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THE COLOR OF RAIN’s Origins: Launch Announcement!

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Released this week from Running Press Teens!

 

As a brand new author, I’ve been encountering tough questions, and I wanted to take this launch announcement to discuss what I consider to be the hardest question:

How did you get the idea to write the story?

 

The most succinct answer is that I was thinking about writing a gritty, YA sci-fi. Ideas came and went until one night, I woke up to the steel and flint spark of two ideas:

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That is how I came up with the idea, but as someone with a few hundred ideas in her head at any given moment, many more things needed to happen before the idea became words, which would then evolve into a story, and from there to a manuscript, and finally, to a book.
RAIN's dedication

RAIN’s dedication

 

After the initial spark came a day when I sat down to write, and instead, called my best friend, Mario. Mario has a reputation for brutal honesty, so when I said, “prostitutes in space” I chewed my nails while I waited for his verdict.

He said, “Yeah. I’d read that.”
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Trusting Mario, I sat down to write…and went nuts. Thank you, Facebook, for chronicling my insane zealousness.

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I let the idea drop for a few months after the initial purge until a call went up for workshop submissions for my last residency at the best graduate school in the country: Vermont College of Fine Arts. A mischievous idea occurred to me…what if I tried to “scare” the incoming students with a scandalous piece of writing?!

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And YET, the workshop came and went. The first semesters, the class that would become the epic DYSTROPIANS, were not scandalized. They grilled me for more, sending me off into the writing world post-graduation with the question: could I really write about a teen prostitute in space? Really?

The answer to that question came during an exciting conversation with my fierce and brilliant agent, Sarah Davies at Greenhouse Literary Agency. Sarah was reading the signs that pointed to a sci-fi YA breakout and embraced the idea of a super edgy and dark premise. So, I set off to write one!

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I wrote and wrote for the next nine months. My story evolved from what I referred to as “Jane Eyre in space,” to a space opera/adventure, to finally, a sci-fi thriller. And then the magic really happened because I received an offer from Running Press Teens.

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Although the idea of a space prostitute book occurred one dark o’clock evening, it was a yearlong journey to write the book, another few months to sell, and then another year finessing it with my wonderful and driven editor, Lisa Cheng.

All of that coming to this moment. This week. This book.

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For more information on THE COLOR OF RAIN, please check out my website www.CoriMcCarthy.com

Read the Barnes & Noble article where RAIN is hailed as “the next big thing in YA dystopia.”

Watch the book trailer for THE COLOR OF RAIN here!

You can follow Cori @CoriMcCarthy or like her fan page on Facebook.

Sequelphobia

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tollbooth waterfall

I’m writing a sequel, and I’m terrified. Yes, I know, there’s not a lot of pity for someone who has to write a sequel. Boo hoo, you sold two books.

But, I never intended to write a series, and I am a YA book buyer for an indie bookstore who leads a monthly group of teen readers, so every four weeks, teens complain to me that the second or third book in a series is a HUGE disappointment.

Why? The character changes in book 2. The dynamic girl they fell in love with becomes weak and needy. The romantic triangle turns boring. A character they didn’t really like in book one takes over book two.

Not surprising then, that writing a sequel that will equal book one feels impossible to me at times. In fact, I had a dark night of the soul after I signed the contract and committed to delivering a 100,000 word manuscript in one year.

tollbooth nightIt was ironic and, perhaps, predestined when I snagged a last-minute spot at a weekend retreat with Martha Alderson, The Plot Whisperer. It was after midnight in my dark night, and I’d begun to read and work through her approach, and to feel my way towards book two.

I knew my sequel had to resolve the unfinished business of book one. My character had transformed from tentative to strong, but she was still in danger. Her romance had blossomed, but was still at risk.

Luckily, I was finishing rewrites on book one so I could leave more plot points unresolved. And my genius editor had forced me to add a hunky character in the last part of the book–insisting that I didn’t need to write a love triangle–but that I should insert the potential for one in the future.

Martha Alderson emphasizes character transformation–but how was my character going to continue to transform when she’d already gone from helpless to powerful?

How could her story be more than a run for safety?

And what part of my protagonist’s character had to die so she could be reborn?

For two days I listened to Martha, did her plot exercises, and finally talked through the plot of book one with her. The Aha moments started to happen.

How could my protagonist continue to transform? She could stop thinking primarily of herself while others sacrificed themselves. She could finally commit to the cause.

And what could prompt her to devote herself of the plight of others? Witnessing suffering even greater than her own. The world I’d built had to be even more perverse than she or I’d had ever imagined.

And the climax? The worst thing that could happen to my character who was on the run? She gets caught! No longer evading capture, abandoning all hope of rescue, she would have to face her biggest antagonist.

When I go to write every morning, I don’t always know where I’m going, and I’m not sure how all the plot points will weave together, but I know that I must be harsher, and braver than I was in book one. Maybe book two won’t please my readers, but unless I risk it all, it will be a faint echo of the first.

 

 

 

Meaning and Metaphor

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More thoughts on fully realizing your fictional world…  gull

No matter how fantastical or faraway your fictional world, it begins inside you, as the writer. We are all from some place, even if we are displaced. All a product of what we know and don’t know. Of who are, our culture, our parents, the landscape where we were raised.

If you doubt this, the next time you have an opinion about something, ask yourself where the opinion comes from. Your parents? Your culture? The books you read or movies you watch?

When I ask myself where I am from, I get many different answers, but they often begin with the natural world. I’m not only from water, but from mountains, canyons, trees and starry nights, the sprawl of a river town and its highways, as Ray Carver writes about in “Highway 99E from Chico”

 

The mallard ducks are down

For the night. They chuckle

In their sleep and dream of Mexico

And Honduras. Watercress

Nods in the irrigation ditch

And the tules slump forward, heaving

With blackbirds.

 

Rice fields float under the moon.

Even the wet maple leaves cling

To my windshield. I tell you Maryann,

I am happy.

 

I tell you Maryann, I am happy. Carver remembers this highway, this windshield, these birds, this trip, because of the emotion behind it.

If we seek to understand the emotions behind what we write, it can make our fictional world real.

Another California writer, Brenda Nakamoto, who writes about growing up as a third generation Japanese in Peach Farmer’s daughter, talks about creating her book out of a sense of needing to understand her roots, and a yearning for a grandfather she never met.

In missing the rural farm where she grew up, Nakamoto recreates it with sensory details. The peaches heavy on the trees, and her Dad’s old Ford truck bleached to the color of a faded sky.

And while she never knew her grandfather, who killed himself before she was born, she re-imagines him as an immigrant on a ship bound for Seattle. Although he was only 5 feet tall, she sees him as “a big so huge I cannot put my arms around it.”

A big so huge, I cannot get my arms around it. I love that line. And in creating place through specific details, Nakamoto’s world has become universal.

What makes a fictional world believable? How to you find the right words that will paint a place that feels every bit as real as Dad’s old Ford truck bleached to the color of a faded sky?

I believe these exquisite details emerge through the work of mining your own subconscious, to uncover your true reasons your writing. As Alice Hoffman says, don’t write what you know, write what you feel.

And when you are writing what you feel, symbol and metaphor naturally follow.

Listen to this moment in The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo when Rob cries at his mother’s funeral:

“They were both dressed up in suits that day; his father’s suit was too small. And when he slapped Rob to make him stop crying, he ripped a hole underneath the arm of his jacket.

’There ain’t no point in crying,” his father had said afterward. “Crying ain’t going to bring her back.’”

That hole in his jacket underarm is a symbol for the whole in Rob’s life.

_Homecoming

In Cynthia Voights Homecoming, the story of four abandoned children walking to their grandmother’s house, the children are in constant search of food.

“Dicey and James pulled mussels from the rocks and washed them off in the water, while Maybeth and Sammy climbed back up the hill for twigs and larger pieces of wood. Soon they had a large mound of mussels waiting beside a crackling fire…”

Food in this way becomes not just a meal, but stands in for the missing mother, their loss and their yearning… a type of extended metaphor that TS Elliot called an Objective Correlative: or a “Set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for a particular emotion.”

In my own novel The Lucky Place, I returned to my water roots with my character Cassie. In this scene she is realizing that the stepdad she loves may die, as she walks into the ocean and is swept under:

“I’m underwater.

I’m rushing backward and down and hit something hard and sand stuffs my mouth. My cheek burns. When I hit I can’t hold my breath and I suck in water. I can’t find the air. I kick out for the surface, but it’s not there. My chest aches enough to burst. The blue is gone, replaced with black and bits of silver star. I’m sucked out to sea and I’m going to die.”

She doesn’t die, though, and is spit back out.

“My cheek feels scraped where it hit the sand, but nobody realizes. Nobody knows how scared I was. Or that I finally understand. Cancer isn’t a gypsy curse. It’s a huge smashing wave. It catches you and drags you out. And anybody can be spit back up, and anybody can drown.”

Earlier I said that just as in the real world, a fictional is not simply a place, but what is happening to a character in that place. And that what is happening to a character—the tension between her inner and outer landscape, at just that moment, is not static, or generic. It is specific, in motion, has cause and effect, like a crackling fire or a crashing wave, and if it rings true it’s because it’s part and parcel of the story itself.

Take the opening scene in Jennifer Donnelly’s A Northern Light which not only begins in motion, but sets the story world beautifully in time and place:

“When summer comes to the North Woods,” she writes “…time slows down. And some days it stops altogether. They sky, gray and lowering for much of the year, becomes an ocean of blue, so vast and brilliant you can’t help but stop what you’re doing—pinning wet sheets to the line maybe, or shucking a bushel of corn on the back steps—to stare up at it. Locusts whir in the birches, coaxing you out of the sun and under the boughs, and the heat stills the air, heavy and sweet with the scent of balsam. As I stand here on the porch of the Glenmore, the finest hotel on all of Big Moose Lake, I tell myself that today—Thursday, July 12, 1906—is such a day. Time has stopped…”

Time has also stopped for the reader. We want it to, at least the time outside the novel. While in the world of A Northern Light time is already on the move. Soon a girl’s body will be brought to the porch, and that idyl will be shattered.

Donnelly has created a perfect fulcrum between this sweet moment and what will happen next. And it’s worth noting that her character is crossing a threshold –literally and figuratively in this moment. And so are we, as readers.

a_northern_light_jennifer_donnelly

A story world is created from within, they are your themes that manifest in your character’s point of view. This world is already moving as your reader crosses your story threshold. It is dynamic, changes as your character changes, is the world where your character is hot, or cold or moody or in peril. It is the place where a character first makes love or loses a loved one. It is set in time and has a spot on the map. It begins in the white hot center of experience, in all its sensory detail, and is the spark between your character’s inner motives and outer action. And building your world with emotionally powered, specific details allows your individual story to become universal.

Katherine Paterson notes in Spying Heart that the Japanese word for idea is “i, which is made up of two characters—the character for Sound and the character for Heart—so an idea is something that makes a sound in the heart (the heart in Japanese, as in Hebrew, being the seat of intelligence as well as the seat of feeling).

Paterson is talking about the “power of the imagination” that comes from the sound of a writer’s heart. It’s from this imagination that we create the symbols and metaphors that invite young readers in to figure things out for themselves. To be caught up in a story so fully that their own imagination then allows them to, as Paterson says, “listen to the sounds of their own hearts.”

                                                                                     –zu vincent

The Most Useful Thing I’ve Learned (So Far) About Writing a Sequel

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For the past several months—or possibly the past several centuries; it’s sort of hard to tell—I’ve been writing the second book in a trilogy. If you’re wondering whether writing a sequel is easier or more difficult than writing a stand-alone novel, I am here to tell you with complete confidence that I have no idea. The only thing I know for sure is that no book comes easy, and this one hasn’t been much of an exception.

To be fair, writing a sequel does have its perks. When I sat down to write the first draft, I already knew my main characters and their world. I was intimately acquainted with everyone’s personality quirks, backstories, neuroses, and food allergies. I didn’t have to worry about figuring out the story’s magic system, since I’d already hashed that out in the first book, and I knew exactly how long it would take my characters to travel cross-country via train, horse-drawn carriage, and pirate ship. I even knew where my plot was headed, since I’d done my best to set my characters up for further adventures at the end of book one.

Emotionally, however, I was stumped.

I mean, my emotions were okay—or at least as okay as the emotions of a debut author writing a second book under contract can possibly be. But at the end of book one, I’d brought Hilary, my protagonist, to a stable and happy emotional place. She couldn’t remain stable and happy all throughout the sequel, could she? No; that would be boring, and it wouldn’t give readers a reason to care about her adventures. Would I have to tear Hilary down again? Would I have to undo all the emotional strength she’d built up in the first book? That didn’t seem right, either; I didn’t want to write the same story twice or cancel out everything good that had happened in the series’ first installment. Just as I’d designed the plot of book two to build and expand on the events of book one, I wanted my characters’ emotions to build and expand in a natural way. But I had no idea how to accomplish this.

At this point, for probably the millionth time, the superheroic community of Vermont College students and alums came to my rescue. Even though I’m no longer a student, I still rely on my MFA program friends to offer smart perspectives on the craft problems I’m wrestling with, so I handed off the question to them. “Hey,” I said (more or less), “I’m working on this sequel, and I have no idea what to do with my characters’ emotions. Should I give them something new to struggle with? Should they just repeat the same old struggle they overcame at the end of book one? Can I please, please, please write a book in which no one has any emotions at all? ‘Cause that would be much easier.”

I got lots of great responses, but there were two in particular that helped me see the emotional trajectories of multi-book series in a new and really helpful way. Val Howlett mentioned that in some of her favorite series, the characters’ emotional struggles aren’t fully resolved at the end of each book. Take the Harry Potter series as a familiar example: Harry is constantly wrestling with the loss of his parents, though that wrestling match takes a different form in each of the seven books. “In all the series I’ve loved,” Val said, “there were these emotional needs that were big enough to grow and shift, but remained at the heart of the series.” In other words, a good series has an emotional core that runs through each of its books. That emotional core is part of the connective tissue that holds all the books together and unites them as a larger work.

Val’s response helped me decide that I needed to return to the core of Hilary’s emotional struggle in book one—her desire to earn her dad’s respect—but I still wasn’t sure how to do that without making my sequel repetitive. Jessica Leader gave me a great solution, though, when she said, “When the author pans back to show the reader and the character the bigger problem, it mirrors the process of maturation: at first, you can only see your world, but gradually, you gain the ability to think about your place in it, and then the world itself. So there’s built-in character development at the ready!”

That’s when it clicked for me: Each book in my series could focus on the same core emotion, but it could look at that emotion in increasingly broad contexts. If the emotional core of my series was Hilary’s desire for respect, maybe she’d search for that respect first (in book one) from her family, then (in book two) from her immediate community, and finally (in book three) from the community at large—and from herself.

This concept of an emotional core that expands in scope from one book to the next has been incredibly helpful to me as I structure my series. I know I’ll be able to apply it to future stories, and I hope it’s useful to other writers, too. Most of all, though, it reminds me that a writing community is priceless, and that when we don’t have the answer to a tough writing problem, it’s not the end of the world. It’s probably just time to start brainstorming with our friends.

The Sex Talk

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The Color of Rain Bindings

In less than two months my YA novel will be coming out (!) and recently, I’ve found myself giving the two-second pitch on repeat: “It’s about a teen prostitute in space.”

This description invariably sparks the question, “Is there sex in your book?”

Why, yes. Yes, there is!

I find it a bit backward to think that someone might write about a prostitute without including the business, but I understand the concern. Sex in teen fiction is a sticky subject, but odds are that if you write for teens (or adults), at some point you’re going to write a sex scene. And though I’m no expert, I’d like to share some of the things I’ve learned along the way.

One caveat before we go forward: I’m discussing sex in Young Adult books. Not New Adult, the newest genre trend, which was created by St. Martin’s Press to capture the early twenties coming-of-age story but has been pretty much hijacked as the newest label for erotica. (For more information on the New Adult debate, check out this post on The Compulsive Reader blog.)

Three Important Things to Remember in the YA Sex Scene:

1. The most important part of the sex scene is the reason for it. Period.

There must be structural/plot reasons and (not or!) emotional arc reasons for the sex. If there aren’t, it will feel out of place, out of character, and worst of all, it will bring your reader out of the story. Always remember that the best sex scenes are used to deepen the story and enhance the texture of the emotional journey.
forever.

2. I don’t have to tell you just how much sexual references thrill the teen reader–you might remember. What book did you “accidentally” read as a young adult, maybe even as a middle grader, because you heard from your friends that it contained sexy stuff? Mine was Forever… by Judy Blume. Oh, boy, I loved that book because it illustrated honest, healthy sexual exploration along with the lesson of first love’s inherent impermanence.

That being said, YA sex scenes should never be interpreted via the Hollywood-esque attitude of “the more sex, the more sales.” The story must need it–not to mention the fact that many big booksellers won’t even carry “racy” teen novels. Always keep in mind that undeserved sex in a novel is not the fastest way to sell a book. It’s the fastest way to get a book banned…or worse, buried.

3. My favorite example of sex in a teen novel is found in Melinda Marchetta’s magnificent Jellicoe Road. (Spoiler alert!) Towards the end of the immensely emotional story, main character Taylor uncovers a memory of being sexually abused in her youth. Then, in the next scene, she’s discussing the idea of romance with her love, and the rush of poignancy and a need to reclaim her body and heart leads to this:

Jellicoe Road“Everything hurts, every single thing including the weight of him and I’m crying because it hurts and he’s telling me he’s sorry over and over again, and I figure that somewhere down the track we’ll work out the right way to do this but I don’t want to let go, because tonight I’m not looking for anything more than being part of him. Because being part of him isn’t just anything. It’s kind of everything.”

Wow. Right? Best use of a run-on sentence ever. You can’t help but feel what Taylor is feeling in that moment, and that is the best part of writing a sex scene for teens. The thrill pulls them in, but the pay-off is being able to give a rush of sensation in a safe, STD-free and regret-free setting.

 

Three Important Things NOT To Do in the YA Sex Scene

1. To paraphrase A.M. Jenkins, you’re not writing an instructional manual. Teens have the internet for that. Your language should be imaginative and evocative, never graphic (unless you’re suggesting violence, but that is a completely different discussion).

And then2. What you also don’t want to do is the cursed ellipses. Why not? Feels safe, right? But if the sex scene is as important as it should be to exist in the first place, you’re not doing your reader any favors by skipping over it. In fact, you’re cheating them. The average adult reader can see suggestive ellipses and fill in the blank from their own experiences. Teens don’t have that luxury, and instead, they draw a big fat question mark, suddenly demanding and flipping pages, What?! What happens?!

3. Lastly, stay with the main character through the sex. The sentence (sometimes you only need one sentence in a good sex scene) or page in question, should stay as tightly to your main character as it would be at any other important moment in the story. Psychic distance is key to a good sex scene, simply meaning: the closer to the mind of the character, the better. I’ll show you what I mean.

The_Fault_in_Our_StarsI’m going to get so much grief for this, but I’m about to call out John Green. (Spoiler alert!) In his brilliant The Fault in Our Stars, the terminally ill teen couple decide to go all the way:

“The whole affair was the precise opposite of what I figured it would be: slow and patient and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic. There were a lot of condomy problems that I did not get a particularly good look at.”

Seriously?! That’s it?

Now, I happily give Green credit for crafting a unique, female main character for most of the story, but this? This feels downright male. Or maybe the best word is safe. I was desperate to know main character Hazel’s journey through this huge experience (even if she decides afterwards that it was a letdown), but instead it was rehashed with a sort of heartless shrug and the wretched phrasing of condomy problems. Ick.

As a last suggestion for you lovely writers out there, I hope you take a long hard look at the sex scenes you remember. The ones you liked and the ones that angered you. I’d love for you to go back and reread that first “naughty book,” trying to remember what about it caught your youthful curiosity.

Admittedly, sex in Young Adult fiction is a tough issue, and though I might receive some heated comments on this point, I don’t believe we do teens any favors by debating whether or not they’re ready for sex–we just can’t know that answer. As writers, we can guide their curiosity, helping them to learn and grow and feel. We can provide emotion and thrill without reality’s costs of regret and mistake.

Go forth and write sexily.Cheeky

Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

 

Cori McCarthy’s debut novel THE COLOR OF RAIN will be released May 14th from Running Press Teens. Check out her website, follow her @CoriMcCarthy or like her on Facebook.

My Cold, Cold Heart

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Frazzled teacher from Jonesapalooza

When I was a teacher (I used to be a teacher), the beginning of the year was always stressful to me.  It wasn’t the planning, because I loved the planning.  It wasn’t setting up the room, because I loved setting up the room.  It was when the kids came that first day and I didn’t love them.

The problem was I was still in love with my class from the previous year.  I knew everything about them, their birthdays, what they enjoyed thinking about and playing, who they fought with and what made them scared.  I was enthralled by their ideas and loved class discussions in all subjects.  I woke up happy to be seeing them.  And then they were gone.  And now there were these perfectly fine children in front of me, for whom I harbored kind thoughts, but who I didn’t know enough to love yet.  Not really love, not with meaning.

I found that two weeks was what it took.  Every year I was worried and miserable that it wouldn’t happen and every year at the two week mark I was besotted again, besotted with this new group of kids and excited to figure out who they were and what they needed.   And every year the relief was enormous, but that never made me less worried come September.

Well, it turns out that writing is the same way for me.  I start a new book and I don’t love it or anybody in it yet.  Or maybe I sort of do, but it feels like a theoretical love for someone who I’ve been told about, who I like the sound of— a friend of a friend maybe—but not someone who is yet in relationship with me, who lives in my heart.  And it stresses me out enormously.  Am I ever going to love this book, I fret?  Am I ever going to feel it?  Weirdly, the classroom love experience does helps me realize that of course I will. Right?  I mean, I hope so.  Ugh.

Anyway, do you know what I mean?  How long does it take you to feel like a book has you by the heart?  What do you do to foster that?  Spill it in the comments!

Not like this is happening to me right now or anything.

GULP.

Friends, Enemies, and Family—Crafting Relationships to strengthen character and intensify plot

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Relationships are KEY to a story: The way a relationship evolves and changes is often much of what IS the story and plot.

A character learns and grows and struggles because of interacting with other characters.

Also, interactions between characters are often at the intersection of action and emotions, and these relationships convince the reader to care about what happens to the characters.

RELATIONSHIP ARCS

I love relationship arcs.

As part of my revision process I analyze my manuscript’s relationship arcs. This arc is the up and down between two characters. In the same way that a character has a character arc and a book has a plot arc, relationships also have an arc. I visualize them as the typical plot diagram–with ups and downs and usually a climax.

Similar to a plot arc, a relationship arc will have turning points, reversals, and sometimes a climax. Sometimes the relationship arc is, at the core, also a subplot. (I could also argue that most subplots would be a relationship arc.)

[For more info about plot arcs visit Ingred Sundberg's Story Structure Diagrams.]

I have found that considering relationship arcs helps me catch all sorts of both plot and character details that need tweaking or sometimes more intensive revision. It also makes me more aware of the relationships between characters.

As I look at relationship arcs, I focus separately on each important and significant relationship in the story. In most cases the relationships I examine are the relationship between the main character and a secondary character.

How do I usually approach each relationship arc?

(Keeping track of the relationship between characters will depend on the writer and the relationship being examined. One can do it as a chart or graph, written out by scene, or in one’s head, or with sticky notes or note cards . . . . . whatever works.)

1. I find every scene where the two characters appear and consider the following questions.

  • Where and how do things change between the characters?
  • What are their actions and emotions?
  • What are the ups? The downs?
  • Is there a climax?
  • Does the other character disappear for a long period of time? (It is fine to have a character not in a series of scenes–but this means the author needs to not forget that relationships develop off-stage.)
  • What is the purpose of this relationship? Is this relationship critical for the story, or is there no change between the characters, or is a character a flat stand-in-character who does not pull his weight?
  • How does the relationship change throughout the story?
  • If this relationship is a subplot I ask myself if there is some sort of interaction that can be layered on top of the main plot line in any scene.

I also consider if these scenes are in their proper places, in the proper order, and that the “right” amount of space exists between the scenes for this relationship.

2. After I have considered all the above questions, I use plot theory and character theory and apply that to the specific relationship I’m looking at.

  • Where is the beginning, the turning points, reversals, climax, change and growth, conflict, and complications of the relationship?
  • If these items don’t exist–is that relationship needed? Or does the missing element need to be added?

3. Emotional points. In addition to the physical plot of the relationship, there will also be an emotional layer. If there isn’t an emotional aspect to every relationship, I question if it belongs.

4. We can also consider the thematic considerations and if possible, make the relationship a mirror or repetition or variation of the physical or emotional plots of the book.

Basically, the Relationship Arc will have turning points like a plot arc and have emotional change like a character arc.

I repeat the above steps with each significant relationship. Don’t worry–in many cases, it can be a fairly quick process. A writer does not need to analyze every relationship. Even laying out the most important 2 to 4 relationships which the main character has can be super helpful.

LAYERS

After looking at major relationships, I look at how and where the relationships layer. By having turning points of different relationships coming frequently, the tension on the page will make the story more intense.

I find that by separating out and looking at major relationship arcs, I insure that each character is needed, gain another perspective on characterization, can fine-tune my plot and keep the tension nice, and well, fix all sorts of problems that arise in drafts.

Relationships and the interactions between characters are often the engine that move the story forward, creating plot, while showing who that character is.

Sarah Blake Johnson

Pick Up The Pace

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 I’ve always struggled with pacing. Pacing isn’t a topic widely covered in craft books and yet, it’s critical to keeping young readers engaged.

I’ve been revising my YA manuscript, so I turned to my writer universe for advice. This question inspired many to respond, and I want to share their thoughts and strategies.

First, what slows a manuscript down?

Carol Tanzman, author of CIRCLE OF SILENCE, noted that too many side plots and side characters can slow the forward movement of the main character’s story. Side plots/characters can distract, taking focus away from the protagonist.

But on the flip side, isolating a character can turn the story too internal, discouraging dialogue and interaction with other characters to move the story forward.

Many writers said thinking rather than acting is a problem. Kristen Hansen Brakeman noted, “I’m guilty of having characters do too much talking/thinking/deciding.” Patti Brown agreed, saying, “Thinking usually slows everything down.”

 Lengthy narrative can also be a killer. We love to “show” scenes, but as Dawn Baertlein said, “You don’t need to show every rock and tree your character passed getting to the skate park where the big confrontation is going to take place.”

My editor Mollie Traver commented, “One thing I’ve always pinpointed as a main culprit in slow pacing is the number of scene changes. No matter how long or short a scene is, each of those transitions is like a stop sign in a section where you want to be rolling full steam ahead towards a climax or big turn in the story.”

A major drag on pacing is a static story or character. As Kekla Magoon, author of THE ROCK AND THE RIVER, says, “Even a life threatening situation can get dull if nothing ever changes.” If the stakes don’t go up or the character doesn’t change and grow then the story slowly turns to cement.

Tied to that is a lack of tension. Without a goal or yearning to fulfill, and real, seemingly insurmountable obstacles for the character to overcome, the reader has little reason to keep going.

So–how do we pick up the pace and keep readers engaged?

We can tackle pacing at all levels of the writing.

At the sentence level, Angela Russell pointed out that “short sentences add to urgency.” Fred Borchers reminded me that “First person narrators might have long interior thoughts, but be less verbose when he or she speaks,” so dialogue can speed things up.

Nina Kidd suggested the use of active voice except when something is being done to the main character, adding that it helps to “Keep the subject right next to the verb or verb phrase.”

Moving to the paragraph level, Nina praised Melissa Stewart’s advice of “No paragraphs over five lines,” adding that short paragraphs make for quicker reading. Naturally, “Each one needs to materially advance the action.”

At the scene level, Alexis O’Neill, author of THE RECESS QUEEN, advised cutting and condensing scenes, perhaps making short chapters that end in cliffhangers. And making sure that “all dialogue is essential to moving the story forward. If not, cut it.”

Editor Mollie Traver suggested cutting a scene entirely if it isn’t contributing to forward momentum or finding where two scenes or two chapters could become one.  “Reducing scene/chapter changes and bulking more together can work like a ticking clock, imposing a faster-moving structure over the same story so readers feel like they’re being moved through the story quicker even if the actual material hasn’t been trimmed significantly.”

But how do you know what to cut?

Each scene must advance the story and as Janet Burroway, author of WRITING FICTION reminds students, there are four kinds of story action: Deed, Decision, Accident and Discovery. If the main characters aren’t doing something related to their goals and obstacles, deciding something, discovering something or being thwarted, the scene isn’t moving the story forward.

Shannon Messenger, author of THE KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES, doesn’t stop here. She said her  screenwriting background taught her to have five reasons for every scene. It’s not enough to get a character from A to B.

Martha Alderson THE PLOT WHISPERER, reinforced that, suggesting that each scene include dramatic action that furthers the story, and  as well as showing the emotional development of the character, and supporting the story’s themes.  Martha’s Scene Tracker helps writers evaluate each scene for how it achieved these goals.

While it’s nice to think, oh I can cut here and there, condense and edit, at the highest level, pacing is linked to the overall plot structure and character development.

We all know that rising action helps move the reader and story along, but Martha Alderson taught me that rising action is enhanced when a plot contains four “energetic markers.”  These are four points equally spaced through the book where the protagonist makes a decision or takes an action that dramatically changes the direction of the story.

These markers also reflect change within the character to become the person they must be to succeed in the end. The character’s emotional development, and their struggle to transform from who they once were to who they need to become–must mirror the pacing of the action for the book to succeed.

Many thanks to the writers, editors and experts who contributed these words of wisdom. I hope will serve you as well as they have helped me.

 

 

A Second Chance For A Fresh Start

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Lots of people make New Year’s Resolutions.

I’m sure there must be a few people who actually keep them, although I don’t think I’ve ever heard any first person success stories.

New Year’s Day has never worked for me, fresh start-wise. It’s too much the tag end of a long string of family celebrations and over-indulgences. The new semester is starting at school. There’s snow everywhere. I’m just not into being virtuous and industrious the morning after I’ve guzzled way to much champagne and stayed up long after my usual bedtime.

So I’ve missed the good habits boat once again. In the last year my writing time has dwindled and Facebook has become my false friend.

Is it too late- for me, or if you find yourself in the same messy mire, for you? No! Of course not! Let’s cut ourselves some resolution slack.

Today is Ash Wednesay the first day of Lent, and not to put too fine a religious point on it, this is a time to give up indulgences and recommit to what’s really important. Religious observers give up something for Lent- red meat, chocolate, trashy tv shows… you get the drift. I’m, um, not super religious but I’ve decided to give up my number one indulgence-

PROCRASTINATION.

(This is not me! But it might as well be)

How do I plan to accomplish this?

I’ve been reorganizing my WIP novel and I think I have the structure straight so this morning I broke my novel into individual 25 files, one for each chapter. Next saved them in one big novel folder. It’s the Bird By Bird approach. I can get this project done if I tackle it in manageable bites, a little at a time.

Next I pulled out my calendar and logged those chapters in.Tomorrow I’ll tackle chapter 3 and 4, on Friday it will be chapter 5′s turn. Most days I’ll work on one chapter, moving on the next day. At this point in my revision I know where the sticky bits are so I’ve scheduled extra time for them– but not too much. I’m building momentum as I build my book.

By creating daily appointments with small bites of my novel I hope to greet each day (with a few pre-scheduled vacation days) with vigor and excitement. No more trolling the internet. No more fooling around on Facebook. Sorry Kate Middleton, you’re going to have to plan your new maternity wardrobe without me.

I’ve got a book to write.

And now that I’m giving up procrastination for Lent I’ve got 40 days to do it! Cheer me on at my new website www.tamilewisbrown.com. I’ll be posting milestones and (eek setbacks) in the daily news section.

What are your tricks for keeping (or getting) on track? I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to know.

~tami lewis brown

 

 

 

 

 

How I Plan a Story

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I spent the weekend reading Reflections, a collection of essays and talks on writing by the children’s fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones. Diana touches on all sorts of topics in her essays, but my favorite passages are the ones in which she describes her writing process: how she grabs ideas out of thin air, plans them out, and sets about turning them into full-fledged stories. I’ve always loved learning about other writers’ processes, which seem so magical and veiled in mystery even when you are a writer yourself, so with the hope that you also like to learn about other writers’ processes, I thought I’d tell you about how I plan my stories.

I don’t think anyone will ever be able to adequately explain where story ideas come from, but for me, they usually arrive when I’m standing at the kitchen counter eating crackers out of the box and letting my mind wander all over the place. As it wanders, it stumbles over a strange or silly thought, and I sort of laugh to myself and say (with a mouth full of crackers), “That would be a good idea for a story.”

Usually, it is not a good idea for a story. Usually it turns out that I’m just standing in the kitchen talking to myself like someone who really should not be left alone for long periods of time. But sometimes my brain starts to tingle in a particular way, and I abandon the crackers and run to my computer, where I open my file of story ideas. This is a Word document full of phrases and sentences and paragraphs describing every idea I’ve ever had that’s made my brain tingle in that particular way. Moving quickly, before the idea dies, I find a blank space in the document and write it down. I usually don’t write more than a sentence; for my book Magic Marks the Spot, I wrote, “A girl tries to enroll in Piracy but her application is forwarded to Young Ladies’ Finishing School.” (Actually, this is still more or less the elevator pitch I use when people ask me what my book is about.)

Then, once the idea is safely recorded, I forget about it for a very long time.

I think this is the most important part of my process. The idea needs time by itself to ripen, and if I hover over it and poke at it too much, it won’t develop properly. I let the idea sit in my subconscious mind, soaking up everything I read and learn about and experience in the meantime, and every so often I’ll realize that the idea has grown a new sort of tendril (“the pirate girl has an adorable sidekick… maybe a talking parrot? A talking rabbit? A talking… something else?”). I write that tendril down in my story idea file and go back to not thinking about it for a while. Though it’s not always possible, I prefer to let a good story idea ripen for at least a year while I write about something entirely different. I had the idea for Magic Marks the Spot about a year before I started writing the first draft. The idea for my second book was only allowed to ripen for eight months (I was on deadline), and it was still a little green around the edges. And I have another idea that’s going on two years of ripening now, though I haven’t yet started to write it.

An idea is ready to be written about when I know a few crucial things about it. First, I have to know what Diana Wynne Jones describes as “the taste, quality, character—there are no words for it—nature of the book itself, a sort of flavor” (Reflections, 117). This flavor could be the subject of its own blog post, but it usually arrives at the moment of inspiration and grows stronger during the ripening period. Next, I have to know how the story begins. I like to know exactly what happens for at least the first twenty pages, since once I’ve written that down I am firmly in the story, and I’ve given myself enough momentum to keep going. I also need to have some idea of what the story’s climactic scene will be, so I know what I’m aiming for. I will usually know two or three scenes that take place along the way, though that’s not absolutely crucial; they will have popped up during the ripening process, and they may be subject to change if the story takes twists and turns I don’t expect.

Finally, I need to plan out my protagonist’s emotional arc. I’m the sort of writer who gets so caught up in plot that I forget to let my characters feel things, so I plan this emotional arc very consciously and deliberately; if I don’t, I will utterly fail to include it in the story. At this point, I try to ensure that my protagonist’s plot arc and her emotional arc will intersect at the climax of the story—the place that my VCFA advisor Franny Billingsley called the crossroads. Creating this crossroads, where plot and emotion intersect at their peaks, can feel awfully academic, but I’ve found that taking the time to do this solidifies the story’s structure and gives me the freedom to play around with the story without fearing that it will all come toppling down around me.

After that, I start writing. I’m a planner by nature, and it terrifies me not to know what happens next, so I’m often tempted to plot out every scene in advance. To paraphrase Diana Wynne Jones, though, overplanning can kill a story. Since my work in progress is partially a mystery story, I had to plan it in a lot more detail than usual, and I think all that planning made the book much more difficult to write; it squashed some of the spontaneity and playfulness that I’ve come to believe makes for the best writing. I usually do make an outline about halfway through the first draft, when I have a pretty good idea of how the rest of the book will go, but I don’t require myself to stick to it. Not knowing what will happen next may be terrifying, but the scenes that come out of nowhere, unplanned, always turn out to be my favorites.

That, in exhausting detail, is how I’ve planned the stories I’ve written so far, though I can’t guarantee it’s how I’ll write the next one. I’d love to hear about your planning process, too—just accost me at a cocktail party or, failing that, drop a note in the comments.