Enders

I brood a lot about the last line of a story. I would love to write profound, inspirational end lines that transport my readers to some distant, post-reading Nirvana where they feel as if book slaves have fed them grapes, rubbed their feet and painted their toenails. I know I don't. My enders tend to be very short and pithy, usually made up of character dialogue or thoughts:

I'd just make more tea.

"Send my regrets."

That is all that matters now.

"Think about it, dimwit."

"Here we go again."

I'm not sure why I'm so skimpy with my last lines. I hate ending a story (obviously, or everything I write wouldn't grow nine heads and turn into a series on me) and I'm lousy at making farewell speeches. I go with what feels right for the scene and the story, which is all I think you can do when you're not particularly ender-gifted.

Other writers come up with some great last lines. Here are some that have resonated with me, turned me vivid green or kept me thinking long after I finished their books:

Altashheth. -- Anne Rice ended Servant of the Bones with this ancient Hebrew word, which translates to "do not destroy." This one is my all-time favorite ending line.

As for ghosts, they filled the streets. -- As they do the pages of Stalin's Ghost, Martin Cruz Smith's latest Arkady Renko novel. Pretty much perfection.

"Because you need me," he said, and Jennifer opened the door. -- Linda Howard sent another of her ender shockwaves through the romance community with this final line from Open Season. And she left us all to imagine what happens next. And I still mutter bitch under my breath every time I read it, too.

Destiny has given me something even better -- a lover as faithful as honor, in this life and in whatever may follow. -- I (heart) the ender from Talyn by Holly Lisle because it's elegant, true to the character and a lovely wrap-up of the entire story.

He seemed to me to have lived before his time and to have died before he was sufficiently understood." -- Wendy Moore ends her first book, The Knife Man, with that quotation from William Clift, the young apprentice/assistant of eighteenth century Scottish surgeon John Hunter. Hunter, the subject of the book, was a genius and a lunatic, and this odd homage ender seemed almost like an authorial apology.

How do you writers out there handle your final lines? What are some of your favorite enders?

Twofers

Crime and Punishment
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Of Mice and Men
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
The Master and Margarita
The Old Man and the Sea
The Prince and the Pauper
The Sound and the Fury
War and Peace

What do all these book titles have in common? They're titles that are made up of two nouns and a conjunction. We'll call them towofers. The two nouns can represent anything, but usually they describe something about two characters, or the protagonist and the conflict, or two central aspects of the plot.

Jane Austen was fond of twofers, as were many classic authors. J.K. Rowling has used them exclusively for her series, and you'd be hard-pressed to walk through a romance section at the bookstore and not see a twofer. Category romance publishers have gone a little overboard with their dramatic twofer titles, but I can't deny that when I see something titled The Stinkin' Rich Widowed Tycoon of Titillating Ethnic Origins and The Virginal Gorgeous Easily-Blackmailed Governess, I get the idea of what the story's about immediately.

I tend not to use twofers, as I like short (preferably one-word) titles, but they come in handy when I'm at a complete loss for a title to slap on the pitch. I'm putting together a proposal for Valentin's story, for example, and so far I haven't worked up a decent title. Right now it's called Sun and the Swan Prince; Sun for the name of my female protagonist, and the Swan Prince for Valentin, the Kyn lord who nearly lost an arm in Darkyn book two. It won't be the final title, but it's a good place holder and my editor will get it (I thought about going with Swan's Sun, but it sounds too much like a TV dinner.)

Your assignment today: if you had to create a twofer title for your WIP or your favorite novel, what would it be? Tell us in comments.

Synful Trio

#1: Someone (you know who you are) asked me if there was a one-size-fits-all-genres synopsis template anywhere on the web. I found a site that offered instructions on how to create your own template using Microsoft Word, which will make and store a blank template formatted for a synopsis (you still have to write it.)

#2: While looking for the template, I found the Vivian Beck Agency, and their excellent page on 5 Steps to Writing a Synopsis. If you get mired down in writing synopses, or don't understand them, definitely check this out.

#3: Although I've not yet found a synopsis-generating software program that doesn't cost an arm and leg, our blog pal Simon Haynes's yWriter freeware can be used to create a synopsis using the summary data entered for each chapter. Another reason to adore Simon: he understands our pain.

I think I got over my serious dread of synopses by following some advice to write one for a novel by one of my favorite authors. Great practice, and no pressure involved.

What's the best synopsis tip you've ever gotten?

Plot Algebra

Plot Algebraic Equations

Aphrodite's Curve Ball [H + H + A = LT]

To plot a love triangle, find the sum of the hero, heroine, and antagonist.

Boolean Secret Baby [H + H = (H + H)2 = H2 + 2H2 + H2 = H + 2H + H = H + H + H + H = B]

If the hero and heroine get together often enough, they will simplify their relationship, work out all their problems, and have a baby in last chapter.

Habeas Crime Fictionous [P / BLI + ES / TA = DB]

Protagonist divided by bimbo love interest plus ethnic sidekick divided by thuggish antagonist equals dead body.

Janus's Law of Duplicity [PT + RH = -A, P = A]

If the plot twists and red herrings do not result in an antagonist, then the protagonist is the antagonist.

Moufang Switcheroo [(PL)(IA) = P(LI)A

If the protagonist shares a love interest with the antagonist, then the love interest is out to screw one or both of them.

Properties of the Pissed-off [P < C, P + M (?GS + CC?) > C]

The protagonist is less than conflict, but the protagonist plus motivation is greater than conflict, especially if great sex and a cute chick are added into the equation.

Unending Order of the Infinite Series [P + . . . . + (C/(infinity)).FI = (number of open threads/2). (first + last motivations)=(infinity/2).(P+(C/(infinity)).FI)=(infinity/2).(P/(infinity)).A =(A-P)/Advance = KJA]

The bestselling fiction series shall be written until the publisher goes belly-up or the author drops dead, in which case Kevin J. Anderson will take over writing it.

(And they said that I'd never use it after high school. Ha.)

Extra credit: write an algebraic equation for your WIP or favorite novel in comments.

Story Clay

That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.

--Ecclesiastes 1:9, (NKJV)

In his diary, Michelangelo wrote the following about creating his very famous sculpture of David:

"The City Council asked me to carve a colossal David from a nineteen-foot block of marble -- and damaged to boot! I locked myself away in a workshop behind the cathedral, hammered and chiseled at the towering block for three long years. In spite of the opposition of a committee of fellow artists, I insisted that the figure should stand before the Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of our Republic. I had my way. Archways were torn down, narrow streets widened...it took forty men five days to move it. Once in place, all Florence was astounded. A civic hero, he was a warning...whoever governed Florence should govern justly and defend it bravely. Eyes watchful...the neck of a bull...hands of a killer...the body, a reservoir of energy. He stands poised to strike."

I love those four words: "I had my way." They still ring with Michelangelo's satisfaction.

The "damaged to boot" part is the interesting part, though. Another artist -- Agostino di Duccio -- had started working on that particular marble block forty years earlier, but for whatever reason had failed to make anything out of it. There aren't any photographs of the original marble block, but some biographies hint that Agostino had also been working on depicting David, and that Michelangelo had picked up where he left off.

In the writing world, it's often said that there are no new stories. What we write has already been done, and our books are nothing new under the sun. Chiseled in marble, statues of perfection, might as well give it up, etc.

Unless you consider that the writer can be the new factor in the equation.

Paying homage to what has been done (or, if you look at it from another view, ripping off someone else's work) by producing knock-offs isn't the same thing; look at what's happened to poor Tolkien over the years. Knock-offs may not be illegal, but they are troubling. No matter how they tweak it, if a writer doesn't bring anything new to a story, they're only creating a poor imitation.

Maybe it's the storyteller's sacred obligation to do whatever they can to bring something fresh to every story. Everyone sees things differently; the best storytellers show us old favorites via such a different angle that we see them in an entirely new light.

Take one of the most beloved myths in the world: Pygmalion, another story about a block of marble. Pygmalion brought his vision of the perfect woman to the stone and created Galatea, whom Aphrodite brought to life. Which inspired George Bernard Shaw, who adapted the myth for the stage, which eventually became the musical My Fair Lady; Stephen King to write his novel Carrie (and yeah, we've debated this one for years, but I still think it's a twisted version); the 1999 movie She's All That, in which high school jock Freddie Prinze Jr. turns a geeky Rachael Leigh Cook into a prom queen.

Cinderella, Pretty Woman, Miss Congeniality, The Princess Diaries -- they all have their roots in Pygmalion. Even Jessica Hall, may she rest in peace, drew on the myth as inspiration for the relationship and characters of the protagonists in her novel Heat of the Moment*. What makes them unique is not the mythic foundation upon which they're built, but how the storytellers used that, not as marble to worship, but as clay to be remolded into their individual vision of love and transformation. They reshaped it with their tools, touch and inner vision into something new under the sun. That's what can never be duplicated.

*I know, I have to stop talking about myself in third person.

Learn Free

Thanks to the internet, writers can now attend classes and workshops from any spot on the globe. No classrooms. No spine-rearranging desks lined in wads of used gum. No snotty teacher to grab you by the sleeve and say, Well, Miss Smartie, why don't you stand up and read whatever you've been writing to the whole class?

By the way, kids, if you ever are caught writing an honest ode to your teacher's face, personality and the way she smells instead of watching her slaughter a sentence on the chalkboard, don't read your poem out loud to the class. Instead, recite Shakespeare's 29th sonnet -- she won't recognize it and you'll avoid a referral and a lengthy debate with the principal over your rights under the first ammendment (which I still think I should have won, Mr. Beale.)

Here are some online classes that anyone can afford:

Of interest to journalers and bloggers -- Gerry Starnes offers Conversations Within, an online workshop on journal writing.

Need a critique partner but live in the boondocks? Critters Workshop is described as "an on-line workshop/critique group for serious writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. You get your work critiqued in exchange for critiquing the work of others, both of which are invaluable ways to improve your writing."

The 2007 Crusie Mayer Writing Workshop is "A year-long workshop, updated twice weekly, on the craft of writing a novel presented by NY Times best-selling authors Jenny Crusie and Bob Mayer" (appears to be free; is being used as a test/info gathering exercise for a nonfic writing book the authors are planning to write.)

If you didn't get enough of it in school, the fiends at DailyGrammar.com will e-mail you a "short, fun grammar lesson Monday-Friday. There will also be a quiz each Saturday." Of course. There is always a quiz. No doubt given by the same twisted mind who paired the words "fun" and "grammar."

For 120 classes in a wide variety of subjects and courses, check out Free-ed.net.

Author Steven Barnes has a free writing class online: Lifewriting. He describes it as "the complete text of the 9-week writing class I've taught for years at UCLA."

News University offers some free courses like Get Me Rewrite: The Craft of Revision and Online Project Development for registered users; registration is free.

Paradigm Online Writing Assistant bills itself as "an interactive, menu-driven, online writer's guide and handbook written in HTML and distributed freely over the WWW."

According to the website intro, Storyarts six week on-line writing workshop is geared more toward helping writers who are just starting out; syllabus can be found here.

Now, your turn: what sort of writing classes (topic, length, type of class) would you like to see offered online?

Strange Fruit

As I stood in line at the pack-n-ship place in town, an elderly farmer came in. An instant character, raw-boned, scarecrow-thin, with a driftwood face and a jujube-size cyst on the edge of his left eyelid. Baggy, sun-faded denims with permanent dirt stains on the seat and a washed-out, long-sleeved gray shirt sagged on his clothesline frame. The wind had combed his pure white hair for him, and on his shoulder hung a homemade canvas fruit picking bag, as if he'd wandered in directly from a grove.

He seemed a bit antsy, and I had fifty pounds of books to ship, so I let him go ahead of me in line. He smelled of dirt and weedkiller, sunshine and old-guy sweat. He told the clerk he wanted to ship the grapefruit in his bag, which the clerk immediately informed him that he couldn't do. Florida currently prohibits private shipping fruit out of state to prevent the spread of citrus canker.

"It's goin'-a Washington D.C.," the farmer told the clerk. "They doan have no groves so they doan care 'bout the canker."

The clerk turned him down a second time and went to answer the phone. The farmer turned to me and asked if the post office would ship his fruit. I told him that, as far as I knew, no one would. While we were waiting for the clerk, the farmer took a grapefruit from his bag and held it out for me to admire.

I eyed what looked like a pale yellow cantelope, with faint rain-mold streaks on the rind (this is a sign of authentic homegrown; the streaks are always washed off commercially-sold fruit, which is sometimes also dyed and waxed.) I'm not exaggerating on the size, either -- it had to be the largest grapefruit I've ever seen. The farmer told me his trees often produced eight pounders. I imagined he spent a lot of time shoring up his trees with cotton ties and two by twos to keep the weight of the fruit from snapping the branches.

I love grapefruit, and miss it terribly (I haven't been able to eat it for six months because it reacts with my medications) but that farmer's goliath specimen made me uneasy. He mentioned his graefruit were very juicy and full of seeds, but what else was in them? What was he using as fertilizer? Had he planted his trees over some septic tanks? Why bring a bag of just-picked grapefruit directly from the grove to a shipper? Anyone even remotely involved with citrus knows the state law; I know it. And why so adamant to send it to Washington D.C.?

I never thought something as ordinary as a grapefruit could give me the creeps, but that one did.

The clerk finally got off the phone, and for the third time refused to ship the grapefruit for the farmer. The farmer asked if he brought in a box to the post office and didn't say there was grapefuit in it, would they ship it? I shrugged. The clerk said it was between him and his conscience. The farmer bought a big box from the clerk, paid for it in quarters and ambled out.

I may have acted non-committal, but I doubted the farmer would get his fruit past the folks at the post office. Grapefruit has a distinctive smell, very sharp-bitter, that is especially intense if the rind is bruised or scored. Unless he seals the shipment in plastic, the odor will give it away.

The encounter got to me, though. By the time I shipped my boxes and returned to my car, I had worked out in my head five different ways to explain the farmer and his strange fruit:

1. A love gift to the farmer's old flame, who is dying of cancer in some hospital in Washington. A nurse will open the box for her and try to whisk it away, her rich husband will veto that, peel one and listen to her talk about the farmer as he feeds her the sections one by one.

2. Shrapnel bombs disguised as grapefruit, being sent to a certain Congressional Committee that has pissed off that farmer for the last time.

3. The final volley in a life-long feud between two brothers: one who got rich selling out the citrus industry as a lobbyist while his brother stayed home to farm the family groves (lobbyist brother has just been convicted in the Abramoff scandal, has lost everything, and is going to jail.)

4. Alien pods carrying something much worse than canker to Washington.

5. Grandpa's annual late-January, post-harvest box, sent as a gift to his son, daughter-in-law and grandkids, who will have to give half away to the neighbors, who will look at the size of them and wonder what the hell we have in the water here in Florida. One of the grandkids will dig out the designer tulip bulbs in her mother's windowbox and plant some of the seeds.

Or the whole thing could serve as the topic of a writer's weblog post on the method she uses to sketch out story ideas to get them out of her thoughts, onto paper and into a file so she can work on the WIP without mutant citrus dancing in her head.

How do you writers out there deal with your strange fruit?

Mary Sue Anonymous

A tall brunette walked to the front of the meeting room and stepped up to the podium. "Hi, everyone. My name's Jane, and I write Mary Sue novels."

"Hi, Jane."

"I've been coming to meetings three times a week for nine months now." Jane toyed with a thread hanging from the end of her sleeve. "I was feeling pretty good, and confident about earning my one-year chip, but this past weekend, I . . . I fell off the wagon."

Most of the audience shifted in their seats.

Jane pushed her shoulders back. "I knew what I was doing. I mean, I knew when I made my protagonist a virgin at twenty-six that I was heading down the wrong road. She's not a Christian fundamentalist, or unmarried and living in Iran. But I just couldn't bring myself to give her a fumbling backseat high school experience or a token bad marriage to an older man with regular erectile dysfunction. It's stupid, but . . . I really thought I could handle it."

Someone snorted loudly. A middle-aged redhead in the second row elbowed the bearded man sitting next to her.

"I kept writing, and made her beautiful and built and brilliant . . ." Jane stopped and covered her face with a trembling hand.

The redhead sighed. "The three killer B's."

Jane dropped her hand and bravely pushed on. "From there, I admit, it snowballed. I gave her a bottle-green Jag, and a job curating an art museum, and a Victorian mansion she bought for a song and renovated single-handedly. The next thing I knew she was gardening, raising hybrid roses and tossing together gourmet dinners for one."

A lanky teenager in a black leather jacket slowly clapped his hands three times. "So what did you name her? Elizabeth? Angelique?"

"Jennifer. Jennifer Jane Fairchild." Jane avoided his eyes. "I knew it was wrong. I knew it spelled the end of my sobriety, but you know . . . God, it felt so good to write it."

A thin, balding man stood up. "Tell us about the dog, Jane."

"I don't know what you mean." Jane's chin lifted. "I didn't write a dog in the story."

Everyone stared at her.

"All right. All right." Jane hung her head. "It was a golden retriever. Never sheds, never pukes or piddles on the carpet. Sleeps on the floor at the foot of Jennifer's antique brass bed. I named him . . .Goldie."

A tattered-looking man with a straggly goatee and a black cigarette planted between his chapped lips entered the meeting room and took a seat in the back row.

"Anyway." Jane paused to sniff a few times. "I did stop. I stopped as soon as Jennifer Jane stumbled across a Neo-Nazi plot to murder the democratic, extremely popular governor of her state. A murder which only she personally could prevent, of course, at great personal risk. I put away the pages in my desk."

"Oh, Jane." The redhead knuckled away a tear.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Jane snapped. "Sure, I know the rules. My protagonist should have been a recovering crack whore hiding from the cops in a flop house room with a sometimes-boyfriend named Wife Beater--"

The man with the goatee interrupted Jane by applauding loudly. One of the women sitting near him leaned over, asked him a question, shook her head and pointed to the door. The man with the goatee rose and walked out.

Jane rubbed some sweat from her face. "It's not like I'm going to publish it. Look, it was just a story. One story."

"That's how it starts, Jane," the balding man in the front row said, not without some sympathy. "One story, and then another, and soon you can justify every aspect of the Mary Sue novel. You join a writer organization, wear pink suits, have your business cards scented and go to luncheons once a month. And you know what the next step is after that."

Jane paled. "That won't happen to me."

"You never think it does," he said, "but then suddenly you're writing the last three words of your novel." He looked around the room. "And they are?"

The audience answered as a group. "Happily. Ever. After."

Jane burst into tears.

"I think we should have a reading now, to remind us all of why we're here." The balding man opened the book in his hands and began to read. "The Twelve Suggested Steps of Mary Sue Anonymous. Step One: We admitted we were powerless over Mary Sues--that our stories had become unrealistic."

As Jane groped in her purse for a tissue, the other people in the meeting echoed the balding man's words. Down the hall, the man with the goatee finally found the correct room for his meeting. He was welcomed by that group, and invited to step up to the podium and introduce himself.

"Howdy." He rubbed his mouth, dishevelling his goatee. "My name is Nick, and I write literary novels."

"Hi, Nick."

Character Wheel

While working with Antone Roundy's online Color Wheel generator to get some ideas for an e-book cover art in progress, a writing lightbulb flickered.

Everyone remembers from school what a color wheel is, right?



When people like artists, interior designers and quilters work with color, they are constantly thinking about how to put different colors together in a palette to create a certain look. Monochromatic color schemes, for example, are all tints or shades of one color (sky blue, medium blue, navy blue), while analogous schemes are all different colors which are side by side on the color wheel (green, blue, and violet.) Complementary schemes are when you put together colors from opposite sides of the wheel (green and red; blue and orange.)

I can talk color all day -- quilters are obsessed with values and patterns and such -- but that's not why I latched onto this color wheel thing. For years I've tried to explain how to balance characters in a story, but I never had a logical way to show how I do it. I always ended up trying to draw a schematic of the process and making a mess of it.

But now I'm thinking: is it possible to create a cast of characters in the same way artisans and designers use a color wheel to work out a design scheme? In romances, I know I prefer to write complementary heroes and heroines, and create sort of an analogous cast around those two contrasting characters. But the terms for color schemes don't quite translate right; we'd need personality traits to be the colors and define very different combinations. Each novel might require a new wheel, and I doubt any two writers' wheels would look the same.

It might still be too complicated a process to put together a character wheel, but I really liked the idea. It would make a great teaching tool, too. What do you guys think?

Plot Tigers

In Craft & Technique, one of Paul Raymond Martin's little writing instruction books that I keep pushing on other writers, he said something that simplified the whole business of plotting beautifully:

"There are three elements to every plot: Get your character up a tree. Put tigers under the tree. Get your character out of the tree."

I like that, although tigers and trees are a bit tame for me. Dump a bunch of injured characters into a sinking lifeboat, surround the boat with starving sharks, and then send in a cat 5 hurricane before they try to get out -- that's more my style. Still, if you're having trouble with roughing out the basic plot of your story, Paul's three phase approach can be a great starting place.

One of the books I just finished had a plot tiger running around in it that I didn't even see until the third pass. Even stranger, the tiger was setting, not a character or active conflict. The thing was, this one aspect of the setting kept bugging me, and not for the usual reasons like I hate writing it and would that everything could take place in a dark featureless void etc. It sat there acting like a big lump until I rearranged a scene and then wham, it snarled in my face. I hate making changes, but I took the tiger off its chain and let it run. The end result was amazing stuff that didn't alter the story but actually pulled it together, almost as if that was the way it should have been written in the first place. Whether it was the subconscious parallel plotting or just pure dumb writer's luck, I was glad it happened.

Does this happen to anyone else out there? What sort of plot trees or tigers do you find in your stories?

Think Ink

Every writer has methods to jumpstart ideas, refine skills and otherwise help get the job done. Mine usually revolve around some sort of word play, random observation or memory game, like these:

1. Setting Details: Go to a model home or place you've never been before, and walk around one of the rooms for five minutes. Step outside and (no peeking) write down what you most remember about that room. Now go back in and see what wasn't memorable, and make a list of those things.

2. Single/Group Character Dynamics: Spend ten minutes alone with a friend, and then later write down what you did and said together. Repeat the exercise with three, four, five or as many friends as you can gather in a room. See if you can describe what your friends were wearing, how you thought they were feeling, and any details that come to mind.

3. Real Life Dialogue: Eavesdrop for fifteen minutes in a public space (don't be obvious about it) and write down exactly what you overhear along with a brief description of the speakers. Go home and write a scene in a completely different setting but using the same speakers and the dialogue you wrote down.

4. Observed Emotion/Profession: Look at any number of strangers you pass during the day and without talking to them or interacting with them in any way, try to guess how they are feeling. Write down what body language, speech and/or facial expressions made you think they were happy, angry, indifferent, etc. Based on their appearance, dress and attitude, try to guess what they do for a living and write down what made you guess that profession.

5. Comparitive Point of View: Ask five friends to tell you what they know or remember about a well-known disaster (i.e. 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.) Use the same disaster for all five people and jot down notes or record what they say. Compare each person's recollection and note the similarities and differences between them.

What method(s) have you created or found that help you with some aspect of your writing? Post yours in comments here by midnight EST on Sunday, September 10, 2006. I'll select one name at random from everyone who participates and send the winner a Think Ink goody bag, which will include The Writer's Book of Matches, unsigned copies of Alison Kent's CI Guide to Writing Erotic Romance and Rosina Lippi's Tied to the Tracks, a copy of Writer's Journal Magazine and a few more surprises. This giveaway is open to everyone on the planet, even if you've won something here at PBW in the past.

Timelining

I'm setting up my new novel's timeline tomorrow, starting with an event that happened 700 years ago. The novel won't begin with that event, or the others that occurred over the subsequent seven centuries, and there will be no flashbacks. Still, I need to impose order on one character's lengthy backstory, and chronicle it in major events before I wrestle with the present (this is all part of my practice of knowing a lot more about my characters than the reader does.)

If you think of a novel as simply a series of events, fortunate, unfortunate or otherwise, you can map out a basic structure that will help you create your scenes. Here's the first part of the original timeline for StarDoc.

1. Cherijo packs her things and leaves Earth for a new world.

2. En route to the new world, Cherijo broods over her situation.

3. Cherijo arrives at the new world and insults her new boss, Dr. Mayer.

4. At her new job, Cherijo makes mistakes and questions her decision.

5. Cherijo clashes with Reever, the colony's telepathic linguist.

6. A slaver forces Cherijo to deliver his mate's quintuplets.

This was my initial plan for the opening chapters, and when I wrote the book, the timeline gave me a story roadmap to follow. I decided to open the book a little differently, because the solitary packing-to-leave scene I had in mind provided too much info dumpage temptation, and that's the reason the novel opens with Cherijo in the shady part of town, hiring a pilot and ending up in the middle of a bar fight. This change in plans didn't alter things, and I find that if I timeline only off significant events that affect the protagonist in relation to the central plot, setting changes generally won't cause a problem.

Timelines allow you to move through the novel plan without a lot of unnecessary information or the cast of characters cluttering your view. I find the hardest thing about working off a synopsis is that it reads in story form. I'll break up a synopsis into one or two paragraph chunks when I use it for creating chapter sumarries, but even then it's too wordy or not orderly enough to really be useful.

What most helps you all when you're working out your novel plan?

Related links:

Holly Lisle's Scene-Creation Workshop -- Writing Scenes that Move Your Story Forward

How to Plot When You Can't

How to Make a Timeline

Scenery

Most of us are all guilty at one time or another of starting a scene like this:

It was a dark and stormy night.

Unless you write scenery very well, it's a boring way to start a scene. I try to enter the scenes I write as late as possible, preferably in the midst of dialogue or action, and skip the travel log.

If the character is in a new place I want the reader to see, dialogue and action can show the place (versus me telling the reader about it):

"More pink," Alexandra said as she looked around the beach house. "Holy Toledo. Is there some state law that says every other thing in Florida has to be pink?"

or

"Why am I here instead of at home trying to sleep through Gloria’s game shows?" Harry demanded as he dropped his tray on the cafeteria lunch table.

I also sometimes start with a bit of condensed backstory needed to give perspective to the action:

Lucan had been trying to wake Samantha from the catatonic trance she had fallen into after Faryl’s escape, with no luck. He had tried cold water compresses, a capsule of ammonia from Burke’s first aid kit, and brandy. Nothing roused her.

And even an impaired character can still show what's happening through senses and dialogue:

"Hey." Someone was shaking her. "Time to make the donuts."

Sam groped for a pillow, found one, and put it over her face to block out the noise and the light. "Go away."

"I’d be happy to, Officer, but you’re in my apartment."

If I have to go with a descriptive opener, I like showing the characters versus the setting:

Byrne came out of the shadows, the hem of his great coat swirling in the faint mist. He pulled back the scarf covering his head, revealing blood-red hair that fell over his shoulders in waves, some of which had been woven into thin, tight braids. Byrne’s garnet mane contrasted sharply with the enigmatic swirls and lines of the dark blue tattoos on his face. He moved with the quick, easy power of a man accustomed to climbing mountains on foot.

What are some of the ways you open a novel scene?

Uno

I always get a grin out of articles by the literati, who are appalled at the idea of an author writing a book every year. As if writing novels was the same as having illicit sex; and the more you do it, the more of a slut you are. As with all sorts of talent, those who don't have it are always stumbling over themselves to tell those who do how they should use it.

And as the song goes, it's in the way that you use it, not how little or how often.

There is some weight to this argument for the writer; if not for the reasons the literati would wash our brains with. Most of the published authors I know would be overjoyed to slow down. Wouldn't we all like to live the life of Lethem, and have a half a million free bucks to blow on good equipment, research, promotion, and all the other expensive stuff? Not that such a thing ever happens to writers who actually need the money.

Thing is, without a bankroll, or a very patient family or partner willing to support you, a writer hoping to keep writing full-time can't afford to slow down. And then there's the competition, which is getting outrageous. The working writer has to put out his or her best at least once, preferably twice, yearly simply to stay in everyone's little black book.

If you want to do that, you should start making some time commitments.

Work up a writing schedule based on what you want to accomplish over the next twelve months. Let's say, for example, you want to write two books a year, and that means producing 200K. If you write five days a week, and do your research, outlining, editing and rewriting on the weekend, that requires writing about 770 words per day, or three pages. At an average of an hour a page, that's three hours of writing time. Double that, write six pages, and you can produce four books a year -- if you can devote six hours per day to writing (for those who want to pace me, you need to produce three to five pages per hour, or thirty to forty pages per day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.)

This is not possible for everyone, and I wouldn't presume to say it is. For some writers, writing to a schedule is simply impossible because their lives are too erratic. Others can only write when mental/physical/spiritual conditions are perfect, and I understand those conditions can't be scheduled. You guys really have it tough, but I imagine all that chaos and spontaneity pays off in other ways for you all.

I'll be talking more about ways to increase your productivity this week, but in the meantime check out SF author William C. Dietz's article How to Write a Book A Year (.pdf file format) here. He has some good pointers on how to handle the work of writing one book per year while holding down a job, hanging with your family, having a life, not going insane, etc.

Dude, Where's My Craft?

Ten Things about Writing Craft

1. Ewritersplace.com

2. John Hewitt's Fifteen Craft Exercises for Writers

3. Amy Hillenburg's article 'Rough Writers' hone their craft, let off steam

4. Long Ridge Writers Group's Writing Craft

5. John Metcalf's Soaping a Meditative Foot: Notes for a Young Writer

6. Notable writers talk about their craft

7. NovelAdvice.com

8. Romanceeverafter.com's The Writing Craft -- Detailed links page

9. Vikk Simmons's The effect of blogging on the writing process and Zen in the Art of Writing

10. Tastynews.com's Craft links page

Pride & Publishing

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a publisher in possession of a large house must be in want of a writer.

I'm channeling Jane Austen this morning because the marriage mart story from her novel Pride and Prejudice is an excellent analogy for the people and processes in the publishing industry. Maybe it was all the P's that brought it to mind.

Consider that most writers are the Bennet sisters, with little but our charms to recommend us.

We all know Jane Bennet writers, who are beautiful artists. They're in love with the craft and are incapable of saying a bad word about it. They're inevitably talented and the beauty comes through in their work. We admire the Janes, even if we do sometimes want to shake them until their teeth rattle.

Then there are the Mary Bennet writers. You know, the rule makers, busy dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's, grimly determined to do Right and Proper. So uptight about the craft that they could swallow a lump of coal and pass a diamond.

Kitty Bennet writers suffer for their art: I Agonize Over Everything Therefore I am a Great Artist. They're forever petulant and whining because they think it makes them legit.

The Lydia Bennets are easy to spot because they angle to be the center of attention. They believe being a writer should be nonstop fun, glam, all play, no work. They don't care, don't listen and careen about demanding a good time and throwing tantrums when they don't get one.

If you're not a Jane, and you want to make it in the industry, you could do worse than emulate Lizzie Bennet. Having a sense of humor never hurts. Neither does being realistic. Holding out for the real deal versus settling what you can get is never a bad thing.

If writers are the Bennet sisters, then naturally publishers are the Mr. Collinses, Mr. Bingleys, Mr. Wickhams and Mr. Darcys. Publication is a dance. If you want to waltz with them, you'd better put on your finest and wrangle an invitation to the ball. Looking good might catch their attention, but remember, you only have your charms to recommend you.

Mr. Collins publishers will get you into print, all right, but you may not like what you have to put up with in the process. If you're a Charlotte Lucas, maybe you can deal with it. The Mr. Wickhams will con you, use you and toss you aside the second you don't serve their purpose. The Mr. Bingleys are nice, solid publishers who will give you a comfortable career.

If we're going to be honest, though, we all want a shot at Mr. Darcy.

The Mr. Darcy publishers are as elusive as they are affluent. They generally behave as if you're beneath their notice. They might offend you to the point of vowing never to dance with them. But if you keep showing up at the assemblies and balls, something you do may intrigue the Mr. Darcy publisher. He may start to see your better qualities. He may casually ask you to dance. (Whatever he's done to insult you, this is not the time to tell him to piss off. This is when you politely say I thank you yes.)

Whatever Bennet you are as a writer, in publishing none of us ever get to marry Mr. Darcy and go live at Pemberly. It's a new dance every time you pitch an idea, write a novel and/or see it published. There are a thousand other prospective partners at the dance, hoping and actively trying to catch Mr. Darcy's eye.

Hopefully all of the above doesn't make me sound like Miss Bingley or Mrs. Hearst. I'd much rather be your Aunt Gardner.

Way of the Cheetah

Getting up at 4 am when I don't have to may seem masochistic, but it will do great things for my daily quota and maybe buy me an extra week off during the holidays. Very early AM is also a good writing time for me, and I barely noticed the difference this morning when the alarm went off.

It's day six of NaNoWriMo, everyone still chugging merrily along? Hope so. I do enjoy seeing all the fun my friends are having with it. The 175,000 words or so that I'm writing this month = two books already sold, with deadlines attached to them, so this is not a game for me. This is my job. Here, every month is NaNoWriMo, and pretty much has been for the last six years.

If you'd like to boost your speed and productivity, this is what I've found helped me break the 10K per day barrier:

1. Write at your most creative hour. To find it, try writing at different times of the day and night, and see which one is most comfortable for you as a writer. I like early mornings because the house is quiet, everyone is asleep, and I get to see the sunrise on my break.

2. See the scene before you write. Try to imagine it in your head before you write it, like a movie clip. Envision as many details as you can, and don't forget to use all of your senses.

3. Make your writing area comfortable for you. Mine is a computer on a compact wheeled desk with nothing in, on, or around it. I'm like a three year old when it comes to being visually distracted by colors, shapes and patterns. Also, if things get loud, the wheeled desk is nice because I can push the computer into another room.

4. Write straight through without stopping. This is writing minus the back-pedaling, re-reading and rewriting. Start to finish, no editing. Don't question yourself, don't worry about whether you're writing well or not. Trust yourself and keep going.

5. Get up and stretch now and then. Walk around for a minute at least once every hour. Don't dehydrate yourself and eat something nutritious every six to eight hours. Your body will thank you.

6. When you're finished, save your work, print it out if you want a hard copy, and then shut it down and walk away. Give yourself a good break before you start editing what you wrote. I always take about four to six hours off before I look at what I wrote.

7. After you edit once, put the work away and don't touch it again. Moving on to the next section that needs to be written is probably the hardest thing for writers to do besides the actual writing. You'll have a chance to go back and fix things when the book is done, and this is good practice for streamlining your editing process.

8. Reward yourself for making your quota. When you reach a goal, give yourself a pat on the back and do something you enjoy. Have lunch out, take a long walk with the dog, watch a TV show or movie, buy yourself a book, listen to a CD. This is really important, because even when you sell your work the way I do, you still need to pay the muse, renew the spirit, replenish the creativity well or whatever you want to call it. I hand write letters, knit, quilt, paint, read poetry or listen to music. Sometimes I just go for a drive through the country.

9. Don't grade yourself. This is not a test. This is training. Test comes later, when they pay you for what you write.

10. Don't stop writing. The reason I'm in print? Is because nothing stops me. Three hurricanes tried this summer, and I wrote by candlelight on a PDA for a total of twenty-one days without power or water. You can always find a way to write. Keep it up.