characters to make them easier to recall.  (If all your main characters are criminal, however, then you don’t have that problem..)

Attribute names aren't just for your criminals.  Remington Steele has the “steele” to make it strong and the “Remington” to give it sophistication.  

You’ll want to develop an ear for names.  This means noticing when you find a name that appeals to you.  Think about what part of it is appealing and why.  Is it the sound?  Whatever you may think of Kim Kardashian or her family, you have to admit that her name is lovely to say.  It has those enviable qualities of sing and zing.  (It has alliteration with the double Ks, the “dash” in the middle makes it both strong and hip, and the “ian” at the end gives it a very classical sound, like Marian, Dorian, Julian, etc.)   Can you make other names that sound similar?  

Would a location name work?  Indiana Jones and John Denver are memorable because a common name is combined with an intriguing place name.   In Indiana Jones, the “Indiana” is a nickname that suggests some kind of skill, though we don’t quite know what.  In the name “John Denver,” the “Denver” evokes a sense of location and that of a common man who has risen to the top.  If you met guys named John Chicago, John Phoenix, or John Seattle, what would you expect them to be like?

Finally, as I mentioned earlier in this post, I think it is best to collect lists of names you like, whether by chance or by consulting the many name generators on the internet. (One of my favorites is Seventh Sanctum, which I have linked to in my sidebar.) When you need a name for a character, you can then choose something from a list and get back to your writing more quickly, rather than losing your flow. 

How to fix head-hopping in your fiction manuscript

What is head-hopping?

Head-hopping is when your narration in a particular scene bounces between several character’s points of view without a scene break of some kind.  It’s like the narrator is hopping from head to head to head.  Hence, the name “head-hopping.”

Maria was thinking Bob looked hot today with his bowtie.  She loved it when guys wore bowties.  Bob, however, was hating life and Maria too, for that matter.  Joe just wanted to go swimming.

That’s head-hopping.  You get Maria’s thoughts, then Bob’s, then Joe’s, when you need to stick with just one point of view.

Head-hopping is easy to do when you’re learning to write fiction.  I’m finding that I did it a fair amount in the early parts of my first novel before I learned that wasn’t good.

Head-hopping is generally frowned upon these days and seen as a lack of control of one’s craft. 

  

Now, how do you fix it if you discover you’ve got a head-hopping problem?

There are two ways to do this, I’ve found out.

If you have an extended scene, there may be parts where you’ll want to change points of view because one character’s POV is more interesting/painful/dramatic and you want readers to get the story from that angle.  Try to keep the lens of narration coming from the person who has the most to lose or who is in the most pain.  As the focus of interest changes, do a scene break and take a new character POV.

What if you find your head-hopping scene is short?  How do you fix it? 

It may help to highlight in different colors the different POVs.  Color all Maria’s internal dialogue and opinions with red.  Color Bob’s POV in blue.  Color Joe’s in green.  Then print out the scene so you can see it all in front of you.  The color makes the unique POV of Maria, Bob, and Joe stick out so you can see how much of it is there.  It makes it easy to decide how important to the scene that character’s internal dialogue is. The character with the most important internal dialogue is probably the POV you should retain for that scene.  Everything else you can edit out or find a way for your favorite parts to be conveyed in other ways.  (Or if you have to, you can do the scene over again from the other characters’ perspectives.)