Author: Karen

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On writing

Starting your novel with conversation

As writers, Sherylyn and I are both dialogue people. We can make words come out of our characters mouths with an ease that other writers we know struggle with. The hardest part, for us, is putting some emotion and colour around those words.

Because we’re such big conversationalists, we usually hit the story talking, as it were, and keep going from there. My first drafts always used to start with conversation, although I don’t do it as much now, while Sherylyn’s still do. By around the third draft we’ve usually managed to kick the habit.

Starting a story with conversation is not quite taboo, but it is frowned upon, and is something a beginning writer should avoid where possible. There are famous and popular exceptions to every writing rule and I’m sure we can all name at least three books we love where the story starts off with someone speaking. In general, however, it’s a good rule to be aware of.

Back when I didn’t have so many novels under the bed I used to think this was simply a bias of specific agents and editors. I could name books that did it. Books I enjoyed. Books that were popular.

Three things changed this.

  • The first one is, obviously, experience. The more one writes the better one’s writing becomes. Or that’s how it works for most of us, anyway

The other two are connected, and they are both to do with the explosion of writing sites on the internet.

  • Agent and publisher blogs which, in general, give you a better respect for agents and how they work. Or at least those whose blogs you follow. The agent becomes an authority and what they say helps you to understand and improve your own work. A number of agent bloggers I admire say that opening a novel with conversation is an automatic negative that the writer has to overcome. Best of all, they explain why it’s a negative.
  • Lastly, online writing sites like Authonomy expose you to a huge range of writing from people whose work ranges from publishable now to first drafts that need a lot of work. I participate a lot in online writing communities and I see a lot of writing that doesn’t make it to the bookstore. Many of the stories that don’t work open with conversation. When you’re reading multiple stories like this you start to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. It works a lot like an agent’s slush pile. I imagine that prolific users of sites like Authonomy—can I say serious users, not those who are in there for the votes but those who are in it for the community and to better their own writing—plus say, Critters, would be better able to pick the promising stories out of the slush than they were before they started.

“Start in the middle of the story,” the experts tell you. You can’t get more middle than the middle of a conversation, surely.

So what makes stories starting with conversation so bad?

Another thing they tell you is that you only have a few lines to grab the reader’s attention.

They also tell you that the reader has to get the context of the story quickly. Lose the reader on the first page and you’ve lost them for the whole book.

I believe that one of the main reasons starting with conversation doesn’t work is because the reader has no context for that first line. They have no investment in the characters, they have no interest.

To use our own well-overdue-for-an-update novel in progress, Barrain:

I’m not sure how many revisions ago, but once we started the novel with:

“One man masterminded all of this.” In spite of her determination not to be, Taliah was impressed.

She might be talking about someone organising a barbeque for all we know. We have no idea who Taliah is, and we have no idea what the ‘one man who masterminded all this’ did to impress her, or why she didn’t want to be impressed. As yet we don’t even care.

In the latest re-write we put some context in first—before she speaks.

It wasn’t a battlefield, it was a slaughter yard.

Dead bodies lay everywhere amongst the smouldering ruins. Some of the bigger warehouses still burned, the flames unchecked. The enormous vultures that flickered in and out overhead were almost hidden by the choking black smoke that hung over everything.
In spite of her determination not to be, Taliah was impressed. “One man masterminded all of this.”
Barrain

We’ve added four sentences and moved one around. Now we have context.

We know where we are. We’re on a battlefield. We know—or we will when I fix the second paragraph—that we’re probably on a different world, because the vultures flicker in and out. We know what the man did that impressed Taliah so much. We don’t yet know why she didn’t want to be impressed, but that can come. We start to get an idea of who Taliah is.

We know now whether we want to spend a bit more time with her or whether it’s not our type of story.

Categories
Writing process

Reading your novel aloud

One piece of advice often given to writers to improve your writing is to ‘read your novel aloud’. I have tried this in the past and not found it much use. I always read what I expected to read, not what was actually on paper. Not only that, I don’t have much of an ear, so I can’t hear rhythms when I speak anyway. I even tried taping myself. That turned out to be a lot of effort for little return.

Then we started reading Sherylyn’s latest work aloud over dinner.

Let me tell you, reading your novel aloud does help you improve it. But you need two people, and you both have to read the same sections.

One reads it first and the other listens. Then the second person reads it while the first reader listens. It’s amazing how much you can improve a story.

Some other tips.

  • Don’t read for too long. We find that after around 10-15 pages we’re not as careful about the editing. After that you need to take a break and come back to it
  • If possible, both of you see the manuscript. Having two working copies makes for two sets of edits, but if the person listening can see what the other person is reading they see what words the reader skips. As I said, sometimes you read what you want to read, not what is actually on the page. Those words the reader skips usually don’t need to be in there anyway.

It’s hard work. A 100,000 word novel comes out to around 250 pages. At 10 pages a night, you have 25 intensive nights ahead of you.

I say it’s worth it.

Categories
Talking about things

The iPad is a good eReader

Sherylyn bought an iPad as an eReader. Neither of us were planning to.

Just before they came out she asked me if I was planning on buying one. I’m the techno-geek. I love toys like this (except for some reason I never buy phones). I’m always the first to have the latest computer or the newest operating system. I said no, for a number of reasons.

First, I’m not really an Apple person. I love their products, but my working life revolves around Microsoft products, Word and SharePoint in particular. Apple do beautiful products, but they’re expensive (comparatively). I’m also not a big fan of the iTunes store. I love the way they make it easy to do things, but I hate the way they force me to do it their way. It’s a bit like the feeling I get with online bookstores, particularly Amazon.

And of course, I’m paranoid about security, and the only real reason I feel that Apple hasn’t had the big security flaws to date other companies (a la Microsoft) have had is because there appears to be a sort of honour amongst developers. A feeling that ‘Apple is a good product, I won’t hack it’.

Second, I need a portable computer to write on. My little netbook comes everywhere with me. It fits into my handbag. Every spare moment I have it’s on, and I’m typing my story into it (until the battery runs out, more of which later). Yes, you can type on the iPad, but believe me it’s no substitute for a full-blown keyboard, and Pages just doesn’t compete with Word.

What I do want, however, is an e-reader. For the past few months have looked seriously at everything available, and read up on anything coming. If it’s an e-reader, and it’s in store, I have looked at it.

Most of what I have looked at is e-ink technology. This has two problems for me.

First is the size of the screen. I’m not getting any younger. The average e-reader I have seen to date is around 12×18 centimetres. Not too bad, you think, but with my eyesight—even with glasses—I have to have the text magnified enough so that I read around two paragraphs per screen. I’m happy enough with that, except that every e-reader I have looked at takes forever (1-2 seconds is forever in e-reader time) to refresh. People say you get used to it, and that you learn to judge when to click the button to get the next page up. Okay, I can live with this, but it leads onto the second problem.

When you click the button the page flickers as it refreshes. I have checked the web sites and 90% of people say they get used to it. I, however, am epileptic, and a fast reader to boot. I can imagine what the constant subliminal flickering is going to do to me. Particularly at two paragraphs per page. It will be like a strobe light. I am scared to even buy one of the things.

So I need more reading real estate, and I need a screen that refreshes smoothly.

I don’t even know what made us walk into the Apple store. I know that I dragged Sherylyn in. But we did.

Being in an Apple store just after a new release is like being in a store the weekend before Christmas. It’s absolute bedlam and you can’t move for the crowds. But somehow we managed to get to the iPads and have a play.

Man, but the e-Reader on the iPad has to be the best around. It’s smooth, the page turning is beautiful, and you have enough screen to read a whole book page.

The battery is poor compared to other e-ink readers (10 hours) but it’s fabulous compared to my little netbook, which gives me one and a half hours of typing time. I can read a book in ten hours, and it’s enough that I can use it all day and put it on to recharge overnight.

Sherylyn had her iPad within a week.

I haven’t bought one yet. I still need my netbook and the netbook and the iPad together weigh down the handbag too much. (I borrowed Sherylyn’s, just to test.) Even so, I’m seriously tempted. It may be the most expensive, but to me it’s the best e-reader on the market right now.

Categories
Talking about things

Are e-books changing my online reading habits?

Sometimes I feel I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t have time for Twitter and Facebook.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against either of them. They’re great sites. It’s just that the way I use my computer and the internet is changing. I find that the content on Twitter, especially, but also Facebook, is too short. I don’t get enough information out of a single post.

I know they say that people’s attention spans are getting shorter, but mine seems to be getting longer. If I don’t have something meaty to read I just don’t read it.

Take blogs, for example. I subscribe to a lot of blogs and nowadays I mostly skip the shorter posts and go straight to the articles with substance. Newspaper articles are the same. A 200 word article simply stating the facts doesn’t cut it any more. I want facts and opinions and background as well.

I even check my email less. Some days I don’t read my emails at all. (That’s not counting work emails, of course. That’s part of what you get paid to do.)

I don’t know if it’s co-incidental, but this reluctance to read short parallels almost exactly my increase in reading electronic books. I wonder if reading more e-books is training me to read longer in general both onscreen and online.

Categories
On writing

Secondary characters and the dangers writers put them in

You’ve seen it in the movies, you read about it in books, particularly whodunits and thrillers. The hero needs information. This information is hard to get. It’s on a government computer somewhere.

Our hero goes to a friend or a workmate or a relative who, just coincidentally–or not so coincidentally if the writer has laid the groundwork well—happens to work in the department that can give him the information and says, “Please. I need this.” Sometimes, depending on the movie or the book, it’s a matter of life or death.

So the friend/workmate/relative goes off to get the information for them.

And that’s where my credibility stops and something inside of me starts screaming, “Do you realise what you have just done?”

Nowadays information is better protected than it ever was and in any big company, and in many small ones, there’s an audit trail of who accessed which bit of data and when. Not only that, you can’t look up just anyone’s data. If the friend/workmate/relative goes outside their need to know they start tripping security flags. Someone is going to investigate.

The penalty for accessing data you’re not allowed to is instant dismissal.

Even if the breach is small. Even if it doesn’t hurt anyone.

What can the secondary character say? “But it’s life or death for my friend.”

Most bosses would reply something along the lines of, “He should have gone to the police then. Or come to the boss here and explained the problem.” Which of course, the hero can’t do because a) no-one would believe him, and b) they still wouldn’t give him what he needed to know, which is why the hero got his friend to do it in the first place.

Collateral damage to secondary characters is a fact of fiction.

I accept that.

I don’t know why this particular case bothers me more than most. Maybe it’s because it’s such a thoughtless thing to do and because the consequences for the secondary character can be devastating. Maybe (probably) it’s because I and many of my friends work in environments where data is protected and we have seen first-hand the effects of even minor security lapses.

To me it makes for a selfish hero, so focused on his own problems that he doesn’t consider anyone else. That always makes me like him a little less.

Categories
On writing

Computers are not just for the internet

Writing time is scarce in a full working day. I take any time I can, even lunchtime, to write.

I have it down pat now. Pick a not-so-busy time to eat, find a quiet cafe, order food, then pull out the PC and start working. Since I purchased a netbook my writing productivity has increased fourfold.

I am often approached by other people who are interested in buying their own netbook to ask how I feel about mine. I tell them it’s great, and talk about the things that were important to me when I bought it. Could I touch type on it? Were the control, shift and alt keys in the right place? Then they ask the question that’s important to them. How do you access the internet on it?

The fact is, I seldom use the netbook to connect to internet. The screen is too small, access is slow(ish), and I’d rather use the full-size, faster PC at home.

Yet for most people, how and whether their computer connects to the internet is the only question.

Sometimes I feel I am the only person left in the world who doesn’t need internet access 24-7.

I use the internet, of course. I use it for research. I use it for email. But I don’t need it on all the time. In fact, it’s nice to be able to sit down, uninterrupted, and just write.

Categories
On writing

To prologue or not to prologue

If you’ve read this blog before you will know that I’m not a big fan of prologues.

A good prologue gives you information that is not part of the main story but that is important to know. It is often set in a different time to that of the main novel, usually earlier, and it generally has a different protagonist. The classic prologue that comes to mind is Tolkien’s explanation of how the one ring to rule them all came about. (I’m thinking the movie version here.)

Another use for a prologue is as part of a series, where it’s a precis of what happened in previous books. I might add that most of my favourite series don’t have prologues and don’t need them.

Unfortunately, many people who write fantasy novels seem to think that their story isn’t a real fantasy if it doesn’t have a prologue, so they put one in, when really what they have written is chapter one of their novel and they should just have started the main story earlier.

Their prologue deals with events that happen to the person who is the main point-of-view character of the novel. These events often happen only days or—or even in one case, minutes—before the story proper. They’re often narrated in a distant, omniscient voice. If you read the prologue at all you just skim it, then you turn over to chapter one and start reading it and bang, you’re right in the middle of the aftermath of what happened in the prologue.

Don’t get me wrong. I like a story that starts in the middle of the action, but even a story that begins with action needs a place where you, the reader, can begin. That’s usually at the start of chapter one.

I believe that you should be able to read a whole book without the prologue and still understand and enjoy it. The prologue should add further information and enrich the story, but it shouldn’t be part of the story. Going back to Lord of the Rings, the story of the making of the ring had nothing and everything to do with the story of how and why Frodo and company set out to destroy the ring. That’s the ideal prologue.

In my latest novel I thought I had written—horrors—a prologue. It was set prior to the main story. It was told from a different point-of-view, and the narrator was first-person while the rest of the story is third-person. What happens in the prologue is the trigger for the whole story. You could read the story without it, but you read it differently because if you read the prologue first you knew what was going on and why things had happened.

So be it. If my story had to have a prologue it had one.

And then just a little over half-way through the story the same first-person narrator pops up again. It wasn’t conscious. More a, “Hey, here I am and I want my turn now,” type of writing. Three-quarters of the way through back he pops in again. This time he joins up with one of the protagonists and travels with them for the rest of the book.

So he’s not a prologue any more. I’m not sure what he is yet.

One thing I do know is that he has a totally different voice to the main character. If you pick up my story and start reading it based on that non-prologue you may not like it when you get to chapter two, because it’s a totally different story.

I haven’t quite worked out how to deal with that yet. Or whether I even need to.

Categories
Writing process

Six months to complete the first draft of my novel

I’m a little depressed today. I’ve a cold coming on, a really bad headache and it the whole ‘not working well’ attitude seems to have crept into my writing as well.

My NaNoWriMo novel from last year, which has been progressing so well, is close to completion. I have two scenes to go. The final wind-down scene, plus one other scene that I left out of the original story because trying to write it had stopped me for two weeks. I finally added a note to say do that scene later, outlined what was to happen, and moved on. I haven’t stopped writing since.

So the story is nearly finished. When I’m done it will be 85,000 words, and it’s nice to know that the first draft is done. Six months to write a novel. I worked pretty hard on the novel for all that time, too.

Then I look back and remember that I wrote 50,000 of those words in the first month.

I can’t do a 50,000 word novel every month. I’d be surprised if anyone working full-time can. Not if they want some modicum of life, that is. Right now I can’t even manage 10,000 words, and that’s only one draft. Over the last six months I haven’t taken time to revise any earlier novels. There are two of them sitting waiting for second or third draft revisions. And as for Barrain, I haven’t touched it for even longer.

I should be over the moon. I finished a novel.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll get back the euphoria.

Categories
Writing process

Why can’t we see the same mistakes in our own novels that we see in others?

I have just finished critiquing a fellow writer’s novel. It was a pretty good read. I enjoyed it a lot. But, it was a critique and so I after I commented on the good things, I concentrated on what didn’t work. The main problems with the story were easy to pick. Too much information was conveyed through dialogue. The book changed part-way through, as if the author had finally realised where it was going, but he hadn’t gone back and changed the start. There were some excellent emotional scenes but in other parts of the story there was no emotion at all, and it was just a straight telling of this happened, then that happened and then that.

These are all traits I recognise from my own writing.

If it’s so easy to recognise them in someone else’s story, why can’t I recognise them in my own?

Most authors will agree that time gives distance to their work. Putting a manuscript away for six months definitely shows up many flaws. Yet even so you don’t get them all. You make the novel as good as it can be, but when you get your first beta reader they still pick up a whole lot of things that you hadn’t even noticed, even if it has been months between drafts.

I do a lot of writing with a writing partner. We both work the same way. We talk about what we wish to write and what’s going to happen in the story, but only one person sits down and hammers out the first draft. After that the other writer goes through the text and finds the holes and adds all the things the initial writer left out.

It used to be that this worked brilliantly. The writer who reviewed the first draft gave the same sort of feedback that a writer from a (good) critique group did.

But, I have noticed that as we write more and more together we’re actually becoming blind to each other’s writing mistakes. We know the other person’s writing so well now that it’s getting harder and harder to pick up those mistakes first time around, or even second time around.

We’re relying more and more on other beta readers to pick them up.

Categories
On writing

Screenplay templates for Microsoft Word 2007

A note, four years on, because many people still visit this page.

Most of the links below are broken. This is an old post, and the links I blogged about here don’t exist any more, so I’m not going to fix them.

Microsoft still offers a screenplay temple. I don’t know what it’s like, but you can get to it in Word and searching for “screenplay” in the online templates field to find it.

Unfortunately, the BBC doesn’t offer the Script Smart Gold template any more. That’s a pity, as it was excellent.

Script Frenzy

This is slightly outside my normal posts about writing novels, but I am a big supporter of NaNoWriMo, even though some years I am too busy to actually participate. I like the way it kick-starts my writing habits and makes me get down there and just write. Those WriMos amongst us will know that they also do a companion challenge called Script Frenzy, which runs through April. Write a 100 page script in 30 days. I have never participated in Script Frenzy (yet), but one day I would like to.

I was reading the Script Frenzy forums last night—anything but write more on my novel, and yes, I am procrastinating—in particular the What software do you use thread. For most people on Windows it comes down to Celtx or Final Draft. Celtx looks pretty good and from what I can see on the forum it’s free, or reasonably priced at least. Final Draft is a commercial product and costs around US$250.

If I was starting from scratch and just writing for Script Frenzy, I’d probably go for Celtx. If I wanted to write scripts for a living I’d go for Final Draft. But me, I’m a Word gal, and I write everything in Word, even scripts.

So what templates can you use in Word?

Screenplay templates that I know about for Word include:

I have been using Word 2007 for a while now, and that’s what I want to concentrate on here. Screenplay templates for Word 2007.

Continue reading “Screenplay templates for Microsoft Word 2007”