But, Why?

One of the symptoms that you have a case of "great writing group," is that members will ask you questions that challenge you in a way that makes you want to address the issue.

Usually, these questions are pretty simple. 

Almost always, they are open ended.

From my Traveling Java group, Val (who's pagan column you absolutely need to read!) asked me why my protagonist, Heather, is insistent on keeping the whole kelpie issue secret from the adults in the story when, per my own copy, there are reasonable hints that said grown-ups won't necessarily think she's crazy… and might actually listen to her!

A very good question.

If you've read much children's or YA fiction, it's a fairly common trope that kids just Don't Tell Their Parents… well, much of anything.  Even when Anything is something pretty horrible, or even deadly.

Now, from the beginning of my drafting process, I knew I would address that issue anyway.

But still, why doesn't Heather chat with, say, Mr. McInnis who nailed iron crosses all around the barn after the first kelpie attack?  Obviously he knows a thing or two about fae.

Well, Mr. McInnis is a scary curmudgeon who feels she's too strong-willed for a child, especially a girl, and that she's brought on this fae curse.  Heather doesn’t quite know that much about Mr. McInnis, but like most kids, she can sense he's not particularly fond of her.  And grumpy.  And angry.  All. The. Time.

Ok, but her parents seem to be pretty open minded. 

She adores her dad and is truly guilty that she worried him so much in the first place, sneaking out with her best friend.  Dad's bipolar disorder is acting up, though, and he's worried about her older sister, Lily, who's a whole continent away with her biological mom, a woman less than esteemed among Heather's family.  Heather doesn't want to make Dad's life any more surreal or difficult.

Her mum, however, has written articles, fiction, and scripts that include magic and faerie.  When Heather's younger brother, Rowan, was scared that goblins would kidnap him (per Lily's teasing), Mum even did a spell from one of her books - and Heather swears it was more than just show.  At least talking to Mum might be a good plan, right?

But she doesn't.  And even though I'm writing in first person POV for Heather, she doesn't even bring up the idea of telling her parents the truth as an option. 

Now, I know why she's secretive, but it's not particularly easy to show.  It's doable, and something I have to go back and enhance - obviously because both Val and Marlys agreed with the need for clearer motivation - but a good part of it is who Heather is, and who influences the person she wants to be.

The primary influence on Heather's character is, despite being a Daddy's Girl, her mum, who she perceives as someone she wants to be like.  (Heather's not a teenager yet, so her parents have not quite descended to the levels of über-uncoolness.)  Heather's mum, like most of the women I know (including the character's namesake), is also not especially good at asking for help.  In fact, she has a bit of a goddess-complex; of course she can save the world!  Heather's Dad usually is the one who has to figure out if his spouse is getting in over her head.

Yeah, that's Heather's primary role model.

And then there's Heather's best friend, Prince Joseph ("Joe" to her, and her alone) who happens to be a prince, third in line to the throne of England.  His parents met while both snuck away from their families to fight in a war and, long story short, ended up saving a lot of lives.  He's got pretty big role models to follow, too.  On top of that, he's, well, a prince who's smothered with attention, so he's constantly trying to accomplish stuff on his own, without a whole flipping retinue that wants to help and protect him.

Heather, of course, thinks he's pretty cool.  She's also not much of a leader, and he is, so she tends to let him take charge… even when an idea (like trying to be heroes by finding kidnapped kids before the police do) is hers.

Now, I've always known about Heather's Mum's character flaw; I've know Heather's Mum longer than I've known Heather - character creation wise.  I didn't know about Joe's influence, though, until I really started thinking deeper about Heather's motivations (thanks to Val's question).  I'm also in the middle of writing a bunch of Heather/Joe scenes, so that part of his personality is starting to show.  I'll probably have to tease it out and reveal it even more for readers, but now that I know it's there, I have something more to work with.

Because, currently, Heather's Mum is under an especially difficult and unusual kind of stress, so she's not showing her "I can save the world!" personality so much in this book. (Sorry for the vagueness; spoiler land.)

Another of Heather's personality points, which comes from her mother (and is based on my own experience), is that you don't ever want to make someone else's life more difficult by asking for help if you could, possibly, handle something yourself.  Now, drawing the line of judgment of what one can handle by oneself is not easy as an adult, let me tell you!  It's less so for a kid; I remember that well.  So, you focus on the not wanting to make someone else's life difficult, no matter what.

I might be able to bring that out in writing more, adding more of Heather's thoughts.  The not-so-easy part is detecting how obvious or subtle those things are.  Unless you were raised in a family that valued family secrecy (which I was) and extreme independence (albeit very open, supportive parents), it's hard to break that down; it's ingrained.  But it must be done.

So, this seemingly simple question about Heather's motivations for this little secrecy detail is pretty important; it's not just a children's book trope I'm using.

And because it's so important, it's important that I bring it out more.

If you haven't got a fabulous writer's group that will ask "But, why?" for you, make sure you do for yourself.  I love Debra Dixon's book, Goal, Motivation, & Conflict; it's a great tool for doing just that.  She maps character goals in plots and subplots for major novels and movies to show authors how they can apply it to their own work.  The exercise is important at many levels, because every choice a character makes is a conflict affected by the goal and motivation. 

So, go question your character's motives!  (Trust me, you can't trust those characters on their own!  Any of them!)

More on that Pesky Business Side of Writing

After meeting with the excellent girls of Traveling Java, my local writers group, I came home and settled down to business.

I had about 20 Funds for Writers newsletters in my inbox. 

Note: I've mentioned the most fabulous C. Hope Clark before, and I'm not affiliated with her site (other than her having published 2 of my articles), but let me say again that I cannot recommend www.fundsforwriters.com enough.  Go at least sign up for her free newsletter, but know the paid subscription is worth every penny and more!

Anyway, I subscribe to three of her newsletters, FundsforWriters, TOTAL FundsforWriters (the paid subscription), and FFW Small Markets, which covers a lot of the fiction markets (because fiction pays SMALL.)

My business for the night was to catch up all of my submission information.  I was severely hurting on this aspect of my New Year's business plan.  I had one - ONE - submission for this year and I needed to have 6 done to meet goal. 

I was also severely behind on my QueryTracker (another FREE service that I HIGHLY recommend!) information on Starbard submissions. As depressing as it was, I updated all my stuff there, which included two rejections I'd forgotten about because I hadn't recorded them.  The MS still outstanding at three agencies, all of which were sent out over three months ago, which was longer than their websites stated turnaround, so I followed up with all three of those.  I did this first because FFW also lists agencies and publishers, so I wanted to work based on updated information.

While I was updating, I pulled from my 2010 general fiction/poetry submissions spreadsheet three more subs that were still outstanding.  One is likely one of those "you don't hear from us = rejection," but the other two were a contest and a grant that won't post winners until later this year.

As I went through all of my FFW newsletters, I found one specific listing that I could submit to right now!  So, I did. Yay me!  I found a few other non-fiction or potential fiction-inspiring pieces that I liked a lot, so I kept a list of those and emailed it to myself.  On top of that, I found two publishing houses that I saved the information from.  One is Angry Robot, which will be accepting non-agented manuscripts in March.  Another was a Scottish contest called "KELPIES PRIZE FOR SCOTTISH CHILDREN," and I'm thinking… "hmm… my Kelpie novel is just for that age range."  Of course, the deadline was February 28th, so it was immediately followed by, snerk-snerk-HAHAHAHAHA! because I'm still drafting.  However, it's a prize with a history, so next year… something to think about!

Now, the newsletters and website are more valuable than just market and job listings.  There are a number of great articles - written by Hope, herself, or written by guest authors (like me and me.) 

Her article last Friday was the deciding factor in why I wrote on this particular topic today. (I had other plans… but I've got business on the mind and my other plans was on craft and magic.)  She often uses great animal analogies - something that resonates with me (I even emailed her a chicken adventure story because one of her chicken analogies helped in an real-life chicken experience; how's that for meta?!).  Last Friday, she wrote about her sons' puppies.

In a nutshell, one son is out of work, so he's using his time to work and train his puppy; the puppy has become exceptionally well-trained and mature.  The other son is in college and working, both great things, but he hasn't as much time to spend with his puppy - and you can tell by the behavior and effusive energy.  There writers who struggle to try and do everything: have a full time job, or several jobs, or many responsibilities, and yet expect to produce a mature and powerful manuscript in a reasonable amount of time. Then, there are writers who, for some reason or another, do not have to work or nurture as many responsibilities, so they can spend hours and hours on craft, creating a strong, high-quality manuscript in a  (relatively) short time.  "All of us fall into one of these categories, or one of many levels in between. You cannot devote your primary time in one direction and expect your writing to evolve in your absence. On the other hand, you cannot expect to make money for a while when you write fulltime."

Why highlight this?

I got home from my writers group at a little before 9PM.  It's almost 3AM now, as I'm writing my blog.  (And I still need to edit, proof, and post.)  That's almost a full-time work day.  I ate dinner at my desk, and took a half hour break to check on Facebook (I timed it.)  Now, before my writers group meeting, I had already spent an hour on critiquing, an hour on interviews for an article… and also had to finish laundry, dishes, and throw dinner in the crock pot. Oh, and somehow there were two-and-a-half hours devoted to horse duties in there.

That's well over a whole business day's work.  Even the writers group - as fun as it is - is devoted to writing. 

Staying on focus with the business end MUST get the time it needs.  And constantly re-evaluating our time management is part of that.  Now that I've mostly caught up on 2 months of submission neglect (I've been neglecting since December 8th, exactly, per my Almighty Spreadsheet.),  it will be easier to stay on track now.  There are still some FFW newsletters in my inbox because more than half the newsletter had leads for me and/or an article important to my business.

Based on what Hope said about the categories of how writers spend their time and my experience with so many writers - especially women - is that we fall into that first category of needing to make money and run a business.  That simply must be attended to. 

Don't neglect the business end of writing, even if you do have the luxury of spending hours upon hours writing.  Keep atop your submissions, your stories sold, your book inventory (if you've got one.)  Write, yes, but unless you're simply writing for yourself, don't let that be the end all, be all.

Give business the time it needs for you to be successful.

Planning a Castle, and Magic in Scotland

Or, Why Research in Novels is Cool!

Most of Friday was spent on the Interwebz and in Scotland (via said Interwebz). 

My good friend, Renée, was kind enough to let me abuse her paper and ink supply as I looked up various historic castles, their stories, their blueprints, and the areas in Scotland where they were. With large stack of castle research in hand, I set about plotting the castle that Heather and the MacArthur family live in - the 2nd part of my homework from my "Fabu" (thanks for the word, Suzanne!) writing group, Traveling Java.

Plotting a useable castle is freaking hard!!

(Planning a starship is harder, but that's a different novel.)

In any case, like with all of my details, I want it to be believable, which means that the castle must be structurally sound and things like secret passages need to make sense with the blueprint.  That also means that the walls and rooms need to be well-planned so as they aren't suspiciously wide between rooms.

Oh, and on top of that, if it's been modernized with additions (as the MacArthur castle has), you need to actually get to the additions and move around… so at some point, doors need to be made in places that make sense for doors to be (i.e. not at major supports and not through extra-reinforced walls… and certainly not through already-built-in towers with stairs planned for the original levels and dimensions.) 

Everyone needs a place to sleep and live, too… don't forget the live-in staff!  They kinda need to be near heat sources and close enough to the remodeled and renovated parts so that they don't feel like their living in the Middle Ages.  Not if you're writing a contemporary fantasy, anyway.

In figuring all this out, I worked one pencil's eraser down to the nub and made my way 3/4 of the way through another poor pencil's eraser.  I have three completed floors and one partial of the sub-floor, which includes how the secret passages all connect… and I probably still need to do a roof view.

Of course, the changes affect the story, too.  Just like the Character Bible revealed a lot about my characters that I hadn't realized, the map did the same.  There are definitely some scenes I must fix to reflect the layout (particularly one with running down stairs where the room from which the character is running is now on the first floor), but as I continue on the draft, more scenes are a whole lot easier to write.

Besides just plotting out the MacArthur castle, I mapped out where it would be located in the novel's Scotland.  This was a particularly magical task.  After a few novels in the UK under my belt that make liberal use of Google Maps (HOW did writers survive before Google?  Really?!), I have a rough geographical idea in my head about Wales, England, and Scotland (And Ireland).  In the mists of my mind, I figured the castle would be about an hour's drive east of Edinburgh, and I wanted it on the shore… with cliff trails (Thanks, Backpacker magazine!) and maybe about 35-40 minutes from a small village - but not a major city or town.  It also abuts a nature preserve between the castle and the village.

Well, there just happens to be such a perfect location in Scotland!  EXACTLY how I want it!  Down to the village and driving times (per Google Maps' driving directions) and the cliff walk (a tourist attraction of the village I found that matches my novel village).  So, I just plopped my castle and saltwater loch in the middle of Real-World existing farmland (or so it appears on the satellite images). 

In any case, I'm unbelievably happy with the results of this exercise, and absolutely appreciate how well my new writers group pushes me! 

Yay, research & writing groups!

Introducing the DragonWriters Blog!

A good writing group can mean all the difference in a single writer's career.



I've mentioned writing groups before and what makes a good writing group… and I cannot find the link to that post. But trust me, I did!

In any case, my first professional writing group was the DragonWriters, who I met at the 2002 Dragon*Con in Atlanta, Georgia. The group of us all signed up for A. C. Crispin's writing workshop, which started a day earlier than the convention.

Since then, many of the members of our group have stayed in contact and even when some of us (like me) slip up on our critiquing returns, we do still support each other through email and instant messaging. We not only push each other to do our best, but we're also each others fans - and that is a rare balance to strike.

In addition to our special chemistry, we've also got a good mix of writers at different levels. There's a novel published, along with many short stories, and countless non-fiction pieces… and many blogs.

Oh… you want to find out more about these great reading items?

Come visit our blog!

www.dragon-writers.com